Dylan's Christian period

tim drummond is the bass player -- james brown, neil young, jj cale etc.

& yeah ain't gonna go to hell is a pretty commercial sounding number -- lord only knows why dylan never released it.

ah yes, Drummond. he just has the funniest wide-legged hunch-n-bob when he gets into it.

"Philosophers like ... Plato... uh, Jimmy Reed"

lol

that show was amazing

omg you guys

http://wonderingsound.com/review/various-artists-tribute-bob-dylan-80s-volume-one/

http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/148/510/14851006/300x300.jpg

grantland ran a piece about that album and dylan's 80s stuff in general:
http://grantland.com/features/bob-dylan-1980s-albums-tribute-album/

doesnt' really say anything new or terribly interesting. this thread is easily the best thing i've ever read on this period.

the "volume one" on the cover there is ominous.

That tribute is a steaming pile. nigh unlistenable.

i ended up loving Saved! a lot

All about ROCK SOLID for me.

these are both great
http://thousandhighways.blogspot.com/2013/09/still-same-man-volume-one-unreleased.html
http://thousandhighways.blogspot.com/2013/09/still-same-man-volume-two-unreleased.html

i've only heard the built to spill "jokerman" off of the 80s Dylan trib, but i thought it was OK.

That's the highlight. The rest rarely reaches OK.

guess i'm a lil curious to hear the bonnie prince billy "dark eyes"? a little bit?

that grantland piece is pretty infuriating, between conflating early-80s fire-and-brimstone dylan with late-80s dylan-and-the-dead dylan and then ending on this

[Time out of] Mind is a personal favorite, and easily better than anything Dylan did in the ’80s. But it also took Dylan out of commission as a present-tense figure. Now, it’s impossible to imagine him in the same context as Ratt or Kip Winger (or Justin Bieber or YG). His iconic luster was restored, but his humanity — which once beat with the power of blanched synths and tinny drums — became obscured behind sepia-tinted sonics.

as if the five albums since time out of mind have all been muttering abt death in a lanois fog, even when they've been bad

as if songs where he mentions alicia keys have no effect on the clear visibility of his 'humanity'? (not sure even what that would mean but ok)

plus the jack frost "sonics" are prob better + "aliver" than anyone's dylan sonics since tom wilson's

out of commission as a present-tense figure
ha yeah, see that seems exactly what Dylan has been kicking against since TOOM. where that record seemed foggy and out of it (intentionally so, i'd say) his subsequent records have been sharp/feisty as hell.

the dusty past of underwaer and detroit commercials during the superbowl

der dean: http://www.spin.com/reviews/bob-dylan-80s-tribute-comp-ATO/

The songs have been retained but not the sound — that big, terrible ’80s production with the Miami Vice drums, the overbearing backup singers, and the sluggishly steady metronomic synth gurgle that makes the version of “When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky” on Empire Burlesque feel like dying from a torturously slow cocaine overdose

This dude on a ruthless pursuit of cliches.

Xgau liking it only confirms my belief that it's a steaming turd of a record.

Not sure it's a full endorsement.

yeah the 80s cliches come thick and heavy there but damn if the production (and/or mastering) on those 80s dylan records doesn't sound like shit.

steve hyden is easily the worst writer at grantland and was one of the worst at avclub, a more anodyne moody but just as clueless a defender of garbled unexamined cw.

the Miami Vice drums, the overbearing backup singers, and the sluggishly steady metronomic synth gurgle

Cliche or not, this is a pretty accurate description.

plus the jack frost "sonics" are prob better + "aliver" than anyone's dylan sonics since tom wilson's

I wouldn't go quite that far, but I do like the relatively clean, live sound of Jack Frost-era Dylan a lot better than Lanois's highly-produced sound. I don't think he's talking about the recording sound though, he's more talking about the style. I think that Love and Theft was a major creative rebirth for Dylan, but he achieved it by forgetting about sounding modern and going back to his roots.

Cliche or not, this is a pretty accurate description.

right but it's become accepted discourse that "eighties production" means "lots of cocaine produced it." "Miami Vice" is another cliche. "In the Air Tonight" drums don't sound like the Jan Hammer's theme.

I think the point is that those records have a generic bad-'80s sound. "In the Air Tonight" still sounds awesome, IMO.

The singing on the worst eighties recordings is worse than the production imo

http://24.media.tumblr.com/ae88a8e243c2ea0784bbeffdb5c79956/tumblr_n3tutvLNre1qzy30io1_1280.png

woah is that official?

nah, looks like it's a jews for jesus thing that they must've been handing out in front of dylan shows in 1980
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_V4PPJ2v6h8Q/Rt4J9sPtUuI/AAAAAAAABKo/c6GoYxF1px0/s1600/All+Inside.jpg

jews for jesus are the first, they always manage to pick me out of groups of people when i'm walking down the street. i usually scare them away with a preemptive "fuck you."

are the WORST

yes, they suck. must've been a big deal for them when dylan converted.

jews for jesus are the first,

they were that too if you think about it

ha, that is correct! :)

I finally listened to Changing of the Guard: good singing (the choral group is used effectively, for the most part), good music (except for the drums); but lyrics incl brain of homeless prophetic imagery and serenades which start suavely but quickly go so wrong ("Can ya cook and sew, make the flowers grow," he sounds like even he knows this is hopeless as soon as he hears it--and/or he already knew it, but it's still like,) "No? Course not, but come 'ere and show me what you can do, then.") Performance-wise, the most successful (and stylistically, the most unusual here) is "New Pony," which morphs into bizarre bluesoid porn, though not in a good way (to my taste). Overall, sounds like he's really moving toward some desperate change.
(Before this album came out, Renaldo and Clara incl Dyl paying much attention as Ginsberg tells him about Jesus and the ladies---think some of this was from the Apocrypha, but some from the Protestant-approved Gospels).

brain *stew* of homeless, Ah meant to say.

Not that all the lyrics are bad, but this set incl. recurring, off-putting syndromes.

sheiks walkin around like kings

god every line of this song is so bonkers amazing

yes!

i was just listening to that album the other night, it is so great

she was a backwoods girl but she sure was realistic

sons becomin husbands to their mothers

'change my way' a close second, i roffle every time

His eyes were two slits that would make a snake proud
With a face that any painter would paint as he walked through the crowd
Worshipping a god with the body of a woman well endowed
And the head of a hyena

'precious angel' has one of the best

you either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain’t noooooooooooooo neutral ground

I've yet to find a copy of Shot of Love but Saved shouldn't be slept on either - "Pressing On" is great

so is "covenant woman" imo