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Surprisingly good Feb 07, 2010
The intricate guitar work on All Along The Watchtower makes Eddie Vedder's a respectable rock cover, while Sonic Youth's interpretation of I'm Not There has a vaguely menacing start that morphs into the melancholy; it's quite unusual to hear this band doing a tender ballad with such feeling. The style changes to appealingly arranged country-folk with Jim James & Calexico on Going Down To Acapulco and stays in that genre as Richie Havens performs a jittery take of Tombstone Blues.
Stephen Malkmus' mid-tempo Ballad of a Thin Man impresses with its instrumental flourishes, Cat Power's Memphis Blues likewise charms with its instrumentation and Yo La Tengo's Fourth Time Around is a sensitive understated gem. The mood turns exotic on Dark Eyes with its oriental-sounding percussion, then explodes exuberantly on Karen O's edgy Highway 61 Revisited. Roger McGuinn & Calexico does a subdued but moving version of One More Cup of Coffee whilst The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll gets a typical acoustic guitar singer-songwriter treatment by Mason Jennings.
I love the swirling, uptempo Billy by Los Lobos as well as Mark Lanegan's brooding Man in the Long Black Coat. Mira Bilotte takes a pop approach to As I Went Out One Morning but it pales beside Malkmus & Lee Ranaldo's brief but atmospheric Can't Leave Her Behind and Sufjan Stevens' memorable Ring Them Bells with its frequent tempo changes. Just Like a Woman is sung in a soft, whispery voice by Charlotte Gainsbourg while the ecstatic I Wanna Be Your Lover by Yo La Tengo stands out.
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova's old-style folkie You Ain't Goin' Nowhere is quite appealing but Ramblin' Jack Elliott's bluegrass rendition of Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues is a real treasure, soulful and absorbing. The hard-rock Wicked Messenger and Tom Verlaine's sleepy Cold Irons Bound don't resonate much with me, nor does Mason Jennings' The Times They Are A Changing which attempts to imitate Dylan's original with harmonica and all.
It's a matter of taste; no tracks are really bad and there's plenty of variety. Overall, this is a surprisingly appealing album and a fitting tribute to Dylan. The most devoted fans and purists will probably reject the album outright but I've found many tracks of merit and as mentioned before, there's no total disaster anywhere. In its diversity, it brings to mind the Leonard Cohen tribute soundtrack I'm Your Man.
 The Good Cop to the Film's "Bad Cop" Dec 22, 2009
Seeing that this album serves a defiantly arty film the music contained herein is especially tame. This is partly due to the two central purposes of the soundtrack. Firstly to represent the sheer scale of Bob Dylan's influence via the sprawl of the packaging--33 covers by a range of important musicians past and present. This is important since for all of the ambitions of film it ended up glorifying the personas and myths over the music itself. Secondly, many of the tracks here would need to double for performances in the film, limiting the palette of sonic tricks available to the performers. So Karen O couldn't employ any of the noise freakouts her daytime band's known for, and Steve Malkmus and Eddie Vedder just ride the rails set by the originals. In the end many musicians resorted to mimic rather than interpretation.
Calexico provide the backing tracks for five songs here, and work best within the constraints set upon them. They don't veer away from the sounds of mid sixties Americana, but every cover breaks away from its source in rich ways. By way of contrast `The Million Dollar Bashers' provide for another five tracks and their work recalls a competent bar band. Who would have ever guessed that putting Steve Shelly, Lee Renaldo, Tom Verlaine, Nels Cline and John Medeski together would result in such a distinction? Their moody take on `Cold Irons Bound' is a highlight however.
Nothing here will make you throw out any of your Dylan albums, but Mason Jenning's warm rendition of `The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll', Jim James & Calexico `Goin to Acapulco', Ramblin Jack Elliot's `Just Like Tom Thumbs Blues', Mira Billotte's `As I Went Out One Morning' and the four other Calexico tracks come close.
 Nobody does Dylan like Dylan, but... Jul 15, 2009
This is a worthy cover album. Not bad at all and it's interesting too, hearing younger generation musicians cover and interpret Dylan songs. There are some old timers here too tho, which is cool. Dylan is served well, seems to me, when disentangled a little more from the shadow of the 1960s, a decade the often media still seems is hell bent on imprisoning him. Bob Dylan's music surely belongs to no single generation. If it did I wouldn't listen to him, I'd hate him. Anyway, here's some covers that stand out to me:
Sonic Youth's "I'm Not There"
John Doe's "Pressing On"
Richie Haven's "Tombstone Blues"
Jim James and Calexico's "Goin to Acapulco"
Marcus Carl Franklin's "When the Ship Comes In"
I felt Cat Power's "Stuck Inside of Mobile..." -- kinda weak, imo. And there are some other versions that aren't too great and one or two that I should add to the highlight list. One version that is really standout is "I'm Not There" by Bob Dylan with the Band. Maybe the best song here.
Awesome Jun 28, 2009
The movie is truly profound and it re-introduced 50 years of awesome music for another generation.
A good showcase of Dylan's music Jun 07, 2009
The soundtrack to Todd Haynes excellent 2007 biopic of Bob Dylan contains 34 Dylan songs from all decades of his career. Only one of them is performed by Bob himself (the title track, also covered on the record by Sonic Youth), and while I usually prefer Dylan's own versions of his songs, I found this a strong and interesting album, with hardly a dud track on it. It would make a good introduction to Dylan's music for younger listeners not so familiar with him as older devotees.
There are a few flat moments - Stephen Malkmus and The Million Dollar Bashers' reading of "Ballad of a Thin Man" fails to recapture the biting scorn of the original, but perhaps that song, unlike a lot of Dylan's work, is too much of its own time. The same band though, headed by Eddie Vedder, do a thumping version of "All Along the Watchtower".(This song must be intimidating for guitarists to play on because you know you are going to be compared to Jimi Hendrix, but Tom Verlaine and Smokey Hormel do pretty well.) Other highlights include Cat Power's "Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again", and Rambling Jack Elliot's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues", but for me the standout track is Willie Nelson and Calexico's haunting performance of "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" - just superb.
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