Bob Dylan's least regarded albums

I went to see Dylan on the tour for Under the Red Sky and I listened to it a bunch of times so I'd know the songs. He didn't play a single song from that record.

Self-Portrait is a legit good album, just not what people wanted from Dylan at the time

the xtian ones are also good

hard rain is fire wtf

hard rain was the one i am most curious about, almost cut it from the poll but its rep seemed to be "not good"...maybe i'm wrong.

feel like another self-portrait bootleg series release has rehabilitated self-portrait's rep

I love everything on Another Self Portrait except for Self Portrait. I dunno how he did it, but in a way, I kind of admire the skill involved in making a dull album out of decidedly non-dull elements.

didn't know Infidels was regarded, was gonna vote that based on Jokerman alone

I kind of admire the skill involved in making a dull album out of decidedly non-dull elements
ha yeah, this is otm ... hard to say just how intentional it was, but it's interesting

Infidels is a jam imo

Saved is great

Street Legal, now that's a real turd

they're all great, let's be real
ok, maybe dylan and the dead is pretty bad

Self Portrait bangs

People always say there was a lot better stuff recorded by the Dylan/Dead collaboration than was released.
Haven't heard teh actual lp in years but don't remember much of it taking off. Think I may have bunged like half a track on a tape compilation I was making at the time, & I used to do a couple fo those every couple of weeks so taht I had things to listen to while hitching.
So if I did take something off taht it was from an instrumental break onwards or something. Know I did taht with teh Hard to Handle from Bear's Choice but think I did it on something on there anyway.

Did seem like it would be a collaboration taht should have worked at one time. Not sure if that was the era though.

UTRS is the Dr. Seuss album he shoulda recorded in 1966.

Froggy Went a Courtin def more relevant back then

(xpost)

I'm guessing you know about this already, which is what prompted your post. I've got it on my computer but never bothered listening. (Large image, so I won't embed.)

cdn8.openculture.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/DylanHearsAWho.jpeg

dylan hears a who is surprisingly good -- worth at least one listen, anyway.

Saved is great

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, February 1, 2017 3:35 PM (eighteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

def

self-portrait is great, too, ive always liked it, and it's nice to see that it's been reclaimed as a good dylan album.

Self Portrait was already the subject of a Bootleg series revisitation to recontextualise it. Wondered fi teh Dylan & The Dead thing might get some of the better stuff used for a future volume.
Or released by the Dead themselves since they seem to be pretty comprehensive in their releases. Maybe the better stuff wasn't recorded as well as they'd hoped?

i've never heard dylan tbh

knocked out loaded is essential just for "brownsville girl", a top 5 dylan tune for me

down in the groove is trash. i can't tell you a thing about under the red sky even though i've listened to it a few times

if only someone had thought to record the Dead shows

utrs sorta suffers from dull production and uninspired performances, but it really isn't that far off from song-wise from his 21st century output

UTRS seemed like a regression at the time, after the Oh Mercy comeback narrative

here's the best dylan and the dead show i've heard: https://archive.org/details/gd87-07-19.sbd.fishman.13023.sbeok.shnf
the rehearsals are fun too ...

My gut says Down in the Groove and Dylan and the Dead are the two worst things here. Though At Budokan is his worst live record not to involve the Grateful Dead.

As far as best, I gotta go Self Portrait.

I found "Dylan and the Dead" was disappointing as it was nothing like as awful as I was given to understand.

Knocked Out Loaded has "Brownsville Girl", and some other good things too.

I has that Budokan live album, I did not like it, no.

Street Legal, now that's a real turd

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, February 1, 2017 2:36 PM (forty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

woah woah woah senor #TeamStreetLegal gonna yankee power ya ass!

seriously though it's such a great album, he follows a 10 minute epic "changing of the guard" with a song about fucking a horse

also great album cover the truest expression of bob in photograph form

Had. I do not has it now. Xposts.

Am voting "Dylan", someone has to.

Dylan is great.

MY GOD THEY KILLED HIM

If you ignore the horrifying track witht he children's choir whose title I won't mention for fear of opening a crack in the earth, Knocked Out Loaded is fun: "Under Your Spell," "Maybe Someday," "Driftin' Too Far From Shore," the Petty collab, and of course "Brownsville Girl."

yeah street legal seems like it shouldn't be good but it's actually kinda awesome

otm about the cover photo, too

I'm not a fan -- it has more sexist drivel than usual ("Is Your Love in Vain") and two songs that count as history-as-farce ("Changing of the Guard," "Where Are You Tonight?"). I've liked "Senor" the last couple times he's played it.

Where the FUCK is Empire Burlesque???

It'd well regarded.

Not by me!!

I stand by this re: Street Legal, my opinion hasn't changed

Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" - Classic or Dud?

Self Portrait is mostly great, imo, but I'm a casual music listener

I stand by this re: Street Legal, my opinion hasn't changed

Bob Dylan's "Street Legal" - Classic or Dud?

― Οὖτις, Wednesday, February 1, 2017 7:33 PM

can you understand my paaain?

No

your love is in vain

Self Portrait
on first listen I was surprised at how not terrible this was - has some good songs, but it's not one I return to often. Overlong. Also, the bootleg series compilation is great, so not much need for this one after all.

Dylan
as received wisdom has it, this is indeed a lesser 'Self Portrait'. 'Mr. Bojangles' is... fun. And I like 'Lily of the West'

Hard Rain
I don't like Dylan's shouting on this and other 70s live records

At Budokan
Well this one has a p good band, some enjoyable interpretations. From what I've read, the band became kicking on the North American leg of the tour, and Budokan are some of the least good concerts with this setup. Too bad.

Saved
Has good songs but ultimately boring and a lesser 'Slow Train Coming'

Shot of Love
Now here's a good album! Great energy, great phrasing, wit, fun. 'Heart of Stone' and ofc 'Every Grain of Sand' are standouts.

Knocked Out Loaded
Crap record which for some reason has 'Brownsville Girl' which is all time

Down In the Groove
So bad

Dylan and the Dead
Embarrassing

Under the Red Sky
Haven't listened too much to this one but I do like the sticker on my copy

http://i.imgur.com/c1cUc3X.png

MTV Unplugged
First time I heard this I thought it was awful, last time I checked it sounded a lot better. He plays Dignity. Probably one of the best in this lot.

Dishonorable mentions: Empire Burlesque, Real Live

In other news: Bootlegs 1-3 have been reissued on vinyl, get 'em while you can!

After reading Dave Marsh on Budokan (RS Record Guide, blue/1983 edition) I thought, jeez, it can't be THAT bad. But it is.

The versions of Dylan's songs on Budokan sabotage meaning, reduce it to rubble, and walk blithely away, snapping their fingers like so many little hipster hitmen. It was as though Dylan were daring his audience to continue to pay attention -- or even to respect him. This is his worst record by such a wide margin it's hard to fathom it.

The version of Shelter From The Storm on Hard Rain is excellent.

Shot of Love is probably the best of these records overall, but there are good songs on all of them. Seek out Born In Time from Under The Red Sky, that is super duper good.

I like Hard Rain fine, it's just not near as good as Before the Flood.

I think "Emotionally Yours" is a good phrase, esp for him: alll the emotions babe...
On their album Emotionally Yours, O'Jays did two versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cx5L2mWFwOk&list=OLAK5uy_kLEZ4qMNT6HjZw9foHuDcalVocA6sTB94
(R&B version)

I......
.....
...
....
....
......
......
like Walk of Life

xpost Weird. Oh well, it's on youtube, with the gospel version. Not as good as The Persuasions' "The Man In Me," but Persuasions' voices were younger than EY-era O'Jays', and "The Man" is a better song, of course. Not bad for a faceless ballad tho (more vigorous than "To Feel My Love," although I certainly haven't heard every cover of that).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsx9YBV9EnM

From 1972----much later, they did a whole album of Dylan.

Their 1972 LP Street Corner Symphony (Lenny Kaye wrote a beautiful little piece somewhere about the brief-lived a capella persuasion, from late-50s to early 60s)

Bettye LaVette did "EY" on her incredible BD collection, Things Have Changed---here she is live, atypically ravaged, but driving through it, as always---"It's like...my whole life never happened...shake me, hold me..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJujOOFQV-c

Not so faceless there!

Wild to realize I’m the same age as Empire-era Dylan... I should get a suit like his.

Tight Connection has the tightest seven-inch art
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/19/Bob_Dylan_Tight_Connection_to_My_Heart_Single.jpg

think i prefer the infidels version though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbhoo_gGkK8

Lou Reed gushed about Empire B in an interview

Wasn't it Down in the Groove? He liked "Rank Strangers to Me."

XP!...and Down In The Groove when talked to Rolling Stone in '89.

He oddly singled out two covers for praise, as if he thought Dylan wrote them.

It's the RS interview promoting New York, collected in a late nineties book of Reed interviews and essays.

Maybe. Reed talked about Dylan a lot in the 80s. It was something like "If a new artist had made (new Dylan album) it would be hailed as a masterpiece."

i think Dylan told Lou he loved "doin the things we want to" and suddenly Lou was a huge Dylan booster.

that's about right

Lou Reed said a lot over the years.

But he never said he was ept!

while they're beatin' the devil out of a guy
who's wearing a powder-blue weeeeeeeeeeeeeg

Best I recall, Reed did a good "Foot of Pride" on the Dylan trib 30th Anniversary Concert.

agree

Musically speaking, the 30th Anniversary Concert was a very uneven affair, but Reed's "Foot of Pride" was possibly the highlight of the whole thing. I think he was the only one to pick a song that was a 'bootleg' track. He's clearly reading off a teleprompter or something, so it could be better, but otherwise, he delivers it with a lot of authority. It has the makings of a great cover, it's just too bad he never tried it again in a recording studio.

Neil doing "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" absolutely destroyed

Neil Tennant?

Sedaka

Diamond

Hannon

Fred

Schon

Hamburger

Hagerty

https://66.media.tumblr.com/0c3ec4e792525b9a21c8a0dfcb679367/tumblr_n43u97VcvU1shl3p1o1_1280.jpg

I agree, Vince Neil really brought the heat

The few worthy songs on "Saved" are best heard in the live versions found on "The Bootleg Series Vol. 13: Trouble No More (1979–1981)

"Covenant Woman" and "Solid Rock" are better on "Saved" IMO (and are both great).

Hard rep for the Take 1 “Pressing On” on disc 3.

I'm actually not a fan of "Covenant Woman," but I prefer "Solid Rock" when it was performed early on in late 1979 - the groove was funkier. By the time they tried it in the studio, they were already streamlining the rhythm and speeding up the tempo, but the result sounds more generic and less interesting to me.

i haven’t been able to get into that bootleg set, for whatever reason... I love some of the songs on Saved — particularly “Covenant Woman.”

there is def not that much distance between the live and studio versions of “solid rock”

Not a huge difference, but enough to render "Saved" completely useless for me.

Listening to the "Minnesota Hotel Tape," a very popular bootleg among collectors and generally one of the first ones recommended to new fans. (It was taped soon after he recorded his very first album for Columbia.) Haven't heard it in a long time, but it still sounds pretty awesome. Even the very brief moments of tape overload/harmonica distortion are appealing - a great, raw recording. Sound quality aside, it blows the debut LP out of the water - like, THIS should have been the introduction to Bob Dylan. Great songs, great performances - the recording is over 70 minutes, and it would have been easy to make a great LP out of it, there's more than enough material: "Hard Times in New York Town," "Dink's Song," "I Was Young When I Left Home," "Baby Please Don't Go," "Stealin'," "Poor Lazarus," "Wade in the Water," etc..."Black Cross" especially but Columbia might've balked at something that bold.

This blog posted a two-disc bootleg that has the whole thing preceded by more recordings from that era:

https://100greatestbootlegs.blogspot.com/2016/09/90-bob-dylan-early-dylan-1961-flac.html

(Actually meant to post this in "Bob Dylan 1962-64: The pre-electric albums" thread but whatever.)

https://www.musicradar.com/news/slash-bob-dylan-michael-jackson

Slash on his time tracking for Bob Dylan's 1990 Under The Red Sky on the much-maligned song "Wiggle Wiggle":

Don Was hooked me up with Bob Dylan and said, 'Here's the song', it was a real basic I-IV-V blues kind of thing. Don had suggested me to play the solo for this particular song, which was like an acoustic kind of thing. So there was a section and I went down to the studio and I went in and did what I thought was a really great one-off. So I said, 'Don, make me a tape when you guys are done and let me check it out.'

So he sends me a tape the next day of the rough and the song's moving along; the lyrics and chorus go by and the solo section comes in and it's just me playing acoustic, strumming. And that's like two full progressions, whatever. And then back into the song. I said, 'What happened to the solo?' [Don said], 'Bob thought it sounds too much like Guns N' Roses.'

that's a good story. I haven't spent much time with Under the Red Sky but I reckon "Wiggle Wiggle" would have been (marginally) improved by a Slash solo. Looking at the credits on that album it's kind of insane how many big name guests he pulled in - Al Kooper and George Harrison, sure, but in addition to Slash you've got David Crosby, Jimmie AND Stevie Ray Vaughan, Elton John(!)...

Good album.

listening to it now. enjoyed the title track

I finally have all the Dylans and I can certify Budokan as the worst.

ok now that I am listening to it I am not sure I had ever heard Under the Red Sky. It IS good!