this is vomit about music...
you know what i like about dylan...i'm still entertained by his mystique...he could say "my favorite color is green and like to eat chinese food" and people would be like, "what does he mean?"...a few years ago there were some pictures of dylan in a convenience store reading "baseball weekly" and i actually thought, "wow, dylan knows what baseball is"...that's how much i drank the kool aid...i mean why the hell wouldn't an american man know what baseball is...also, the music...i'm still impressed by the variety of not just his musical styles, but his lyrical styles...the fact that he wrote "masters of war" and "like a rolling stone" and "visions of johanna" and "lay lady lay" and "the man in me" (see intro to big lebowski) and "isis" and "pressing on" and "blind willie mctell"...i could go on an on...but i won't...i think it's easy for someone of dylan's means to say: "ok, i'll hire a bunch of people and we'll play country songs or gospel songs"...but he didn't just do that...he completely change the style of lyrics that he wrote...this is impressive to me...the gospel stuff in particular...
blood on the tracks...
i've always been sort of passively impressed by this album...some of it i really love (especially idiot wind, tangled up in blue, and shelter from the storm) and some of it i just love (you're a big girl now, if you see her say hello, and lily, rosemary, and the jack of hearts)...these are all supposedly inspired by the breakup of his marriage...i think he gets his shit across pretty good with respect to his feelings...this album feels real...the biographical details of the split not withstanding...jakob dylan said once that this album is his parents talking...too bad for the kids...if you're interested, my favorite dylan breakup song is "dirge" from planet waves, the studio album prior to blood on the tracks...
you are free...
one of the things that sucks about the death match is that i've found myself being way overly critical of music that i otherwise like just fine...you are free is like that...i bought this when it came out and listened to it a bunch and then put it back in it's respective slot...a while back i remember talking w/sarah about this album and she told me she really liked it...i listened to it again and thought it was better...there's a pretty consistent emotional tone which is important to me when judging a complete album...my criticisms lie more in the double track vocals...it just obscures the lyrics, i love lyrics (unlike some people, snark)...some of the songs are too long and make me want to kick puppies...some of the songs aren't as good as the greatest songs of all time...for example, "names" is great but it can't hold a candle to "goodbye yellow brick road"...
winner: blood on the tracks
(i am, in fact, enjoying the death match by the way...i love reading everybody's reviews and comments)
I can see what you mean about being critical of good music, but I'd also say that's also one of the fun parts: The music death match encourages trashing of otherwise excellent music. And rifts between friends. It also encourages rifts between friends.
ReplyDeleteYour Elton John references obviously exist solely to provoke my wrath...I refuse to take the bait. Cheerio, good chap! On another note, I agree with your pick, even though Blood on the Tracks isn't my favoritest Dylan, and I haven't listened to this Cat Power album in a while...In fact, "i bought this when it came out and listened to it a bunch and then put it back in it's respective slot"...I honestly did.
ReplyDeleteI'm starting to wonder what it means that there is this group of albums surviving the Death Match that were made between 1965 and 1975. There's the whole thing about music that stands the test of time being better, but 1990 is a while ago, too, and if the answer was "the more time the better," then why isn't there anything from 1955? Is it that 1965ish is when recording technology and modern sensibilities got together enough to make truly brilliant recordings of music that had been rock'n'roll long enough to be a coherent style? Or did music just become not as good shortly after I was born?
ReplyDeleteI'm not opposing this decision, by the way, I agree with it. Just wondering...
Interesting observation, Bruce. I wonder if that just happens to be the time where all of our tastes actually line up. There's great music from the 90s and onwards--we just can't agree what that is; but we all seem to agree about the 60s: Stones rule. Which is weird cause I can't remember ever listening to the Stones with any of you people.
ReplyDeleteAlso that: great review, Andy. Reviews like this and Bruce's and Jeff's (I could go on...) are just the kind of thing that's made all this enjoyable for me too.
ReplyDelete(a little moment of love before the real nastiness begins--Polyphonic must have worn off on me)
in this particular case, I think it was just a fluke that I happen to be a big dylan fan...it seems right to me that we just can't all agree on what the great music from the last twenty years is......plus, it's not like we're talking about the dave clark five and herman's hermits...dylan, the stones, the beatles, neil young are like crazy huge legends...they are exceptional...
ReplyDeleteMaybe I already told you this, Andy, but I listened to Planet Waves way more than I should have in high school. I think I got the cassette for $1 somewhere, and how was I to know it was minor Dylan? Anyway, I stand by "Dirge" too. And your review was fun-tastic.
ReplyDelete