Bob Dylan - Modern Times
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Free Music Notes for Modern Times
Free Music Review: Love and Death- Man of The Century
Hit: 5 Stars
"If "Love and Theft" was, as titled, Bob Dylan's album about love and theft (of the blues) and Time Out of Mind was his album about death and theft (having had a personal brush with the reaper), then the new Modern Times is his love and death record" Houston Chronicle
Bob Dylan is 65 and by no means is he looking at retirement. He is writing some of his best songs. Those of us who love Bob Dylan are indeed fortunate that this man has the writing and singing talent of this century. What to say about Bob Dylan that has not been said a hundred times or more?
These ten songs on "Modern Times" are humorous, scary and lovely all at the same and at separate times.
"Thunder on the Mountain"- starts this CD off with a rollicking tune studying the art of love. He mentions Alicia Keys and is looking for her.
"Spirit of the Water"- a slow jazzy/bluesy tune that talks about the "face that begs for Love".
"I am wild about you gal, you ought to be a fool about me".
"Rollin' and Tumblin"- "Roll and tumble and cry the whole night long. Troubles so hard, I just can't stand the way". Old time rock n' roll.
"When the Deal Goes Down"- slow song that ask us questions. "We live and we die and we know not why, but I will be with you when the deal goes down"
"Someday Baby"- "I don't care what you do or what you say. You fill me up with doubt. Someday baby you ain't gonna worry for me no more". Bluesy/jazz with a great beat and song you tap your toes to.
"Workingman Blues # 2"- "There's an evening haze setting over town- the buying power of the proletariat goes down. Low wages are a reality if we want to compete overseas". Wonderful tune tribute to all of us who work. How did he ever get proletariat in there?
"Beyond the Horizon"- "Beyond the horizon, under the sun, life has begun and it is easy to love" Easy tune that is full of poetry.
"Nettie Moore"- "Lost John sitting on a railroad track- I am the oldest son of a crazy man" brings to mind the old time bluesmen. One of my favorite songs on this CD.
"The Levee's Gonna Break"- Rocking' tune , "If it keep on rainin' the levee gonna break. I worked on the levee momma both night and day." New Orleans , folksy song.
"Ain't Talkin"- "I'm trying to love my neighbor and do good unto others, but mother things ain't goin well" This tune sums up the love and death of the CD.
"Is the title, "Modern Times" a reference to Charlie Chaplin's classic silent film about the stomping march of progress? Anxiety about time's relentless trudge abounds on these 10 songs. Musically Dylan and his airtight band also sound live and tinker-free; maybe the title is a reaction to the digitized business of making music in the 21st century." Houston Chronicle.
The last of a trilogy- love, theft and death, or is this just a period of Dylan's life he needs to explore? Whatever the case, we are the recipients of the great.
Highly, highly recommended. prisrob 8-30-06
Free Music Review: (Ain't Walkin') Another Chapter in the Dylan Mythos
Hit: 5 Stars
If you are even a "moderate" Zimmy fan, you gotta get this! I've been listening to it every day since I picked it up two weeks ago, sometimes twice, back to back. Funny thing is, I knew (KNEW!) I would like it and shorenuff, from the opening bars of Thunder On The Mountain I was hooked. That opener reminds me a lot of Dylan's work with Knopfler on Slow Train, but it immediately kicks off with the grind of Everything's Broken and Things Have Changed, two "newer" singles that have gassed the poet laureate of rock and roll through the last 10 years.
Since this album has already been reviewed over a hundred times, lets get down to meat of why I wanted to add my two cents here.
Anyone old enough (or retro enough) to be familiar with Dylan's Desire album ('76) will find themselves on some similar ground here at the end of the album. The epic edda finale "Ain't Walkin" carries with it the sense of being a sequel to the ending of Desire. The finale on that album is One More Cup Of Coffee, a song that could be placed immediately in front of this one to rather "complete" a mythic tale. On the same Desire album you will find my personal favorite Dylan tune "Isis", another mythos ballad that captures a surreal state between classic western (film), fantasy fable (literature), and greco-egyptian mythology (legend). Isis is one of Bob's more enigmatic songs, beautiful, haunting, humorous, and even a touch of science-fiction a-la Stargate. It has garnered many fans, though it seems to elude the endless barrage of compilation albums. Ain't Walkin' takes the mythos one step further. Before the tragic hero of One More Cup Of Coffee (before I go) sets out on his quest, we are saturated with a haunting violin accompaniment, bohemian-style-hungarian-folk with hair-raising harmony vocals by Emmylou Harris. Although we never quite get the sense of what lies before the heroic journey, we are certain enough that it is death. Now, 30 years later, Dylan completes the tale, with the same haunting string arrangements, the same dark-mythos metre, and a begrudglingly jaded look back at the journey, from the vantage-point of that final death. It is both a spiritual and anti-spiritual climax, riddled with peculiar idioms and imagery. For instance, the reference to the "toothache in my heel" is rather symptomatic of a jewish born turned born again christian turned nondenomenational spiritualist. The serpent (christian or muslim) is set to nip at the faithful hebrews heels "for all your days". In my opinion, these three songs (Isis, One More Cup of Coffee, and Ain't Walkin') are all cut from the same cloth and are my three favorite offerings from Dr. Robert. If you purchase this album and truly enjoy it, be not afraid to pick up Desire, you'll be glad you did!
Also, Levee's Gonna Break sends up some of Bob's Best Blues since "When You Gonna Wake Up?" (Slow Train '79), and most all of Time Out Of Mind nearly ten years ago.
Lastly, as enough of the reviewers here have already said, what's up with Alicia Keys???
Free Music Review: A Reborn Bob Dylan - FOR ME
Hit: 5 Stars
This is going to be a different type of review, but, I believe, an honest one. The reason my review is a little dated is because my brother gave me this album on Thursday, November, 16, 2006. He said you've got to listen to this. It's great. Well, I was very hesitant in listening to it. You see, I had written Bob Dylan off back in the early '90's after I had seen him perform on a few shows on TV. I couldn't understand a thing he said, and the melodies sounded like junk. Bob's voice sounded like he had mush in his mouth, and he sounded like he was down in some dungeon. I was totally embarassed for him, and embarassed when old friends of mine approached me after seeing the same performances and riding me about why they could never see what I had seen in Dylan for years.
You see, I was a Bob Dylan fan from the beginning, way back in the Folk days of the sixties. I went through the Electric period when alot of Dylan fanatics turned on him, but I didn't. I went through his Spiritual years, also when many Dylan fans turned away from him and I stuck in there. But, after hearing how bad he was in his performing in the early to mid '90's, even I gave up. Now, my brother lays this "Modern Times" album on me. I put it in my CD player, expecting the mush I had last heard. Remember, I hadn't heard "Time Out Of Mind", or "Love and Theft" at all. When I had heard that he won awards for these two albums my reaction was one of disbelief, and didn't care to give them a try. When "Modern Times" started playing I couldn't believe my ears. This is the old Dylan, sort of. Sure, his voice was more gravelly, but I could understand him, and the band was excellent. A few songs like "Thunder On The Mountain", Spirit On The Water", When The Deal Goes Down", Nettie Moore", The Levee's Gonna Break", and "Ain't Talkin'", were pure Bob Dylan, with a blues twist to them. You know Folk always was just a step away from The Blues, all along. The songs like "Someday Baby" and "Beyond The Horizon" are basically mainstream country-rock, easy listening, but with Bob Dylan's distinct style. Sinatra could have done "Someday Baby".
For me, Bob Dylan was back! Something I never thought would happen. What a great surprise! I have been wondering for a long while why two of my all-time "Real Country" heroes, Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, had wanted to tour with Dylan. My gosh, do they want to turn their fans off? And, for what reason.
Well, as I'm sitting here, I can't wait, from what I've heard from other reviewers, to here "Time Out Of Mind" and "Love and Theft". Before hearing "Modern Times" I certainly wasn't going to be crazy enough to waste my money on the other two albums. Now, I am crazy enough to spend my money on the previous two. But, I don't think it's going to be a waste. I can't wait!
Free Music Review: Hardly 'modern' but it's another good one
Hit: 5 Stars
Since Time Out Of Mind, us Dylan fans can be proud again to admit that we're fans of the new stuff, not just classic Dylan. Modern Times is his third in a streak of impeccable releases. The latest is a return to the styles Dylan introduced in Love and Theft-- country-blues and smart rockabilly. As with the most recent album, Dylan (aka Jack Frost) produced Modern Times; as such its feeling is closest to Love and Theft-- warmly personal, like listening to the band in a small nightclub.
The songs are longer, the lyrics arguably more memorable and there's a few more down-tempo ballads. Contrary to the popular notion that Dylan's voice is incomprehensible (probably owing to his horrible performance at his 30th anniversary concert), the singing is so clean you can understand everything without the benefit of a lyric sheet.
As I said, the songs are longer: the shortest is 4:58, the longest over eight minutes. Dylan borrows from blues standards on Rollin' and Tumblin' and The Levee's Gonna Break (no, he doesn't cover Led Zeppelin :), but liberally infuses a brilliant mess of his own lyricism. When the Deal Goes Down and Workingman's Blues, especially the latter, are his best ballads in decades. All in all, its not as forceful as Love and Theft. It's not as surprising as that album was, but hardly less of a masterpiece. His lyrics have gotten sharper and wittier, jumping out at you at odd moments with silly innuendos, jokes about getting old, an Alicia Keys name-drop, countless thought-provoking one-liners and an all-around optimistic glow. Altogether, it's friendlier and more fun that the last two releases; it might be Dylan's most 'personable' album since, well, 'Another Side...' or 'Self-Portrait.' The last track, Ain't Talkin' is reminiscent, stylistically, of Time Out of Mind's opener, though it's probably coincidental. Dylan sings, 'Ain't Walkin', Ain't Talkin' in the same tone as Love Sick's lyric 'I'm Walkin', bringing what Columbia's been labeling a 'trilogy', full-circle.
Though reviewers elsewhere have said that Modern Times is unlikely to impress non-fans, I can't imagine how anyone couldn't enjoy the heart-wrenching warmth and sagacious wit flaunted by Dylan and his band. Dylan's last two albums and his live shows, on the other hand, are denser affairs, more tuned to the mind of the familiar fan, but, similar in appeal to, but greater in quality than, Johnny Cash's later recordings for American Records, Modern Times is Bob Dylan singing for everybody. And just as well, those who've stuck with Dylan over the years and listened with awe to Time Out of Mind are going to keep Modern Times out next to the CD player for quite awhile.
Free Music Review: Audacious music, audacious me
Hit: 5 Stars
I am being audacious to review music by the great Bob Dylan. Be that as it may, "Modern Times" is one of my all-time favorite CDs and I have something to say. Thoughts gel when they are written.
I fell in love with Bob Dylan's music in college in the 60's, at the beginning, dragging his albums home for my mother to hear. Ug, she didn't like him, but "The Times they were a changin'" in so many ways, almost as if Dylan heralded them. I was there, went with the flow on "Highway 61."
So many years have passed. He's been down so many roads, as have I. He is again heralding new times, modern times. He is searching for Alicia Keyes, I am searching for Gerard Butler. It's "Thunder on the Mountain" and he is still traveling. The music is great. He is still following his King and his religious vows. Awesome. I'm following the same ones.
"Spirit on the Water" voices the fact that we can always fall in love no matter our age. This song brings tears every time I hear it. The vagaries of aging is worrisome --in the mirror, on the road, in the body. "You think I'm over the hill, you think I'm past my prime. Let me see what you got, we can have a wonderful time." There goes that harmonica and steel guitar playing the closing refrain, just like a couple romping together. Or could be the song is about the vagaries of fame? Dylan, still with his finger on the pulse of his "Age."
"When the deal goes down"--Here is the road of life and there the time of death. We all struggle to love and forgive. Where will you be on your road of life "when the deal goes down"? Are you ready?
"Someday Baby" is pure blues. "Workingman's Blues #2" spotlights his sometimes melodious voice in another bluesy song, this time celebrating work and love.
"Beyond the Horizon" is a lovely ballad about life "beyond the horizon." "Ain't Talkin'" adds the melancholy of a cello solo (another reviewer says viola). He says prayer has the power to heal, love your neighbor, do good to others. Aint talking, just walking, heart burning, still yearning. You get no mercy once you've lost. And he ends the song "in the last outback at the world's end." Cello is back for its last solo. What Dylan says to me-- and I have walked a similar road (minus fame and money),-- that if you live your faith, the end of the world is not to be feared.
I am not only audacious, I am bodacious in extending these ideas about Dylan's music. Anyone who reads this is walking a path with Dylan and me, exploring this new direction beyond the horizon in these modern times. I "aint' talkin" no more.