Review 9 of 32

patament writes:

3of 5 Stars

Joe Levy's review of Modern Times is almost comical. He reads so much into things. I've been a Dylan fan since his first album, but let's be honest. Love and Theft was one of his worst efforts ever, plagued in part by that horrible gargle in his damaged vocal chords. And maybe only one song on Love and Theft was truly interesting enough to care about or remember (Poor Boy was my favorite). Modern Times is fifty times better than Love and Theft, yet so much of the music is stock stuff, right out of a Willy Nelson playbook or other country and blues artists. Levy acknowledges that many of these songs are patterned off of other artists' works. That doesn't mean the tunes aren't lively at times and catchy at other times. The lyrics, however, are more of a hodge-podge, with Dylan trying to find clever things to stick onto these musical verses. Lots of cliches, and little that really holds together very well as a story, or as anything concrete that makes sense. I did love Nettie Moore best, which is really the only song on the album that has that personal touch he so well developed in earlier years. In Dylan's early career, almost every song was a masterpiece, all the way up through about the Basement Tapes (after John Wesley Harding), and each song had its own distinct beauty or strength. In later years, you could find two, maybe three, really great songs on any given album. It's as though now he's terribly burned out. His voice is so damaged from the years, and that can be forgiven, since we love him anyway, but (for an occasional exception) no more are those songs that stand out as real masterpieces. To call Modern Times "apocalyptic" is just silly. This is nothing more than Dylan, who has a clever touch for words but a dead ear for high level poetics. This is Dylan rambling about the universe of his own mind, searching for who he is still, caught somewhere in the wasteland of Bohemian school of cool and Born Again Christian, trying for all his worth to come up with the great line, as he so freely was able to in his yesteryears. I like Modern Times, actually, and it's very easy to listen to, but there is an arrogance to Dylan these days, very little of the pure love that floats out of the songs on, say, Neal Young's DVD "Prairie Wind." I still listen to Dylan and buy his records, but they would be better without all the hype about their apocalyptic greatness. Ho humm to that stuff. Just take Dylan for what he is, and do your best to enjoy him.

Pat Ament

Sep 14, 2006 13:23:51

Review 10 of 32

mikey448 writes:

5of 5 Stars

Released August 29th of this year, Bob Dylan’s album, Modern Times is his thirty first studio album and his first album in five years. Dylan, who has reached the ripe age of 65, presents us with a ten song collection covering several musical genres. The album is produced tongue in cheek, by Jack Frost, a pseudonym used by Dylan who has been openly critical of modern studio production techniques. Quite simply, Modern Times will be loved by all Bob Dylan fans and quickly rejected by those who never liked him in the first place, but my thoughts seem to turn to another “Modern Times”, a 1936 Charlie Chaplin satire of the mechanized world in which the “Little Tramp”, Chaplin’s famous character, made his final appearance. An interesting tidbit about Chaplin’s Modern Times, is that Chaplin was attempting to hold out from using spoken dialog in his movies up until this one, in which he used sound effect tracks instead of voices. Toward the end of the film, Chaplin does speak, but it is a song in gibberish, which some say is Chaplin’s way of admonishing the modern times of motion pictures. Could Dylan’s Modern Times be filled with social commentary, or am I just reading too much into it?

Sep 13, 2006 15:42:05

Review 11 of 32

rocket writes:

5of 5 Stars

I have wondered where music has been hiding. Well, I wonder no
longer.

Sep 13, 2006 12:43:24

Review 12 of 32

milkbone420 writes:

5of 5 Stars

sound quality excellence lyrically imaginative colorful relatable meaningful approaching spiritual

Sep 8, 2006 10:19:22

Review 13 of 32

TomBratt writes:

5of 5 Stars

The album is amazing. Bob Dylan is 65 years old and he's still making incredible music. It seems as if, in the last few years, Dylan has decided to embrace the fact that only he will ever be Bob Dylan. Reading Chronicles Vol. I was such an interesting glimpse into him as a person, especially the journey he travelled to find his sound back. You can hear that freshness and rejuvination in his sound over the last few albums, but especially this one. I was wondering what the album would bring, and was happy to discover it was amazment.

Sep 8, 2006 10:05:22

Review 14 of 32

pokee writes:

5of 5 Stars

It's easy to forget that Bob Dylan (or Robert Zimmerman- as David Bowie pointed out) has been around for five decades making music that has inspired everyone from the Beatles to the Sex Pistols.

Dylan grew balls before anyone else would, defying the stupidity of the American war machine and railing against the political obtuseness of the times- but he always did it with a sense of humor that has all but vanished in the here and now.

A strong dose of opulent verse and superb musicianship supplied by a group of young pickers and smackers that have accompanied him on the road recently makes this release not only highly listenable, but somehow weighted and significant in a way that we have come to expect from a albums like “Blonde on Blonde” or “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan”.

Dylan seems to have found his pen and paper on this record and his words ring more clearly and flow with a copious beauty that has eluded us for far too long.

In 1983, when Dylan released the superb record "Infidels", we were shown a glimpse of beauty and genius that were pure Bob Dylan.

Modern Times now not only gives us this opportunity once again, it provides us with the surprising comfort that genius not only grows, sometimes delivery does too.

Sep 6, 2006 23:48:14

Review 15 of 32

buzl56 writes:

5of 5 Stars

It's is so refreshing to listen to a new a C.D. from a man who
is an absolute genius. Modern Times is a musical masterpiece
compared to whats coming out lately, best thing I have heard
for ages, i can't stop playing it , I'm hearing the songs in my
head all day..... well done Bob

Sep 4, 2006 06:48:33

Review 16 of 32

nkavanagh writes:

5of 5 Stars

norman I truly believe that Dylan is the only one capable of this unbelievably great work. The thing about him he might do something this great when he is 75 if he is still around. These people giving it a 4 are not really listening. The lyrics, music and voice from start to finish on Modern Times is incomparable. He is one of the greatest singers of all time. Not just the greatest rock poet of all time. Please listen and enjoy.

Sep 1, 2006 13:34:55