Expecting Rain

I clearly haven't lived Johanna.

Johanna, please be careful, it's very clear you are about to become (or have become) Benny's new WarrenPeace.

but instead of people asking to 'take it outside' they may say 'get a room'

On one point I certainly agree - 'standing in the doorway' is way ahead of the rest; that said it's an album I like a lot as a whole - and it is a 'whole album' so trying to break it down diminishes it.

hmmm....so biologists should avoid looking at organelles so that they don't lose site of the cell itself? is that what you are saying???

sorry mr. mitochondria, you're just not worth it

we are talking 'album' here not a series of random tracks, they are supposed to hang together as a 'whole' as well as having independent life as individual songs, hence sequencing, hence the very word 'album'. I think it works well as an album, some of the weaker tracks still work because of their context. The I-pod generation has sadly lost sight of the concept - their loss.

I agree with Mr. Paul Williams here - it's a song cycle.

I see there are a few who have trouble making it through Highlands. I was the same initially.... now I love it! It's light and dark and airy and serious and funny.... it breezes by.

There's not a bad track on this album for me...

Side 2 for me -- I hovered over Side 1 because of Standing in the Doorway. One of Dylan's masterpieces, its continuing controversy bemuses me but doesn't bother me, the songs are too good to worry about such things. The run of Till I Fell in Love with You - Not Dark Yet is superb, making Side 2 an easy win, but now I've seen everyone else go for it, I wish I'd gone for Side 4 just to be different!

this poll series is actually a homage to the efforts involved in sequencing songs for 'albums'. on a cd (in my experience anyhow), unless it's a concept album, i generally have thought of it as a collection of songs, a very linear thing. it's from flipping sides and paying more attention to the small 'chapters' on a record that i really began to appreciate this aspect of album composition. some sides have a quite a nice structure to them, with a beginning, a middle and an end. as it turns out, those sides, by and large have received a great deal of support from people.

i just played an ipod recently - for the first time since i got my record player. i've never been happy going from CD to ipod, but man - from vinyl to ipod is as profound as going from CD to cassette. with the cassette playing through one of these, no less:

cool, then i guess we agree - whatever the merits of a given song, it's placement on an album gives it context and helps the narrative of the whole - this album would be far worse off if it began with 'highlands' and ended with 'lovesick'. i miss cassettes, but still have hundreds of the little fuckers, now cd's are old hat i fear for the death of the 'album' as opposed to the song... blonde on blonde or blood on the tracks would suffer hugely from a different order....

you'll find this encouraging then Mr. Slim:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142 ... 00632.html

http://www.journal-news.net/page/conten ... l?nav=5094

Superb - I definitely approve, thanks! Now what am i gonna do with all these goddamned cd's?

Actually it has been found that data often simply vanishes from CD's in time - that one you really liked but haven't listened to for a while, it may now be blank.... not the case with vinyl - my original Freewheelin' plays as well now as it did in the 60s.. and I wasn't being sarcastic about 78's either, a mate of mine got a stack of minto rockabilly 78s in Portobello Market and went out to get an old radiogram to play them on - they sounded ten times better than any cd i've ever heard, it's the speed and the groove depth (plus stylus) - wonderful and best of all - MONO! Old is good....

sincerely, A. Codger

CD's seem to get a high turnover these days - just picked up a used copy of the Amnesty album at my record store for all of 10 dollars. 76 songs for 10 dollars! that works out to....well it's too late at night for math, but i'll tell you in the morning. remind me to donate to amnesty international tomorrow.

^
yeah
I paid $ 6.99 for a new copy of Kind of Blue. Granted it was through Amazon, but t's not more than 10 bucks from B&N or wherever.

Speaking of cassettes, I was reading one of my poncy high-end audio mags the other day and one of the journos was saying that portable MP3 players cant hold a candle to the brilliant sound quality you can get from some of the top end cassette players and that the ultimate in portable sound is found with the Sony wm-d6c, which was discontinued in 2002.

http://www.walkmancentral.com/products/wm-d6c

Check it out - looks pretty cool. Just wish I still had some cassettes left, otherwise I'd pick one up secondhand and give it a test.

Time out of Mind is ModBob's best album, in my opinion. Therefore, this is not an easy decision. Side 1 is fantastic because of "Love Sick" and "Standing in the Doorway". Then again, side 2 contains "Tryin' to Get to Heaven" and "Not Dark Yet", which are great too. So far it is a tie. However, in the end I think I'll settle for side 2 because I kind of like "Til' I Fell in Love With You" better than "Dirt Road Blues" and "Million Miles". Thus, side 2 it is.

Kind of Blue is now out of copyright, at least here in the UK, hence loads of dirt-cheap unofficial re-releases with crappy covers (and more than likely crappy sound). Spotify is already full of retitled knock-offs of Bob's first album.

I went for side two, even though I'm not a fan of 'Til I Fell in Love With You. To be honest I can't tell that one and Million Miles apart in my memory, it's a long time since I've listened to either. Agree that Standing In The Doorway is probably the best track on the album though. And the first time I heard it I thought he sang 'My sensitive malady has gone down the drain', which at least makes a little more sense than manatee but not much.

Rip it read it rue it return it

and, as song cycles go, it's probably comparable to the heartbreaker Schubert was famous for.

Dylan put seven years of experience into the songs, including kicking whatever he kicked and still not being forgiven.

"O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there." -- Hopkins, what I'm reminded of when I read the easy dismissals

Keep taking those drugs - one day you'll make sense.

Agreed that the sum is greater than the parts on this one--more so than on any other record, in my opinion. Making it hard to choose a side. Make You Feel My Love I can't quite take on its own--but in the midst of the rest of the record, it works perfectly as an agonizing attempt to articulate this desperate hollywood-style kind of love that doesn't come to this poor fellow because he's not giving it away without expectations--he's forcing it upon someone. It's what I hear, anyway. And it's clearer as surrounded by every other kind of (mis)attempt to love on Time Out of Mind. It's a brilliant, cohesive album held together by this lovesick, sad-sack, late middle-aged--getting wrinkly and achy narrator (and by dubious production that I am still coming to terms with). Not Dark Yet I like better than Make You Feel My Love, but again, on its own, it loses some of its power.

Highlands is fantastic. Especially as set up by the rest of the album. The narrator caught forever in an endless loop of petty thought, the song fading into eternity. After what's come before it, "I think what I need might be a full-length leather coat" is hilarious. That's the answer!

The Gospel according to John b stetson rings of truth today.

Time out of Mind was released in the fall of 1997, but I read that Bob wrote the songs
for the album at his farm in Minnesota during the winter of 1996. That sounds about
right…these are the saddest songs I’ve ever heard. Bob may have only been 55 when
he wrote these songs, but he almost died a few months later (think it was in May )…
maybe he had a premonition that winter, I don’t know.

My husband died in Dec. ’96 and when I first heard this album, I felt Bob had written
It just for me. I still can’t listen to it without bawling like a baby.

I go with Side 2 for “Not Dark Yet” and “Trying to Get to Heaven” ….although it
was hard to decide between sides 1 and 2. The only song on this album I don’t like
is “Dirt Road”.......... I think this is the best album since Blood on the Tracks.

I am so sorry to hear of that Queen Ann. Must've been a blessing and a curse, to have that album to find solace, but also to always have those memories firmly attached to that album. must be a real powerful one for you.

Lou Reed's Perfect Night came out around this time too. it's a powerful recording as well.

^ Thanks, Troub. And you’re right... Time Out of Mind is a powerful album for me.
But, Bob's music has seen me through everything, good and bad, since I was 18….and
that's definitely been a huge blessing.

- Haven’t heard Perfect Night…will have to check it out.