Modern Bob
This just in from Planet Bob: Bob Dylan, whom most Americans say with geniune awe: "Who told this guy he could sing?", has just released his four millioneth album, Modern Times.
Dylan, who has written classic American songs like "Blowin' In The Wind", "Like A Rolling Stone", and "Joan Baez Is A Cow (I Don't Know What I Ever Saw In Her)", is now 65 years old and no longer plays the guitar at concerts. He shakes his cane at the audience telling them to get off his lawn.
Bob Dylan albums come in several different catagories.
1) The Bad: Think of Self Portrait and Dylan
2) The Not As Bad As They Say It Is: Albums like Street Legal and Shot Of Love.
3) Not As Good As They Say It Is: Time Out Of Mind and Desire
4) The Great: Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, and Love & Theft
When listening to Modern Times you have to keep it in the back of your mind that Dylan is 65 years olds. Upon that criteria, this album is probably should win the award for "Best Album By A 65 Year Old That Should Be Dead".
Once you get past that, at times, Modern Times seems like an album written, produced, and performed by Abe Simpson.
Like all,um, older people, Dylan can get "wordy" at times and several songs seem like they go on forever and they do not become forever young. Nettie Moore seems like it takes months to get through and Bob probably could have cut Spirit On The Water by a minute or two.
It is like he tells you that he is going to tell you a story and then in the middle of it he is talking about how the Kaiser took the word "twenty" and you had to say "Nineteen Dickety Two" and sandwiches were called "flat breadies".
However, all Bob Dylan albums, including all of the ones in the 80's , have at least one great performence on it. For me, Thunder On The Mountain is it. Again, it is a little verbose, but the part about crying about Alicia Keyes (which sounds like a name of someone he would have met at Maggie's Farm) is good fun as is the part about "I got the pork chop/she got the pie. She's no angel/and neither am I".
The copy Modern Times I bought has a DVD extra that has four Dylan videos. It has the Love Sick performance at the 1998 Grammies that "SOY BOMB" showed up at. That little dance has
been edited out. There is also a Larry Charles directed version of Cold Irons Bound which is just simply cool.
All in all, Modern Times is going to fit in the 3rd catagory of Dylan albums for me. Not bad for an
old timers.
Dylan, who has written classic American songs like "Blowin' In The Wind", "Like A Rolling Stone", and "Joan Baez Is A Cow (I Don't Know What I Ever Saw In Her)", is now 65 years old and no longer plays the guitar at concerts. He shakes his cane at the audience telling them to get off his lawn.
Bob Dylan albums come in several different catagories.
1) The Bad: Think of Self Portrait and Dylan
2) The Not As Bad As They Say It Is: Albums like Street Legal and Shot Of Love.
3) Not As Good As They Say It Is: Time Out Of Mind and Desire
4) The Great: Blonde On Blonde, Blood On The Tracks, and Love & Theft
When listening to Modern Times you have to keep it in the back of your mind that Dylan is 65 years olds. Upon that criteria, this album is probably should win the award for "Best Album By A 65 Year Old That Should Be Dead".
Once you get past that, at times, Modern Times seems like an album written, produced, and performed by Abe Simpson.
Like all,um, older people, Dylan can get "wordy" at times and several songs seem like they go on forever and they do not become forever young. Nettie Moore seems like it takes months to get through and Bob probably could have cut Spirit On The Water by a minute or two.
It is like he tells you that he is going to tell you a story and then in the middle of it he is talking about how the Kaiser took the word "twenty" and you had to say "Nineteen Dickety Two" and sandwiches were called "flat breadies".
However, all Bob Dylan albums, including all of the ones in the 80's , have at least one great performence on it. For me, Thunder On The Mountain is it. Again, it is a little verbose, but the part about crying about Alicia Keyes (which sounds like a name of someone he would have met at Maggie's Farm) is good fun as is the part about "I got the pork chop/she got the pie. She's no angel/and neither am I".
The copy Modern Times I bought has a DVD extra that has four Dylan videos. It has the Love Sick performance at the 1998 Grammies that "SOY BOMB" showed up at. That little dance has
been edited out. There is also a Larry Charles directed version of Cold Irons Bound which is just simply cool.
All in all, Modern Times is going to fit in the 3rd catagory of Dylan albums for me. Not bad for an
old timers.
posted by Alan Manis | 5:43 PM
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