Dylan: Phases and Stages

I'm a big fan of his post-Jesus, pre-Time out of Mind period with Oh Mercy, World Gone Wrong, etc. I'm also a big defender of Empire Burlesque, which is an album that is so, so dated but I think there's a lot to like about it. It's a fun Dylan album.

I also like a lot of what Greil Marcus called his "Old Weird America" stuff -- which is not just the Basement Tapes and Desire and John Wesley Harding, but some of the swampier stuff he's been doing lately. I haven't been completely thrilled with the last two albums but he's still a musician whose latest I will buy blind. Blood on the Tracks is my favorite album of all time, and I still get a thrill out of how I can listen to Highway 61 Revisited and be exhilarated by it.

Over the past couple of months, thanks to friends and libraries, I was able to complete my Dylan discography. I really haven't found the time to dive into it, though, and I'm looking forward to exploring those highs and lows.

I'm Not There is a brilliant film, not just about Dylan but about art, but it's obviously a film that's enhanced by how much you know about the guy and his life. Favorite film of last year.

I'm old enough to have grown up with his music, and the period from Bringing It All Back Home through Blonde on Blonde is the pinnacle for me. He's done plenty of work I've liked, even loved, since then (particularly the last two, and the current "Tell Tale Signs" Bootleg Series collection is easily in my Top Ten for 2008), but from the first chords of "Subterranean Homesick Blues" to the incredible vocal performances all through "Highway 61," through to the last harmonica whine of "Obviously Five Believers" is a sequence I return to again and again. When I feel like cheating, I throw "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window," Mixed-Up Confusion," "If You Gotta Go, Go Now," ahd "Positively 4th Street" into the mix.

And no offense to the former Mrs. Zimmerman, or Ms. Baez, or whoever, but you can keep "Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands." Sort of moving once, kind of interesting twice, and after that...

As for I'm Not There, well, just one of those things that I missed it last year. In a nice bit of timing, Netflix informs me that it arrived today.

John Prine and Tim Buckley are probably the best of the first generation of "new Dylans." I always forget that Springsteen had that label early in his career, too.

It's hard for me believe that Dylan existed in the eighties. When considering the culture of the time, both underground and mainstream, he would have been completely out of step with everything and may have actually not been there. Though he is the appropriate age of someone who didn't escape a decade of big drum fills and synthesizer swoops.

I've only been into some of his early stuff, all of the electric stuff, John Wesley Harding and the new stuff. But every few months I seem to discover something I'm delighted to have missed and discovered. Somehow I found out John Wesley Harding exists just two months ago. And I've been listening to Dylan for over two years.

EDIT: Also, I recommend seeing a live performance. His new songs reach their full potential in concert. "The Levee's Gonna Break" is as good as anything else good he has done.

I'm still working on my Dylan collection. I'M NOT THERE actually convinced to build on what I have (for a while I just had "Modern Times", "Blonde on Blonde" - still my favorite album of all time - and some greatest hits). Immediately after seeing the film for the first time, I asked my friend to borrow a couple of discs.

One of the things I love about Bob Dylan is the way that his songs can get caught in your head, not only in an enjoyable, warble-along-to-it way, but also the poetry of it. After hearing "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest" for the first time, I started five - FIVE - short screenplays, all spawning off Frankie Lee, the gambler whose father is diseased. I don't think the Beatles could ever influence me to do such a thing.

Has anyone heard the newest Bootleg Series CD yet?

An album not mentioned yet that everyone needs to hear is Infidels. My favorite Dylan album, as relevant now politically as when released ('78?) and also poetic and haunting

I like the gospel phase too, although I've only heard Slow Train Coming. I'm trying to think why I like the 80s output so much and I think one of the attractions to Empire Burlesque is that it's so very dated, but Dylan uses what was popular at the time and makes it work. I'd stack "When The Night Comes Falling From The Sky" with his best songs. Maybe not top 10, but definitely top 25.

Leonard Cohen would be another "new Dylan" who's done his own thing since getting that label.

I dunno... he was a published poet before Dylan had ever cut a record, and a well-known figure on the New York-Warhol circuit before he turned to recording his own songs. Though I suppose the fact that he, too, was signed by John Hammond (like Dylan-- and Louis Armstrong, Billie Holiday, Springsteen, and Stevie Ray Vaughan) might have made some folks think of him that way.

Yeah, love it. Though, as much as I love Los Lobos, I might have tried at least a couple songs without Hidalgo's squeezebox (maybe like every other one). But more Mike Campbell is always a good thing, and he meshes with (what I understand to be) Dylan's touring band beautifully.

I'd put it a notch or two below the last couple, but it's so loose and funny that I enjoy the hell out of it.

For the longest time I didn't listen to Dylan, his stuff did nothing for me, much like Springsteen, but I bought Freewheelin' Bob Dylan a few years ago and turned me into a fan, it's such a warm, inviting record from his troubador years, 'Girl from the north country' 'Don't think twice, it's all right' both feel so personal, 'Corrina, Corrina' is another great song, so laid back.

'Another side of Bob Dylan' did nothing for me, I listen to it now and then but none of the songs stand out to me.

Bringing it all back home has abit more kick, starting with 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' I really love 'She belongs to me'

I haven't been able to get more of his stuff but in the end, I respect his work but I can't connect with it (Freewheelin' excepted)

Yes. With the possible exception of "Like a Rolling Stone," I'll take any song from that show over its studio counterpart.

I'll mostly agree on the material with The Band. The acoustic disk, though, isn't that hot, and IMHO not a patch on the 1964 acoustic set that is Volume 6 of The Bootleg Series.

I'd also consider giving a listen to some of his more recent stuff, as it's definitely Dylan, but also very much its own sound. Time Out Of Mind, Love and Theft, and Modern Times rank with his very best work, and the new Together Through Life is nearly as good, though the songwriting has fewer unexpected twists and turns, and nothing to match, say, "High Water" or "The Levee's Gonna Break."