Bob Dylan - Modern Times
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Free Music Notes for Modern Times
Free Music Review: I Got the Porkchops, She Got the Pie
Hit: 5 Stars
"I got the porkchops, she got the pie
She ain't no angel and neither am I
Shame on your greed, shame on your wicked schemes
I'll say this, I don't give a damn about your dreams"
Who else but Dylan can write stuff like this? The man who gave us "the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face" 40 years ago continues to amaze.
Modern Times is Dylan's best work since Infidels, and that's saying a lot. This is a great band, producing a new version of "that thin, that wild mercury sound" that is characteristic of Dylan at his best. Here it is polished, tracing a razor's edge, at times seductive, at times raising the hair on the back of your neck.
It is remarkable what Dylan, at age 65, is able to do with his voice. To me it never sounded better. Yeah, I know his range is shot and that it's raspy and raw. But the phrasing is complex and precise, it hits every time, and the range of emotion that's conveyed is without compare. Nobody ever said that Dylan is an operatic singer, but he's an incredible vocalist, and Modern Times sets a new standard for this greatness.
The songs flow together, contrast with, and build off one another. This is an "album" in the classic sense; buying individual songs or shuffling them will lose a lot.
So for instance when the funky twelve bar rhythm of The Levee's Gonna Break transitions into the stark, haunting, slow chords of Ain't Talkin', you almost get weak in the knees, and the hair really does stand up on the back of your neck.
And Dylan sings,
"Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Up the road, around the bend.
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
In the last outback at the world's end."
Who else but Dylan does stuff like this?
Highly recommended.
Free Music Review: MESMERIZING SONGS, BRILLIANT LYRICS: BOB'S DEFINITELY BACK!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
Five MESMERIZING Stars!!!
When he was declared the "Boy Wonder of Folk" he backed it up with recording after recording, singing in a voice like no other. Over the decades the voice has become dark and mellow like a fine, aged whiskey. This recording is loaded with FABULOUS haunting songs from beginning to end. Alot of blues, country-tinged songs, folk and protest songs. And the lyrics are truly SENSATIONAL: stark, dense, humorous, full of images that keep coming, one after another, like tennis balls from a practice machine. You can barely appreciate one image before the next one has overtaken you. Some of this is breath-taking music of the highest order. And when you read the lyrics, it's pure poetry that ranks with today's best poets.
'Pieces De Resistance' are everywhere. Trust me, "Thunder On The Mountain" went straight to my IPod and immediately on the road with me tonight, thanks to an early availability of the download: a total success of a song that ranks right up there with his best lyrics. Then he deals up a loping, intimate love song, "Spirit On The Water", with equally wonderful lyrics full of stark, beautiful images, almost like a bookend to "Thunder...". The bluesy "Rollin' and "Tumblin' " is great. There is alot of classic rock and R&B with Dylan lyrics on top and it's great. "Nettie Moore" is vintage Dylan and a masterpiece of a commentary on slavery and undying love. "Ain't Talkin" is pure BRILLIANCE. Never one to let success, Grammys, Halls of Fame, and an Academy Award slow him down, Bob Dylan is as vital and timeless as ever. Thank you, Bob Dylan, welcome back!! And special thanks to the producer, Bob..er Jack Frost. LOL. My Highest Recommendation. Five HUGE Stars!!!
(Note:*This review is based on a 10 track ITunes Music download.)
Free Music Review: Blues you can use
Hit: 5 Stars
Contemporary music's great romantic realist tells us it may be "Modern Times" but the battle remains the same - The human heart in conflict with itself (as William Faulkner called it).
Longtime fans will be glad to know Dylan's story-telling abilities and rebelliousness haven't dimmed a bit. Every one of the 10 songs is way longer than 3:05, yet another instance of Dylan giving corporate radio the back of his hand. Master Bob is going to say his piece and that's that. And - he whispers to the suits and others in "Ain't Talkin'" - "Some day you'll be glad to have me around."
"Workingman's Blues No. 2" is a classic - no other way to describe it. Dylan stacks the crumbling of the American economy and the fading of national promise alongside personal relationship difficulties in a very poignant way.
Our artist does similar in "The Levee's Going to Break," marrying an obvious Hurricane Katrina news reference to individual and national recklessness.
Religious and cultural references - "Darkness on the face of the deep" from the Book of Genesis appears in "Spirit on the Water" and "In the Still of the Night" from the Platters and the annals of classic R&B/rock gets into "When The Deal Goes Down" - bump up against us and are quickly gone, true to the pace and experience of modern life. Dylan scatters them discreetly, avoiding being "a man who thinks in slogans," as George Orwell once put it.
Dylan sounds briefly like one of Orwell's smiling totalitarians in "Someday Baby" when he sings "I keep recycling the same old thoughts." Then we realize that conformists don't think this deeply. The artist is merely reflecting what King Solomon said centuries before about the human condition - there's nothing new under the sun.
Free Music Review: prophesy, prophesy, prophesy
Hit: 5 Stars
this album(and it truly is an album in the "old timey" sense of that word, ment to be listened to from start to finish)
is not about the music, current events in specific cases, or whether or not mr. dylan can sing like the latest pop songbird-flavor-of-the-moment. open your ears and mind and listen to the words. this is a swan song to a crumbling empire, a sweet prayer for forgiveness, a dark warning of troubled times to come, some more prayer to get along together,and a love song to mankind near the end, all set to american root based music you have heard in some form before done just for that reason
so you don't get so rapped up in the tune you miss the point. pay no attention to the fact that it says there are ten songs an this album, there is basically only one message throughout. when you think "this" song
is about so and so go back and listen to them again and think bigger picture. its scary, dark, and sad. written as if dylan were channeling
prophesy. this is truly an album that will challenge each person that really listens in a very personal way- it sounds like it is challenging dylan personally also. he seems to know that he is in the same ship-of-humanity with us and he'll be with us, when the deal goes down. i seen in one other reviewers statement the the lyrics could have been written be John the Revelator. he claims to be and athiest also. well, i've always claimed a little agnostic myself, but i'm back to thinking.
One favorite line: the whole world is filled with speculation, the whole wide world which people say is round, they'll take your mind away from contemplation!!!
bob, in that respect, you never spoke a truer truth. thanks for being there for us.
Free Music Review: Fantastic Late Period Dylan
Hit: 5 Stars
If you've been waiting to buy a contemporary Dylan album, but don't want to get stuck with a CD that only Dylan fans could love, your wait is over. Better than Time out of Mind, better than Love and Theft, MT is to my ears the best Dylan album in years. Too bad Dylan's voice is gone, as I would have liked to hear it with his old voice. Nevertheless, Dylans straining vocals are integral to these calm musings of an older and wiser songman. What really hooks you however is Dylan's backup band: efficient, competent, non-flashy and as good a group as Dylan has ever assembled since the years with the Band.
The album sounds better each time I listen to it. The implicit meanings and fine shadings in Dylan's voice would be incredible in any artist, but that he pulls it off with his voice, as shot as it is, is amazing. Dylan sings behind the beat, in front of the beat and basically dances around every song in rythmn with whatever lyrical impulses are driving him at the moment. This might not work with a lesser band behind him, but his backup band is definitely along for the ride on these tracks.
Dylans lyrics are really great on this album. The famed Dylan wit is in full evidence. By turns tender, funny, angry and romantic, Dylan covers the full litany of modern complaints from the macro to the micro. Thankfully he avoids the facile rhymes that have characterized some of his recent offerings, and concentrates on the phrase rather than the word. There are new things to discover each time out. I have had the CD on repeat now for several hours and am not tired of it yet.
That the album is Grammy bound is unmistakeable. I think it's good enough to win Album of the Year.