Expecting Rain

So, I looked through all the (reasoned, substantial) defenses in this thread and gave it another shot:

Well, I can't come all the way over to those of you have argued that the vocal sound/volume on the up tempo songs (Thunder in particular) is a feature and not a bug.

And it feels different than those songs on TOOM where (in Dylan's [probably!] words in Chronicles) he is out in the middle of nowhere...where Lanois seems to have layered over him, or shot him out into orbit. Cool sound.

On MT, his voice is right up front and that song is driving pretty hard (it seems far, far away from mellow to me) but his " restraint" just bleeds the chance of a Summer Days like romp right out of it. It's subtle and tunefulish, funny and biting, but it ain't got no juice.

The whole things works great on Nettie Moore.

Pretty soon, he'll be just speaking over music -- Leonard Cohenly.

Maybe Dylan will find a way to make me love that too.

Nettie Moore is a good pick to demonstrate where the gifts in his soft voice lies, with the power or juice as you call it, seeping out in the refrain. Ain't talking is similar. I think there's more sustained singing in levee breaks though. I agree with you that the Cohen approach might be the only direction left for him...its funny but after I've learned to enjoy this timbre, the scratch on L&T and TOOM, seem harsh to my ears. I'll have to give CITH a listen today to see if there's any indication of what the next 'album voice' may be...

Pretty soon you say? I'd say Bob's pretty much crossed into Cohen territory a while ago. Or Cohen crossed into his. I dunno.

Funny thing - Cohen, as shown in some recent songs on his new album, still can carry a tune. Check out "Crazy To Love You" if you'd like to hear what I'm talking about.

To my ears, the band holds back too. They still sound sort of loud in the background, but that's only as its a large electric band playing. For me, the sound issue is a combination of that and the volume of Dylan's vocal.

It's the complete opposite of when I saw him in Bournemouth last year. The band smashed out the songs with Dylan singing/shouting over the top. The band were also cut loose on TTL and sound like they're having fun, which is one of the reasons I prefer it to MT.

how does art work by public inspection? every great artist like bob has a vision for his material, he wrote it??? post the lyrics for approval before he adds the instrumentation????
then seek approval for every lick? then the vocals too soft too loud no digitizing too much reverb....
people can dislike or like but how it should be is bobs domain.

more of anti musical defamation league, proposing the ideas that an artist who creates the music in this case bob, is the only party suited to know how the music should be presented.
i may not like americana the new neil young, but i just wont buy, i wont to to neil young dot com and go on about how it should have had banjos and fiddles. thats not what neil had in mind. thats the problem with whats left of the music industry today, too many hands inside the pot.

You're onto something here. But you may be in danger of phrasing it too strongly.

Artists can be mistaken about their own work. Bob, for instance, was plainly wrong when he excluded songs like 'Angelina' and 'Groom Still Waiting at the Altar' and 'Blind Willie McTell' from his albums. You have to go through hoops of counter-intuitive rationalization to suggest that expelling those tuns in favour of dreck like 'Trouble' or 'Neighborhood Bully' was a good idea. Bob was also wrong in allowing producers to inflict sonic abominations upon the material on UTRS and Empire Burlesque. Finally, he just didn't do a very good job in writing songs like 'Beyond the Horizon' and 'Levee Gonna Break,' which are mediocre compositions by Dylan standards. And listeners should be able to point out these sorts of failings, as, objectively, failings.

At the same time, you're spot on that many of the complaints about MT are of a piece with the sorts of complaints that Dylan fans have been making ever since Another Side. They are complaining that, in effect, this album doesn't sound like some fixed idea they have about what a Bob Dylan album should sound like.

Thus, 'Thunder on the Mountain' is to be criticized because it's not a rave-up like 'Summer Days.' But it's clearly not trying to be 'Summer Days,' any more than MT is trying to be Love & Theft, or Love and Theft was trying to be TOOM (something for which, incidentally, LT is sometimes criticized - it 'lacks the depth' of TOOM or whatever). It's slightly strange to me that after all these years people still keep trying to force Bob Dylan into their own preferred sonic and conceptual box; he has, after all, spent 50 years continually stepping out of such boxes.

In short, his music should be judged for what it is, not for whether it fits the template set by some earlier Dylan record. This does NOT mean that we can't judge any given album to be a flop on its own terms. But we have to accept that those terms are not the same from album to album.

I'm sure Dylan had sound artistic rationale informing those ads he did for Apple to promote the album. The Brand was a well oiled machine by this point, kicking at every possible marketing door to get that number 1.

Shame the album was just boring bland bloated product with no message beyond "BUY ME!".

Modern Times was a crushing disappointment to me after L&T. It leans too heavily on 12 bar boogie stodge and the opener? Well why does everyone like that weedy horrible song? Is the title ironic I wonder. Like the riff of Spirit but it goes on too long. I guess it was worth it for Nettie Moore though.

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berlin and metal machine music were flops vicioulsy attacked by all the critics. now they were all masterworks.

you dont like you dont like. but this thing about the vocal is treated on the first line of the third song that sorta thing is trespassing into bobs domain. bob got a vision for his material and bob music is not a democracy.


as to why those songs were left out, bob im sure had his reasons. they not meet his standard in one way or another. they are bobs babies he aint giving em up to us until they are ready to go.

this is a typical situation amongst musicians.

dont get this, before there were ads in rolling stone now theres apple ads.

The ultimate achievement of the album, of course, is that it took Dylan 5 years to create something that robs the listener of a decade with every play.

gah......... EVERYBODY'S a critic!

However, I agree with your other points, esp. THIS:

"In short, his music should be judged for what it is, not for whether it fits the template set by some earlier Dylan record. This does NOT mean that we can't judge any given album to be a flop on its own terms."

NICELY said, LP!

the singing on it is of a special kind. he sings the line 'everybody gotta wonder whats the matter with this cruel world today' just about as good as it can be sung.

thunder on the mountain is the type of song that is beyond reproach. only crazy city people would criticize it.

sometimes i wonder why people do good all day and then come here and do wrong all night,dissing bob.

Some excellent points, Ballynally.

Where I disagree is with TOOM: you say it’s all over the place, but to me that’s one of its charms. There is a LOT of variety in TOOM, slow ballads, blues shuffles, fast rock, a love song or two, the long talky funny number at the end. It’s a gorgeous album, lyrically it makes sense, and it doesn’t stick with the SAME BORING thing like MT does.

I loved MT when it came out but find it difficult to go back to. Nettie Moore is gorgeous of course, but the blues numbers are just not “great Bob” to me. Each of the numbers would benefit from some PRUNING. Don’t try to say in 20 verses what can been said in 10.

edit: Now why'd you go and edit out your ojoke, dgsvoboda?

Pretty much my feelings too. i remember the day it came out, myself and a friend listened to it together and we were both so disappointed. I have come to appreciate it a little more, i bought it on vinyl a year or two ago, and i dont hate it like i did.
But i still find the blues songs so boring and meaningless, they dont sound like they are about anything or anyone real. i think thats been a major problem in Bobs work for the last decade or so, none of the songs sound like they are coming from a genuine experience or emotion. I agree with the people who say the songs are too long, i think out of the non-blues songs (i.e the half decent ones), Spirit on the water suffers the most with this. Its a nice little riff and would make a lovely little song, if he just edited out the waffle.
Regarding Bob's voice on this album, im glad to see it being discussed here, because its something thats always kind of bugged me. On one hand it sounds much smoother than anything before or after it, which you would think would be a good thing, considering the atonal belching he's known for, but i actually think it sounds flat and lifeless for the most part on Modern Times. Maybe in the long run id prefer smooth-but-lifeless lifeless vocals over atonal barks and belches, but its a raw deal.

I agree absolutely Crimson. Love & Theft was a genuine surprise, full of vim and vigour and even the blues songs have personality - the swagger of Lonesome Day for instance.... Modern Times is so flabby.

MT is one of Bobs great works.

im touched with desire
what do i do?
through flame and through fire
ill build my world around you

beyond the horizon is just too good. my wretched heart is pounding, i felt an angels kiss.
much too good.

and the so called blues songs have a higher purpose, with bob doing and call and response to the little riffs. its just as good an album as any that has ever been done.

well okay RG just for you.

As much as I liked MT in the beginning, I never cared for Ain't Talkin', the tune where he mentions “nooks and crannies” WTF, LOL what is that some kind of joke? An English muffin commercial? Geez.

Not Bob's best!

(dumb joke I know, sorry)

Your problem is that you can't tell the difference between assessing/analyzing art work and telling the artist how to make it . It's part of your narrow-minded, flunky-hearted fundamentalism. Keep on thumping your fist and stomping your feet.

LP, yes. You're right in a fundamental sense. I was just saying, it sounds to me, that with Thunder on the Mountain, he WAS TRYING to make a Summer Days type song. A big romp. But, then, all the stuff I've been saying happened. Of course, I could be wrong. That's why I put it up here. Looking for smarter people to weigh in.

i heard it all before. you go to the studio and everybody knows how the song should go except the artist writer. the guitar player, the engineer everybody is an analyst. nobody can write themselves out of paper bag, but they there they are analyzing and assesing. how the song should go how the vocals should be how the timbres on the doorknob shoud resound. everything. everybody is an expert except bob who came up with the sucker.

i would say that bob is SMARTER than all of us when ti comes to music in general and his own music in particular.

Well okay, I'm definitely going to give MT a fresh listen!

It's not about how Bob wanted it. It's about how it sounds to me, what I do or don't like about it. Wow, can't believe that had to be written out.