NC, but he's no leonard cohen.

Bob Dylan was pretty good.

not a huge fan of his records but some of my housemates are and he never annoys me when hes on but suffering fuck is he a terrible live experience. no effort put in, didn't give a fuck.

the hardcore dylan fans at the gig defended him to the last.

'oh hes known to be hit-and-miss live' - i realise every band/artist can have off days but its when they don't put any effort at all in that i get pissed.

or

'hes been doing this for 40 years, you can't blame him for being jaded' - yeah well stay the fuck at home then and don't bother touring if you can't be fucking bothered.

I've tried and tried to get into Dylan, can't do it.

Sometimes I like it when bands cover his songs (Cheap Trick playing "Mrs. Henry"!), but its usually when they're arranged a lot differently than the original.

CRAP.

Blonde on Blonde is the greatest album ever.

Some of you people, on this issue, anyway, are just schtick dreck fools.

SecondEdition wrote:Blonde on Blonde is the greatest album ever.

The first two tracks on Blonde on Blonde are even worse than his disco-y record.

big_dave wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:Blonde on Blonde is the greatest album ever.

The first two tracks on Blonde on Blonde are even worse than his disco-y record.

"Pledging My Time" has one of the best harmonica solos Bob ever played - I dream about that harmonica tone at the end of the song - and the "Rainy Day Women" critiques are bullshit.

SecondEdition wrote:...one of the best harmonica solos

up there with drum solos for me.

My first year in college I went Dylan crazy and listened to his music almost exclusively for a year or so. The folk albums (the first two and a half records) are good but he gets a lot better as the sixties move along.

My Favorite sixties Dylan is:

Bringing it all Back Home
Highway 61 Revisited
Blonde on Blonde

Those three are his best records not counting the work he did with the Band on the Basement Tapes.

John Wesley Harding has the original version of All Along the Watchtower and has a stripped blues and country sound.

Nashville Skyline has Lay Lady Lay, a vocal with Johnny Cash and a weird vocal style.

70's:

New Morning has a couple of good tracks, including Man in Me which is prominent in The Big Lebowski.

Blood on the Tracks is one helluva great record all the way through, one of his best in my opinion.

Planet Waves with the Band has some good tracks.

Before the Flood with The Band is a fierce live album.

Desire is okay, co-written with Jacques Levy, has Hurricane and my favorite: Isis.

Street Legal is okay also.

80's:

Christian Trilogy:

Slow Train Coming
Saved
Shot of Love (This is the best one, with Groom is Still Waiting at the Alter)

Infidels is okay, production by Mark Knofpler is really dated sounding. This is the beginning of the super gravelly voice Dylan has now, of course it would turn to a croak in the nineties.

Oh Mercy is the best of modern Dylan, song-wise, production is over the top and swampy though.

Of the newest records I like Love and Theft the best but I'm not really into the new stuff.

I've never seen a great Dylan show but the last one I saw was musically compelling, his voice is gone though.

I left out a lot but tried to highlight the ones that I thought had merit, the sixties albums and Blood on the Tracks are the best Dylan records.

Oh, not crap.

etch wrote:My first year in college I went Dylan crazy and listened to his music almost exclusively for a year or so. The folk albums (the first two and a half records) are good but he gets a lot better as the sixties move along.

My Favorite sixties Dylan is:

Bringing it all Back Home
Highway 61 Revisited
Blonde on Blonde

Those three are his best records not counting the work he did with the Band on the Basement Tapes.

John Wesley Harding has the original version of All Along the Watchtower and has a stripped blues and country sound.

Nashville Skyline has Lay Lady Lay, a vocal with Johnny Cash and a weird vocal style.

70's:

New Morning has a couple of good tracks, including Man in Me which is prominent in The Big Lebowski.

Blood on the Tracks is one helluva great record all the way through, one of his best in my opinion.

Planet Waves with the Band has some good tracks.

Before the Flood with The Band is a fierce live album.

Desire is okay, co-written with Jacques Levy, has Hurricane and my favorite: Isis.

Street Legal is okay also.

80's:

Christian Trilogy:

Slow Train Coming
Saved
Shot of Love (This is the best one, with Groom is Still Waiting at the Alter)

Infidels is okay, production by Mark Knofpler is really dated sounding. This is the beginning of the super gravelly voice Dylan has now, of course it would turn to a croak in the nineties.

Oh Mercy is the best of modern Dylan, song-wise, production is over the top and swampy though.

Of the newest records I like Love and Theft the best but I'm not really into the new stuff.

I've never seen a great Dylan show but the last one I saw was musically compelling, his voice is gone though.

I left out a lot but tried to highlight the ones that I thought had merit, the sixties albums and Blood on the Tracks are the best Dylan records.

Oh, not crap.

I think the above is a pretty accurate assessment of Dylan's work. I would put Blood on the Tracks at the very top of the album heap and also recommend the bootlegged version of the complete Basement Tapes over the one Columbia issued.

Also, I don't understand all this "i saw dylan live once 20 years past his prime and he sucked, so crap" nonsense. Firstly, he's been putting on pretty polarizing live shows since he decided to drop the acoustic for the electric in '66. Secondly, its not likely he's gonna be in top form every nite when he's been playing about 200 shows a year since forever. And the unpredictability of his live performance is part of who he is as an artist/performer. And is it fair to judge an artist with like 50 albums based on one single live experience?
I saw the FALL once, about 20 years past their prime. I couldn't understand a fooking word outta Mark E. Smith's toothless mouth, they only played three songs from the 'classic era' and he had a stiff studio-hack type band backing him up. In a word, it sucked.
Does that one bad live show totally negate the greatness of Hex Enduction Hour, Slates, Perverted by Language, etc, etc.?
No. No it does not. Am I gonna vote Crap on the Fall due to that one overpriced letdown of a show? No. No I am not.