Yeah this is his worst period, combination of shite novelty songs and really limp songwriting. Also this one has dated worse than the mid 80s ones which at least sound awful in a novel way.
Itâs very Bob to follow up a genuinely great album that sounds like it could have been made yesterday with this.
Next few weeks are gonna be a tad uninspiring.
The next few albums are purely covers I think?
Never listened properly but I think theyâre solo acoustic as well so canât be that bad surely
Theyâre much better than this but totally average
Think this is the first one, Dylan aside, that I donât know anything at all from before giving it a go.
Have actually found most of the earlier maligned albums better than I expected, admittedly thanks to low expectations, and had hoped this might be the sameâŚ
Nah. Real stinker isnât it. So phoned-in. Maybe still not actively unpleasant to listen to for the most part but very little there.
Donât even find it funny and/or interesting like some of his other career mis steps. Just plodding.
Some of it might be passable as curios in an offcuts collection, but very few of these songs sound like they belong on a proper release.
Kindest thing I can say is that thereâs a light and breezy quality on Side B - 2 x 2, Handy Dandy, Catâs In The Well - where he sounds like heâs enjoying himself. Dunno what the touring set-up was like at the time but mightâve been fun. Theyâre not really genuinely decent songs though.
Not really coming round to it but âBorn In Timeâ is actually a great song tbf
Some lovely alternate versions too
Yeah, UTRS is a bit naff really. Shame, as the version of âBorn In Timeâ up there ^ is really good, but the one that made the album is an absolute shambles. Neither Bob nor whoever he has producing seem to know what theyâre doing at any point.
âOh Mercyâ on the other hand is a genuine classic. Iâve always loved it in a vacuum (âMost of the Timeâ made my top 10 in the Whatâs Their Best Song: Bob Dylan thread!) but its quality seems downright miraculous now given the dreck either side of it.
But then thatâs all part of what makes Bob so weird and delightful, I suppose!
yeah this is really poor and so disappointing after a return to form as such with oh mercy.
God this is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO shit!
35 mins long and outstays itâs welcome by about half an hour
Him going from Oh Mercy to this is as baffling as going from âDylanâ in 1973 to âBlood On The Tracksâ 2 years later
Back to mum posting
Great Oh Mercy sequence - everything is broken, ring them bells, man in the long black coat, most of the time
havenât even though of this one again since my first listen. Oh well - vote it!
and next up Good As I Been To You
oh
After recording Under the Red Sky in 1990, Dylan would not release an original song until 1997, and during that time, he would increasingly rely on his stockpile of covers for âfreshâ material.
huge improvement on UTRS but then that wouldnât be hard. Listened to the first 5 tracks or so before getting to work and have quite enjoyed it. Nice to hear him acoustic again.
The same man who wrote Desolation Row wrote Wiggle Wiggle. Worth remembering if you ever truly fuck up at work that this nadir may only be in contrast to absolutely skyscraping heights you are capable of scaling⌠or that your best days are long behind you and youâve become an embarrassment to yourself and Slash.
UTRS - think the title track and Born in Time are both perfectly decent and sweet, really like the accordion wheezing away in the background of the former. TV Talkinâ at least sounds like heâs in a good bar band, Iâd hang in a dive bar listening to this, and 2x2 and God Knows are a listenable pairing
Very little of value otherwise and some of his lowest lows so far. Sad!
Itâs a step up but I imagine it was super depressing being a Dylan fan in the early 90s. No sign of new material and just a series of unremarkable covers albums. I think it says a lot that Iâve never seen a single song from this or World Gone Wrong on any of his compilations - they are absolutely memory-holed.
That being said, itâs not an awful record. It goes down easy, itâs just kind of uninspired. At least his other covers era (the Sinatra years) was a completely mad swerve that he went completely overboard on.
I would disagree. Thereâs so many great songs and very frank ones on time out of mind
Was almost ready to dip out when I saw we had two albums of covers now and the first was nearly an hour long
But a few tracks in and this is actually a pretty pleasurable listen. Gravelly Bob with his acoustic guitar, whatâs not to like
I didnât mind this, donât get me wrong itâs bad. But imo better the those two 80s albums
