Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Otis Westinghouse
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Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Haven't got it myself yet, but Lloyd Cole's got me wanting to:

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/12/bob_dyl ... _year_old/

Is Dylan deliberately likening himself to Shakespeare by titling this late work thus?
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Otis, despite his own protestations to the contrary, I think the title has some connection, if only for the approaching end to a long and illustrious career. Dylan of course would have one think otherwise with his statement that there is no connection as Shakespeare's work begins with 'The'. Have to love the irony in that one.

Run and get this record. Lloyd is not wrong. It is easily his best record since "Love and Theft". I am so happy for him. It has treats galore: a tight, swinging band behind him,road tested to say the least, a voice that has aged to a righteous growl and yet it can still warble in the lower registers when it is required, and more than a handful of songs that deserve to be played and listened to for as long as people listen to recorded music.

The record kicks off with a sonic motif that is just so inviting- the sound of two guitars as if channeled from the distant past playing off one another[perhaps that 'wild, mercury' sound he claimed to have heard in his head so many years ago] and then within a short time span the full wush of his band as the song enters contemporary time and updates that sound. That is "Duquesne Whistle" and it sets the tone for this record nicely.

I really like the ballads "Soon After Midnight" and "Long and Wasted Years". The first has a delicious Motown feel and the second some of his sweetest vocals in decades.

But my favorite may well be "Pay in Blood" with its righteous indignation and brimstone. He has not sounded that note for me since the mid-sixties. The refrain "I pay in blood but not my own" has me so charged. If the Obama campaign does not seek permission to use this song this fall as they barnstorm the country, they are missing one hell of an opportunity to spark their message.

He has also found his narrative art again[something I try to write about on the EC thread]. Songs like"Scarlet Town", "Tempest" and "Tin Star" are for the most part gems of storytelling.

It is going to take me some time to digest the album properly but I cannot urge you strongly enough to rush to FOP or HMV to purchase it. You will not be disappointed. It is easily my favorite record of this year.

If you can, read the big interview in the current Rolling Stone- it is a hoot!!!!!!
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Who Shot Sam? »

Horrible record cover - come on, Bob.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by watercamp »

Dylan is Dylan!

Some gritty vocals happening on some good tunes, 14 minutes of Titanic C&W is not really my cup of tea but like I said Dylan is Dylan.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by wardo68 »

Indeed -- it is his best record since "Love And Theft". Granted, that was only three albums ago, but I don't fawn over Modern Times and Together Through Life as others do. Tempest is a good record, but probably not a great record. My review should be up on the blog (see URL below) within the week.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Poor Deportee »

The thing about Tempest is that it doesn't have any weak songs on it, with the exception of the coda, 'Roll On John,' by which time you're in a forgiving mood. Even 'Early Roman Kings' ends up taking you somewhere. This solidity is what evokes comparisons with another comprehensively strong album, Love and Theft. And there is a real creative vision behind these songs, reminiscent in scale if not the specifics of the execution, of his 1960s work - which is what invites those implausible parallels with his canonical albums. This is in contrast to Modern Times, which had a number of conspicuously 'major' Bob Dylan songs on it (Ain't Talkin, Workingman's Blues, Nettie Moore) and some stuff that inched toward mediocrity. (Together Through Life is an intentionally off-the-cuff, likeable little collection and so invites different criteria of evaluation).

On the other hand - and quite unlike the impeccably crafted Love and Theft - many of the songs on Tempest are imperfect in the sense of having weak lines or even verses scattered in them, like cracks in some impressive edifice. 'Tin Angel' and the title cut are particularly conspicuous in this regard, songs that are both visionary and yet lacking in the rigour of some of Bob's peak late-career moments. But a lack of rigour is, in fact, a chronic Dylan tendency going all the way back to the 1960s. It's nothing new.

I don't know where it stands relative to Bob's wider body of work, then, except to say that this is clearly a major album, one that will have to be reckoned with when considering his legacy. 'Pay in Blood' might be the most ferocious combination of lyric and vocal he has ever put to record. The record will repay repeated listenings and is certainly a 'must have' for everyone on this board.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

But is it really possible to get into a Dylan record these days due to the lost cause of his voice? I'm not a hardcore fan like many of you, but own most of his great stuff, and the last Dylan song that really did anything for me was 'Not Dark Yet' (which is a bona fide masterpiece), and Time Out of Mind the last album I wanted to play more than a couple of times. Do I need to try harder?
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Poor Deportee »

Otis Westinghouse wrote:But is it really possible to get into a Dylan record these days due to the lost cause of his voice? I'm not a hardcore fan like many of you, but own most of his great stuff, and the last Dylan song that really did anything for me was 'Not Dark Yet' (which is a bona fide masterpiece), and Time Out of Mind the last album I wanted to play more than a couple of times. Do I need to try harder?
Well, 'Love & Theft' is my very favourite Bob Dylan album and I am always flummoxed by anyone - especially Dylan fans - who evince lukewarm feelings about it. Apart from some indifference toward the last song I find literally nothing to dislike about that splendid record, including the vocals, the cracks and potholes of which Bob rides like a virtuoso. 'Lonesome Day Blues' - how can anybody not dig the singing? That being said, some people just can't stand a voice so obviously ravaged, regardless of whether it is used to good effect or constructively contributes to the effect. I learned this lesson painfully vis-a-vis Tom Waits, years ago. And I think that's fair enough. I never cared for Neil Young's voice myself, for example. It happens.

As for this record, Dylan's voice is even more extreme, but sometimes - as in 'Pay In Blood,' where he sounds like some demented, slavering predator - this very condition is absolutely central to the effect. Other times, well, it's the voice of an old man, deployed knowingly and in a way that in no way hurts the song, at least to my ears. Some of the singing on Tempest is really quite subtle. And the material is so strong it tends to override any angst over whether, gee, his voice breaks here...

As Dylan says of his music: 'my stuff is very hard-edged and not everyone's cup of tea.' This is every bit as true of his late music as it was of his wild mid-60s stuff, just in a different way. While I can respect someone saying they want a more polished, refined voice - and people who seek polish have never been Dylan listeners - I can't agree with anyone who argues that it's 'impossible' to get into Bob's later stuff, given that, as a rule, I honestly love it. And for the record, I'm no uncritical Bob junkie.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Wow, Love and Theft over Blood on the Tracks? An album that starts with something as skippable as 'Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee' over one with 'Tangled Up In Blue'? Our tastes are from such a different universe, it's hard to comprehend. Let me go and remind myself of 'Lonesome Day Blues'.

These thoughts returned me to Time Out of Mind, which is a good later work in the same way I would view National Ransom, though to be honest, it's a story of one outstanding song (aforementioned), several decent ones and some average. But to compare any of this to the heyday material would be parallel with Elvis, just not possible. Same with most recording artists of longevity, sadly. You turn to it because you love them and they still have good things to offer, but the power and glory of the early (or maybe less early, as with BOOT) stuff will never be matched.

For me the voice issue is nothing to do with polish, I adore both Waits' and Young's voices and Dylan's in the last century, it's more to do with listenability. I just about enjoyed seeing him live in 2005, but couldn't go through the experience again.

Chacun a son gout, and all that. But have you listened to BOOT in recent years though?
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Otis Westinghouse wrote:Wow, Love and Theft over Blood on the Tracks? An album that starts with something as skippable as 'Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee' over one with 'Tangled Up In Blue'? Our tastes are from such a different universe, it's hard to comprehend. Let me go and remind myself of 'Lonesome Day Blues'.

These thoughts returned me to Time Out of Mind, which is a good later work in the same way I would view National Ransom, though to be honest, it's a story of one outstanding song (aforementioned), several decent ones and some average. But to compare any of this to the heyday material would be parallel with Elvis, just not possible. Same with most recording artists of longevity, sadly. You turn to it because you love them and they still have good things to offer, but the power and glory of the early (or maybe less early, as with BOOT) stuff will never be matched.

For me the voice issue is nothing to do with polish, I adore both Waits' and Young's voices and Dylan's in the last century, it's more to do with listenability. I just about enjoyed seeing him live in 2005, but couldn't go through the experience again.

Chacun a son gout, and all that. But have you listened to BOOT in recent years though?
BOTT is a great record, no question about it (just listened to it a couple of weeks ago on my iPod while dog-walking, actually). I just find L & T to be a lot more fun and a lot more varied.

In saying that L & T is my personal favourite Dylan album, I'm not necessarily trying to make a case that it's Dylan's 'best' album or his 'greatest' album according to some more objective critical criteria. Now I do think L & T is a great album - in this sense, my response isn't wildly idiosyncratic in the way that it would be if I were to argue that, say, Seven and the Ragged Tiger means more to me than any other album. But Dylan's reputation and his standing in music history will always rest on the work he did in the 1960s and I wouldn't presume to argue that Love and Theft is 'better' than those seminal records. All I can say is that it is a fabulous album on its own terms, a dexterous and ebullient romp through American music that is as triumphant in its own way as Blood is.

In truth, I tend not to lose sleep over whether so-and-so's recent work 'matches up' against earlier stuff, except as an after-the-fact parlour game - especially when you're dealing with careers that span multiple incarnations and dozens of records. I mean, if you decide Blood is this absolute supreme masterpiece and then measure everything that follows against what that album meant or means to you, you're gonna be disappointed every single time. I really think it's better to respond to new work on its own terms, not as a failed attempt to rise to the level of a totally different album with a totally different agena.

But more than this. I also think that people do tend to lionize early work, forgiving or overlooking its flaws, while being far more rigorously demanding of new work. Take your Elvis example. This Year's Model is a blast of a record, but in range, depth, and songwriting? It's not even in the same category as National Ransom. I really think any neutral observer would tend to agree. Yet saying this seems to be sacrilige.

To close this overlong reply by circling back to Dylan: the sheer brilliance and impact of the world-changing synthesis he achieved in the 1960s has long dazzled listeners to the point where they soft-pedal the limitations of those songs while simultaneously failing to fully appreciate what he is doing now, whether 'now' be 1974 or 1979 or 2001 or 2012. Again, I am not arguing that his later stuff is as good as Highway 61 Revisited. All I'm saying is that when he recycles 'Scarborough Fair' for 'Girl from the North Country,' people praise him as a genius; when he recycles Tyndale for 'Cross the Green Mountain,' people damn him for plagiarism - and this double standard exemplifies what I'm talking about. I think it's going to take generations to start to get a really balanced assessment of Dylan's overall achievement.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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I don't go for the view of an objective best over a personal best. It's all subjective. The idea that your favourite is not the one you think best stands the test of judgement makes no sense to me. This division between artistic merit and personal taste implies a canonical value system that individuals don't measure up to, or if you prefer a cerebral versus an emotional response. For me there is no such separation. TYM is a far better record than NR, I prefer it by miles and in a review that led to a star rating, it would easily win. NR is a fine record, and Elvis's muse is intact, and has developed in range and subtlety, but would you really take it to your desert island over TYM?

I tried a few tracks off L&T on my nightly pre-sleep iPod session. I abandoned all of them after a short while and returned to ''Not Dark Yet'. The irony here relative to your enthusiasm for it is that while I can understand claims for it using a variety of American music styles in an impressive enough way (though the songwriting is massively inferior to BOOT), it's the sheer lack of any sort of pleasure that his voice brings to the songs that makes me want to hit the stop button. I wish he'd retired gracefully at the end of the 90s. That said, will listen to Tempest with an open mind, partly because my beloved Lloyd Cole cried listening to it (in a good way, I might be the opposite).
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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The 'objective'/'subjective' thing is an interesting question over which I've butted heads with various people over the years. I don't think it's a clear-cut either/or thing, but I fervently believe that these two categories are useful ones.

Certainly there are problems with assuming the existence of some single Objective Standard that all works must meet. It's this kind of logic that leads, for instance, to the folly of snooty Harold Blooms or Roger Scrutons looking down their noses at artists like Bob Dylan as 'mere' popular artists unworthy of the attention of the serious. But it's equally problematic to say 'it's all subjective,' as though we can't have a sensible critical discussion about what works and what doesn't. Yes, people are free to love whatever they want, and good on them. My point is that we often love things for basically sentimental reasons that are quite separate from considered critical judgement. I grew up on Star Wars movies and, I fear, will go to my grave very fond of them (or at least, the original triology...). On a visceral level, I 'enjoy' these movies more than, say, Citizen Kane, but I would never, ever try to argue that those movies are artistically superior in any way whatsoever to it. They're juvenile entertainment, where Kane is a genuinely great film, and any critical intellect not befuddled by some sloppy relativism is going to recognize that.

You yourself admit some such distinction between better and worse when you assert that the songwriting is 'massively inferior' on Love and Theft compared to Blood on the Tracks. Presumably this is something we can discuss, using implicit or explicit shared (or divergent) criteria of excellence, and not just the equivalent of saying you like carrots better than asparagus. Otherwise we're forced into the position of saying that Britney Spears really is just as good a songwriter as Elvis Costello or Bob Dylan - 'it's all just personal preference' - which is clinically insane in my book.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

So if someone's 'divergent criteria of excellence' to yours lead them to say Britney is better than Elvis, you wouldn't accept their opinion as valid? You might dismiss them as a moron, but would you want to press home that you right and they wrong in their judgement according to some Bloomian scale of canonical greatness? Your Star Wars example talks about enjoying them more on a visceral level, which is one form of judgement and enjoyment, but at the end of the day whatever criteria you apply that says good/bad as an overall judgement has to be in line with 'this does the most for me', doesn't it? I just can't see how you'd ever describe a work in any artist's oeuvre as your favourite and not make a case for it being their best. Of course you can have a sensible critical discussion about what you think works and what I do, but it's the gap between those two positions that makes the discussion worth having, not which one of us is closer to some objective scale that says one thing is better than another.

All of this is by the by, really, as what you're saying is you'd prefer to sit down and listen to L & T over BOOT, and this is what astonishes me. I'm not sure that's worth discussing, though! I genuinely can't comprehend how anyone could have that response, it's like preferring one of his reinterpretations of an old classic over the original itself. There might be a certain historical interest in hearing it to hear what new dimension it brings to the song, as there is with what dimension a new album brings to the oeuvre.

I'm keen to see if with further years of ravages to the voice, I can find more to enjoy in Tempest than with the last few. One thing I would say, though, is that some people may have a positive response to what he's doing now, to refer to your words above, because it is now or recently so, but future generations coming to Dylan won't dwell on any of these records. I disagree with your 'balanced assessment' point here. I think that with one or two exceptions, the more widely held view will be 'he may as well have given up in the 70s'.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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My official copy of "Tempest" arrived in the mail on Thursday; I've been playing it pretty continuously for the past few days after having put it down for a week or so, the whole thing feeling more "whole" now that I have the total package (the artwork, the proper disc--silly, perhaps, that stuff always makes it feel more "official" for me). Though I've played it through a few times, mostly I find myself either starting it over or switching to something else after "Pay in Blood." There are great moments on the second half of the record, but I think the thing that I've been feeling but haven't been able to articulate to this point (that or I simply hadn't lived with the record long enough to have realized it) is that the second half of the record just doesn't feel suited to the kind of day-to-day listening that the first half, which is maybe the purest five-song dose of pleasure that Bob has programmed since "L&T," does. The two obvious centerpieces of the second half--one a gruesome bloodbath involving three scuzzbuckets, the other a quarter-hour recollection of human tragedy--just aren't stories I find myself wanting to hear with any kind of regularity. I think I'm slowly coming to the realization that I just don't think "Tin Angel" is that great of a song; every time I listen I hear another couple of lines that just make me wince, and musically (both in composition and in performance) there's just not enough happening to keep me engaged for its length. It reminds me of one of the Jacques Levy songs, only lacking the sense of mystery--I mean, even though a song like "Romance in Durango" is clearly fiction, when you hear that band (and, perhaps more importantly, see pictures of Bob from the time), you're instantly transported to a world where it seems entirely believable that a story like that could happen. Here more than ever, I feel like we're too clearly glimpsing the man behind the curtain. The storytelling feels businesslike.

"Tempest," conversely, is just the type of song that, after the new album buzz has dimmed a little, I'll probably get the itch to listen to once every year or two, at which point I'll put on headphones, clear the room of distractions, and let out a satisfied "ahhh..." when its fifteen minutes have passed. It holds up under scrutiny, but not really under "reverse scrutiny"--which is fine, plenty of records require commitment and attention to achieve their maximum effect, but it does kind of tip the record on end when one side is comprised primarily of pieces like this and the other is more formally of the good-for-any-occasion variety. "Scarlet Town" and "Roman Kings" still haven't quite clicked with me; as a result, after "Pay in Blood," I have to kind of remind myself that "Roll On John" still awaits, a light at the end of a very dark, very long tunnel.

I'm really crazy about the first half, though. I think "Duquesne Whistle" has grown on me more than any other track--Greil Marcus talks about the "sparkle" in Bob's eye, and there are a lot of lines in this song that give that away: "You're smiling through the fence at me"; "I wonder if that old oak tree's still standing." What first seemed a dull, repetitive boogie has slowly become an endearing chug through the fondest, least embittered corners of Dylan's fried psyche. I find myself wanting to play the album just to hear it kick into gear.

But "Soon After Midnight" and "Long and Wasted Years" are still my two favorite songs here; I think the latter, probably more than any other song since "BOTT," truly sounds like Bob talking, singing about his own regrets, his own failures, an effect which is strangely exacerbated rather than undermined by the fact that the vocal delivery feels so detached, as if he couldn't possibly be singing about himself. I'm no fan of speculating re: the trials and tribulations of popular artists' personal lives but I've always suspected there to be some ex-lover in Bob's life for whom he's been carrying a torch for years--every once in a while, a line will pop up in one of his songs ("My love for her/Has taken such a long time to die") that just gives me that shiver of authenticity, that sense that Bob is far more human than he lets on, and I think "Long and Wasted Years" is one of the best sustained instances of that feeling in his whole songbook. It's a masterful piece of work, simple and plain but leagues deep.

I still maintain that "Pay in Blood" is what "Empire Burlesque" might have sounded like had that '80's sound not been so dazzling to all who caught wind of it. It's sassier than it is dark. And it's one of the first times since "L&T" where I've felt as though the band has had a recognizable pulse. "Narrow Way" too--for an eight minute blues drone, it whizzes by surprisingly fast. Earlier it was compared to "Rollin' and Tumblin'," and I think what gives this the edge might just be simple structure; instead of the usual "line-repeat line-payoff line" blues structure ("Lonesome Day Blues," "The Levee's Gonna Break"), we get a greater wealth of words within the scope of those twelve bars, even if the words themselves are more or less equal (I still love the "young lazy slut" verse from "MT"). Though the voice has become the major selling point over the years, I still look to Dylan to captivate me with his words, and "Narrow Way" is a great example of Dylan taking fairly unremarkable sentences, fairly pedestrian rhymes, and stringing them together in a way that feels sharp and witty. I think in the end Bob just feels on his game on these first five songs--something that may be increasingly the result of chance, but nonetheless is something I'm happy to have. Somebody in the comments section of Robert Christgau''s blog said that at this point he'd rather have three or four new songs that he loves rather than a full album of songs that are consistently decent, and I concur. For that reason I'd probably maintain that this is my favorite Dylan since "L&T."
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Poor Deportee »

I loved Otis's incisive reply to me above, but haven't time just yet to offer a response - I'll work on that. But Kevin, do you mean to say that you regard 'Scarlet Town' as disposable? I couldn't disagree more - it's a riveting track that has had me coming back to it again and again.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Not disposable, it just isn't clicking with me. I find my mind drifting the further into it I go. What am I missing?
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Kevin Davis »

Also, it never ceases to amaze me how often "Blood on the Tracks" is mis-abbreviated as "BOOT." I've been on Dylan boards for years and this happens all the time. Why do you suppose this is?
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Jack of All Parades »

I am enjoying the back and forth and the different takes- it is what makes coming around here worth while.

I am with Kevin[and I think PD] in very much getting a real aural high from the first 8[for me] songs of this record- they do pack a combined punch that rivals that of the entirety of L&T. I have been playing this album consistently since buying it and I cannot get enough of it. From the opening whoosh of "Duquesne Whistle', where yes you can 'hear' the twinkle in Bob's voice, to the dying refrain of "Tin Angel" I am in awe of what he has wrought in his old age.

I also like Kevin's notion of regret over past loves that does seem to speak to autobiographical aspects of his past. I do not think you can attain his age and not have regrets as you look back. These songs catch that sense of lost opportunities cogently and even sweetly for all the violence, piss and vinegar and blood in them.

I also share with Kevin a feeling that even though I like "Tempest", the song, I do not need to hear it with regularity. I also am very underwhelmed with "Roll On, John" as I wrote on Expecting Rain. It is far too pedestrian in its tropes for my ears- it has no real sense of personalized loss.

That said this album is clearly my favorite outside of L&T in his late career resurrection. It is that good and to paraphrase Bob- he still is 'the bang' for me. It is my favorite record of 2012, to date.
Otis, I really think it would be a shame if you did not give a yeoman's effort to listen. There are too many charms on this record to just give up.

Cannot go without commenting about the 'voice"- this speaks to it for me:

"Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will him about mine ears; and sometime voices,
That if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again."
- William Shakespeare, The Tempest, 3.2

{Otis, perhaps that is why your Mr. Cole stated he cried?}

This album is filled with an old man's voice- aged, dessicated at times, but still vibrant with emotion and life. I like how Scott Litt has centered the vocal in the sound mix and then surrounded it with the instruments. I like how Bob has learned to song/speak and to give his words and lines a recitation that communicates strong emotion and tone. And there are moments like in "Long and Wasted Years" and "Soon After Midnight" where he warbles in a near gentle low register. The righteous anger that he works up in "Pay in Blood" has me roiled these days. I like this voice[no apologies, Otis]. Most telling is that my sainted wife lets me play this album with raised volume, and her ears are very well tuned. That is my barometer as to the craft in his current voice.

I am in awe that he can still sustain himself over a group of songs as he has done on this record. He is tapped in, he has some strong musicians behind him and, most of all, he is channeling that 'wild mercury' sound he heard so many years ago.

As an aside- Kevin- I hear "Scarlet Town" as his saloon song-just think of Sinatra and it being late in the evening and stock is being taken- perhaps that will allow you to have a better time with it.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Poor Deportee wrote:I loved Otis's incisive reply to me above, but haven't time just yet to offer a response - I'll work on that.
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Kevin Davis wrote:Also, it never ceases to amaze me how often "Blood on the Tracks" is mis-abbreviated as "BOOT." I've been on Dylan boards for years and this happens all the time. Why do you suppose this is?
Bizarre! I'm a stickler for accuracy, but dang me, missed this. Could it be because BOOT is less silly as an acronym than BOTT? Could it be the 'oo' for 'Blood' hovering in one's head? Or could it be the familiarity of referring to the Elvis classic as MOOT that does it (not for all the folks on non-Costello sites, of course).

There could be a PhD thesis somewhere in this topic.
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Jack of All Parades »

Otis Westinghouse wrote:
There could be a PhD thesis somewhere in this topic.
I am game and most up for it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8)
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
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bambooneedle
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

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Jack of All Parades
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Jack of All Parades »

The old guard still has the moxie- coming in at # 4 for the year[and check out who gets #1]-

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists ... t-19691231

and he also pulls down the #9 song and my personal favorite from the album-

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists ... d-19691231

8)
"Fifty years after his debut, he's still rock's greatest bard – and its most fearsome badass." indeed!
"....there's a merry song that starts in 'I' and ends in 'You', as many famous pop songs do....'
Poor Deportee
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Poor Deportee »

RS is a bit fawning toward the old heroes, but these two selections deserve a high ranking. I've read a fair bit of snooty shite about Wrecking Ball and I think it's all a load of tripe - that album is well-named, a ferocious and impassioned blast through the land of betrayed hope and dreams, and full value for its status as one of the best records of his career (and certainly one of his best in BRUUUUCE!!! mode).

Tempest, what more can you say. That blurb pretty much does it justice.

I was glad to hear those clips from Fiona Apple's impossibly-titled release. Sounds impressive - any feedback on that?
When man has destroyed what he thinks he owns
I hope no living thing cries over his bones
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Otis Westinghouse
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Re: Bob Dylan's Tempest

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Not from me, it's on my shopping list... I love her voice and the couple of earlier CDs of hers I have. Also want the Cat Power one.

Yeah, it's all a bit fawning, with the odd rapper or young indie band lobbed in to show they're down with the kids.

I still haven't got the Neil Young and Crazy Horse one, decidedly not on your list, Poor D! Insanely long songs, even by Young's standard. Who could have have too much of the sound of Neil with the Horse? It's a thing of wonder.

The 50 songs seems to mainly be one each from the 50 albums. Very nice to see the superb Hold On from Alabama Shakes up top. The final 10 descend absurdly into teen pop pap with Bieber, Jepsen and Maroon bloody 5 et al.

And where the hell are they going with Mumford and Sons? U2 with banjos is their verdict. Great. And then some US act with a very retro photo gets praised as being the USs answer to the Mumfords. WTF? Why does the US need an answer to some godawful bunch of bearded twats who think that shaking and sweating a lot whilst playing the most obvious and boring form of folk music is somehow meant to impress? I despair of this sort of drivel.

Needless to say my album of the year gets no mention. The beautiful, elegant, poignant, understated Mr M by Lambchop. Song of year probably Gone Tomorrow from it, though one or two others would also compete. Second up would be Richard Hawley's Standing at the Sky's Edge with the sublime Seek It as favourite song.

What's wrong with a list? You have to click 108 times or so to see these two lists. RSI alert! They could at least have it so that a hovering mouse would give you the name.
There's more to life than books, you know, but not much more
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