Bob Dylan corner

[mjzee]

Release date November 1:

 

•  

The Philosophy of Modern Song is Bob Dylan’s first book of new writing since 2004’s Chronicles: Volume One—and since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016.

Dylan, who began working on the book in 2010, offers a master class on the art and craft of songwriting. He writes over sixty essays focusing on songs by other artists, spanning from Stephen Foster to Elvis Costello, and in between ranging from Hank Williams to Nina Simone. He analyzes what he calls the trap of easy rhymes, breaks down how the addition of a single syllable can diminish a song, and even explains how bluegrass relates to heavy metal. These essays are written in Dylan’s unique prose. They are mysterious and mercurial, poignant and profound, and often laugh-out-loud funny. And while they are ostensibly about music, they are really meditations and reflections on the human condition. Running throughout the book are nearly 150 carefully curated photos as well as a series of dream-like riffs that, taken together, resemble an epic poem and add to the work’s transcendence.

In 2020, with the release of his outstanding album Rough and Rowdy Ways, Dylan became the first artist to have an album hit the Billboard Top 40 in each decade since the 1960s. The Philosophy of Modern Song contains much of what he has learned about his craft in all those years, and like everything that Dylan does, it is a momentous artistic achievement.

[felser]

Listening to 'Shadow Kingdom'.  Utterly fascinating radical transformations of some of his earlier material.

[jazzbo]

Mine arrives Tuesday. Looking forward to it!

[felser]

Complete Budoken 1978 - two full shows, 4CD or 8LP, Japanese only release.  $160 Amazon pre-order price for the CD set.   That's an easy "no" for me, even though I own 80-90% of all the legit Dylan releases.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/bob-dylan-the-complete-budokan-1978/

 

[mjzee]

11 minutes ago, felser said:

Complete Budoken 1978 - two full shows, 4CD or 8LP, Japanese only release.  $160 Amazon pre-order price for the CD set.   That's an easy "no" for me, even though I own 80-90% of all the legit Dylan releases.

https://superdeluxeedition.com/news/bob-dylan-the-complete-budokan-1978/

 

Agreed.  I rarely play the original release.  Arrangements are often hokey.

[medjuck]

Someone posted on Spotify "The Complete, Chronological Bob Dylan" consisting of 1500+ tracks.  Seems to be every track from every official release with Dylan.  (And maybe some not so official-- is there an official Dylan cd entitled "Sidetracks"? Ooops I see that it does exist but was never released as a cd in the US except as part of a "complete" box set.  However it is on Spotify.

Edited September 15, 2023 by medjuck

[JSngry]

Dylan In Order!!! 

[Teasing the Korean]

The complete, chronological Bob Dylan.  

This is hilarious.

 

[AllenLowe]

I honestly think Dylan ran out of ideas with John Wesley Harding. After which his singing started to sound like a parody of himself.  He was a great artist who completely transformed the music - very few can say that - but I find his prose insufferable in the autobiography and his opinions on various kinds music clever rather than smart.

'tis a pity. If only he'd retired instead of doing Victoria's Secret commercials.

[dicky]

1 hour ago, AllenLowe said:

I honestly think Dylan ran out of ideas with John Wesley Harding.

 That's profoundly, utterly absurd. I can only imagine you checked out. 

[jlhoots]

1 hour ago, dicky said:

 That's profoundly, utterly absurd. I can only imagine you checked out. 

I agree with dicky.

[Chuck Nessa]

circa 1966 I escorted Dylan and Albert Grossman to Old Town (Chicago) via a CTA bus from the Jazz Record Mart (7 W Grand Ave).

Edited September 16, 2023 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

Sly Stone genuinely running out of ideas (and everything else) is infinitely more unfortunate for American Popular Music  than Bob Dylan's, decades of variable hijinks of variable value.

At least he was never adrift? 

To be fair though, it was a really surrealistic thing to repeatedly hear that song about serving the Devil or the Lord on the dying gasps of AM Top 40 surrounded by the worst Disco and other indications that White America was on the cusp of a total cataclysm of faux-repentance and self-bestowed redemption.

Service was indeed rendered! 

7 minutes ago, Chuck Nessa said:

circa 1966 I escorted Dylan and Albert Grossman to Old Town (Chicago) via a CTA bus from the Jazz Record Mart (7 W Grand Ave).

Did they address you as Chuck? 

[Chuck Nessa]

5 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Sly Stone genuinely running out of ideas (and everything else) is infinitely more unfortunate for American Popular Music  than Bob Dylan's, decades of variable hijinks of variable value.

At least he was never adrift? 

To be fair though, it was a really surrealistic thing to repeatedly hear that song about serving the Devil or the Lord on the dying gasps of AM Top 40 surrounded by the worst Disco and other indications that White America was on the cusp of a total cataclysm of faux-repentance and self-bestowed redemption.

Service was indeed rendered! 

Did they address you as Chuck? 

Don't remember if I was addressed or stamped.

[JSngry]

You gotta mail somebody. 

[felser]

4 hours ago, AllenLowe said:

I honestly think Dylan ran out of ideas with John Wesley Harding.

 

I agree that he stopped being "great" immediately after that.  Has there ever been as abrupt  fall from grace as going from that landmark to 'Nashville Skyline' and 'Self Portrait'?  And I suspect it was largely by design (setting the stage for Neil Young going from 'Harvest' to 'Time Fades Away' to stave off superstardom).  Dylan's had plenty of ideas since then, right up to the present, but not often transformative and often not even good.   And again, the same can be said of Neil Young.  And both, while maddening inconsistent in quality, nonetheless remain consistently interesting.   And every time you want to count those guys out, they come up with something like 'Rockin' in the Free World' or 'Murder Most Foul' which were staggering in their quality, impact, and relevance when each came out.   

[medjuck]

I dunno: I really like Blood on the Tracks (especially with the originals of the ones he redid in Minnesota) which was when:  '75?

[danasgoodstuff]

I'd not be as absolutist as Allen, but I basically agree with him.  Even when I enjoy post-basement tapes bob, I don't hear much new in it. 5 years as manically and deeply creative as anyone ever was, followed by a lifetime of trying to deal with it.

[Rabshakeh]

1 hour ago, medjuck said:

I dunno: I really like Blood on the Tracks (especially with the originals of the ones he redid in Minnesota) which was when:  '75?

I'm with you. Blood On The Tracks and Desire both use a narrative approach that you don't get on those earlier records (or the later ones). I really like both of those records.

[felser]

5 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

I'm with you. Blood On The Tracks and Desire both use a narrative approach that you don't get on those earlier records (or the later ones). I really like both of those records.

I like how those albums sound, especially 'Desire' with Scarlet Rivera, and "Tangled Up In Blue" is undeniable, but subsequent revelations have made "Hurricane" a troubling listen (though it sounds great musically) and "Joey" always was ridiculous in its naivety about the "nice" mobster murderer.  The middle period album that I think remains underrated is 'Infidels'.

[AllenLowe]

12 hours ago, dicky said:

 That's profoundly, utterly absurd. I can only imagine you checked out. 

this is a really unfair way of disagreeing with me, as it implies I am lying and citing/criticizing work I have not heard. I have always been checked in, have been listening to Dylan since I was 12. He always had the weakness I describe, of confusing cleverness with intelligence; it's not the same thing. Lots of bad lyrics, "words that tear and strain to rhyme," (Paul Simon). Look, here is a guy that revolutionized popular music - sometimes I think he was more important musically than lyrically, as we hear in Highway 61 and Blonde on Blond particularly, as he changes the sound stage of this music completely in a way which no one has ever been able to duplicate. But somewhere along the line he started to believe his owb press notices and decided that since he was a genius anything he produced would be a work of genius (it's an old syndrome; happened also to Lou Reed and John Lennon). Listen to the voice as it goes from phrase mastery to the unlistenable Rolling Thunder Review; go back to 1962 and the Minnesota tapes. Here was a guy who was completely rethinking every aspect of folk, the blues, and then rock and roll. There's no shame in the fact that ge simply went fallow, lost his mojo, whatever the hell it was. It may even have to do with fame and the way it corrupts self image. But I never checked out. I was there listening, possibly even before you were born.

Edited September 16, 2023 by AllenLowe

[jlhoots]

Off topic - Townes Van Zandt always works for me. Steve Earle (most of the time) too.

[Teasing the Korean]

The main period that interested me is the four-album run from Another Side (1964) through Blonde on Blonde (1966).  He wrote a few amazing songs later, including "Tangled Up in Blue" and "You're a Big Girl Now."  That said, I haven't really listened to Dylan in decades.  

 

[medjuck]

1 hour ago, felser said:

  The middle period album that I think remains underrated is 'Infidels'.

I'd have liked it better if he'd  exchanged some of the songs he left out from those sessions with some he used.

[jazzbo]

Over the years I've become more and more a Dylan fan and I like the later years a lot more than many seem to.