![]() On a fundamental level, he doesn’t trust mediation or planning. ![]() And then there’s plain sonic impact: Even his earliest important songs have a cerebral and reverberating authority in the recording, his voice sometimes filling the speakers, his primitive but blistering guitar work adding confrontation, ease, humor, anger, and contrariness, presenting all but the most unwilling listeners with moment after moment of incandescence.Īnd, finally, a key component often overlooked: Dylan’s artistic process. Time and focus shift first person can become third sometimes more than one story seems to be being told at the same time (“ Tangled Up in Blue” and “ All Along the Watchtower” are two good examples). Then factor in personal songwriting, a strain of pop he basically invented, doled out first with obfuscations, payback, tall tales, and lies-some by design, some on general principle, some just to be an asshole-and then the signs, here and there (and then everywhere, the more you look), of autobiographical happenstance and deeply felt emotion.Īnd remember that some of his narratives are fractured. To this add the dread-filled dreamscapes-unexplainable, unnerving-of French Surrealism, and then, arrestingly, the punchy patois of the Beats, who originally intuited the substratum of social stresses that would whipcrack across the ’60s and into the ’70s. His work is grounded in acoustic folk-blues-ballads, chants, and love stories, populated with mystical or just plain weird meanings and themes, rattling and farting around like tetched uncles in the attic of our American psyche. First, you have to appreciate the many layers that make up his peculiar but unmistakable aesthetic. After that, depending on how generously you view his career, there has been either a long decline or decades of remarkable and kaleidoscopic creativity, culminating in the triumphs, late in life, of his five most recent albums.įor an artist as rooted in our musical culture as Dylan, the linearity of a narrative works more to disconnect him from the influences and traditions his work comprises than to explain him. You have to start by disregarding the well-told narrative: The soi-disant vagabond’s rise through folk music to a place of utter domination at the highest level of literate, passionate, and difficult pop and rock music, all by 1966 a retreat and Gethsemane until 1974, when he came back, roaring and vengeful, more passionately focused than before, adding a remarkable personal dimension to his ’60s work. You want to ask: What is Bob Dylan? Why is Bob Dylan? After listening to him since I was a kid and seeing him live for-gulp-nearly 40 years, I think I’m beginning to figure it out. Normal questions don’t seem to do him justice. ![]() For someone who seems to be in such plain sight, he remains hidden, present but opaque, an open book written in cipher. Yet he hardly ever does interviews and does virtually nothing to publicize his albums or tours. He’s released more albums than Bruce Springsteen in the past 25 years and played more shows than Springsteen, the Stones, and U2 combined. We think of Dylan in a pantheon of great rock stars, at or near the top of a select list that includes the Stones, Springsteen, maybe U2, but not too many other active artists. Dylan has just finished shows in Japan, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia will head next to Australia and New Zealand and may or may not be preparing for a swing through the U.S. Why Dylan chose to record a cover of an old Sinatra track isn’t clear it may, or may not, be a clue that the purported album will consist of covers. It may have a song called “Full Moon & Empty Arms” on it a stream of the tune was released without comment on his website a couple of months ago. ![]() ![]() In August, a Bob Dylan album may well arrive in stores concrete and virtual. ![]()
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