Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks

Inevitably, when critics praise a new Dylan album, they label it the "best since Blood on the Tracks," and with good reason. Inspired by a crumbled marriage, and recorded after a tour with the Band had apparently re-ignited his creativity, Blood is among Dylan's masterpieces. The album's epic songs are well known, but its real high points are the shorter numbers--"You're a Big Girl Now," the flawless blues "Meet Me in the Morning," and the sweetly devastating "Buckets of Rain." These are songs of "images and distorted facts," each expressed through tangled points of view, and all of them blue. --David Cantwell Amazon.com

At long last...

I owned an LP copy of this album when it was first released. The music quickly grew on me, and I took the wonderful sound for granted. When I bought the first CD release of "Blood on the Tracks" the sound was so thin and tinny I couldn't listen to it. No longer owning a turntable by that time, I lived without this album for years, and missed it.
Finally, after too long a wait, we have a decent-sounding CD version of this essential Dylan album--two versions, actually, as an SACD Hybrid disc was released first, then this one. I am guessing that this conventional CD issue followed because the record labels have come to believe there is too little interest in the SACD format.
At any rate, both of the current "Blood on the Tracks" CDs sound good. If you do not own an SACD player, the two releases sound alike. Packaging is different for the two versions: the SACD is housed in a glossy paper "Digipak" made to resemble the original LP jacket design; the conventional CD is sold in a standard jewel case.
A word about the sound: this CD release seems a bit light in the bass range compared to my memories of how the LP sounded. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Too many "newly remastered" CDs are bass-heavy to the point of damaging the overall sound. The remastered "Blood on the Tracks" sounds balanced and the bass is present, just slightly less so than I remember. Since everything else sounds right to me, I am not complaining. I should add that I was unable even ONCE to listen all the way through the earliest "Blood on the Tracks" CD. I have played this remastered disc over and over, and have never tired of hearing it.
I have no idea whether or not the SACD Hybrid release of "Blood on the Tracks" will continue to be available, but both versions sound very alike on a standard CD player and this conventional disc is less expensive, so I would give it a high recommendation. If you were unfortunate enough to have owned the earliest CD release of this music, buy this one to cleanse your palate and rediscover one of Bob Dylan's truly fine albums.
September 26, 2008

Dylan's Peak

Blood on the Tracks is Bob Dylan's artistic peak both lyrically and musically. Blood on the Tracks has aged gracefully. Dylan always gives us a sly wink, but particularly so on the autobiographical-sounding Tangled Up in Blue. August 27, 2008

Word Mastery in Song From Mr. Dylan

It seems hard to believe now both as to the performer as well as to what was being attempted that anyone would take umbrage at a performer using an electric guitar to tell a folk story (or any story for that matter). It is not necessary to go into all the details of what or what did not happen with Pete Seeger at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 to know that one should be glad, glad as hell, that Bob Dylan continued to listen to his own drummer and carry on a career based on electronic music.

This is probably one of the strongest Dylan albums from first song to last that he ever recorded. Its virtue lies in the story-like quality of each song that, unlike some earlier unsuccessful attempts to tell a story in song, clicks here. Starting with the dream-like, forlorn tattered romance in Tangled Up In Blue that one knows can only lead to sorrow everything moves higher from there. Idiot Winds as close to knowing how Dylan will really feel in a relationship. The quietly beautiful, haunting message of If You See Her, Say Hello (`I had always respected here for getting free.'). And the finale Buckets of Rain is well done (if not as well done as Dave Van Ronk's mournful cover, well done nevertheless). If you like high symbolism, a la the French poets Rimbaud and Verlaine in your lyrics this one is for you.
June 19, 2008

Love and its loss

This album represents the very best of Bob's mid-career output. Aaron, the eight-year-old rock critic, says that you can tell how Mr Dylan is feeling by listening to his songs. Bob was sad, he observes. He adds that Mr Dylan tells stories in his songs, and that his characters talk. I think this is very astute and an accurate description of this album. Bob sings gently and sadly on this musically beautiful record. Sweet tunes, beautiful guitar work and the incisive harmonica in the correct proportions. I must add, though, that from an adult perspective Mr Dylan in this album is feeling really sad and angry and conflicted about the death of love, and that he is characterizing his hurt and confusion in a way that makes me think of a long slow painful death of a piece of the soul, just like a stroke. And no matter how much rehabilitation occurs one is always left with some limited use that never fully recovers. I love this album but it is cold and painful to listen to the ache. Unfortunately, the tunes are positively catchy and you find yourself whistling along to a song describing wrenching loneliness. Oh Bob. I am so sorry.
June 16, 2008

Words Fail

Every time I hear Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts -- as I did just now on the bike on a perfect NYC Memorial Day along the Hudson River (as it happens in the version by Mary Lou's Cadillac, but that's another story) -- I think it obviates the need to ever read a history of the American West. OK, that's a little overstatement, but, hey, we live in the Age of Hyperbole.

And that's just one of ten cuts on this album, each one of that caliber. I think an argument could be made that Blood marks Dylan moving from chronicler of his life and times to chronicler of American life and times, as he has become definitively with his last three albums.

In any event, this is a must for every music collection. May 26, 2008

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