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 The more you listen the better it gets Aug 02, 2010
That's the great thing about Dylan. Sometimes, at first listen, some of his albums are difficult to "get". This is one of those. A lot of the songs are catchy but to a youthful modern ear they don't go anywhere, no huge solo, no self rightoeus pointmaking, just Dylan at his "desolation row" finest. One slow, rambling storytelling song followed by the same. Great if you're into that.... and I am.
Dylan on top form at 65: trad yet modern, a great album with humor and virtuosity Jun 28, 2010
It's so good to see Bob Dylan continue to create virtual masterpieces after a career spanning almost 50 years, when most former contemporaries have disappeared into obscurity. From his early distinctive Woody Guthrie influenced folk-style, through the years of protest songs as an iconic figure of the 1960s, the truly great albums in the 1970s like "Planet Waves", "Blood on the Tracks" and "Desire", his long collaboration with The Band; through the "gospel years" and a less creative fallow period to his latter-day renaissance when as a mature musician he once more has produced great and memorable music not because he needs to or has anything more to prove but because he loves it, he has great talent, and he can.
Traditional American folk music runs through Dylan's soul like a seam of diamond through ancient granite. If there has ever been a master of the genre who thoroughly understands the core of traditional folk-country in all its forms and permutations, and can stretch the dynamic to occupy new territory, it's Dylan.
"Modern Times" is a satisfying mix spiced with boogie, R&B and lyrical ballads. Dylan's choice of instrumentation (like acoustic double-bass for example, rather than the more obvious electric bass) gives a pre-rock age feel to a collection of faster, positively danceable numbers and slower, more poignant melodies with haunting, memorable lyrics shot through with wry humor. Dylan's uniquely distinctive vocal style has matured into a rich, gravely baritone perfectly suited to his material. No other musician in the early 21st century personifies traditional American folk styles yet makes the music so contemporary, so relevant to the modern age, and for this reason the album's title is perfect and (probably deliberately) ironic.
Dylan is like a phoenix, ever rising from the ashes into new life. That a 65-year old can find new generations of listeners and still produce fresh, distinctive and quality music like this is an almost unique achievement in the modern era. The recent Grammies and chart-topping sales of Dylan's last three albums are well deserved. In the sea of imitative conformity and contrived mediocrity which largely characterizes the contemporary music scene he continues, after 50 years, to teach younger generations of musicians how it's done.
It's great driving music, too.
Long may he thrive and survive. Respect.
What A Great Album! Jun 09, 2010
This is one of my favourite Bob Dylan Albums. I have enjoyed this album over and over. The first two songs are obvious crackers, especially Thunder on The Mountain, but When the Deal Goes Down and Workingman's Blues #2 I really like as well. The real slow burner for me is Nettie Moore. That is a great song! Of the so called recent "Trilogy", I think I prefer Modern Times the best. Really, to be honest, I've always enjoyed any of Bob Dylan's records. The Christian albums are some of my favourites and very under-rated in my opinion. He was right back on track with most people with "Infidels". I started with "Blood on The Tracks" (lucky me!) and I think I've got my fair share of good times from Bob's efforts over the years.
In a nutshell Jun 07, 2010
I have no doubt that this album has been deeply, thoughtfully analyzed to the last breath. I'm just going to speak from the perspective of a long-time Dylan non-fan. For years, I felt that Dylan's best song was Al Yankovic's palindromic "Bob". I never could make sense out of Dylan's 'Tiger Lovin' Blues' (or whatever the real title was), and never felt it was worth the effort for any of his works. This album is different. Dylan's shattered, wrecked voice has never sounded so good; for the first time, I really see him as a master - listening to this album is like listening to, say, Ralph Stanley nowadays - the voice is shot, but what he does with it is fantastic. This album is sort of the distilled essence of blues; the words are often bleak (and sometimes completely indecipherable), but the songs make you feel good. This album is simply pure pleasure from start to end. Buy it - you owe it to Mr. Dylan and every one of his magnificent band.
Still my soundtrack... Jun 05, 2010
Finding myself groggy in adulthood, still surprised I cannot believe how fast college went by, I recall a time before I was a fan of Bob Dylan. I knew less in those days. Sheltered in my childhood born of the Protestant persuasion, most of the music I listened to was blatantly Christian for the better part of my life. I had never given much thought back then to the world outside of my innate esoteric mindset, listening mostly to bands I had no idea were usually cheap imitations of "the real thing." After all, such strict religious confines placed around art certainly seems in hindsight to hinder creative output. Of course, to digress a bit, there are plenty of exceptions to this statement, like the band Starflyer 59 for example and early Pedro the Lion before Dave became agnostic (he is better now, check him out). At some point around the age of 18, after giving my parents the first shot of separation anxiety when I went to live at Louisiana State University, I started looking around for something more - some new musical adventure.
Of course, Bob Dylan is a natural segue way from the world of exclusively Christian music to the realm where rock and roll happens in all of its manic apparitions. And the girl who had recently taken my innocence away was a Dylan fan herself. Her favorite album was Nashville Skyline, and she was cute - too cute for me but I got lucky as college schmucks sometimes do. Anyway, most people get into Dylan by route of the early protest songs which are all wonderful and indispensable to any songwriter or poet living today. I love those albums. I have learned from them, spending weeks listening to one over the others on rotation in a span of time which can only be called my Dylan phase, with lyrics out and dictionary open. But my path to Bob was paved by Modern Times because I had never much listened to the man before and this was the album which was coming out in stores when I finally started thinking about taking the plunge. In this way, Modern Times is my gateway drug into the universe of this man who I try not to overly lionize because being worshiped is not what Bob Dylan is all about. He's too cool to be worshiped.
Sure, I have heard the complaint that he swiped lyrics from some Civil War poet, that he credited himself behind "Rollin' and Tumblin'." These things do not really bother me. I am more big picture in my thinking, choosing to acknowledge that excellent Jean-Luc Godard quote: "It's not where you take things from - it's where you take them to." Nothing is original anymore, not even Bob Dylan, but this does not imply that brilliance has died. In some ways, brilliance has never been in better shape.
Here we have a man with something to say about our era by way of pre-rock musical accompaniment and lyrics in the thoughtful tradition of Dylan - which is to say sometimes prophetic, other times cautionary, regretful, or provocative. Something here seems new to me every time I listen to this album, even now that it is a few years old. While the album rolls on without a single clunker, favorites for me come from the latter half of the album with my favorite being "Nettie Moore" for the beautiful sorrow I hear in it. I get the impression that however strained his voice may sound on this album old Zimmy has a way of convincing the listener there is a good reason for it being so worn. And it is not simply because he is now an old man or because when he was younger he smoked "eighty cigarettes a day." This album convinced me in my innocent musical mind that Bob Dylan was the poet seer just as much now as he ever was. Every song is excellent, and in spite of an occasional apocalyptic premonition (especially on "Ain't Talkin'") which should be welcomed by those of us skeptical of contemporary progress, Modern Times manages to create a whimsical nostalgic mood on "When the Deal Goes Down" after such a guttural rocker as the classic "Rollin' and Tumblin'" (which everybody knows Bob didn't write, including himself I'm sure). And "Workingman's Blues" captures a sympathy for the working man which truly represents Dylan's songwriting talent because he hasn't been in the shoes of blue collar toilers in some time. Decades, actually, since he was the only living boy in New York. But what Dylan has done with his career is perhaps just as necessary and timeless as the archetype of the hard-working man who never gives up. And who else could throw the word proletariat in a song and have it sound unpretentious?
Modern Times, to me, is an album about not giving up even if, in the end, there's nothing new to say that hasn't been said before by Dylan or Shakespeare.
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