Bob Dylan "Shadows in the Night"

By the way, how is it Bob Dylan has never named an album "The New Dylan?"

"you can have it when i'm done with this tony danza interview, son"

― tylerw, Thursday, 22 January 2015 19:53 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Has anyone ever done the Elton John joke?

hold me closer?

mm hmm

not a bad interview, but at his age he sort of ends up relating the same anecdotes and opinions for the 23,000th time

"did i ever tell you what fats domino meant to me as a kid?"

Telegraph loves it. Don't know the author though.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/bob-dylan/11366536/Bob-Dylan-Shadows-in-The-Night-review-extraordinary.html

Here's the full 9,000 word version of the AARP interview:

http://www.aarp.org/entertainment/style-trends/info-2015/bob-dylan-aarp-the-magazine-full-interview.print.html

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/20190-shadows-in-the-night/

Deusner says, in part:

Shadows in the Night may pose some compelling questions for the Bobophiles who scrutinize every line and every word of every Dylan song, but for the more casual, less obsessive listener, it can be a bit of a snooze. The songs are well chosen and certainly revealing, but Dylan and his band play them all pretty much the same, sacrificing any sense of rhythm for stately ambience. Once they strike a mood on opener "I’m a Fool to Want You", they never stray from it. That gives Shadows a distinctive identity in Dylan’s catalog, but it also has a leveling effect. Each song hits the same tempo and strikes the same tone, so that swoon quickly turns somnambulant. As the album progresses, the songs sound more and more emotionally muted, as though this style of American pop songwriting was good only for providing ruminative ambience rather than sophisticated humor, feisty insight, or infectious rhythm. Say what you want about Sinatra, but at least the man could swing.

Sounds like he's never actually listened to those slow bummer Sinatra records.

It's a great record. But I loved the Theme Time Radio Hour shows and the Christmas record. This is squarely in that wheelhouse.

he's not wrong about the overall uniformity of the arrangements, but like that approach -- really enjoyed this on my first listen.

but I like that approach, is what i meant

It’s an idea seemingly as weird as his phlegmy Christmas album

yea there is really nothing weird about dylan doing this album at all! ez snappin otm, this is totally in line with theme time radio hour, it's all part of the dylan picture

I don't get the insistence on how Weird This Is. The guy's been covering the songbook in concerts and rehearsals for at least 30 years.

If he'd done this immediately after Highway 61, THAT would've been genuinely weird. But what Alfred said: Dylan's never made a secret of loving (and covering) standards.

and certainly at least a handful of tracks on every album since love & theft (maybe even time out of mind) have taken this kind of music as inspiration

and i know that plenty will still complain about his vocals, but SITN really is a showcase for Dylan as a singer.

oh man the lap steel on this!

yeah, was reminding me of friends of dean martinez!

it's 7am and i've been sitting here since 11pm trying to review this, it's great, destroys tempest

In a Mikal Gilmore story from '85, Dylan and the Heartbreakers cover "That Lucky Old Sun."

*according to

yeah they played it at farm aid! i think he may have even done that one back w/ the rolling thunder revue?

it's 7am and i've been sitting here since 11pm trying to review this, it's great, destroys tempest

I told Tyler yesterday it's his best record since Love and Theft.

better than the Xmas record?!

a little. Better material.

ha, i'm not sure i'd go as far as best since love & theft just yet, but i do really like it.

there's a whole disk in the Genuine NET covers bootleg box called "Croonin' In The Night", from the late 80s and early 90s

http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-g41_6.html

i like modern times a lot too though

but yeah where has this singing been?

i know he was smoking at least fairly recently, i'm wondering if maybe he gave up cigs and tempest was the time period when he was clearing out and now maybe his lungs are a little better? i dunno, it's kinda striking

might be the absence of drums that's kinda letting him open up a bit more?

I can see the Mediterranean from my front step and yet it's going to snow here tonight and so this is the perfect album right now

re: smoking - the main detail my daughter seems to have retained about Dylan is that if you smoke cigarettes for 50 years, you sound like he does on the Xmas record

so he's a cautionary tale, basically

although she likes 115th Dream, cuz it's just a funny story

I don't think there's any Dylan voice I dislike, apart from whatever he was doing on Nashville Skyline (and it's only tough to take on "Country Pie").

I absolutely love Gravelly Bob. Easily my favorite Bob voice/approach after the live 1966 stuff.

wow on "That Lucky Old Sun" I hear a little of 1966 live singing, or "Positively 4th Street": "paradise", "wash all our TROUBLES away", and so on

and that is the best Dylan singing era ever imo

I absolutely love Gravelly Bob. Easily my favorite Bob voice/approach after the live 1966 stuff.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Tuesday, February 3, 2015 11:46 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it may have been an "approach" to a degree, but -- for example -- "Soon After Midnight" off of Tempest isn't far from a song off Shadows in the Night, but contrast how this sounds like he just physically can't sing some of the notes with how assured he is on the new album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCt9Tfv-Ft4

yeah i mean, the amount of shows he does can't be great for wear and tear on the vocal chords. maybe this one was recorded during an extended break?

Seriously, though, Dylan is 73. Springsteen is 65 and plays shows twice as long with three times as much yelling. Macca is 72 and we're really just starting to hear the cracks, and he goes long and loud, too. Only voice I can think of worse than Dylan's is Leonard Cohen, and he is 80, but he owns his croak a bit better than Bob. Also, Cohen could never really sing to begin with, imo.

what's the deal w/ this some enchanted evening cover? we know what it sounds like from one of the greatest bass voices ever so let's now hear it in dylan's scratchy mumble?

bob felt like doing it

i mean i also love singing some enchanted evening [tho only in the shower] so i understand

i mean i'm not being flip it's just asking "what's the deal with [something bob dylan did]" that's p much the answer

anyway i'm digging the album on the whole even though i don't really dig sinatra type stuff that much

whether you like it or not, isn't the whole concept of the "standard" based on how a song changes in the hands of different interpreters?

i've been listening to a lot of nina simone interpreting the old standards recently (she made some great choices) and i'm really in love with the simple but solid as a brick house lyrics. they're just these perfectly formed things.

Mordy a partisan for Il Divo, who knew

lol had no idea they covered enchanted

wonder if Dylan is referencing this album, which also leads off w/ "I'm A Fool To Want You"...?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/86/LadyInSatin.jpg

I wish our copy of AARP mag would show up -- maybe I got one of the 50,000 free copies.

Seriously, though, Dylan is 73. Springsteen is 65 and plays shows twice as long with three times as much yelling. Macca is 72 and we're really just starting to hear the cracks, and he goes long and loud, too. Only voice I can think of worse than Dylan's is Leonard Cohen, and he is 80, but he owns his croak a bit better than Bob. Also, Cohen could never really sing to begin with, imo.

This is all wrong, except the bit about Springsteen. Macca's voice may not be technically worse than any of the others but given the range he aims for it's now embarrassingly quavery and weak, as anyone who heard live version of the songs from his last album will be able to tell you. Cohen could never sing in the first place but there's so much more richness and depth to his voice than there used to be, it's such an undeniable presence on his newer records.

was a RSD thing right? album is out in a couple weeks, i think.

was just checking out a recent show: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2855

http://exclaim.ca/images/16worst.jpg

^^mentioned in a "worst covers of 2016" listicle... gotta say, it is very uninspired...

From wiki entry for "Amour Fou" (Season 3) episode of the Sopranos:

The music played when Ralph returns home to comfort Rosalie is a Bob Dylan cover of a Dean Martin song, "Return To Me". It was recorded for this episode at Dylan's request, as he is an admitted fan of the series [David Chase mentions this in the DVD/Blu-ray audio commentary for this episode].

this is really odd and I never noticed it before. Was this the beginning of his American songbook phase?

that one is pretty nice -- he was doing a handful of old crooner tunes throughout the neverending tour, though -- http://www.bobsboots.com/CDs/cd-g41_6.html

that's interesting!

there is of course also "Blue Moon" on Self Portrait, really it's probably an interest of his that's been there all along - reading Chronicles it's interesting to see how many artists from different genres (even different art forms) Dylan (at least retrospectively) identifies with