Bob Dylan - Tempest, Sept. 11, 2012

this album is pretty great, i gotta admit.

all his latest albums are overcompressed to the point of vomit

"Roll On John" is almost as wretched as "Lenny Bruce" and "Early Roman Kings" doesn't do anything with its "I woke up this morning" blues style. The rest is terrific.

"Long and Wasted Years" is great.

the whole thing should be about 20 minutes shorter, i'll admit.

all his latest albums are overcompressed to the point of vomit

yeah, but that's true of a lot of contemporary records.

(his aren't as bad as bruce springsteen's in this regard.)

Huh I've never thought that....wrt dylans records

yeah, i feel like they sound pretty spacious. i don't know, i am not sensitive to that stuff though.

Ditto. Modern Times and Together Through Life are definitely louder than their immediate predecessors, but not in a brickwally way.

http://www.emusician.com/folk/0802/recording-bob-dylan/139370

Interesting to read that a lot of the atmosphere of those records stems from the instruments bleeding into Bob's mic.

am I wrong in thinking I hear less instrumental flourishes on Tempest than on the others? It sounds monolithic: Dylan and the wall of sound churning behind him.

I listened to the itunes stream for couple songs but decided to wait.

That recording article is really interesting.

Listening to modern times note on my stereo, sounds good to me

I saw him live recently, around the time of that NY show reviewed above; he played some interesting piano, mostly I liked it but sometimes it just got in the way of Sexton's guitar. He was in great voice though, very full-throated. No songs from Tempest yet.

am I wrong in thinking I hear less instrumental flourishes on /Tempest/ than on the others? It sounds monolithic: Dylan and the wall of sound churning behind him.

Yeah I noticed this most on tin angel in particular. His singing on that song is great though.

iTunes isn't letting me play this, seems to be working OK otherwise, anybody else having the same prob?

The link in the first paragraph here worked for me. (If you just search for it on iTunes, it takes you to the album page which doesn't have working links to the songs yet.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/listen-to-bob-dylans-new-album-tempest-20120905

Yeah, that's the same link I xposted, but it didn't work for me 'til I just now opened it in Safari. Lots and lots of pungent lines from the old gent prowling every compartment of the 5:19. So many zingers, or ones that at least kept me listening, getting immersed in the overall effect, overall *sound*, the vibe x physical components, the imagery incl in both categories ("pungent", "compartments, yeah). So, despite the lack of solos, the music is strongly supportive (can even tell most of the tracks from each other).
All seems like a set-up, not for a prank, but to get me ready to board the Titanic. Not unlike a barroom sway along presented by the Pogues, also the kinds of things that were written soon after the sinking, and given Scorcese/Sergio Leone focus; splintery, pulpy sentiment, for the top-of-the-heap Sunday morning tabloids, and Once Upon A Time In The Atlantic. Itself a set-up for "Roll On John": "From the Liverpool docks..." He did make it to New York, unlike the Titanic, to share the universal mystery of each person's daeth, thus the way he (might as well be) conjectured as being bound like a slave, rolling through the cave, "shine on." I'll drink to that.

I think he's as serious and droll as he means to be, maybe needs to be, but I'll have to listen some more. Which is as it should be of course, in part to wrap my head around that sell. like I said, it's an immersive effect, the Dylan Show, as much as we're gonna get in the studio, unless he includes the live approach, and starts screwing with material he's just introduced us to. Do it!

i like the concept of an album where he does controversially unrecognizable versions of the songs on the same album, i.e. songs nobody has heard yet.

that's some borges-esque shit.

Thinkin he could do it straight, then gradually take it apart, though not quite unrecognizable--like Vince Gilligan's pitch to AMC re Breaking Bad, "Mr. Chips turns into Scarface." But as that happens, we see it's still the same guy, different components of his personality roiling around. Very disturbing--and some people online are having trouble letting go Mr. BB as a complicated hero--like letting go of your own Mr. D.

the characters in the songs, incl the narrators, begin to morph--the killer sounds so sweet, Grandpa Bob gets operatic--

man i can't even parse your previous comment.

via wfmu's frow show, "Soon After Midnight"'s music is a pretty direct crib of this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SmZedG9sVw

xgau:

Although his voice is crumbling audibly and his band is too often static, Dylan remains one of our more thoughtful wordslingers in the ever-changing trad mode he's made his own. Still, the meme that this album is a major statement where Together Through Life was a holding action bespeaks the unseen hand of the autohype machine and the superstitious fears that attend 70th birthdays. Although the four trad relationship numbers that open build nicely on Together Through Life's strategy and groove, the closers aim higher with dubious-to-disgracef​​ul results. For all its well-borrowed tune and well-digested details, nobody's putting the 14-minute Titanic ballad on repeat, and the seven-minute John Lennon dirge says nothing at half speed just like the naysayers neigh. That leaves four tracks, and how much you admire this record will depend on how redolent you find two of them: the quiet jeremiad "Scarlet Town" and the quieter love-triangle cut-'em-up "Tin Angel." I say they'd be better faster, possibly. As for "Early Roman Kings," a black-comedy dis of the rich and richer, and "Pay in Blood," folk-music death metal via sanguinary imagery and microphone placement, you gotta love 'em. B PLUS

via Stereogum

http://stereogum.com/1146641/premature-evaluation-bob-dylan-tempest/franchises/premature-evaluation/

http://static.music.cbc.ca/v2/blogs/images/32/32837/talkin-dylan-ice-t_16x9_620x350.jpg

While in Toronto to promote the film, Ice-T revealed that his favourite Dylan song is “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from the 1965 LP Bringing it All Back Home.

“When I first got my record deal, Seymour Stein, head of Sire Records who signed Ramones, Madonna and Ministry, he told me I sounded like Bob Dylan. He compared me to Bob Dylan because of my storytelling. And I knew who Bob Dylan was, so I took it as a compliment. And I love that song. It's just a rap, man.

“You know what else about Bob Dylan is that he said something really nice about me in his book Chronicles. Since I’ve been doing music, I’ve gotten compliments from people like him or Bono, and it’s always weird when you get compliments from people from a whole other genre or time. It’s definitely something you take to heart and appreciate.”

Dunno if it's a xpost xgau major statement, but when Dyl's on his game, he still satisfies in a way nobody else quite does, therefore it's currently a leading contendah for my P&J, which is never about perfection.

I want to ask about the controversy over your quotations in your songs from the works of other writers, such as Japanese author Junichi Saga's Confessions of a Yakuza, and the Civil War poetry of Henry Timrod. In folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition, but some critics say that you didn't cite your sources clearly. What's your response to those kinds of charges?

Oh, yeah, in folk and jazz, quotation is a rich and enriching tradition. That certainly is true. It's true for everybody, but me. There are different rules for me. And as far as Henry Timrod is concerned, have you even heard of him? Who's been reading him lately? And who's pushed him to the forefront? Who's been making you read him? And ask his descendants what they think of the hoopla. And if you think it's so easy to quote him and it can help your work, do it yourself and see how far you can get. Wussies and pussies complain about that stuff. It's an old thing – it's part of the tradition. It goes way back. These are the same people that tried to pin the name Judas on me. Judas, the most hated name in human history! If you think you've been called a bad name, try to work your way out from under that. Yeah, and for what? For playing an electric guitar? As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord and delivering him up to be crucified. All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.

Seriously?

I'm working within my art form. It's that simple. I work within the rules and limitations of it. There are authoritarian figures that can explain that kind of art form better to you than I can. It's called songwriting. It has to do with melody and rhythm, and then after that, anything goes. You make everything yours. We all do it.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bob-dylan-strikes-back-at-critics-20120912#ixzz26Gfbn1IT

wussies and pussies!

All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell.

Should be title of next Chronicles.

can we poll the two options?

It's really weird and arresting when this guy actually makes any kind of public statement, especially one as outspoken as this. He spends most of his life being so aloof and inscrutable and then when something like this comes out it's like WHAM.

I love Gospel Dylan so much.

WUSSIES AND PUSSIES

haha wow!

just stopped by electric fetus and got tempest on CD, sounding good so far! love long & narrow way!

WUSSIES AND PUSSIES

tipsy mothra can this please be the title of the Dylan tracks poll?

frankly it's really hard to tell fake dylan quotes from real dylan quotes. i find myself staring into that uncanny valley whenever i read interviews with him.

dylan OTM obviously, but do i detect a little protest-too-much in that interview?

Wussies, Pussies, and Motherfuckers: The Bootleg Series, Vol. X [3 CD]

Kind of imagine he was grinning while saying all of that. Don't know if he was pounding his fist on the table or anything.

!!!!!!

after 'tempest' today i played through some of the theme time radio hour extras from the last album, so i could totally hear dylan's voice saying all that shit just now.

"All those evil motherfuckers can rot in hell," he said with a good natured laugh.

best lost verse from subterranean homesick blues ever

"That said," Dylan added, "Fuck Jimmy Page. That guy's a fuckin' thief."

i read a bunch of the RS interview thru the expecting rain site & some of it is super, mega weird & rad, in the same vain. he talks about having been transfigured by his motorbike accident & encourages the interviewer to read into his recorder from a hells angels bio that mentions a Bobby Zimmerman's automotive fatality.

Dylan brought his own recorder to the interview? Cool, hope he was playing guitar while the guy was reading that. "Fuck you," he explained.

Mikal Gilmore brings out the best in Dylan, I must say.