Bob Dylan - Tempest, Sept. 11, 2012

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BdbPjAlIL._SL500_AA300_.jpg

NEW BOB DYLAN ALBUM – TEMPEST - SET FOR SEPTEMBER RELEASE

COLLECTION OF TEN NEW BOB DYLAN SONGS
MARKS MUSICIAN’S 50TH ANNIVERSARY AS A RECORDING ARTIST

Columbia Records announced today that Bob Dylan’s new studio album, Tempest, will be released on September 11, 2012. Featuring ten new and original Bob Dylan songs, the release of Tempest coincides with the 50th Anniversary of the artist’s eponymous debut album, which was released by Columbia in 1962.

Tempest is available for pre-order now on iTunes and Amazon. The new album, produced by Jack Frost, is the 35thth studio set from Bob Dylan, and follows 2009’s worldwide best-seller, Together Through Life.

cover art is ummm.

Ugh, terrible cover.

lol

also, are they trying to write Christmas in the Heart out of the history books!??!!

Shoulda gone with this for the cover:
http://www.atarimania.com/goodies/hi_res/atari_tempest_patch.jpg

http://www.bootlegzone.com/beatleg/discs/scans/tst12.jpg

http://mrsgrapevine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Tempestt-Bledsoe-Naked-Skin-Cancer.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/Tempest_arcade.png

You know, if it said "Tampax" in that same font with that cover pic I wouldn't have blinked.

http://www.tempestmusic.com/images/AD.jpg

http://images.ohioeventfinder.com/79851/Tempest_web-medium.jpg
hopefully this is his backing band...!

New andoriginal songs!

What is it with Dylan and 9/11 release dates?

http://img122.imageshack.us/img122/9838/76dz.jpg

xp i know, i'm dreading the inevitable, ponderous essay about "THE LAST TIME DYLAN RELEASED AN ALBUM ON SEPTEMBER 11 DO YOU REMEMBER NEVER FORGET LOVE AND THEFT"

http://metal.musiclog.in/images/img_37318.jpg

looks like the 80s-design wall 'art' that was hanging in a pizzeria i used to go to

http://www.tinietempah.com/wp-content/themes/tinietempah2011.jan20/_site/images/skin/tinie-temper.jpg

It's kind of like this:

https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTbgMmoyN2mfcfkap3a42-8EzpXsZHIN7f5sRdTTOFOLFNA1foyUA

Plus this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bc/New_Order_Technique.jpg/220px-New_Order_Technique.jpg

But terrible.

tracklisting omg

1. Duquesne Whistle
2. Soon After Midnight
3. Narrow Way
4. Long and Wasted Years
5. Pay in Blood
6. Scarlet Town
7. Early Roman Kings
8. Tin Angel
9. Tempest
10. Roll on John

IMPORTANT TO NOTE: kind of rare for dylan to have a title track. sort of!

"Duquesne Whistle" is a dope song name

I love the cover art, hoping it indicates some sleaze on the record

cover art is rad imo. it looks like it belongs in a scratched plastic jewel case in a box of old forgotten possessions, but that isn't nec a bad vibe for a new dylan record. it just reminds me of a zillion tasteful but not artful '90s book jackets.

damn that tracklist is awesome

early roman kings!

i actually like the sleazy Cinemax After Dark way that "Tempest" is written....but what's up with the Microsoft Word straight up Times/Times New Roman way Dylan is written?

Also turning 50:

http://www.autobooksbishko.com/products/stdImages/4976.jpeg

i actually like the sleazy Cinemax After Dark way that "Tempest" is written....but what's up with the Microsoft Word straight up Times/Times New Roman way Dylan is written?

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 17, 2012 12:16 PM (33 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this. would be awesome w/o his name

It's pretty close the Bringing It All Back Home font!

I really hope the lyrical content matches the cover and merits a review headline like 50 Shades Of "Lay Lady Lay"

think there were some rumours about this record a while back; the one of the los lobos guys was playing on it, more mariachi vibes, &c.

i like his name!, i think that's part of it

http://www.travel2austria.com/i/parliamentvienna4.jpg

the one of the los lobos guys was playing on it

David Hidalgo's been on his last few records iirc (he's definitely on the Xmas one)

here are the rumors:

The sessions are reported to have begun in January 2012 at Groove Masters, a semi-private studio facility owned by musician Jackson Browne. The studio, on Colorado Avenue, Santa Monica, is where Dylan recorded both “Together Through Life” and “Christmas In The Heart”. He is said to have spent up to two months working on the album.

David Hidalgo revealed to The Aspen Times that he had been involved with the recording of a New Dylan album and that whilst he had been brought in primarily to play accordion and guitar, he ended up adding Mexican instruments, including tres, to some tracks. Hidalgo said the recording sessions were nothing like the earlier ones he had done with Dylan. He had previously played accordion and guitar on “Together Through Life” and accordion, guitar, mandolin and violin on “Christmas In The Heart”.

If our previous information is correct, the 10-song album is 68 minutes long and contains songs about Titanic and John Lennon.

that cover rules

the 10-song album is 68 minutes long

oh nooo

http://www.rso.wmich.edu/ultimate/random/kool-aid-man.jpg

so it's about ALL the early roman kings

celebrating today's news by listening to a Dylan show in Dresden from a couple weeks ago. Pretty good! Totally weird re-do of "Hattie Carrol" which gives the song an inappropriately bouncy, happy feel.

Reportedly he is playing grand piano these days!

yeah he is! sounds better than the kinda rinky dink organ he's been using of late. though it's mixed pretty low on the thing i'm listening to.
http://www.rockcellarmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/bob-dylan-hop-farm-grand-piano.jpg

interesting that he's really kinda bypassed the together through life material onstage -- barely plays any of it, while modern times and love and theft songs get plenty of outings.

it's weird to think how old love & theft is! he's been playing a lot of that album as a core part of his setlists for over a decade now.

So,

Are

We

Doing

This?

interesting that he's really kinda bypassed the together through life material onstage -- barely plays any of it

same as his fans, I reckon.

Is this the first time in quite a while that newer albums fill most of Dylan's set lists?

since time out of mind, he's dug pretty deep into the new records.
guess he plays forgetful heart on the regular, here's his last setlist

1. Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat
2. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
3. Things Have Changed
4. Tangled Up In Blue
5. Honest With Me
6. Spirit On The Water
7. The Levee's Gonna Break
8. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
9. High Water (For Charley Patton)
10. Simple Twist Of Fate
11. I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
12. Highway 61 Revisited
13. Forgetful Heart
14. Thunder On The Mountain
15. Ballad Of A Thin Man
16. Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on grand piano)
17. All Along The Watchtower (Bob on grand piano)
18. Blowin' In The Wind

it's funny cuz he digs so deep and plays so many songs compared to most classic rock touring artists but then he TOTALLY ALWAYS PLAYS watchtower, blowin' in the wind, and like a rolling stone

That has more 'old faves' than I would have expected.

when I saw him in '05 he played "I'll Remember You"! My heart leapt.

I re-discovered the mp3's I d/l of the "hears a who" set. Made a nice sleeve and label for a burned CD..

I guess he's not going to do "Green Eggs and Ham"

i've been looking at dylan setlists for like, most of my internet life, so sometimes i wish he'd dig a little deeper, play some things from Infidels or New Morning or something. but this show i just listened to sounded pretty cool.

I figure he played piano on the original therefore it's easier for him.

http://www.moviegoods.com/Assets/product_images/1020/240999.1020.A.jpg

it's funny cuz he digs so deep and plays so many songs compared to most classic rock touring artists but then he TOTALLY ALWAYS PLAYS watchtower, blowin' in the wind, and like a rolling stone

OTOH, they're probably not often recognizable as such- at least until he gets to the chorus (or mumbles a few consecutively intelligible lyrics).

The first time I saw him, mid-80s, he did an acoustic set including Blowin and Times They Are a-Changin, and it felt like Fogey Central. Saw him like 15 years later, and he did this mournful, bluesy version of Blowin' that was just gorgeous. So, yeah, unpredictable.

I don't think 68 minutes is necessarily a bad sign. For one thing, that could mean a 17-minute epic in there, and his track record on those is pretty good. But also, the longer songs on Modern Times completely trump the short ones on Together Through Life.

that could mean a 17-minute epic in there

The song about the TItanic is 14 minutes long.

As I've said elsewhere, the cover looks like a self-released smooth jazz album.

Xpost yeah, last time I saw him took me a verse or two to realize he was playing tangled up in blue

i have never seen dylan live!

i can't claim to be a superfan or anything, it just struck me.

it's weird to think how old love & theft is! he's been playing a lot of that album as a core part of his setlists for over a decade now.

― wack nerd zinging in the dead of night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, July 17, 2012 4:58 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

puts me in mind of the woody allen conversations we've had here

I haven't seen Woody Allen live either.

we're watching him die

he played literally four blocks from my house last summer at the ballpark & I felt guilty that there's no way I'm going to an outdoor goes-on-forever rock show at a ballpark in the summer here no matter who it is

i dunno, the ballpark thing seems kind of fun? at least more fun than a hockey arena. best time i saw him was at the hollywood palladium.
here's a recent live thing i've been enjoying. i dunno, obviously the ragged vocals will be a roadblock for some, but i think he sounds great.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCLBFvqyBkI

and check him out here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuHsXVSFkFs

cover looks like what i'd expect to see in a one-sheet on a new soft cell album anytime in the last 9 years

i dunno, the ballpark thing seems kind of fun? at least more fun than a hockey arena

yeah I guess - I really strongly prefer short sets so I don't go to classic-old-dude shows anyway, and one that's outside in punishing southern summer heat is one I'm especially not going to

yeah i don't know if i'd go if one of those was near me, but maybe if it was cheap ... a beer, a hot dog and blowin in the wind. america.

o t m

I'm mad at myself for not going to see that Dylan/Willie Nelson/John Mellencamp ballpark tour a few years back. Nearest show was 3 hours away, but still.

the only time i've ever seen dylan was in a saint pall ballpark with willie nelson opening (with part of a set pushing his reggae album, too!).

it sure as hell was fuckin america. i had cheese curds. me and my date sat on a blanket in the grass. dylan was doing 'masters of war' a lot then.

it sure as hell was fuckin america. i had cheese curds. me and my date sat on a blanket in the grass. dylan was doing 'masters of war' a lot then.
think this is a quote from On The Road isn't it?

when i was in high school i basically wanted nothing in the world more than to see dylan live but the neverending tour rarely finds its way to oahu let alone to the big island

then he came here to portland the other year and i was like, eh. see also: i could buy half a dozen super soaker xp35s now, and yet.

(i should still go see him at some point. i would like to. it was just an inconvenient week. also i doubt they make the xp35 anymore and nothing will ever be more platonically ideal.)

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/.a/6a00d8341c630a53ef016302205689970d-pi

I saw one of the Palladium shows a few years ago and the main thing I remember about that gig is how many people were looking at Johnny Depp being bored at his VIP table instead of at Dylan. I really enjoyed the show though. Warm sound, reasonably sized venue.

A part of me wants to see him live now that he's ditched the organ crutch, but I don't think I'd go to an arena show to see God. Too bad fucking Knopfler's opening for him instead of John & Exene like last time.

hrm
http://www.jambands.com/images/2012/07/18/37190/DylanKnopfler-353x.jpg

knobpfler

money for knothin

Seen him three times, most recently in summer '05 with Nelson. The sound was fabulous: a locomotive running through a baseball stadium centerfield. Stuck to piano.

i guess dylan/knopf toured europe last fall together, did some jams, but sadly did not play infidels in its entirety.

dates for n. america. man he tours pretty hard, doesn't he. two colorado dates, kind of tempted, especially if he's playing new stuff.

Oct 05 - Winnipeg, MB - MTS Centre
Oct 06 - Regina, SK - Brandt Centre
Oct 08 - Saskatoon, SK - Credit Union Centre
Oct 09 - Edmonton, AB - Rexall Place
Oct 10 - Calgary, AB - Scotiabank Saddledome
Oct 12 - Vancouver, BC - Rogers Arena Rogers Arena
Oct 13 - Seattle, WA - Key Arena
Oct 15 - Portland, OR - Rose Garden Arena
Oct 17 - San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
Oct 18 - San Francisco, CA - Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
Oct 19 - Berkeley, CA - Greek Theatre
Oct 20 - Sacramento, CA - Power Balance Pavillion Power
Oct 22 - Santa Barbara, CA - Santa Barbara County Bowl
Oct 24 - San Diego, CA - Valley View Casino Center
Oct 26 - Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
Oct 29 - Broomfield, CO - 1st Bank Center
Oct 30 - Broomfield, CO - 1st Bank Center

Nov 01 - Grand Prairie, TX - Verizon Theatre
Nov 02 - Tulsa, OK - BOK Center
Nov 03 - Omaha, NE - CenturyLink Center
Nov 05 - Madison, WI - Alliant Energy Center
Nov 07 - St. Paul, MN - Xcel Energy Center
Nov 08 - Milwaukee, WI - BMO Harris Bradley Center
Nov 09 - Chicago, IL - United Center
Nov 12 - Grand Rapids, MI - Van Andel Arena
Nov 13 - Detroit, MI - Palace of Auburn Hills
Nov 14 - Toronto, ON - Air Canada Centre
Nov 16 - Montreal, QC - Bell Centre Bell Centre
Nov 18 - Boston, MA TD Banknorth Garden
Nov 19 - Philadelphia, PA Wells Fargo Center
Nov 20 - Washington, DC Verizon Center
Nov 21 - Brooklyn, NY Barclays Center

hm SF show is on my bday

absolutely hate that venue tho

yeah the CO venue is lame-o too. funny, leonard cohen is playing there a couple days later. how much gravel can one building stand?

He's playing US & Canada all August and September too.

he's playing an outdoor venue in Indy in late August & then the United Center in Chi in November, both p much equidistant from me. former is prob a more fun venue but the weather's been so savage here that I'm not sure I want to take my chances. but lawn seats are only $30ish! whereas the United Center is not likely to be as loose, but also not going to be meltorama. not sure.

He's playing US & Canada all August and September too.
yeah! crazy. obviously nothing new, but still. he must really like performing. i assume he doesn't need the $$$.

i'd be pretty happy to see this setlist

Lyon, France
Fourviere Nights Festival
Theatres Romains De Fourviere

July 18, 2012

1. Absolutely Sweet Marie
(Bob on keyboard, Donnie on violin, Stu on acoustic guitar)
2. Man In The Long Black Coat
(Bob center stage with harp, Stu on acoustic guitar)
3. Things Have Changed (Bob center stage with harp, Stu on acoustic guitar)
4. Tangled Up In Blue
(Bob center stage with harp then on grand piano, Stu on acoustic guitar)
5. Rollin' And Tumblin' (Bob on grand piano)
6. Desolation Row (Bob on grand piano, Donnie on electric mandolin,
Stu on acoustic guitar, Tony on standup bass)
7. High Water (For Charley Patton)
(Bob center stage with harp then on grand piano, Donnie on banjo, Tony on standup bass)
8. Sugar Baby (Bob on grand piano, Stu on acoustic guitar, Tony on standup bass)
9. Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob on grand piano)
10. Forgetful Heart (Bob centere stage with harp, Donnie on violin,
Stu on acoustic guitar, Tony on standup bass with bow)
11. Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on grand piano)
12. Blind Willie McTell
(Bob center stage with harp, Donnie on banjo, Stu on acoustic guitar, Tony on standup bass)
13. Thunder On The Mountain (Bob on grand piano)
14. Ballad Of A Thin Man
(Bob center stage with harp then on grand piano and back to center stage with harp)
15. Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on grand piano)
16. All Along The Watchtower (Bob on grand piano)

(encore)
17. Blowin' In The Wind (Bob on grand piano then center stage with harp,
Donnie on violin, Stu on acoutic guitar, Tony on standup bass)

High Water from that set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZMfWmtjR_E

my fave tempest covers

http://www.popsike.eu/pix/20120521/251067649957.jpg

http://www.popsike.eu/pix/20080601/320258850754.jpg

but i like the dylan cover. except his name doesn't really fit...somehow. the rest i like. would look good for the vinyl version.

Somehow I think it might be a mock-up, or a working visual, like a working title. Just to make the press release more festive, and fit with its massive pimping of awards and chart-toppings from Time Out Of Mind onwards. First time I saw him was in the late-ish 70s, the tour he'd started with Rolling Thunder whiteface shaded to something more tasteful, no stubble, coiffure, Hot August Night-type stage attire (this is when he and Neil Diamond shared some elements of management and/or lawyers, plus Robertson had produced Beautiful Noise, which I'd still like to check[ might be how Neil got to be in The Last Waltz). By the time they got to Birmingham, Dyl was in a rumpled Cisco Kid suit, black and silver (which he wore for this whole leg of the tour, judging by the highlight reel I later saw), side of his hair flattened, hunched over and totin' that big ol' guitar, like he'd just rolled out of the blankets and straight to another night's work. But with enough campfire bacon and coffee to tap that dirty sneaker and direct diff subsets of musicians, and sometimes the whole 20 or so usually onstage (though some were sent into or summoned from the wings). Plus a female gospel chorus in several contexts, incl. a gospel-speed-metal-orchestral "Masters of War."

Another time I saw him, in the early 90s, he was more into playing than singing, lots of fine complex folkie picking and some screaming solos, from him and steel guitarist, especially in "Highway 61" and "Tombstone Blues." "All Along The Watchtower" kept witholding the expected guitarpocalypse, more of a band=laidback Roadrunner, people all along the watchtower and in our mountain amphitheater seats=Wile E. Coyote. It was diabolical, and finally/suddenly we were in the middle of another song.

that highwater is great.

tim heidecker pre-covers Titanic: http://vimeo.com/46246490

haaaaaaa

early, not terribly revealing, report from uncut.

Tempest seemed to find Dylan on unquestionably formidable form. Its ten tracks run over a total playing time of around 75 minutes, the title track alone taking up a fair chunk of that, with verse following verse in a manner that might remind you of “Desolation Row”. There was a lot, therefore, to take in on a single encounter, especially with note-taking discouraged. There was no track listing forthcoming, either, not that this matters at the moment since I am obliged to not go into premature detail ahead of the album’s September 10 release.
I think I can say without punitive consequences, though, that if you’re trying to imagine what Tempest sounds like you may want to think less perhaps of the rambunctious roadhouse blues that was central to most of Together Through Life and parts of Modern Times, although this is a recent signature sound that hasn’t been entirely abandoned.
Neither are there too many of the jazzy riverboat shuffles of “Love And Theft” in evidence here as much as there are echoes of a folk tradition that was manifest on, say, “High Water (For Charley Patton)” and also “Nettie Moore”, from Modern Times. You may also want to keep in mind as a point of reference “Mississippi” from “Love And Theft” and something like “Red River Shore”, recorded for Time Out Of Mind, but not released until 2009, when it appeared on the Tell Tale Signs three-CD set, where also lurked “’Cross The Green Mountain”, the epic civil war song Dylan wrote for the soundtrack to the 2003 film, Gods And Generals. Hardly anyone heard it when it originally came out, but it came several times to mind as Tempest unspooled spectacularly a few weeks ago, concluding with a song that will probably be much-talked about, although not here, right now.

that Tim Heidecker cover is excellent. i would guess he got pretty close.

"Red River Shore" and "'Cross the Green Mountain" are great, now I'm really anticipating.

"Red River Shore" and "Cross The Green Mountain" were faves in 2008.

the 10-song album is 68 minutes long

oh nooo

― goole, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 12:12 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

http://www.rso.wmich.edu/ultimate/random/kool-aid-man.jpg

― tylerw, Tuesday, July 17, 2012 12:13 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i need to excelsior this

haha.
also haha, this heidecker thing! "The director Cameron on the set of true lies..."

oh titanic - how could you let us down
oh titanic - you're lying on the bottom of the water just waiting to be found

If I were Dylan, I would cover this and insist it be amended to the album.

"Red River Shore" and "'Cross the Green Mountain" are great, now I'm really anticipating.

Almost wish I didn't read this. Expectations are v high now

oh yeahhhhh.
of course it should be kept in mind that the dude writing this heard the album once and was not allowed to take notes.

And was writing for a British nostalgia-mining mag.

if you can't trust British nostalgia-mining mags who can you trust

And if the nostalgia mining company won't come to my rescue
If the nostalgia mining company won't save me
Who's gonna save me?

I get the reference, but I still file it under esoteric.

ez snappin w/a deep cut

tbh i love mojo and uncut

first single out next week!!! EARLY ROMAN KINGS. a late "jam of the summer" contender?!

Bob Dylan on His Dark New Album, 'Tempest'
Dylan breaks down his apocalyptic (and sometimes sweet) 35th studio LP

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-on-his-dark-new-album-tempest-20120801#ixzz22JVe2zAY

even Leonardo DiCaprio appears. ("Yeah, Leo," says Dylan. "I don't think the song would be the same without him. Or the movie.")

^ this lp's alicia keys

It's like people who read Shakespeare plays, but they never see a Shakespeare play. I think they just use his name."

haha

excited to see Charlie Sexton back in the band, I think he adds a bit of fire that was missing from MT and TTL (though I do really like MT and TTL is decent too)

yeah interested to hear what his touring band brings to this album. minus sexton it'll be the same people from modern times, but when they recorded that the guitarists had only been playing with dylan for a little while.

Shakespeare's last play was called The Tempest. It wasn't called just plain Tempest. The name of my record is just plain Tempest. It's two different titles.

Maybe I'm missing it, but it doesn't seem as if anyone linked to this:

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2012/08/okay_this_is_awesome.php?ref=fpblg

Lawsuit from Muddy Waters' estate pending.

Oh dammit, Bob still thinks he's a bluesman.

"thinks"?

That track sounds p. good, but I'm more intrigued by the references above to "High Water" and "Nettie Moore."

Sounds good!

”sluggers and muggers
wearin' fancy gold rings
All the women go crazy
For early Roman kings”

ha, well doesn't sound like a huge departure or anything, but it sounds good!

I'm not sure I'm willing to see him again live. I've seen him great once or twice, terrible three or more times. Once (or twice?) I actually fell asleep. Weird how in Chicago he only bothers playing an arena once in a while. Wonder how he decides?

"Hey, can we play a club in October?"

"Sorry, Bob, all booked."

"What about a theater?"

"Nope, sorry."

"So is anything free? Minor league park? Circus tent?"

"Nope, just the hockey arena."

"Oh, OK. Let's play that, then."

Are those exact quotes or did you make those up?

I wish I had access to a transcript of every banal conversation Bob Dylan has ever had.

"What is for breakfast?"

"Eggs."

"Eggs without bacon are like the sky without blood."

"What does that mean?

"It means the day ain't done until the night goes swimming."

"But what does that mean?"

"It means get me some bacon, dammit."

"Oh, OK."

"The fool does not see the fork until it is stuck in his eye."

lol

early review from billboard. DEATH!

Death, whether it be the legacy of John Lennon, the sinking of the Titanic or a trio of cheating lovers, is a dominant subject on "Tempest," Bob Dylan's 35th studio album that is scheduled for release on Sept. 11.

The album marks a return to straight-forward, story-driven songwriting for Dylan. The 10 tracks are more in line with 1997's "Time Out of Mind," '76's "Desire" and '64's "Another Side of Bob Dylan"; a darkness has replaced the instrumental interludes, buoyancy and lightness of his last three albums.

"Early Roman Kings," a 12-bar blues that features David Hidalgo of Los Lobos on accordion, is featured in a music video that HBO and Cinemax began airing today (Aug. 2) in conjunction will the Cinemax series "Strike Back." Another song from the new album, "Scarlet Town" will play over the end credits of the first two episodes, which air Aug. 17. "Scarlet Town," rooted in English folk with banjo, acoustic guitar, fiddle and drums providing the accompaniment, plays out as a tale of doom, fate and potential redemption.

The song that will get the most attention though is the nearly 14-minute title track track. "Tempest," 45 verses written in accentual-syllabic verse with no chorus, is set aboard the Titanic, with characters ranging from an artist named Leo -- DiCaprio, one might assume -- to Jim Dandy, who hands over a chance at survival to youngster.

Besides Hidalgo, Dylan is backed by his touring band of guitarists Charlie Sexton and Stu Kimball, steel guitarist Donnie Herron, bassist Tony Garnier and drummer George G. Receli. Song structures are largely rooted in folk styles, though a few tunes veer into other rootsy areas.

"Soon After Midnight" is a bluesy doo-wop that echoes the Rays' "Silhouettes" and a bit of Santo & Johnny's "Sleepwalk" in an instrumental break; "Narrow Way" is a seven and a half minute riff-driven tune that straddles country and blues; and the bite of Warren Zevon comes out in "Pay in Blood," the chorus of which ends with the gripping line "I pay in blood/but not my own."

The album's final track is a tribute to John Lennon, "Roll on John." In one verse Dylan references the Beatles songs "Come Together," Ballad of John and Yoko" and "Slow Down"; elsewhere on the ballad he combines the metaphysical with the historical.

accentual-syllabic verse, well my my

i know, someone at billboard dropping heavy english major science!

The 10 tracks are more in line with 1997's "Time Out of Mind," '76's "Desire" and '64's "Another Side of Bob Dylan"

"The album is more in line with three albums that sound nothing like each other and have completely different songwriting"

Like Jim Dandy from Black Oak Arksanas?

xp haha yeah. not sure if you could pick three more different dylan albums. also like this helpful bit: "Song structures are largely rooted in folk styles, though a few tunes veer into other rootsy areas."

THE METAPHYSICAL

the secret inspiration behind TEMPEST
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_msHZhK8UVUE/SEw_L5bR-FI/AAAAAAAAAGg/D0cTBIXX1MA/s400/jim+dandy.jpg

Dylan should add Jim Dandy on electric washboard to his touring band for this album.

We live in a world where Lou Reed made an album with Metallica. Jim Dandy jamming with Dylan is basically fated to happen at this point.

Junior Dandy

i know, someone at billboard dropping heavy english major science!

And: "Tempest," Bob Dylan's 35th studio album that is scheduled for release on Sept. 11.

So the guy's releasing 35 albums on the same day? Ace! It's a record record.

noticed this tour billed as Bob Dylan w/ Mark Knopfler (!). getting tix to see him @ the greek in berkeley and i think that's a great place to see him

yo my numbers are always the tightest and my lines scan like nobody's business and if I don't get some "accentual-syllabic" love in the next cycle after this I'm gonna be pissed off, once you open that door Billboard you gotta start respecting the real

The Guardian newspaper reckons this is Dylan's "strongest album since Love And Theft"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2012/aug/06/bob-dylan-tempest-first-listen?intcmp=ILCMUSTXT9387

it'll have to be amazing to knock Christmas In The Heart from that place on the pedestal.

Admittedly -- that is a bit like saying "it's his best album since his last one". But still, I find it oddly encouraging since my expectations were/are rather low.

I like "Modern Times" better than "Love and Theft" but I guess I'm in the minority.

I think most people like Modern Times quite a lot, but maybe not as much as Love And Theft. I know I'm in the minority in that I think Modern Times is his worst record since the 80s.

Yikes! I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. FWIW, I don't like "Time Out of Mind" and a lot of people seem to regard that as a return to form.

Time Out Of Mind is right there at the bottom for me.

I'm a big TOOM fan. Perhaps above Love and Theft in my esteem.

Mod Times > Love/Theft > TOOM >>>> TTL

much prefer TOOM to all the leon redboney guff on L/T

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KawJXM64xrQ
accordion definitely makes it sound like it could've been on the together through life. lyrics are great.

I can dress up your wounds with a blood-clotted rag / I aint afraid to make love to a bitch or a hag

should have been 'bitch on the rag' imo

Great song, great sound. Looking forward to this more and more.

transformation into John Lee Hooker is complete, I see

Oh man, this is so good.

What killed the last one is fucking Robert Hunter. Who wants a Dylan record where Dylan doesn't write the words? I can handle blues boilerplate as long as Bob is writing the lyrics, and these sound ace (and he sounds ever closer to Tom Waits).

^^^ yeah you may be right -- hunter can be good, but i get the feeling he gets a call from dylan asking for lyrics and then throws together some dylan pastiches in a couple days.

& if he starts playing this new stuff on tour this fall, i will definitely go see him.

Could've gone on several Dylan threads, but since this is the most current:
Bob Dylan & The Band "Down In The Flood"
Comes to DVD on September 25
The Story Of Bob Dylan & The Band
Features exclusive new interviews with Garth Hudson, Ronnie Hawkins,
band producer John Simon & tour drummer Mickey Jones
In 1966 Bob Dylan began his first electric world tour. It was a landmark moment, both for Dylan and for the history of rock music, and it bitterly divided his audience.
Backing Dylan on stage was an obscure group of Canadian musicians collectively known as The Hawks. In the months following the tour they would join Dylan during a lengthy convalescence in New York's Catskill Mountains; when both parties re-emerged, Dylan had undergone an artistic transformation that sent ripples across American music and The Hawks had become simply 'The Band', one of the most important recording groups of their generation.
This is the story of the relationship between Dylan and The Band, the legendary amateur recordings that they made together in Woodstock, their re-invention of American music and their continued albeit sporadic relationship during the 1970s.
Featuring new interviews with Garth Hudson; Band producer John Simon; The Hawks' 66 tour drummer, Mickey Jones; the man who assembled and tutored the Hawks and from whom they took their name, Ronnie Hawkins; Dylan guitarist, Charlie McCoy; Band biographer Barney Hoskyns; Basement Tapes Archivist, Sid Griffin, Isis magazine's Derek Barker and Rolling Stone's Anthony De Curtis.
Also features rare footage, archive interviews, seldom seen photographs and the music that changed the world, all at once making for the finest program on this element of Bob Dylan and The Band's respective and communal careers yet to emerge.

Here's the trailer:
http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001Sos3yFtht7H8Filb-bgffXnaPYjHv7Ny9hgAobo_pxcHOJtRqs0CpjNiD-Dr3Zs7YHd2Sqm5ELH2Z5TOqebUWVK5YlH_JUpYesnLqQAZJhRc-upzvoQ9rEXmAd1QhpwPGFR7uZKn_QAodx5yOZb8Rn4WLLaTEMnZo73ovXuZ4_a4SQKG-zi-qyBgnZ6-_jnd3WRG--Ngvq6ddwj1I7tLSjOgDzjQTz_FYrNCCRFj3rbsguTRWHWDzh7tlYb8voY1CCU6ESyi3muAK5HURkDu27TSMtZSktY7lzriOx-8dgQUdyJ82cALCbFQQa2gpIMkFgN4m09hm2WGBEGdn3syZA==

actually I disliked TTL because the tunes weren't memorable. I don't mind the words.

Or like this (warning: Anthony DeCurtis ahead)
http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?e=001Sos3yFtht7H8Filb-bgffXnaPYjHv7Ny9hgAobo_pxcHOJtRqs0CpjNiD-Dr3Zs7YHd2Sqm5ELH2Z5TOqebUWVK5YlH_JUpYesnLqQAZJhRc-upzvoQ9rEXmAd1QhpwPGFR7uZKn_QAodx5yOZb8Rn4WLLaTEMnZo73ovXuZ4_a4SQKG-zi-qyBgnZ6-_jnd3WRG--Ngvq6ddwj1I7tLSjOgDzjQTz_FYrNCCRFj3rbsguTRWHWDzh7tlYb8voY1CCU6ESyi3muAK5HURkDu27TSMtZSktY7lzriOx-8dgQUdyJ82cALCbFQQa2gpIMkFgN4m09hm2WGBEGdn3syZA==

damn, I'm trying to get the image!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYI75pGzwr8&feature=youtu.be&utm_source=Bob+Dylan+%2526+The+Band+%2522Down+In+The+Flood%2522+DVD+on+9%252F25&utm_campaign=Dylan+and+The+Band&utm_medium=email

oh well, use all that ugly stuff to link, it works

http://youtu.be/BYI75pGzwr8

Eh, I tried.

Looks interesting enough, but it also looks like they didn't/wouldn't/couldn't secure the music rights.

good idea for a doc, but it definitely looks like one of those endless parades of talking heads and no new footage/music. would love it if they finally released pennebaker's 66 tour film on DVD. eat the document too!

A lot of that stuff is on the expanded "Don't Look Back" DVD that came out a few years back.

http://www.docurama.com/docurama/bob-dylan-dont-look-back/

I imagine Sony is sitting on a pretty sizable chunk of '66 footage, just waiting to cram it into an insanely expensive coffee table box or something.

don't think any of the eat the document footage is on the don't look back expanded DVD -- that's all 1965 afaik. pennebaker put together a a 1966 tour film (called Something Is Happening Here) which Dylan rejected. He took the footage and made eat the document.

i got to see eat the document in the now-gone oak street theater in minneapolis, was shown off of a VHS projector off a VHS loaned to the theater by dylan himself

that would be fun. it really is an interesting movie -- maybe not great, but anyone who's into dylan should see it sometime. it's funny that dylan spent more time working on eat the document and renaldo and clara than any of his albums, and yet he doesn't want anyone to see them.

Saw Eat the Document years ago at the Roxie in SF and enjoyed it well enough. I remember being irritated at the way the live footage was edited (extended close-ups of the back of Dylan's head while the band is raging, for ex). The bit with John Lennon is very funny.

yeah i think dylan may have purposely used live footage that was disorienting -- the whole thing is sort of an anti-documentary. obviously a bunch of new stuff turned up in No DIrection Home, but I do wish they'd just let someone go through Pennebaker's footage and put together a definitive 66 Tour Film. the footage of him and johnny cash singing "So lonesome i could cry" is amazing.

Yeah I mean its a real mess in alot of ways, but a compelling mess if yr a dylan nerd

The version I saw fairly recently on YouTube was pretty uneven, and not much music. Although I did like the disorienting sensation of seeing this scrawny little scruff, not at all the imposing figure of mid-60s publicity pix, stooping over a piano and calling on "Mr. Johhhnes," in a fairly off-handed way--receptionist got the power after all. Like in some of the early audio boots, he's giggling and scratching and suddenly comes up with this song...

Also a scene of snorting something, and a sequence where Manuel is trying to buy a guy's girlfriend--all three looking pretty, "uh-h-h, goofing for the camera--right-?" But Dylan's in predatory suspense.

https://p.twimg.com/A01dr4WCAAASPTB.jpg:large

the look on his face is "10? come on, not even"

lol

here's a snippet of scarlet town
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMAsndtUCCM
10/10 snippet

thanks--niels, could we see the rest of that Uncut review, please, and maybe larger? I know how Uncut is, but still.

my eyes aren't great, but i think the first line is "I love you, Bob Dylan."

Yup! Still not great quality, it's from a thread on expectingrain.com

http://img560.imageshack.us/img560/1072/photony.png
http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/875/photo1to.png
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/5125/photo2i.png

I know someone who saw a recent show, and they were raving about it, but I suspect they saw it through Bob-tinted glasses, because the last time I saw him, a few years back, was so bad I swore "never again," and I can't imagine he could come back from that, no matter who is in his band. Though obviously I'm curious about the new album, Uncut masterpiece review aside.

So, like, is Uncut the only publication in the world that has heard it?

Plenty of people heard it I think http://www.google.com/search?q=tempest+first+listen but Uncut seems like the only publication allowed a proper copy/review or something.

Everybody's real positive tho :-)

Damn that review got me excited

"Duquesne Whistle" streaming at NPR:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2012/08/27/160015988/song-premiere-bob-dylan-duquesne-whistle?sc=tw&cc=share

Sounds great.

Yeah, this is great! If early roman kings was very TTL this is def love and theft to me, kinda "Summer Days". Resolution must be low on the stream, wonder if it's as muddy/lofi on the album. I can see the basement tapes comparison bc of production sound... I guess it's all recorded live as well?

Hope there's more drama/emotion on the title track, would love something like When The Deal Goes Down, Workingman's Blues, Nettie Moore, Charlie Patton.

btw wtf @ http://www.loveandtheft.com/us/home ? hehe...

maybe a christmas in the heart feel as well?

digging it

I like this. Quite a bit.

Wanted to see him Saturday in Indianapolis, but played a show instead. I heard mixed reviews (totally normal; although I like seeing songs get butchered sometimes), and it was an outdoor show (not my thing. keep sound indoors, plz)...still a little bummed.

Much to my surprise, I like "Duquesne Whistle." The music reminds me of George Harrison doing one of his Hawaiian-sounding songs.

oh man, love this!!

guess that robert hunter is involved again -- hadn't read that til the npr write up.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m9fut8PG0X1qde2qno1_400.jpg

lololol

duquense whistle is soooo good guys

xp Brilliant

The heavy guitars are a slightly bizarre presence throughout, but those classic rock breaks at 3:51 and 4:50 are over the top.

There's an official video for "Duquesne Whistle" over at Rolling Stone:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/bob-dylan-debuts-shockingly-violent-new-video-20120829

Dylan has a posse.

The song's good.

I agree. But the video is pretty dumb.

i like it!

haha yeah it was like the dark version of a zooey flick

also:

http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/Dylan%20Vid.jpg

SHOCKINGLY VIOLENT.
would be cool if that was actually gene simmons in the kiss makeup walking with dylan.

http://www.billboard.com/news/simmons-taps-dylan-zappa-songs-for-solo-1909701.story#/news/simmons-taps-dylan-zappa-songs-for-solo-1909701.story

The Dylan co-write, "Waiting for the Morning Light," was born out of a one-day writing session at Simmons' home in Los Angeles six or seven years ago, the Kiss bassist/vocalist reveals.

"Bob came up with the chords, most of them, and then I took it and wrote lyrics, melody, the rest of it," says Simmons, adding that he kept urging Dylan through the years to put lyrics to the song. "I'd see him on tour, and I'd say, 'Bob, you wanna write the song? And he would say, 'No, man, you write it, Mr. Kiss.'"

Of the one-day session, Simmons says, "We understood each other right away. He picked up an acoustic guitar, and we just tossed it back and forth, 'How 'bout this, how 'bout that?' And he started to strum, because he -- at least with me -- tended to talk and strum guitar at the same time. And as soon as I heard the first three or four chords, I went, 'Wait, wait, what's that? Do that again.' So I went and started to write a lyric around that."
Read more at http://www.billboard.com/news/simmons-taps-dylan-zappa-songs-for-solo-1909701.story#0XSuoSbM6iTDX1Ih.99

so ... it is gene simmons?

Mr. Kiss!

Simmons mentioned the Dylan collaboration in his memoir.

(which I have had the fortune to read a few chapters)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZr2TWiE69I
pretty good, sounds like thin lizzy.

Glen Frey must be pissed that he missed this one.

Dylan also cowrote a song with Michael Bolton ("Steel Bars").

pretty rockin. wait for the boltonface tattoo omg.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPSg0QpkPBs

this is really a media blitz! what in the lord's name is the point of this kind of thing:

On Friday, August 31, fans who visit listentobobdylan.com will find a map of locations in the U.S. and nine other countries where selected songs from Tempest will be streamed to mobile devices. The tracks will be randomly streamed only when users are within the Tempest-tagged geographic areas, utilizing the free web-based Sound Graffiti app (which can be accessed directly through listentobobdylan.com). In addition to the U.S., other countries in which Sound Graffiti locations will be found include Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Fans who stream the song will also be given an opportunity to pre-order Tempest from iTunes while they listen.

also:

On Monday, September 10, dedicated Bob Dylan Tempest "pop-up" stores will open for a seven day period in New York City, Los Angeles and London. At these stores, fans can purchase the new album, as well as other Bob Dylan releases and exclusive merchandise commemorating these week-long events, including a limited quantity of CDs hand-signed by Bob Dylan.

Bob Dylan Tempest stores will be open from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Monday, September 10 so that fans can buy Tempest a full day in advance of its official release, and will remain open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Sunday, September 16. Stores will be located at the following U.S. locations:
819 Washington Street, New York, NY 10014
7763 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90046
A Bob Dylan Tempest store will also open in London on Monday, September 10 and remain open through Monday, September 17 at the following location:
47 Beak Street, London, W1F 9SE

none of the PR surrounding this release makes any sense to me (ERK on that silly tv show trailer, weird video, what you just said, lame overpriced bundles http://www.myplaydirect.com/bobdylan) BUT fortunately the songs sound good. I'm guessing Dylan has nothing to do with anything but the music.

dylan's idea for a PR stunt was a civil war reenactment flash mob in times square but the city said no.

haha, if only...

RS 5 http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/tempest-20120830

lecherous and treacherous

I like will hermes alot and he's hardly old guard rolling stone

"Narrow Way" is one of Dylan's most potent rockers in years, and it borrows a chorus from the Mississippi Sheiks' 1934 blues "You'll Work Down to Me Someday."

Maybe after Modern Times debate now press material includes list of references?

five star hyperbole aside, that review is exciting. "one of his weirdest albums ever"!

just leaked i think

nodata dot tv

Anyone checked out one of the pop-up listening locations? I might try to get to the one here in town tomorrow or Wednesday.

god "soon after midnight" is just so dreamy and creepy and brilliant like a perverse 70 year olds interpretation of the same feelings that birthed "walkin after midnight"

"narrow way" is a beast, reminds me of "tombstone blues" without all the cultural references

At this point, you can't convince me that 'Duquesne Whistle' isn't 'Dookie Whistle' and it's just Bob singing about his butthole.

like v much the recurring "watchman" in the titanic song, who sleeps through everything: "he dreamed the titanic was sinking / and he tried to tell someone".

also very pleased that the much-hyped dicaprio reference involves rhyming "leo" w "clio"

and he uses "balustrade" in the same line as "chandelier"

"Duquesne Whistle" is actually one of the weakest songs.

On first listen this is a real corker of a record. Though that John Lennon tribute is not done any favors by having to follow "Tempest".

I didn't get this record.

I like all the comeback albums, even Together Through Life, but the only song on this I remember as being particularly memorable was Duquesne Whistle. There's just not a lot of melody on this album. It's mostly him just spouting verse after verse after verse. I don't think anything here truly stacks up against Thunder On The Mountain, Not Dark Yet, Workingman Blues No. 2, or Mississippi.

I dunno. I'll listen to it again later.

I mean, the words are good, but the music is tasteful/far too restrained bar band stuff. Narrow Way deserves to rock a lot more than it actually does.

I liked the last album, but hated "Duquesne Whistle" so have my doubts about the rest of this one.

in case that leak gets removed, here's legit, streaming til release day (haven't listened yet, am experimenting w delayed gratification re doing homework)
itunes.com/bobdylan

Bumping this--as ^^ says, streaming free on iTunes.

intriguing description of recent concert
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/arts/music/a-jovial-dylan-celebrates-reopening-of-capitol-theatre.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Farts%2Fmusic%2Findex.jsonp

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2012/09/06/arts/06dylan-1/06dylan-1-articleLarge-v2.jpg
new album is sounding good!

title track is definitely deep into some basement tapes vibes -- "sign on the cross" comes to mind.

oh wait, not the title track "Long and Wasted Years" is what i meant.

god his growling and heaving on "Pay in Blood" = hilarious

this album is pretty great, i gotta admit.

all his latest albums are overcompressed to the point of vomit

"Roll On John" is almost as wretched as "Lenny Bruce" and "Early Roman Kings" doesn't do anything with its "I woke up this morning" blues style. The rest is terrific.

"Long and Wasted Years" is great.

the whole thing should be about 20 minutes shorter, i'll admit.

all his latest albums are overcompressed to the point of vomit

yeah, but that's true of a lot of contemporary records.

(his aren't as bad as bruce springsteen's in this regard.)

Huh I've never thought that....wrt dylans records

yeah, i feel like they sound pretty spacious. i don't know, i am not sensitive to that stuff though.

Ditto. Modern Times and Together Through Life are definitely louder than their immediate predecessors, but not in a brickwally way.

http://www.emusician.com/folk/0802/recording-bob-dylan/139370

Interesting to read that a lot of the atmosphere of those records stems from the instruments bleeding into Bob's mic.

am I wrong in thinking I hear less instrumental flourishes on Tempest than on the others? It sounds monolithic: Dylan and the wall of sound churning behind him.

I listened to the itunes stream for couple songs but decided to wait.

That recording article is really interesting.

Listening to modern times note on my stereo, sounds good to me

I saw him live recently, around the time of that NY show reviewed above; he played some interesting piano, mostly I liked it but sometimes it just got in the way of Sexton's guitar. He was in great voice though, very full-throated. No songs from Tempest yet.

am I wrong in thinking I hear less instrumental flourishes on /Tempest/ than on the others? It sounds monolithic: Dylan and the wall of sound churning behind him.

Yeah I noticed this most on tin angel in particular. His singing on that song is great though.

iTunes isn't letting me play this, seems to be working OK otherwise, anybody else having the same prob?

The link in the first paragraph here worked for me. (If you just search for it on iTunes, it takes you to the album page which doesn't have working links to the songs yet.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-bob-dylans-new-album-tempest-20120905

Yeah, that's the same link I xposted, but it didn't work for me 'til I just now opened it in Safari. Lots and lots of pungent lines from the old gent prowling every compartment of the 5:19. So many zingers, or ones that at least kept me listening, getting immersed in the overall effect, overall *sound*, the vibe x physical components, the imagery incl in both categories ("pungent", "compartments, yeah). So, despite the lack of solos, the music is strongly supportive (can even tell most of the tracks from each other).
All seems like a set-up, not for a prank, but to get me ready to board the Titanic. Not unlike a barroom sway along presented by the Pogues, also the kinds of things that were written soon after the sinking, and given Scorcese/Sergio Leone focus; splintery, pulpy sentiment, for the top-of-the-heap Sunday morning tabloids, and Once Upon A Time In The Atlantic. Itself a set-up for "Roll On John": "From the Liverpool docks..." He did make it to New York, unlike the Titanic, to share the universal mystery of each person's daeth, thus the way he (might as well be) conjectured as being bound like a slave, rolling through the cave, "shine on." I'll drink to that.

I think he's as serious and droll as he means to be, maybe needs to be, but I'll have to listen some more. Which is as it should be of course, in part to wrap my head around that sell. like I said, it's an immersive effect, the Dylan Show, as much as we're gonna get in the studio, unless he includes the live approach, and starts screwing with material he's just introduced us to. Do it!

i like the concept of an album where he does controversially unrecognizable versions of the songs on the same album, i.e. songs nobody has heard yet.

that's some borges-esque shit.

Thinkin he could do it straight, then gradually take it apart, though not quite unrecognizable--like Vince Gilligan's pitch to AMC re Breaking Bad, "Mr. Chips turns into Scarface." But as that happens, we see it's still the same guy, different components of his personality roiling around. Very disturbing--and some people online are having trouble letting go Mr. BB as a complicated hero--like letting go of your own Mr. D.

the characters in the songs, incl the narrators, begin to morph--the killer sounds so sweet, Grandpa Bob gets operatic--

man i can't even parse your previous comment.

via wfmu's frow show, "Soon After Midnight"'s music is a pretty direct crib of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SmZedG9sVw

xgau:

Although his voice is crumbling audibly and his band is too often static, Dylan remains one of our more thoughtful wordslingers in the ever-changing trad mode he's made his own. Still, the meme that this album is a major statement where Together Through Life was a holding action bespeaks the unseen hand of the autohype machine and the superstitious fears that attend 70th birthdays. Although the four trad relationship numbers that open build nicely on Together Through Life's strategy and groove, the closers aim higher with dubious-to-disgracef​​ul results. For all its well-borrowed tune and well-digested details, nobody's putting the 14-minute Titanic ballad on repeat, and the seven-minute John Lennon dirge says nothing at half speed just like the naysayers neigh. That leaves four tracks, and how much you admire this record will depend on how redolent you find two of them: the quiet jeremiad "Scarlet Town" and the quieter love-triangle cut-'em-up "Tin Angel." I say they'd be better faster, possibly. As for "Early Roman Kings," a black-comedy dis of the rich and richer, and "Pay in Blood," folk-music death metal via sanguinary imagery and microphone placement, you gotta love 'em. B PLUS

via Stereogum

http://stereogum.com/1146641/premature-evaluation-bob-dylan-tempest/franchises/premature-evaluation/

http://static.music.cbc.ca/v2/blogs/images/32/32837/talkin-dylan-ice-t_16x9_620x350.jpg

While in Toronto to promote the film, Ice-T revealed that his favourite Dylan song is “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from the 1965 LP Bringing it All Back Home.

“When I first got my record deal, Seymour Stein, head of Sire Records who signed Ramones, Madonna and Ministry, he told me I sounded like Bob Dylan. He compared me to Bob Dylan because of my storytelling. And I knew who Bob Dylan was, so I took it as a compliment. And I love that song. It's just a rap, man.

“You know what else about Bob Dylan is that he said something really nice about me in his book Chronicles. Since I’ve been doing music, I’ve gotten compliments from people like him or Bono, and it’s always weird when you get compliments from people from a whole other genre or time. It’s definitely something you take to heart and appreciate.”

Dunno if it's a xpost xgau major statement, but when Dyl's on his game, he still satisfies in a way nobody else quite does, therefore it's currently a leading contendah for my P&J, which is never about perfection.

I want to ask about the controversy over your quotations in your songs from the works of other writers, such as Japanese author Junichi Saga's Confessions of a Yakuza, and the Civil War poetry of Henry Timrod. In folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition, but some critics say that you didn't cite your sources clearly. What's your response to those kinds of charges?

Oh, yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It's true for everybody, but me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who's been reading him lately? And who's pushed him to the forefront? Who's been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it's so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It's an old thing – it's part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.

Seriously?

I'm working within my art form. It's that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It's called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-strikes-back-at-critics-20120912#ixzz26Gfbn1IT

wussies and pussies!

All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.

Should be title of next Chronicles.

can we poll the two options?

It's really weird and arresting when this guy actually makes any kind of public statement, especially one as outspoken as this. He spends most of his life being so aloof and inscrutable and then when something like this comes out it's like WHAM.

I love Gospel Dylan so much.

WUSSIES AND PUSSIES

haha wow!

just stopped by electric fetus and got tempest on CD, sounding good so far! love long & narrow way!

WUSSIES AND PUSSIES

tipsy mothra can this please be the title of the Dylan tracks poll?

frankly it's really hard to tell fake dylan quotes from real dylan quotes. i find myself staring into that uncanny valley whenever i read interviews with him.

dylan OTM obviously, but do i detect a little protest-too-much in that interview?

Wussies, Pussies, and Motherfuckers: The Bootleg Series, Vol. X [3 CD]

Kind of imagine he was grinning while saying all of that. Don't know if he was pounding his fist on the table or anything.

!!!!!!

after 'tempest' today i played through some of the theme time radio hour extras from the last album, so i could totally hear dylan's voice saying all that shit just now.

"All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell," he said with a good natured laugh.

best lost verse from subterranean homesick blues ever

"That said," Dylan added, "Fuck Jimmy Page. That guy's a fuckin' thief."

i read a bunch of the RS interview thru the expecting rain site & some of it is super, mega weird & rad, in the same vain. he talks about having been transfigured by his motorbike accident & encourages the interviewer to read into his recorder from a hells angels bio that mentions a Bobby Zimmerman's automotive fatality.

Dylan brought his own recorder to the interview? Cool, hope he was playing guitar while the guy was reading that. "Fuck you," he explained.

Mikal Gilmore brings out the best in Dylan, I must say.

I cannot wait to read this

Dylan brought his own recorder to the interview? Cool, hope he was playing guitar while the guy was reading that. "Fuck you," he explained.

― dow, Wednesday, 12 September 2012 22:16 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i remember reading a dylan interview, p recent, where apparently he was plucking on a guitar throughout. conversation turned to irving berlin & he started playing blue skies. this isn't super relevant but i would love to see dylan fuck around on a guitar playing standards.

I cannot wait to read this

― kornrulez6969, Thursday, 13 September 2012 00:57 (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i need to finish it it's killer. really hoping it turns out that dylan's ~reclusive mysticism~ turns out to be a PR strategy to manage him & prevent him talking shit to the press.

interview makes me think...are there any dylan songs w/ swearing in em?

There's a shit in Hurricane.

"Hey Judas, don't make it bad-ass.."

Everyone's dreams have come true!

LEX ON BOB DYLAN!

Okay, great headline.

so proud, so smug, so uncomprehending

Yes but about lex.

so proud, so smug, so uncomprehending

that's exactly what i thought too!

bah ned xp

xpost Why? Cos he doesn't like Dylan and doesn't give a shit? In exactly the way many Dylan fans would feel about the lyricists he loves?

i tried to be nice, i said dylan had potential :)

'there are people who don't understand our music, so we can not understand theirs!' is not so rewarding a critical posture, ithappens.

trying to give dylan notes on the rudiments of vocal performance just makes you sound like you have broken ears.

That comments box thread is going to be an absolute humdinger.

I liked Dylan's last album. But Lex is right - this one sucks.

You make it sound like he would like the last one.

There's a serious point in the piece: if Dylan is the great popular artist of the last 50 years, should his art not be accessible to even those not steeped in"Dylanology"? I like classic rock. I have plenty of Bob Dylan records. I don't enjoy the records he makes now. Why does that make me the failure, rather than him?

how about neither of you?

we are all failures, let's be really real

We're all motherfuckers who can rot in hell.

I'll get me coat.

i know it's hard to ignore the slavish praise that the dude gets all the time now, but hey if it's not your thing, you probably shouldn't feel bad about it. funny thing about dylan being "the great popular artist of the last 50 years" is that he really isn't that popular, at least relative to other "popular" artists. he's got a certain cultural cache, but he's more like the ultimate cult artist.

Words are fit rigidly to the metre

lol lex I love you but you have literally no idea what meter is if you think this about Dylan. I'll be happy to show you metrical substitutions in, hazarding a guess here, every song he's ever written.

funny thing about dylan being "the great popular artist of the last 50 years" is that he really isn't that popular, at least relative to other "popular" artists

yeah this is something i mentioned - since 2001, when i first tried him out, he has literally cropped up in my everyday life (which is v music-oriented obv) two or three times max. literally two people in my social circles give a shit about him, i think. it's not like he's fucking radiohead or something

xp i intend to listen to no further b-dyl songs in my life i have sacrificed enough years on this

but what about When Bob Dylan dies

Lex I think writing about things you love brings out way better qualities of your writing, for me at least.....also it's pretty hard to believe you came to this album and writing this piece with anything other than a takedown in mind before your heard a note

Also it's not like this album is being met without criticism in the dylan fan camp

I’m a huge Dylan fan — and I like the album, although it doesn’t compare to Love and Theft or Modern Times — but I have no problem with Lex’s review. Most critics are far too reverential when it comes to reviewing Dylan (the 5-star RS review was as ridiculous as it was predictable).

What exactly do you think the Guardian were expecting when they commissioned him?

SOMETHING IS HAPPENING HERE, BUT YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS, DO YOU, MISTER MACPHERSON?

What exactly do you think the Guardian were expecting when they commissioned him?

― Matt DC, Thursday, September 13, 2012 10:03 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Of course! That's why the whole thing is so boring

At least the npr interns thing had the charm of young kids that genuinely seemed to engage

all the guardian has got left is trolling its ageing beardie readers, basically

The way the question is framed is kind of interesting, I think.

I mean the Lex likes Leonard Cohen so it's not as if he's entirely opposed to engaging with literate old folky dudes who can't really sing.

Still, lyrics have always been key to my love of music – the deftly drawn character sketch, the well-chosen phrase that turns a song's narrative inside out, the intoxicating love of language, all excavating emotionally resonant insights out of words and melody

The thing is lex, Dylan used to be able to do all those things. He can't any more, admittedly, but there are plenty of examples of that kind of thing in his back catalogue

Haha and Tom Waits for that matter.

i dunno, i don't mind the "guy who doesn't care about bob dylan, what do you think about the new bob dylan album" approach, but this seems more like "guy who does not care about the last 80+ years of American music, what do you think about this album that is steeped in that music". (maybe i'm wrong, maybe lex is a huge carter family fan)

and that one (1) nick cave album

guy who does not care about the last 80+ years of American music

but i love nicki minaj

Today I learned that dylan isn't a very good singer and sometimes critically overpraised....man hard lessons....gotta pick up the pieces and start all over....*throws coat over shoulder, walks away down dirt road*

Well, Nicki Minaj doesn't seem to care about 400+ years of American slavery so it all fits.

Lex, with all due respect, is about the last person on the planet I'd turn to for an informed commentary on Bob Dylan.

or indeed on any planet

Tyler, lex likes a lot of the early old school hip hop singles too, like ”the rain” by missy elliot

what a completely worthless article!!!!

It is really amusing watching people attempt eyerolling boredom when they're clearly really annoyed.

Dude in the comments box has ruined the thread by claiming Dylan used to be the vocal equivalent of Marvin Gaye and Dusty Springfield, a challop so big that even the Dylan fans are pointing and laughing.

xxp yeah haha, i meant to write american folk/blues/country/rock n roll/r&b/jazz etc. whatevs! i think it's ok for some people to not like bob dylan. even if it makes you a bad person deep down.

I am absolutely sure that lex meant to set the matter definitively to rest.

I mean I think he was (was) a great vocalist in his way, not remotely a great singer

But he works with what he's got pretty well still

I cannot listen to cohen anymore

With waits, it's like if you sing in a fake voice for so long it becomes your real voice

Dylan's focus on set design and costumes at the expense of his principals' internal motivations and emotions leaves me cold

lex, how don't set designs and costumes reveal motivations and emotions?

"Dude in the comments box" double-ruined thread by dissing Celine Dion.

i intend to listen to no further b-dyl songs in my life i have sacrificed enough years on this

that's fine, but you shouldn't say things that are demonstrably not true just because they flesh out the number of un-nice things you want to say. your remark about meter is an "either this is true or untrue" one; it's untrue, not a matter of opinion.

I can't remember where, but there's a thread on ILX where someone drops the truth bomb that hardcore stans of people with 'difficult' voices (Cohen / Waits / Dylan / Reed / Murdoch) will always go "no you don't understand, the voice is the best part!"

Hefty dose of "lady, if you have to ask" as well.

Damn. I'm traveling now and this is the thread that will get 600 updates in two hours :(

who's murdoch? the dude from belle and sebastian?

lex, how don't set designs and costumes reveal motivations and emotions?

you tell me! in film, they are not things i've ever paid much attention to

great metaphor, bro

xpost i see how that's a fun observation but do you think stans lie when they say that the voice is the best part?

how do you love cohen/waits/dylan/reed/young without loving the voices?

I can accept that a lot of people do love the voices (I like early Dylan and late Cohen vocals a lot) but a) they're clearly not for everyone and b) most of those stans wouldn't care that much in the first place were it not for the quality of the songwriting.

hmmm...I dunno. Usually with Dylan it's (a) voice (b) musicians. For me.

Haha Young = I only really love the Dead Man soundtrack.

I think that 'lie' is completely the wrong way to look at it - they may are probably 100% right that it's what they prefer, but convincing someone that they have to get further than 'tolerate the voice' to start getting into the rest of the package is not generally helpful.

I really revel in Dylan's set designs and costumes whenever he's on stage. I understand a production of Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid On Ice is currently in preparation.

I don't give a damn if somebody's a skeptic tbh. Right now it's the aging hippies and lit majors who piss me off more than the skeptics (e.g. Christopher Ricks and his damn Eliot analogies).

a) they're clearly not for everyone
are there any vocals that are "for everyone"?

Al Green?

No idea. Champ Butler maybe?

I think we can all agree on blaming lit majors

and the sixties

the wussies and the pussies

gimme a lit major over a Nikki Minaj fan any day of the week

what's Edwina Currie got to do with all this?

countdown to the bob dylan vs. nikki minaj poll starts now

i think there are maybe lit majors who are nicki minaj fans out there - they'd probably know how to spell her name anyway

i love björk but her voice is so obviously "not for everyone"

Gotta love Nicki Minaj's forthcoming Empty Chair album.

I know of no dylan fans who claim his voice now is ideal

i know how to spell nick menage than you very much

i love his voice now!

nicki melange

If only there were some suitably reverential Bob Dylan reviews I could read to calm my outrage about this.

well this is quite a tempest!!

The one in Uncut should meet your needs. It's a stunning return to form and his strongest work in years, apparently.

John Mulvey of Uncut offers this interesting critique on his, um, blog.

Listening to “Tempest”, I can’t help wishing that one element Dylan would stop borrowing is the tradition of misogyny and objectification that is a recurring detail in a good few of these songs. Perhaps some of the more critical reviewers of the album could have examined this, rather than predicating their pieces on the apparent wrongheadedness of other reviewers, whose enthusiasm evidently doesn’t have the required ironic distance from the record.

Translation - "I hate Alexis Petridis"

we will never agree on anything again like we agree on the awfulness of petridis

I know of no dylan fans who claim his voice now is ideal

I love it. And it keeps getting better.

lit majors like Bob dylan & niki meange are the worst

Actually I think Lex's take on the lyrics in particular is pretty interesting, because it highlights how problematic it has always been to talk about Dylan as some kind of literary figure. He absolutely is one of the greatest lyricists of all time (even though he's also written plenty of lame, lazy stuff), but trying to say exactly how or why is not a straightforward thing. It isn't about storytelling, exactly -- tho he's written good story songs -- or "characters" either, which are usually enigmatic and symbolic (and often just one-liners).

If you think something like "Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" is a great piece of writing, and I do, then you should be able to say why. But it's not easy, and I can imagine Lex or any other non-initiate reading the lyrics and saying, "So what? A few half-assed jokes, some borrowed mythology, big deal."

On the singing, of course, I'm in that camp that thinks he's one of the greatest singers of any kind in the last half-century. His voice is shot, obviously, but his phrasing is still sharp and I think in some ways he's gotten better with age. So I can't relate to any complaints on those fronts.

I think shakedown is otm wrt voice status but isn't it almost magical how he still makes it work?

I think he's similar to Sinatra in the way he seems able to sing anything with ease.

" ... avuncular, the wry cackle of a codger who still has an eye for the ladies. [...] a raspy, phlegmy bark that’s not exactly melodic and by no means welcoming." —John Pareles, New York Times

" ... his zombie bullfrog holler" —Sean Daly, Tampa Bay Times

" … a battered instrument that sounds like a hoarse Fred Sanford after an all-night fight with Lamont." —Howard Cohen, Miami Herald"

" ... a gargle of a vocal ... " —Jim Fusili, Wall Street Journal

" … sounds as if he's been gargling with gravel for the last several decades." —Dan DeLuca, Philly.com

" ... sounds like he's been eating nuts and bolts for the past half-century ... " —Randall Roberts, L.A. Times' Pop & Hiss

" … fury and his ruined larynx combine to remarkable effect. The opening line comes out as a terrifying, incomprehensible growl that sounds like one of those death-metal vocalists in full flight." —Alex Pettridis, The Guardian

" ... like David Johansen after three packs of Pall Malls." —Justin, ChunkyGlasses.com

" ... At times it sounds (and seems) like this is Bob Dylan-pretending-to-be-Tom Waits-pretending-to-be Bob Dylan." —Simon Sweetman, Blog on the Tracks

"He sounds tubercular." —Jim Farber, New York Daily News

dylan is no sinatra

Alex Pettridis should stick to reviewing Nicky Melange iyam

Lol no but maybe Sinatra comes to mind when you listen to how Dylan delivers the lyrics freely in what sounds almost improvisational but still never misses a beat or something.

Can't tell if those blurbs are positive or negative but most of them are pretty good.

dunno i dont listen to dylan

I am actually listening to this now and only a couple of songs in but he actually sounds quite a bit like Louis Armstrong. It's a pretty good look for him.

the riverboat gambler look he rocks now is so #swag

I like the first few tracks on this but the songs get pretty repetitive and dull after Long And Wasted Years. I've not really paid any attention to recent Dylan albums so I've no idea how this stacks up against them, but you'd certainly struggle to make a case for him being a great artist based on this record alone.

That's a given but you could make a case that the record is really good. For me it's less repetitive with every listen (lol parad0x).

DiS has a nice one abt the voice "It’s like your grandfather telling stories about days gone by. No, he most certainly doesn’t sound pretty. But you find yourself snagged on every gnarled and crooked word." Hehe.

I love his voice too.

guys did you know lex does not like Dylan

you may also be shocked to learn that he has uninformed opinions of roughly 75%(*) of music made in the 20th century

(* statistic derived from extensive, scientific database analyses of lex's ILM posts)

dylan's voice is unendingly hilarious, hardly any singer is more fun to sing along to or has been so fun to sing along to in as many different senses over his career

the big peaks on this album are "pay in blood" and "early roman kings" and in both cases it's mostly for the vocals: "early roman kings" for things like his vincent price voice on "tomorrow is friday / WE'LL SEE WHAT IT BRINGS" (i assume this is a crucifixion joke) and "pay in blood" for just being totally absurd, like that one live version of "high water" on tell tale signs where he's like HIWUHAHTEREVVVVVVVVVRYHUHWHURRRRRRRRRRRRR. ("pay in blood" is probably better, it is much lusher and prettier musically than almost everything else on the album, but i am a sucker for all the evil cartoon plutocrat stuff in "early roman kings", and for how well it works Primary Dylan Gimmick of collapsing image systems, maybe a polite phrase for cliches, into each other, so that american-progressive-era robber-baron caricatures and modern conspicuous consumption and the tarquins and the caesars and rock stars and finally bob dylan are smeared across each other into a single big hallucination). lots of other stuff on the first half is gorgeous too but in the end i don't think much of the big ambitious ones at the end -- some stuff i like a lot in the title track but the melody drives me insane. prefer "tin angel" because the gore's better. the less said about the lennon thing the better.

i do love his pronunciation of "quarterdeck".

I thought Lex's Dylan review was pretty good. I don't know if I agree with it, since I haven't heard "Tempest" yet, but I could understand someone having a similar reaction to, say, "Together Through Life". I thought he sounded a bit uninspired on that one. I loved "Modern Times" and most of "Love and Theft", but even there, I think you have to be quite sensitized to the subtle nuances in what's left of Dylan's voice to appreciate his delivery these days.

the vocals MAKE this album. Y'all know that.

the music is really bizarre. totally repetitive, but with the most minor unique flourishes here an there. they're SO minor, ya wonder why they bothered... but they did... and then they go back to playing the exact same thing in the exact same way for another 32 bars.

Buncha weirdos!

I enjoyed the Dylan vocal onomatopoeia in "difficult listening hour"s post above.

Speed the backing tracks up to 78 rpm and sometimes it could be Extreme Noise Terror.

so this thing got published, huh.

i've scarcely read anything on a putatively "respectable" website so flip, so uncomprehending, so sure of its own contrarian brilliance and yet so devoid of insight, so filled with hasty and erroneous generalization, misdescription, false analogy -- and that's just in the first few paragraphs. i couldn't read any more.

i'm sure you're a nice guy and all, alex, and no doubt you have family and friends that love you, and talents galore. but good fucking lord are you a horrible writer. thanks for wasting a few minutes of my life.

re. dylan's voice, it does sound like each individual drop of phlegm has been close-mic'ed.

this album is wearing a little thin after a bunch of plays. i'm just not hearing new stuff in the arrangements or even in his phrasing. and there are only really four or five tracks that really satisfy. i doubt i'll be listening to this very much in the future. but it still one of his better late albums, i suppose.

everyone talks as though writing sensitively about lyrics is so hard. it takes time and effort, and it helps to have training in scansion and prosody, but it's not really all that difficult. just most rock critics can't or won't expend the effort, governed as they are by quick judgements/challenging opinions® and looming deadlines.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pbkjw1mWsRE

Lex is a very good writer when he writes about what he knows or is interested in. I go by his recommendations for a lot of things, but not in relation to Bob Dylan.

Ha, amateurist, you are right about that article. Sentences like A sole ill-fated attempt to get into him – in my defence I was an easily misled 18-year-old, still briefly beholden to the Greatest Albums Ever lists churned out by the music press – ended two-and-a-half songs into a best-of compilation with me flinging the CD out of the window, outraged that anyone could have the temerity to sing like that and call it art, in which - almost marvellously - every significant word is an ugly cliche make me want to "fling something out of a window".

I think the central fault here is whoever commissioned him to do a purposely challops piece to wind up Grauniad readers.

i'd say the fault is shared between editor and author. but i take your point.

Anyone read the RS cover story? Does this interpretation jive with reality?

i think you mean jibe

Yes.

At the news stand yesterday the guy said he was sold out!

got tickets for his verizon center show in dc, never seen him before, figured i would regret it if he croaks soonish

i just got tix for the colorado show. what the heck! he better be playing some of the new stuff. weirdly, this last tour saw him breaking back into together through life after ignoring it aside from "forgetful heart" for the last two years or so.

the real controversy about this is "ellen allien, the legendary techno producer"...

is there anyone in the comments who's like "SHE DOESN'T EVEN PLAY HER OWN INSTRUMENTS COME ON"

i was pleasantly surprised to read in these comments the nicest guardian BTL post about me i've ever seen!

I bet Bob Dylan could make a better record with Tobias Freund xpost.

well this is quite a tempest!!

― goole, Thursday, September 13, 2012 8:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

got tickets for his verizon center show in dc, never seen him before, figured i would regret it if he croaks soonish

He's guaranteed to croak all the way through the show. Whether you'll regret it, it's hard to say.

On first pass at this album, seems good-not-great. Several nice tunes and good lines, and the degradation of his voice is made entirely worthwhile by crypt-opening gargle at the start of "Pay in Blood." And a good-not-great late-period Dylan album is still plenty to be happy about.

Love and Theft >> Modern Times >> Tempest >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Together Through Life (which I don't even own anymore)

xpost

Also interesting that his "late period" now is maybe his longest period, if you count it from Good as I Been to You forward. Tho arguably Good as I Been and World Gone Wrong are really their own interstitial phase. Even counting from Time Out of Mind, it's 15 years of sustained good-to-great work.

Alfred I'd go with that ranking except swapping the first two.

i'd say this is about the same as together through life, quality wise....though a far different record....this has some super highs and super lows, where together through life is pleasantly medium mostly

Time has proven Dylan TOOM correct: it wasn't part of any trilogy or tetrology.

*tetralogy

TOOM is part of the yet to be completed Lanois trilogy. the last installment is called "Lost At The Bottom of a Well"

Love & Theft > Christmas In The Heart > Tempest = Together Through Life > Modern Times (which I don't even own anymore)

I kinda hate Modern Times except for a song or two. Easily my least favorite Dylan vocal recording of the "late period".

o_O

Love & Theft = Time Out of Mind > Modern Times > Together Through Life > Tempest >>>>>>>> Christmas

i don't think dylan's voice is egregiously limited / ruined-sounding on any of the recent albums after love and theft. it's obviously not what it once was but he's figured out how to work with it. i don't listen to love and theft much but it always sounds to me like he's imprisoned in like a two or three note range.

I have no complaints about Dylan's voice on this record. "Pay in Blood" might be the best setting for it since L&T.

It's a good record, but not in the same universe as Love and Theft. The title track is like Lily Rosemary

aero, speaking as a guy who has been known to teach poetry, imo lex just means "all his lines have basically the same number of syllables and I can hear regular patterns"

now if he returns to this thread and gets all "I have a double first from Oxbridge and my paper on Milton's early versification was published in a special edition by the Scansion Society!" then I'll take it back.

but I'm betting I'm right.

why doesn't somebody start a poll to pick one song by Dylan lex would like? I nominate "Visions of Johanna"...

whoops, thead is dead )-:

I can't really think of a dylan song lex would like & also I think lex really doesn't want to even listen to dylan

got this today; engineered by Scott Litt!

OK I've listened to this once through now and I love the Titanic song and "Pay In Blood" makes me wish Dylan would record another gospel album.

I can't really think of a dylan song lex would like & also I think lex really doesn't want to even listen to dylan

i don't really

no one as far as i can tell has responded to my main criticisms re: being overly, tediously descriptive and cardboard characters

I think you personally like an awful lot of music with overly tediously descriptive and cardboard characters, albeit not much of it is held up by the lyrics as poetry crew. But this all sort of feeds into something that was in the Petridis review about the bar for 'great Dylan lyrics' having become ridiculously low over the years.

I don't think it's overly descriptive and the characters being cardboard, I guess they are viewed from a certain distance but I mean he's writing an old style folk disaster ballad, so it fits imo

But I mean you like the paris hilton album and all of a sudden you're picky about singing chops & evocative lyrics....like just admit you got a chance to troll in a major newspaper and get paid for it, that's awesome...but your rhetorical style wrt, to quote andrew sullivan I think is ”the closest weapon at hand”

I like the Titanic disaster song and am aware of it's lineage in the folk tradition of topical death songs but couldn't stop thinking of William McGonagall's poem 'The Tay Bridge Disaster' when listening to it.

calling anything "boring" is truly one of the worst and most useless criticisms there is.

you popping up in every thread to snipe at me in that underhanded, cunty way is defintiely one of the worst and most useless posting habits there is

it's nothing personal, i just happen to actually disagree with you on a huge number of things.

like the worth and use of everything i do? yeah that's not personal

i don't know what else you do besides write pieces like the above so i wouldn't say everything, no.

no one as far as i can tell has responded to my main criticisms re: being overly, tediously descriptive and cardboard characters

Contrary to your review, I don't think Dylan's lyrics work better on the page. I think they're written to be sung, and personally I think the way Dylan sings "The Tempest" is very effective. In this song his grizzled voice contributes to the overall effect. A youthful voice would not convey the same sense of world-weary acceptance - even jauntiness - about the prospect of impending doom. I'm not sure what you mean about it being "tediously descriptive". Perhaps you mean that there's not a lot of action. I think it's supposed to be a fairly static picture - one moment frozen in time - ie., the moment before the boat strikes the iceberg. So its supposed to be mainly descriptive. There's not much plot, and we all know the ending from the beginning. As far as cardboard characters, I don't think it's supposed to be a character study either. So what is it supposed to be? I guess it's part of the long lineage of disaster folk songs, from "Casey Jones" on down. Within Dylan's ouevre, it's also somewhat reminiscent of "Desolation Row", I think.

I am as excited to read lex's opinions on Dylan as he would be to read my opinions on Britney

xp a lineage that can trace itself back to a 1970 Grateful Dead song

I am as excited to read lex's opinions on Dylan as he would be to read my opinions on Britney

I'd love to read your opinions on Britney!

xp not sure if you're joking but there are a lot of other, older songs that are about casey jones.

^^^

my opinions on Britney are about as uninformed and prejudiced as lex's are about dylan so I'm not sure it would really be enjoyable for everybody plus I would actually have to devote some time to suffering through multiple albums of her material (as opposed to just being periodically irritated by her singles being played in public spaces) so uh no

His views on this album are informed by listening to this album, in fairness. Do you expect him to absorb a history of American Music if the last Century to really place it in the 'appropriate' context? Are said histories being available for a reduced price from retailers if you buy this album?

lex has made it abundantly clear he has no interest in musical history

in reduced-price format or otherwise

I feel that we are not entirely communicating here.

And anyway that's not true - he's just not that interested in a lot of the canon. Things that inform music that he actually enjoys is different, I believe.

xp yeah I'm joking, I dont know enough about early 20c indigenous American musical forms to be able to elucidate any kind of point with clarity, but my kneejerk reaction is that anyone trying to trace a lineage of folk tradition through the latter part of last century and the start of this one and ending up with late Dylan is not really doing it right

I do like lex's article which sort of my sort of prima facie assumption about late Dylan--mainly, that you get out of it what you put into it.

I also am amused about how everyone is shocked and appalled by his review, considering that the dude didn't just foreground his review in his utter distaste, but actually admitted on a widely-read national publication that he was confused a few years back as to whether Dylan was still alive or not. #1 great thing about lex is the self-effacing, almost cheerful willingness to confess his limitations and allow them to undercut the authority of his withering dismissals

which sort of supports my prima facie assumption

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbTBk4pDIHA

no shit shakes

comedy xps

right on, sorry

cardboard characters

Weird criticism imo. These are songs, not movies or novels. You're not going to get Madame Bovary. I love it when a character in a song seems to live and breathe (like, as it happens, a ton of earlier Dylan songs) but I don't expect it.

it's weird that lex doesn't grasp that DYLAN is the character that's important. (does Lex parse Rihanna songs for their in-depth characterizations? idgi)

xp a lineage that can trace itself back to a 1970 Grateful Dead song

Haha, I thought of that too after I posted it. Though there are obviously earlier versions of "Casey Jones", I'm not claiming it as the earliest or best example of this tradition, just the one that first came to mind (and one that's probably pretty well known to people who aren't folk musicologists). Whether or not it should even count as a "disaster song" is also debatable since I believe only Casey himself dies in the crash. Some better examples might be Dylan's own "Talkin' Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues" or even songs about the Titanic itself like "When That Great Ship Went Down".

this set is highly recommended
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/images/PTWcover.jpg
http://www.tompkinssquare.com/people_take.html

tompkins square is such an awesome label

For a recent example, there's also Frank Black's "St. Francis Dam Disaster".

Thanks Tyler! This is a good round-up too, incl some stuff might've influenced D.'s lyrics--"World's Biggest Metaphor Hits Iceberg" an' all:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/04/16/120416fa_fact_mendelsohn

Weird criticism imo. These are songs, not movies or novels. You're not going to get Madame Bovary. I love it when a character in a song seems to live and breathe (like, as it happens, a ton of earlier Dylan songs) but I don't expect it.

idk i DO expect a character to be brought to life in a pop song because otherwise why are they there? i expect a songwriter to delve into the complexity of their emotions and their motivations and not just describe them in stock phrases. if they're acting in a certain why or feeling a certain thing i want to know why, because that's part of making the connection to me as a listener in order for it to resonate with me.

(does Lex parse Rihanna songs for their in-depth characterizations? idgi)

i've criticised them for their lack of it! the video for "man down" is a really powerful piece of storytelling in which a party girl flirts with a man, who rapes her, and she subsequently takes murderous revenge. it's a pity how little of that ended up in the song. conversely "fire bomb" is an excellent piece of songwriting which conveys the thrill and the horror of being in a mutually destructive relationship amazingly well.

I love it when a character in a song seems to live and breathe (like, as it happens, a ton of earlier Dylan songs) but I don't expect it.

The character who lives and breathes in pretty much all of Dylan's music is Dylan. He is his own protagonist/anti-hero even when he's singing about other people. This is true of a great many songwriters, maybe all of them in one way or another. But I think especially in his later albums, he has been really honing this perspective -- this grizzled, unreliable, taunting figure who has deliberately disengaged and is just watching things happen. Not judging, except to poke fun here and there, mostly happy to keep on keeping on. That's the perspective of the last several records -- "Things Have Changed" is pretty much the late-Dylan mission statement -- and so to engage with them it helps to have some sense of who it is you're engaging with. For me some of it comes through in the words, and much more in the singing. But I can also understand people not hearing it, the same way plenty of people didn't hear what he was doing the first, second, third times around.

Well said. To examine Tempest in isolation, as Lex has done, is to miss a lot of Dylan's latter-day role as macabre, mischievous narrator - to focus too much on the tale and not enough on the teller.

"this album is much better than it sounds", #1 on ILM's rmde list for 12 years running!

some of these songs are basically like folk lungfish

"this album is much better than it sounds", #1 on ILM's rmde list for 12 years running!

Not so much that as, it sounds different depending on who's listening. Like everything! What we're talking about is just the specific ways that a Dylan album sounds different to people who know/like/get Dylan and people who don't.

DYLAN is the character that's important

principle #1

To examine Tempest in isolation, as Lex has done, is to miss a lot of Dylan's latter-day role as macabre, mischievous narrator I can't unhear all the Dylan I've heard, but I *think* I would hear Tempest this way, even if I'd never heard him before. Like I said, it's the Dylan Show, as much of it as we ever get in the studio. Hear the assertive riffage keep getting blissed out with another round of "Pay In Blood" (next stop, dead ahead: "Scarlet Town"). Sounds like he might be running for, from, with that "Duquesne Whistle," but already mentioning to his longtime companion, "You'ew like a timebomb in my heart"--hey another 9/11 release! Aleaady getting close to Carnegie hall '64, "It's Halloweeen, I got my Bob Dylan mask on." Not to suggest all of this is only for effect. No doubt the mask is armor, but the muse etc. seems like his actual ol' lady too, somewhere. He may be trying to keep her and us at a safe distance, but not out of earshot.

I agree that "Dylan" the character is always part of the context of any Dylan song (a point that Todd Haynes made perhaps a bit too forcefully in "I'm Not There"). Others on this board have done a good job of describing the latest "Dylan" manifestation on other threads. I like to imagine a sort of irascible riverboat gambler figure in a bolo tie and sharp-toed shoes who's lived too long to say anything other than exactly what he means but still likes the ladies and if you play cards with him, keep an eye on the deck.

I dunno that description sounds like a cardboard cutout

Though these tracks might work best of all, as several of his 90s/00s have, on various artists soundtracks. As tracks, that is, not however they might morph on tour.

Feel free to substitute whatever mental image works best for you - what would Dylan be without some ambiguity. xp

yeah that's the main thing.

Sorry to distract with more prosaic matters, but.... could anyone give some info on the vinyl edition? It's a single LP, right? The sticker says the package includes the CD. Is the CD packaged in any way?

idk i DO expect a character to be brought to life in a pop song because otherwise why are they there?

I think the characters in Dylan's songs sometimes are more like figures in a Hieronymous Bosch landscape.

i think it is a double album. the first six songs on the first lp, the other four on the second.

i think it would be physically impossible for this to be a single album

What we're talking about is just the specific ways that a Dylan album sounds different to people who know/like/get Dylan and people who don't.

I'm sort of wondering whether a part of some of the burt-hurtedness around here is because in 2012 there really isn't a reason to assume that someone reading a review of the album in the Guardian is someone who knows / likes / gets Dylan.

people are butthurt?

The revelation is more that in 2012 there really isn't a reason to assume that someone writing a review in the Guardian knows / likes / gets what they're talking about.

perfect timing for an example of the butthurt

xpost yeah in 2012 it's highly unlikely that any bob dylan fans read the guardian. erm what?

I know you don't "get" comedy but boxall's post was what they call a "joke"

xp

in today's uncertain world we can no longer assume human beings inhale oxygen

xpost Thanks. I haven't got this yet. Wondering whether to shell out for pricey vinyl.