| AS ORIGINALLY PRINTED
IN RHYTHMS MAGAZINE
THE TRAMP RETURNS
What did you get/give for Father’s Day?
If it was Bob Dylan’s “Modern Times” you were
one of the 10,000 Australians who also gave Bob his debut at Number
One on the Album Charts, his first since “Slow Train Coming
“ 26 years ago. But how do you explain that he also debuted
at Number One on the American charts, his first for 30 years &
in Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Denmark & Switzerland and in
the Top 5 in Germany, UK, Austria, Sweden & The Netherlands.
Phew! All this with no magazine interviews, no TV, other than a
silent movie minus Bob of course, set to “Someday Baby”
from the album & another track as an ipod commercial, no radio
to speak of other than public, assuming he doesn’t play it
on his own show, no media hype at all.
The only hype has actually come from the other
direction, not from the record company & artist but from all
the so called critics & fans who have used words like “classic”
& “masterpiece” after perhaps only hearing the album
once at a so called listening party & having lyric sheets confiscated
at the end of the event or a few private spins, a generation of
wishful thinkers swooned over their word processors coming up with
superlatives & words of overblown importance. Of course, these
are the same culprits & apologists that told us that the last
Stones album ranked with their best (now be honest when was the
last time you played it?), that Robert Plant’s harked back
to Physical Graffiti & that Neil Young’s actually did
contain the anti war anthem we all hoped that it would & the
list goes on.
People who get free records telling a group of
people who actually have to pay for their music to go out &
spend their hard earned cash on this or that “ fill in your
own superlative “ new disc. They’re such a servile bunch,
at least record company hacks get paid to do their worst, but these
so called critics & reviewers will bend over backwards for nothing
& hyperbolise!
Most people however, went out & bought “
Modern Times” unheard & unfiltered, bypassing paid &
unpaid advertising, perhaps a rare example of the masses embracing
quality rather than dross for a change. But why Bob? Well he does
have a unique hardcore of fervent almost evangelical acolytes who
are so convinced of his genius that they anticipate & accept
each new recording as further confirmation (& it has been a
5 year wait). His career has also spanned 5 decades, thus accumulating
more & more fans year after year, often father to son cross
generational appreciation & he does have the uncanny ability
aside from on stage, in print & on record, to remain enigmatically
invisible to his public. It’s the work that counts. Or maybe
people are smarter than we give them credit for, but I doubt it.
So, assuming that most of you have at least heard
it, what do you think of “Modern Times”? In the interests
of full disclosure, I did not pay for my copy, I’ve attentively
listened to it 15 or so times & while an early fan (back when
no one liked him!) Bob & I parted company at the Street Legal
album, I still thought that he was a genius, he was just making
records that I didn’t like, until his turn of the century
renaissance ” Time Out Of Mind” bought me back into
the fold. Well, isn’t it great to hold an album in your hand
that actually lives up to that description? The packaging utilises
the CD format as a miniature booklet complete with binding &
set off by the kinetic ambiguous blur of one of photographer Ted
Croner’s classic shots of New York in the 1940s on the cover,
but the inner booklet is disappointingly designed with some shots
of Bob looking intently at something or other & no lyric sheet.
Put in the player & the first thing that hits you is that his
voice is shot, the deterioration since his last disc quite marked,
maybe all his touring is not such a good idea, but it remains the
most expressive rheumy eyed, cracked wheezy slur that you will hear,
almost like a Leon Redbone or Rambling Jack Elliot, he certainly
sounds older than his years. But he was always a better vocalist
than a singer, although it does make me wonder how much better these
songs would sound if sung by Willie Nelson?
The music? Well the muted 2-step shuffle that
dominates the sound does get tedious doesn’t it? Clichéd
chord changes & predictable arrangements repeat themselves song
after song, this band has played over 100 gigs with Bob but had
not played these songs live & it shows in their tentative uninspired
& under rehearsed, stiff thin playing. It’s all foot tapping
& no boot stomping. The band play & are recorded as very
much as a backing band, but I guess as the record’s producer
that’s how Bob wanted it, although making his voice &
lyrics the only interesting thing in the mix is certainly a bold
move at this stage.
Most of the songs are too long & lack excitement,
but his lyrical ability remains undiminished. He seems to be having
fun, keeping himself amused, borrowing song titles, catchy lines
& sections from other mostly traditional musical sources as
he always has, & weaving them playfully into his own beat inspired
clever couplets & witty non sequiters. Given that the record
sounds so sepia & ancient, is the title tongue in cheek irony?
I think it perhaps refers to the 1936 classic Charlie Chaplin (who
Bob vaguely resembles) movie of that name where the lead character
after a life of asylum, prison & petty crime waddles off into
the distance hand in hand with higher innocence. Bob however wanders
off to a 24 date American tour, a Broadway musical “The Times
They Are A Changin’ featuring his music, his weekly global
radio programme, parts 2 & 3 of The Chronicles book series &
his third platinum selling album in a row.
Good times.
back to top
|
