Bob Dylan's least regarded albums

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.

xp that's a bit much imo, give Budokan Ballad of a Thin Man a listen - it's not sabotaged, just an attempt you may or may not enjoy

the James Bond version of It's Alright, Ma is more controversial but... it rocks!

despite a false start Simple Twist of Fate is quite nice too

not an album I revisit often but when I do it's better than I remembered

I'm not a big fan of Before the Flood either but if you don't mind shouty lyrics the band, songs, energy are all great

I will echo the orthodoxy that Self Portrait, Saved, Shot of Love, Knocked Out Loaded, Down In the Groove, and Under the Red Sky are all terrible, minus the (maybe) two good songs that can be found among the whole lot of them. I've never heard Dyaln, and am not even sure what it is.

I'm not typically a fan of live albums, but I'm intrigued enough by this poll to check these out. At the very least, I'm curious to hear why Dylan and the Dead has been a punchline for the last 30 years.

Born in Time off the Tell Tale Signs set > album version

you might even say...

>>>>>>>>>>

otm, Tell Tale Signs is so good (esp with the 3rd disk)

voted Saved here, whatta band

Another Saved vote here. Great album. "Covenant Woman" is one of his all-time most heartfelt love songs.

i only heard budokhan once but i liked it.
can't really get a handle on a lot of dylan criticism

Remember that TV concert accompanying Hard Rain, broadcast on NBC 1976? I watched it in my college dorm, beginning of freshman year, basically by myself guess everybody else was in their rooms listening to Peter Frampton & Bob Seger while getting stoned. I bought Hard Rain LP the next day, remember being disappointed. Out of this list, I'd say Shot of Love is by far the non-worst.

I saw it, and remember liking it, wish I could rewatch it. I was working night shift at a radio station, and pulled a portable b/w tv into the studio so I could keep an eye on it. Something about the shoutiness of his vocals and Scarlet Rivera's violin reminded me of Steve Harley/Cockney Rebel a bit.

my friend just posted the tracks for this old mixtape he made, which seems relevant

https://scontent.fapa1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16427697_10202642525381359_3858602989773901038_n.jpg?oh=1c3fce1279fb892630bc452dfd58508b&oe=590AB2DC

Came around to digging "Watered Down Love" on Shot of Love.

If your friend gave me a mix leading with "Is Your Love in Vain" I'd take the title literally and send in the hounds.

I saw it, and remember liking it, wish I could rewatch it.

you can watch it without sound? : /

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

xp haha, i think it was meant to be a provocative opener

man those are some ugly 70s teeth

that's a cool mixtape

but Lenny Bruce, Dark Eyes and Congratulations are filler imo

Tweeter and the Monkey Man, now there's a tune!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEJOekbg2lE

i agree w/ you on "lenny bruce" -- love "congratulations" and "dark eyes" though. wouldn't have included "disease of conceit" either, but i can dig the rest of it. needs "angelina" and "foot of pride," probably.

yeah those would be strong additions

it's been a while since I checked out Dark Eyes, will listen again

disease of conceit is really really bad

lyrics p dud, but at least it sounds kinda impressive

Conceit is the disease that the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it but what it is they're still not sure

lol yeah, lyrics almost drift into so bad they're good territory, but it's just bad

dunno abt "congratulations", feels like there's a strong song buried beneath a weird call/response chorus - I also feel like Dylan could've delivered more... maybe there's an acoustic bootleg somewhere?

he did it live once, but i think that's the only alternate version.
i listened to wilburies vol. 3 last week. weird record! made me wonder what a lynne-produced Under the Red Sky would've been like. Probably kinda lame, but who knows.

I'll go out on a limb and say that a Lynne-produced UTRS would have really loud, gated drums. Just a hunch, though.

pretty good odds

Conceit is the disease that the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it but what it is they're still not sure
Conceit is a sin and certainly a fright
What a sad and sickening sight

conceit seems pretty lame, that's what i'm tryin to say
oh my my, oh hey hey

man i forgot how direct the springsteen dis "tweet & the monkey man" is, "mansion on the hill", "out on thunder road", "state trooper" lol

haha wow that never occurred to me

mostly because I pay no attention to Springsteen. fun song though.

When I compiled a list of Dylan's worst a couple of these doozies made it.

The little guitar flourish at the end of "Disease of Conceit" is ace, though.

The lyric he probably wrote in the time it takes to sing them.

the singing is worse

Somebody please make a list of Dylan's all-time worst.

Alfred already did, pay attention

Here they are: https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2016/05/26/can-you-understand-my-pain-dylans-worst-songs-2/

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!