Cohen/Dylan dichotomy

[tomsakic]

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/

More Best Of Leonard Cohen: 7.5
Field Commander Cohen Tour of 1979: 8.1
Ten New Songs: 8.0
Dear Heather: 8.0
Songs of Leonard Cohen: 9.6
Songs From a Room: 8.8
Songs of Love and Hate: 8.2


These are pretty high ratings if you know Pitchfork.

Now, new Dylan's compilation, DYLAN, out now:

Bob Dylan
DYLAN
[Sony; 2007]
Rating: 1.3


Songs from Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits (1967) that appear on DYLAN: 9 out of 10
Songs from Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 (1971) that appear on DYLAN: 11 out of 21
Songs from Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits, Vol. 3 (1994) that appear on DYLAN: 13 out of 14
Songs from The Essential Bob Dylan (2000) that appear on DYLAN: 27 out of 30
Songs from The Best of Bob Dylan (2005) that appear on DYLAN: 15 out of 16
Previously unreleased recordings that appear on DYLAN, unless you get it from iTunes: 0

Bob Dylan's recording career has been compiled and re-compiled so many times that his new 3xCD box set needed to have some kind of serious reason to exist-- it's got the responsibility to give us some kind of fresh take on him. Instead, it's the same damn songs they've been feeding us over and over for 40 years. (There was originally some talk about how the tracklisting would be determined by the votes of fans; that doesn't seem to have happened.) We don't even get that not-bad new Mark Ronson remix of "Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)". DYLAN is just his brittle canon of "classics," undigested and unreconsidered, with stuff from his lesser records thrown in to fill it out.
But half the point of Dylan is that he doesn't have a neat canon-- the first pop musician to be bootlegged has been spilling out around the edges since he gave himself his name and started trying out poses and masks. DYLAN (the title is all caps: you cannot escape from him) attempts to frame his body of work as a linear arc, and Dylan isn't a linear kind of guy. Think of him in an each-thing-leads-to-the-next way sense, and you end up with something like the spiel his concerts introduce him with: reading the headlines, missing the story.

Back in 1985-- roughly halfway into Dylan's career-- his label released Biograph, a retrospective box set that does the best job in his discography of explaining what's so special about him (it's not his best record, but his most well-rounded). Biograph also includes 9/10 of Greatest Hits (no "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"), but it's packed with otherwise unavailable material and meticulously sequenced: not chronologically, but thematically. And it's meant for listening, refreshing overfamiliar songs by presenting them in a new light.

DYLAN, on the other hand, is meant to sit on a bookshelf. It's unutterably boring, which is a rotten way to frame the achievements of one of the least boring musicians alive. It tries to represent his entire studio career in chronological order, which means it spends its first half-hour droning through some of his most embroynic and underdeveloped material. In the middle, a marathon set of his wordiest songs are assembled into an impenetrable block-- "Changing of the Guards" is a magnificent song, but preceded by "Hurricane" it's almost unbearable. Finally, it excerpts "representative" material from crummy 1980s and 90s records, concluding with a couple of indifferent tracks from last year's Modern Times.

Treating Dylan as a studio artist completely misrepresents the post-Biograph period, when he's essentially been a stage performer who puts out a record every so often-- Dylanophiles describe the 2000-plus shows he's played since 1988 as the "Never Ending Tour". What he plays on any given night has virtually nothing to do with the greatest-hits canon as it's represented here; his most recent gig, as I write this, included exactly three of the songs from DYLAN. A decently curated set of live stuff from the past 20 years would be a welcome addition to the discography, a portrait of the artist as the fascinating mess he really is.

In fact, the selection here is boring because it's so un-messy. The Bob of DYLAN is almost entirely the Serious Crafter of Fine Popular Music who wrote "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "Make You Feel My Love", not the burning-eyed mystical horndog who wrote "Oh, Sister", the self-righteous blues jukebox who wrote "Gonna Change My Way of Thinking", the absurdist comedian who wrote "On the Road Again", or the zombie clone of Luke the Drifter who wrote "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest". There's more of a sense of Dylan's hilarity, passion and dizzying weirdness in any episode of his "Theme Time Radio Hour" than there is here.

It's hard, in some ways, to argue with an album that has a lot of these songs on it, and a few of the handful of tracks that haven't made it to a greatest-hits before are nice left-field choices-- the rusty lament "Dark Eyes", the zydeco goof "On a Night Like This", the post-vaudeville ramble "Po' Boy". The problem comes down to this: If you're more than faintly familiar with Dylan's stuff, you have no use for this collection. And if you aren't, and you're looking for a place to start, it will put you right off him. It's cold, dry and dusty-- a sarcophagus for an artist who deserves a bazaar instead.

-Douglas Wolk, October 04, 2007

OK, I'll be honest and say that's because he publishes too much stupid best ofs. Here's the full list, but this review above does struck some truths about Dylan (of whom I became quite a big fan in last 2 years, I have to admit):

Modern Times: 8.3
No Direction Home: The Soundtrack: The Bootleg Series Vol. 7: 9.3
The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6: Live 1964: Concert at Philharmonic Hall: 9.1

[Paula]

I have an old Jewish Chronicle circa 1977 there is an article in there comparing the two.

They will always be interlinked in my mind.

Joney cheers to the Liverpool Lou link. Beautiful.

[st theresa]

I just read that Bob Dylan is broadcasting a radio show for some lucky listeners. He does not, it was reported, play his own music. I wonder if he plays lcohen. Anyone?

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 249d7.html

[Myrtone]

I don't think so, but on the topic of that show I wonder why former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr didn't come up with a similar idea, if he were a Radio DJ and had a similar show, I'd guess his playlist would include something like Maggie May by the Vipers Skiffle Group.

[~greg]

Joney

Nothing personal but anyone who uses a cat as an avatar is most definitely never going to appreciate Bob Dylan.

Ta Ken

Bah, Ken,

you don't know much about Dylan.
He loves cats. He's had lots of cats.

He had a cat named Smoke,
who went up in smoke at the Chelsea.

And cats named Dupree, Crystal, and Estelle.

And, more recently, Mr. Jinx, and Miss Lucy.
(But they they jumped a lake, by mistake.)

[Manna]

Ha!
I think I finally may get your avatar, ~g. An ape with angel glands?

[liverpoolken]

Greg

The only cat that Dylan knew he stuffed down a well.

The Cat's in The Well
words and music by Bob Dylan –
(who apparently according to the readers of the Daily Telegraph is not considered a genius, but Henry Kissinger is. Hey ho.)

The cat's in the well, the wolf is looking down.
The cat's in the well, the wolf is looking down.
He got his big bushy tail dragging all over the ground.

The cat's in the well, the gentle lady is asleep.
Cat's in the well, the gentle lady is asleep.
She ain't hearing a thing, the silence is a-stickin' her deep.

The cat's in the well and grief is showing its face
The world's being slaughtered and it's such a bloody disgrace.

The cat's in the well, the horse is going bumpety bump.
The cat's in the well, and the horse is going bumpety bump.
Back alley Sally is doing the American jump.

The cat's in the well, and pappa is reading the news.
His hair is falling out and all of his daughters need shoes.

The cat's in the well and the barn is full of bull
The cat's in the well and the barn is full of bull
The night is so long and the table is oh, so full

The cat's in the well and the servant is at the door.
The drinks are ready and the dogs are going to war.

The cat's in the well, the leaves are starting to fall

The cat's in the well, leaves are starting to fall
Goodnight, my love, may the lord have mercy on us all.


Ta Ken

[lizzytysh]

I was thinking how it seems with Dylan's cats, it's the cats who get the bad luck instead of its owner. Were any of them black and walk under a ladder? I'm a cat lover supreme, so definitely not making light of their fates. Was Smoke named that after surviving a fire or was it ironically named in the manner of its death?


~ Lizzy

[~greg]

...Was Smoke named that after surviving a fire
or was it ironically named in the manner of its death?

I was wrong. "Smoke" wasn't Dylan's cat.
It was Dylan's cat's son.

It's a good name for a cat though, since they move like smoke.

But Smoke didn't survive the fire.

The story had to do with Edie Sedgwick, and it's
been mentioned a few times around here before.
Details always changing.
See if this link works:
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7507&p=73454&hilit= ... sea#p73454

~~~~~~~~~~~

You have a strange mind, Lizzy.
I don't know of many creatures named only after they're dead.

Sort of pointless too, I should think. It's hard enough to get
a cat to come to its name when it's alive.

But it happens. The latest: - "baby grace",
washed ashore in a box in Galveston.

...An ape with angel glands?

I direct you to the explanation given by the authority on the subject (myself)
in News > News > Leonard & Anjani Tonight at the Richard Goodall Gallery, pg 11.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8967&p=91266&hilit= ... ure#p91266

I'll copy it here

Greg - could I ask you the reason for your scary picture? it puts me off conversing with you.

oh dear - not the intended effect at all.

The ape is taken from a promo picture from Peter Jackson's
King Kong (2005) (with Naomi Watts as Ann Darrow
and Andy Serkis as Kong (-who was also Gollum in The Lord of the Rings.) )

(It's an incredibly good version of KK (my all-time favorite story,
next to Beauty and the Beast) and I totally recommend seeing it.
But whatever else you do in this life, DO NOT CONFUSE IT
with the 1976 Jessica Lange - Jeff Bridges travesty! ).

I added the wings as a tenuously stretched interpretation
of Cohen's line: "an ape with angel glands".

So, the avatar means: - "the human condition".
A kind of "memento mori".

Whenever I see it, I think to myself
"greg, you're never going to fly.
But as long as you think you can, you'll be alright."

However, I posted that in August.
And I always lie in August.

[damellon]

Snap, Greg. I beat you to it by PM to Manna.
And you never did come back and answer my follow-up questions! Are you Beauty or the Beast?
So it was lies, all lies. What's the November explanation then?

[lizzytysh]

You have a strange mind, Lizzy.
I don't know of many creatures named only after they're dead.

Sort of pointless too, I should think. It's hard enough to get
a cat to come to its name when it's alive.

I won't argue the first line, Greg. What's the point ?

On Smoke's name, however, I meant it in the way of its name being prophetic... unless, of course, you're on a wind-up and knew that already.


~ Lizzy

[~greg]

What's the November explanation then?

It's a picture of my cat, named Toast, in her Halloween costume.

On Smoke's name, however, I meant it in the way of its name being prophetic...

you have an even stranger mind than i thought.

[damellon]

Is that a tortoise at her right paw?

[~greg]

Is that a tortoise at her right paw?

Right. My mistake.
Halloween is very confusing around here.

The avatar isn't of my cat. It's my pet hare, Flash,
and her pet tortoise, Cinder. They go everywhere together.
The cat, Toast, went as the rabbit, and the gorilla, Combustion,
went as the cat. Phoenix, the bird, didn't trick or treat this year,
and is still missing. But we expect it back real soon now to retrieve
its wings.

[Socializard]

producer bob johnston worked with cohen right after working with dylan.

i think cohen and dylan both knew nico too. i'm not sure but didn't they have a hand in the album chelsea girl? i know dylan did. did cohen? i'm not sure...