New Reviews: 'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan' Is Sprawling and Inconsistent

'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan'

Amnesty International

In this week's slate of Rolling Stone reviews, Joe Levy assesses Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, a sprawling and inconsistent 80 track collection of Dylan covers for Amnesty International with artists ranging from "Pete Seeger (folk-music deity, b. 1919) to Miley Cyrus (hot mess, b. 1992)." Also, Rob Sheffield praises Craig Finn's "ear for the way American losers talk" on his debut solo album and David Fricke raves about Bruce Springsteen's new single "We Take Care of Our Own," which he says is a "precise, devastating assessment of a nation exhausted by economic straits and locked in an uncivil war of values stoked by selfish Washington gridlock."

ALBUMS

Various Artists - Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan (stream one song)

Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes (stream one song)

Tim McGraw - Emotional Traffic (stream one song)

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar (stream one song)

Big Deal - Lights Out (stream one song)

The Little Willies - For the Good Times (stream one song)

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (stream one song)

Chairlift - Something (stream one song)

Ani DiFranco - Which Side Are You On? (stream one song)

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur (stream one song)

SONGS

Bruce Springsteen "We Take Care of Our Own" (stream)

Scissor Sisters "Shady Love" (stream)

Delta Spirit "California" (stream)

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter