Nasty Habits wrote on Apr 18
th, 2008 at 7:53am:
LOL - no the white stuff was his Renaldo and Clara makeup. Word is that he also used to wear a Nixon mask for a number or two.
Please don't take me as being condescending here - in fact, take it as me giving you something to look forward to, but I think that you will one day find to your surprise and delight that you are wrong about Hard Rain. I used to write it off myself, but I now think that it's his best live release prior to the advent of the Bootleg Series. It doesn't hurt to see the bootleg DVD of the TV special, because you get a sense of what an out-in-the-wilderness bunch of crazy vagabonds the RTR was at that point (minstrels in '75 but buked and scorned lookin homeless brigade by '76), and you also get three incredible (no lie!) duets with Joan Baez and an utterly out-of-it Hard Rain that aren't on the record. You also get to see Dylan playing slide on Shelter from the Storm on a crazy Jack White-lookin' plastic-y guitar. Anyway, once I started paying attention to that release with a little failure under my belt it took on a whole 'nother dimension of woozy defiant last-stand. Key tracks: Maggie, Shelter, Idiot, One Too Many Mornings.
Anyway, it's waaaaaay better than Real Live, which you didn't mention. I dug Before the Flood when I first got it, but it has faded over time for me. My favorite track on that at this point is that version of Stage Fright.
By "in the middle" I take it to mean that you've written off most everything from '84 - '97? Well, I don't disagree with you about most of the 80s (although you need to hear you New Danville Girl if you haven't) but I'll defend those two solo acoustic albums (Good As I Been and World Gone Wrong) as not only essential to the current period of in-studio and on-air creativity but as important and great Dylan records in their own right. And although Under the Red Sky is a crime against the ear I really do blame Don Was for that - somewhere in its slickass, star-riddled sound is a modest little rockin' blues album with a turned down Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughan and Dylan tellin' some pretty weird jokes.
Yeah I was kidding about the makeup, I know it was his "mask" so people wouldn't look at him the same or something. I just don't like a lot of the arrangements on Hard Rain so for me it's not much better than Real Live and I still love Before the Flood. Budokan is just terrible though, with his Vegasy rock outfit and whatnot. I write off the periods you mentioned only as mediocre by Dylan standards. Shot of Love and Infidels, plus all the great unreleased gems in between, makes 1981-83 so good. Slow Train is a bit monotonous but some songs break the cycle and it's a quality album. I really don't like much of what's on Street Legal and Saved- only top-notch tracks from those for me are "Senor," "Where Are You Tonight," "Solid Rock" and "What Can I Do For You?"
Empire Burlesque isn't as weak as SL or Saved, in fact it's quite consistent. Some songs are burdened by the usual bluesy slick sound of mid-80s Dylan and are ultimately forgettable. But he shows a good songwriting touch with "Dark Eyes," "Tight Connection," and "Emotionally Yours." I've always felt "Something's Burning, Baby" actually is underrated because its synth-heavy setting actually seems to aid to the sombre mood. But I don't care what anyone tells me, the disco junk "When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky" is an abomination. Certainly a low point in his catalogue. As everyone without a tin ear knows, the major key rock version is much better. Damn Dave Stewart tried to make Bob sound like a Eurythmics B-side though.
Knocked Out Loaded is infinitely minor with some real throwaway except the cheesy masterpiece that is "Brownsville Girl," which would have been the best song off Self-Portrait (sounds fitting for that double LP because of its weirdness, the female backup singers and the Mexican horn parts). Some songs just needed better production and they'd sound like the rockabilly from Love & Theft (I speak of "You Wanna Ramble" and "Got MyMind Msade up"). "Precious Memories" is decent reggae and "Driftin' Too Far from Shore" would have been good had the production not been so lousy.
But "Maybe Someday" is one of the sloppiest recordings this side of the Dylan LP from 1973, "Under Your Spell" uninspired doo-wop and "They Killed Him" is one of his worst songs right up there with the immortally maudlin "Lenny Bruce" and "Property of Jesus" (the only songs bringing down Shot of Love at all). Down in the Groove is average at best, but I have a soft spot for some of the tunes. "Let's Stick Together," "Sally Sue Brown" and "Ugliest Girl in the World" are the usual blues-rock, nothing special although the third of those three has humourous value. But I really enjoy the folkier leanings like "Shenandoah," "Rank Stranger to Me." He even gets gospel with "Death is Not the End" and "90 Miles an Hour (Down a Dead End Street)."
Down in the Groove's standout still may be "Silvio" but it's not as weak as Knocked Out Loaded. Oh Mercy is a great record in spots, a sanctimonious bore in others (such as on "Disease of Conceit," "Where Teardrops Fall" and "Ring Them Bells"). Daniel Lanois deserves a lot of credit for taking these songs and making them absolutely gorgeous and yet Dylan felt "Series of Dreams" just didn't fit. That would happen to Oh Mercy's best song if it made the cut, IMO. Oh Mercy lacks some of the light-heartedness of his other 80s records which, although it stands above those, makes Oh Mercy less than a great album.
Under the Red Sky had potentially good songs but Don Was's non-descript, slick all-star production sucks life out of what was otherwise a bluesy tour de force. "Wiggle Wiggle" and others may have silly lyrics, but Bob's catering to the youth market and having fun doing it so I won't begrudge that. I never wrote off the two acoustic records but I just implied they weren't creative because he was doing covers. Still, essential. Good As I Been to You has a couple duds so it's just really good, but World Gone Wrong borders on excellent. It's a darker, more focused covers album and showed perhaps he still had the old fire. There are some excellent covers between the two though- "Frankie and Albert," "Jim Jones," "Blackjack Davey," "Little Maggie," "Diamond Joe," and well it's hard to choose the best from WGW because frankly, it's all good. And of course ever since he's been on a roll. My reviews of this post-RTR, pre-Time "lull":
Hard Rain: B+
Street Legal: B-
Live at Budokan: C
Slow Train Coming: B+
Saved: C+
Shot of Love: B+
Infidels: A-
Empire Burlesque: B+
Biograph: A
Real Live: B
Knocked Out Loaded: C+ (never heard anything from Hearts of Fire yet)
Down in the Groove: B-
Dylan & the Dead: C+
Oh Mercy: B+
Under the Red Sky: B-
Bootleg Series, Vol 1-3: A
Good as I Been to You: B+
World Gone Wrong: A-
MTV Unplugged: A-
Pages: 
New Dylan Bootleg Series - September 2008 (NSC) (Read 9,732 times)
