Bob Dylan Modern Times

[sal]

Personally, I think that *some* people are going to be negative in their reaction to this record no matter how good it is. Why? Well, for starters people seem to uncritically accept whatever Dylan does as a work of pure genius, so we automatically have to adjust our opinion accordingly. Secondly, this album is very, very popular and there are a lot of people who immediately dislike anything that achieves that kind of popular acclaim. I know a lot of OutKast fans who didn't just stop liking them when "Speakerboxx/The Love Below" came out, or even "Stankonia." No! They "sold out" with "Aquemini," or even "ATLiens." For a lot of fans, OutKast is "Two Dope Boyz in a Cadillac" and everything else is just Dre's ego trippin'. So it is for some Dylan fans. Sure, "Blood on the Tracks" is OKAY...you know, if you like "great music" and all that. But every REAL Dylan fan knows that he really started sucking the day he stepped into the studio to record his first album. The shit he recorded at the Gaslight? *That's* the real thing...

Good points Alexander.

Funny you make the Outkast comparision, as I was "one of those people" who stopped liking Outkast as soon as "Aquemini" came out! However, I've been revisiting them recently after an absence of about 8 years from their music, and I've actually come to enjoy "Aquemini", "Stankonia", and yes, even the dreaded "Speakerboxx/Love Below".

Sorry about the change in subject......I think "Modern Times" is a great Bob Dylan album, no matter what.

[HolyStitt]

Has anyone recently seen Bob on tour?

[Hot Ptah]

I think that it is possible to view "Modern Times" as a mediocre album, patched together with borrowed or stolen words and music, without belonging to any cult or camp that either adores Dylan or is unduly harsh to Dylan.

It just isn't that great of an album. I have listened to it over 50 times now and it is a mediocre album by any standards, Bob's or anyone else's.

I wish that Dylan would put out something great. I wish him well. But this album, ho hum.

[sal]

Has anyone recently seen Bob on tour?

Saw him earlier in August at Comstock Park in Michigan. He was excellent, although his new band isn't as good as the one he had up until about 2 years ago or so.

[Parkertown]

Here's a beautiful music video for "When The Deal Goes Down" off the new album. It stars Scarlett Johansen. Two great tastes...

Scarlett/Dylan video

She is possibly the most beautiful creature on Earth...

Classic beauty...I'm smitten.

[HolyStitt]

Saw him earlier in August at Comstock Park in Michigan. He was excellent, although his new band isn't as good as the one he had up until about 2 years ago or so.

I have seen his last three Ballpark tours and have enjoyed these shows much more then the time I saw him in 1993 with Santana. The set lists might not be as creative as they were in past years, but IMHO he is singing with more emotion and intensity then when i saw him 1993.

In Rochester, a few weeks ago, he did some phrasing on "Nowhere" that, I thought, was just a pure blast.

[Alexander]

I saw Bob many times (at least four or five) in the late 80s and thought that the shows were really horrible. Dylan was openly hostile, he ran through the lyrics to his songs twice as fast as the musicians could play them. Each song was a round of "name that Dylan tune" where audience members whispered among themselves trying to figure out if this was a new song they hadn't heard before, or an old song that they simply could not recongnize. The last time I saw him was in May of 1991. It was by far the best show I had ever seen. Not only was he understandable, he seemed happy to be there. He even pulled out "The Man in Me" (this was waaaay before "The Big Lebowski"), one of my favorite tunes from "New Morning." At that point, I decided that it was best to quit while I was ahead, and I haven't seen him live since. I'd consider it, however, given the high quality of his recorded output in recent years.

And to Clem, who unfavorably compared "Modern Times" to "Under The Red Sky"...I happen to LOVE "Under the Red Sky" and think that it's one of Dylan's most underrated albums. So there.

[Alexander]

Here's a beautiful music video for "When The Deal Goes Down" off the new album. It stars Scarlett Johansen. Two great tastes...

Scarlett/Dylan video

She is possibly the most beautiful creature on Earth...

Classic beauty...I'm smitten.

I don't know what it is about her, but she is really amazing. She really fits the period of the video. She's a little old for it now, but she would have made the PERFECT Delores Haze...I can see Humbert getting all bent out of shape over her.

[Rob C]

I have listened to it over 50 times now and it is a mediocre album by any standards, Bob's or anyone else's.

Fifty times! You sure are investing a lot of time in "mediocrity"!

[jazzbo]

Here's a beautiful music video for "When The Deal Goes Down" off the new album. It stars Scarlett Johansen. Two great tastes...

Scarlett/Dylan video

She is possibly the most beautiful creature on Earth...

Classic beauty...I'm smitten.

If I think really hard, I can remember one or two of my early girlfriends looking like Scarlett too. . . !

[JSngry]

When the well runs dry, we know the value of water.

Benjamin Franklin

You don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry

[JSngry]

I think that Benjamin Franklin was a Founding Father of Southern Soul, that's what I think.

[medjuck]

How come no-one ever mentinons Bob's borrowings from Warren Zevone. Actually I think they're more an homage to Warren Zevon. He used lines from Zevon's song Absolutely Like a Martyr as the titles of one song (Abandoned Love) and one Album (Time Out of Mind). Then he began covering Absolutely Like a Martyr (Along with a few other Zevon tunes) on the tour he did just before Zevon died. Warren was in the audience in LA for that tour and was thrilled.

[kulu se mama]

dylan called his last one "love and theft" yet on "modern times" he borrowed the title from a charlie chaplan movie, he borrowed some lyrics from a civil war era poet, and he borrowed the album cover from a luna ep.

go figure.

[Alexander]

ya'll are just TRICKED bc it's probably the first mediocre Dylan record that SOUNDS better than it is... in the past when he botched it sleepwalking, it was obvious.

My God...you're right! I have been tricked! That'll teach me to trust my own ears and taste rather than Clem's judgment! Imagine if I hadn't been warned...I might have gone the rest of my life thinking I liked something I really didn't like!

[Alexander]

ya'll are just TRICKED bc it's probably the first mediocre Dylan record that SOUNDS better than it is... in the past when he botched it sleepwalking, it was obvious.

My God...you're right! I have been tricked! That'll teach me to trust my own ears and taste rather than Clem's judgment! Imagine if I hadn't been warned...I might have gone the rest of my life thinking I liked something I really didn't like!

[HolyStitt]

ya'll are just TRICKED bc it's probably the first mediocre Dylan record that SOUNDS better than it is... in the past when he botched it sleepwalking, it was obvious.

My God...you're right! I have been tricked! That'll teach me to trust my own ears and taste rather than Clem's judgment! Imagine if I hadn't been warned...I might have gone the rest of my life thinking I liked something I really didn't like!

[HolyStitt]

you'll grow up and listen more widely in the tradition that Dylan's jacking here. still no words on Spider John Koerner

Let me get this right:

Once the TRUE fan has heard Koerner and Dylan's other influences, then they shouldn't like "Modern Times"?

[HolyStitt]

To me, you are comparing apples and oranges.

I love Terry Allen and a whole wide variety of music you are discussing, but I can still enjoy "Modern Times."

[Chuck Nessa]

Never paid much attention to Dylan so I won't enter the discussion beyond saying I saw him 3 times. In 1966 I was on a northbound Clark St bus (Chicago) with him and Albert Grossman. I thought he was withdrawn and pretentious. I was leading them to some club and dropped them there. Next I saw him in concert with the Band circa 1974 in Boston and remember it as a terrific public performance. About 5 years (?) later I was at a day long taping of a PBS tribute to John Hammond. Most musicians (Basie, Goodman, Sonny Terry, George Benson, etc) watched the development of the show. Dylan spend about 12 hours in the dressing room. This did not impress me but his set was fine.

[Larry Kart]

I heard Dylan play in a University of Chicago dorm room back in 1960 or '61, when he was still Bob Zimmerman. The U. of C. had a very active folky scene back then, which gave rise to the justly celebrated U. of C. Folk Festival, and a lot of those players were very good, doing their personal offshoots of stuff on the famous Harry Smith Folkways label anthology -- much better musically than Dylan-Zimmerman, I thought. On the other hand, the guys he played with that night sounded noticeably better when they played with him than they normally did, which even then I assumed he was somehow responsible for.

On the other hand, not one bit of Dylan's own songwriting, lyric writing, playing, and singing that has crept over my transom in all the years since then has appealed to me in the least. In fact, if the CIA wanted to get me to talk, twelve hours of Dylan would do the trick, easy.

[Larry Kart]

Top clear up any confusion, I meant that the guys that Dylan played with that night were much better musically than he was IMO.

[Alexander]

I think that Clem means that some people could get a better perspective on Dylan and his "roots"

by checking out some of the overlooked guys who haven't had the constant flashlight

(not even laser pointer) directed at them.

Listening to something like Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Been can give some insight.

Rod

Been listening to what could be considered Dylan's country, blues, folk, and r&b roots for many a year. I recognize what Dylan cribs and often know where he cribbed it from. And yet I still like "Modern Times." My ignorance is boundless apparently...

And while I don't have the Willie Atlantic set, I do have quite a bit of Willie Nelson...

Edited September 17, 2006 by Alexander

[medjuck]

I heard Dylan play in a University of Chicago dorm room back in 1960 or '61, when he was still Bob Zimmerman.

Probably the Winter or Spring of '62. Accorsing to one of his (many ) biographies he stopped in Chicago on his trip to New York to find Woody Guthrie. He met up with Kevin Krown and scuffled around campus for a few weeks.

[Larry Kart]

Winter/Spring '62 for Dylan/Zimmerman's visit would fit. Actually, Spider John Koerner and Dave "Snaker" Ray had been around the U. of C. campus (singly or together, I can't be sure) shortly before or after Dylan/Zimmerman arrived. IIRC they made a better impression musically, but because Big Joe Williams was also present fairly often, certain differences were clear.