Dylan’s sixth album, continues where his two previous ones left off, but with a more raucous rock feel, even though a lot of it was recorded in Nashville. While many consider this a great album, it’s not my favorites. There are the hits,”Rainy Day Women # 12 and 35,” “I Want You,” “Just Like a Woman,” and some interesting deep tracks, including the elegant, 11-minute closer “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands,” but only one “classic” in my book, “Visions of Johanna.” Dylan had been on an amazing run, and this rare double album finished up the direction he was taking at the time, but I enjoy others from this period better. Following this album Dylan would depart from this style, never really to truly return. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Considered by many to be the final chapter in the “trilogy” of born-again records, Shot of Love is more of a transition back to a rock sound. In many ways it is a journey out of his gospel period into a secular format. While it starts out in a similar lyrical vain as his two previous records with songs such as “Property of Jesus,” the album evolves into more heart-rendering songs including “Heart of Mine,” and the somber “Lenny Bruce,” a tribute to the groundbreaking comedian who died 15 years earlier from a drug overdose. But the best song on the record is saved for last. “Every Grain of Sand” is as classic as anything Dylan did from the 1960s, and is on my list of all-time favorites. The album is a nice mixture of ballads and rockers with a rough edge to them and a worthy addition to the Dylan catalog. (One note: “The Groom’s Still Waiting at the Altar” is included in the CD re-release and as the B side of the single “Heart of Mine” but was not included on the album. Nonetheless, the bluesy, cynical “Groom” received more airplay at the time than any other song from the album.)
Released smack in the middle of the 1980s, Empire Burlesque is certainly a product of its time, with a sound similar to what Steve Winwood, Don Henley, or even Phil Collins had with their albums of the same era. Recorded with some 28 musicians, including members of Tom Petty’s band, whom he would later tour with, at numerous different studios, the album was produced by Dylan, but completed by remix artist Arthur Baker. With lots of poly-rhythmic sounds, drumbeats, synths, backup singers and some great lyrics and vocals by Dylan, it all works, even if it seems a little dated today. The album contains tender love songs, “Emotionally Yours,” political songs “Clean Cut Kid,” and even the closest thing Dylan has come to Disco with the tour-de-force “When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky.” But after all the bombast, it ends with the quiet, acoustic “Dark Eyes,” another of my all-time favorite songs. It shows that with Dylan, regardless of the time frame, it’s all about the songs.
After his so-called born-again trilogy of albums in the late 7’0s and early ’80s, Dylan returned to a mainstream rock sound with the excellent Infidels. One of the cleanest-sounding recordings Dylan has done, the album has a hypnotizing sound, no doubt in part to the guitar work and production of Mark Knopfler, and the Jamaican rhythm section Sly & Robbie on bass and drums. Ex-Rolling Stone Mick Taylor also added a blues-rock element to the mix. In both great lyrical and vocal form, Dylan switches from the reggae-tinged “Jokerman” and “I and I” to rockers including “Neighborhood Bully” and “Union Sundown,” and concludes with the heartfelt “Don’t Fall Apart on Me Tonight.” Although a bit plodding at times and suffering slightly from ‘80s digital production values, it’s nonetheless a strong album, even if there is no single killer cut.
Haunting. That’s the first word I can think of to describe the aptly titled Time out of Mind, the beginning of what I consider Dylan’s third (or maybe 4th, 5th?) and most likely final phase of his career and life. This is a high-quality release, with some of Dylan’s best songs (“Not Dark Yet,” “Love Sick”) and another epic, “Highlands,” along the lines of his earlier “Brownsville Girl” or “Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” Lyrically the album is filled with angry lost-love songs, with the chilling line, ”Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you” stands out, although this mood is reversed by the simply beautiful “Make You Feel My Love,” which became a hit for many other artists, including Billy Joel, Adele, Garth Brooks and Kelly Clarkson. Among the drawbacks of the album for me is that Dylan is in a talking-blues mode, where he’s telling a story rather than singing it, and musically it’s filled with mostly slower, repetitive tempos provided by his touring band, with a looping process by producer Daniel Lanois that sounds like it was recorded digitally in a cave. But that’s nitpicking. The biggest flaw of the album is its length, at close to 75 minutes on CD (although it was released on vinyl as a double album). It’s really hard to focus on all of the songs in this style for that long, even though most are stellar. Four of these songs could have been left off and added to a future “Bootleg Collection,” which would have made the album breathtaking. Nonetheless this is among his many so-called “comeback ”projects, and coincidentally, he even won three Grammys for it on the same night his son Jakob’s band, the Wallflowers, won as well, something I’m sure made the Grammy producers delighted.
(***) September 10, 2012. 35th Studio Album. Another winner from Dylan’s latter years, Tempest follows a similar pattern to other albums of the era. Members of his touring band deliver an old-timey, R&B feel to many of the songs, and Dylan’s self-production style is plain yet effective. .I find both the songs and the music more engaging than similar albums of this era, with Dylan showing more emotion in his vocals than he has in similar albums. The album features a return of the epic with the title track about the sinking of the Titanic (complete with a nod to Leo DiCaprio), along with 14 minutes and 45 verses delivered in an Irish-waltz style. Other notable songs are “Narrow Way,” one of the more rock ‘n’ roll numbers on the album that also comes with a snide attitude and the train imagery of “Duquesne Whistle” The album ends with a salute to John Lennon on the nostalgic “Roll on John.” Besides my appreciation of it, Tempest was a critical and commercial success as well. While many people belived there were hints throughout that it would be his last studio album, that, of course, was not the case. But even if it were, he would have gone out on a high note.
This is an overlooked gem in the Dylan catalog. The true lone studio album he recorded with The Band, (outside of The Basement Tapes sessions), it’s performed in a semi-live environment with few overdubs. The music is in that American Roots style The Band excels at, and Dylan’s vocals are in that urgent, raw state, made all-the-better by excellent lyrics. Two versions of the classic “Forever Young,” are included, a slow version and a rocking version. (I ilke the slower version better.) While the rest of the songs are not “hits” per se, they are Dylan to the core, including the outstanding tracks “Going, Going, Gone,” and “On A Night Like This.” It’s a fun album to play and rock out with.
By the time of his 30th studio release, Dylan doesn’t make any uneven albums anymore, which is both good and bad. Unlike earlier in his career, he is only releasing new material every 4-5 years at this point, and generally the best stuff is used. Love and Theft is a very pleasant-sounding album, with an upbeat tempo and simple production, instead of the sound experiments on previous releases. With his touring band behind him, Dylan sticks to his tried and true, boogie-woogie, rock and blues sound, along with a few Sinatra-inspired, lounge-lizard vocal presentations. This style creates a very enjoyable listen, but it is not cutting edge, or jagged, or rough, like some albums. You don’t get as many of the highs, but none of the crazy lows either (some of which are often pretty cool). Lyrically the album is strong, with some of the highlights “High Water (for Charlie Patton),” a nod to some of his blues heroes, also covered with success by Sheryl Crow and the Dixie Chicks; and the rocking “Honest With Me,” but all the songs are consistently high-quality. Dylan won a Grammy for the album, it was critically well-received, and it also sold well, despite being released on the same day as the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Another pleasant, consistent album from Dylan’s late period, Modern Times debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts and continues his roots/blues/rockabilly sound. Self-produced and backed by his touring band, the album is clean and open, maybe a bit too much at times. The songwriting and vocalizations are strong, although musically it can get a bit monotonous. Two songs, “Spirit on the Water” and “Beyond the Horizon” are almost interchangeable, but they give Dylan the chance to showcase the sentimental, crooner side of his personality. It’s the songs that stray from this mold, the stark “Nettie Moore” and album closer “”Ain’t Talking,” which separate them from the rest. The killer cut though is “Workingman’s Blues #2,” which stands among the great Dylan songs from any era.
Loaded is a somewhat directionless album featuring a variety of styles, including the Soul/Gospel sounds of late ‘70s, early ‘80s Dylan albums, a children’s choir (“They Killed Him” by Kris Kristofferson), island sounds (“Precious Memories,” a traditional gospel song) , and straight rock “Got My Mind Made Up.” Recorded with 30-plus musicians at a variety of studios, the album lacks a coherent feel and not many lyrically interesting ideas. But the quirky 11-minute Tex-Mex sounding “Brownsville Girl,” co-written with playwright Sam Shephard, is the gem of this album. There is a line in that song referring to Gregory Peck movie: “He’s got a new one out now, I don’t even know what it’s about. But I’ll see him in anything so I’ll stand in line.” This pretty much sums up my opinion on this album as well.