Bob Dylan's least regarded albums

disease of conceit is really really bad

lyrics p dud, but at least it sounds kinda impressive

Conceit is the disease that the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it but what it is they're still not sure

lol yeah, lyrics almost drift into so bad they're good territory, but it's just bad

dunno abt "congratulations", feels like there's a strong song buried beneath a weird call/response chorus - I also feel like Dylan could've delivered more... maybe there's an acoustic bootleg somewhere?

he did it live once, but i think that's the only alternate version.
i listened to wilburies vol. 3 last week. weird record! made me wonder what a lynne-produced Under the Red Sky would've been like. Probably kinda lame, but who knows.

I'll go out on a limb and say that a Lynne-produced UTRS would have really loud, gated drums. Just a hunch, though.

pretty good odds

Conceit is the disease that the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it but what it is they're still not sure
Conceit is a sin and certainly a fright
What a sad and sickening sight

conceit seems pretty lame, that's what i'm tryin to say
oh my my, oh hey hey

man i forgot how direct the springsteen dis "tweet & the monkey man" is, "mansion on the hill", "out on thunder road", "state trooper" lol

haha wow that never occurred to me

mostly because I pay no attention to Springsteen. fun song though.

When I compiled a list of Dylan's worst a couple of these doozies made it.

The little guitar flourish at the end of "Disease of Conceit" is ace, though.

The lyric he probably wrote in the time it takes to sing them.

the singing is worse

Somebody please make a list of Dylan's all-time worst.

Alfred already did, pay attention

Here they are: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/can-you-understand-my-pain-dylans-worst-songs-2/

I could have added "Chimes of Freedom,”"

Huh. Interesting choice. What's wrong with that one?

Why u haet fun?

Alfred's list p otm except for #6, which is about where it would place on my list of Dylan's best

lol I heard fuckin "To Make You Feel My Love" at Starbucks today

Nah, "Gotta Serve Somebody" sucks. It isn't even the subject matter. The whole song, from the singing to the playing, sounds totally comatose.

Strongly disagree, I find it menacing as fuck.

That someone singing this way should be allowed near women and children?

I've always loved "gotta serve somebody" but the version that's always in my head is from the SNL appearance that year which I will still contend is fucking smokin'

https://vimeo.com/187895396

like seriously when he gets to "you may be living in another country / under another name" I practically leap from my seat it's so goddamn good

Ha was gonna bring up that SNL clip

Bass player is so great

Self Portait was the first Dylan album i ever heard and i've loved it for 45 years.

I will always love Hurricane because I picture that scene in Dazed & Confused

^^^ yes

You know, listening to Budokan for the first time and this is kinda awesome! It makes more sense now than it probably did at the time, almost reminds me of him trying to do Van Morrison style versions of his songs. Simple Twist of Fate is pretty great

I love At Budokan.

I will always love Hurricane because I picture that scene in Dazed & Confused

― blonde redheads have more fun (upper mississippi sh@kedown),

I'd love to know if "Hurricane" got airplay incommensurate with its middling chart position or it's become more famous in the last 20 years.

I assembled my best-of list here: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2016/05/25/without-ideas-or-violence-best-bob-dylan-tracks-and-albums/

Thanks. Well done as usual, but is there a typo here, did you mean to say "songs" where you you first said "albums"?

He’s a man who wrote wonderful songs and quite a few terrible albums and stuck them on albums which rejected wonderful and terrible songs like a heart might the wrong blood type.

I guess they were engaging in the usual Rolling Stone Monday morning quarterbacking when they ran that Dave Marsh review in the Rolling Stone record guide. The original Janet Maslin review is a more sympathetic and interesting read, and attempts to contextualize it with his other period live albums. Also Dave Marsh is a nerd and authenticity mongering square as far as I could ever tell.

However much they may offend purists, these latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals. And the originals — however lasting, however beautiful — constitute a terrible burden. The effect of Dylan's revisionist efforts, beginning at the time of the 1974 "comeback" tour with the Band commemorated on Before the Flood and now reaching a giddy crescendo, has been to make one realize how extraordinarily lucky Bob Dylan was as a young man.

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Bob Dylan: At Budokan

By Janet Maslin
July 12, 1979
However much they may offend purists, these latest live versions of his old songs have the effect of liberating Bob Dylan from the originals. And the originals — however lasting, however beautiful — constitute a terrible burden. The effect of Dylan's revisionist efforts, beginning at the time of the 1974 "comeback" tour with the Band commemorated on Before the Flood and now reaching a giddy crescendo, has been to make one realize how extraordinarily lucky Bob Dylan was as a young man.
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It doesn't denigrate his brilliance to say that he happened to be in the right place, of the right age, at the right time. Nor does it bode badly for his future to suppose that circumstances may never again conspire to make his voice so perfectly representative, so widely heard. His talent has changed, evolving into something more supple, less stubborn, more musical, finally leading toward an odd and private synthesis of the visionary and the mundane. Considered fairly, removed from the shadow of his past achievements, Dylan's new songs are often as lovely as the old ones. Bob Dylan at Budokan comes as a shock, a sacrilege and an unexpectedly playful bonanza. The illumination it offers is long overdue.

Bob Dylan at Budokan is also a marked departure from the live LPs that have preceded it (and the very volume of this material — three albums, five records in all, in as many years — betrays a regrettable nervousness about breaking new ground). Before the Flood was caught up in keeping the legend intact, in proving that the old lion was alive and ready to roar. Virtually every arrangement there strained to sound fierce, to beef up the old songs without really changing anything. The mood was emphatic at all costs, and sometimes — with Dylan and the Band chanting "How does it feel?" over and over in "Like a Rolling Stone" — genuinely triumphant. Later, after Before the Flood's corrective surgery removed that great big chip from his shoulder, Dylan's approach to his old songs began to sound more random, almost petulantly so. Hard Rain, the soundtrack LP from his TV special, seemed to come at a time when the Rolling Thunder Revue, so joyful and electrifying in its first performances, had just plain run out of steam.
But this time the old songs have been recast sweetly, without that self-defeating aggression, in what sounds suspiciously like a spirit of fun. The sanctimonious, Las Vegas-style bastardization of "Blowin' in the Wind" and the wise-guy tenor of the liner notes (he thanks "that sweet girl in the geisha house — I wonder does she remember me?") echo Dylan's old evasiveness, even though what used to pass for mystery in him has the look of cowardice now. But most of this two-album set is forthright, astonishingly so. Can it really be that Bob Dylan had to go all the way to Budokan, to Japan, to find an audience with a short memory, a crowd that didn't think he had anything to prove? In any case, the jig is up: he's given up trying to outdo himself and begun something new.
A lot of the older songs sound changed just for the sake of tinkering. Many of the more recent ones, like "Oh, Sister" and "One More Cup of Coffee (Valley Below)" and "Shelter from the Storm," are vastly improved, as if, when they were first recorded, they hadn't been fully thought through. "Is Your Love in Vain?", by no means the prettiest song on Dylan's much-underrated Street-Legal, is prettier still.
The method here is hit-or-miss, and the results are correspondingly spotty. "Going, Going, Gone" didn't need to be speeded up, and "I Want You" didn't need slowing down. This version of "Like a Rolling Stone" is too readily comparable to the Before the Flood track, to which it can't hold a candle. The low point of the set is "The Times They Are A-Changin'," which Dylan introduces by saying: "Thank you, you're so very kind, you really are. We'll play you this song — I wrote this, also, about fifteen years ago. It still means a lot to me. I know it means a lot to you, too."
A lot, yes. But not so much that it need be crippling. The fire and brimstone are behind Dylan, if only because his adolescence, and that of his principal audience, are things of the past. This hardly means the fight has gone out of him: Bob Dylan at Budokan is a very contentious effort — and, for the most part, a victorious one. On the evidence of the renewed energy of his new material since Blood on the Tracks, Dylan sees a world in which nothing is simple anymore, however hard (as in songs like "Hurricane" or "Joey") he tries to populate it with heroes and villains of the old school. He also has at his disposal, as demonstrated by the best songs he's written since then, the strength and artistry to grapple with his visions. And if the premature embalming properties of his fame have been an obstacle to his progress, he's done battle with those, too. Bob Dylan at Budokan clears the way.

I'd love to know if "Hurricane" got airplay incommensurate with its middling chart position or it's become more famous in the last 20 years.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, February 5, 2017 12:40 PM (eight hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember it getting a fair bit of airplay, possibly Capital Radio..

i started being a lot more sympathetic to dave marsh when i realized his favorite year for rock music was _1962_.

Also Dave Marsh is a nerd and authenticity mongering square as far as I could ever tell.

That explains why he loves PiL's Metal Box and Sun Ra.

It's, like, squaresville, daddy-o.

I WOULD LIKE TO RESCIND MY COMMENTS AND ISSUE A FORMAL APOLOGY TO MR. DAVID MARSH

Regarding a possible Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction for Kiss, Marsh said: "Kiss is not a great band, Kiss was never a great band, Kiss never will be a great band, and I have done my share to keep them off the ballot."

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Guessed.

What a bunch of bullshit. I will NEVER understand the critical hate for Self Portrait.

Oh wait, the poll was which is the BEST. Now I got it. I retract my statement.

I have been listening to my 27-year-old vinyl copy of UNDER THE RED SKY.

Does anyone else like this LP?

'Cat's in the Well' might possibly be the best track - based on a kind of retro rockabilly groove.

'Handy Dandy' a 'Rolling Stone' remake that they play pretty well.

'Unbelievable' - I like the blues riffing and the whole rhythm.

'TV Talking Song' - a highlight with its daft long narrative about Speaker's Corner.