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Best under-rated Dylan Album?

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  • 30-04-2008 5:26pm
    #1
    Amazotheamazing
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭


    Bob Dylan has released 32 studio albums, some, maybe 10 or so, are generally viewed as his best, The Freewheeling Bob Dylan, Times They Are a Changing, Bringing it All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Infidels, oh Mercy, Time out of Mind, Love and Theft. Others are probably not as critically rated, like John Wesley Harding or Desire, but are popular in their own right.

    That's all well and good, but what album of his do you think is seriously under-rated? Perhaps Shot of Love with Grooms Still Waiting at the Alter and Every Grain of Sand, or New Morning with The Man in Me, what album of his do you love inspite of every critic telling you that "no, in fact, that album is pure crap"

    I've heard it argued that Street Legal is a lost classic, but I've listened to it (not very often) and I just don't hear it. Are some Dylan albums just unlistenable rubbish, or do you view any as a lost classic?


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    #2
    Run_to_da_hills
    Closed Accounts Posts: 20,009 ✭✭✭✭Run_to_da_hills


    I would put the Desire album as one of his all time best, most tracks are virtually unknown except for The Hurricane which only became popular after the movie.


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    #3
    loyatemu
    Registered Users Posts: 14,990 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    Desire is excellent - only listened to it properly recently - quite a different sound thanks to the gypsy violin on most tracks. "Isis" is the standout track for me - there's a phenomenal live version on Biograph.

    I wouldn't necessarily says its underrated though - most reviews I've seen say its his 2nd best album of the 70s (after Blood on the Tracks).

    I'd personally take John Wesley Harding or Nashville Skyline over any of his recent albums - Modern Times is particulary overrated. I'm not really familiar with his late 70s and 80s work.


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    #4
    damonjewel
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,148 ✭✭✭damonjewel


    Nashville skyline is easily one of his best. The last album I thought was just lazy, a lot of the songs based on simple 12 bar blues.


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    #5
    Hardrain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 290 ✭✭Hardrain


    Most under-rated would be Street Legal or Infidels for me, both cracking albums. Desire also as has been said. Ironic seeing as it hit number 1 in the States on release! Sara, Isis are crackers. Isis is storming on the live 75 album. Yesterday was my Isis day simply for the lyrics!

    " I married Isis on the fifth day of May"


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    #6
    Amazotheamazing
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,048 ✭✭✭Amazotheamazing


    Street Legal, really? Which version do you have, I've heard the re-mastered is much, much better than the original mix? I have the original and the mix is really murky and tinny. Just hard to listen too.

    Don't particularly like Desire as an album, I love some of the songs (one More Cup of Coffee is a hidden gem) but overall the album doesn't hold for me. The version of Isis on Hard Rain is vicious, can't imagine it was nice being caught between Bob Dylan and Sara Dylan while that was being recorded.


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    #7
    funktastic
    Closed Accounts Posts: 551 ✭✭✭funktastic


    A lot of Dylan albums seem to go in and out of vogue. i really like 'Nashille Skyline' and 'John Wesley Harding' and I think they're well appreciated now but maybe not so much a few years back.

    'Infidels' is one the music magazines always rate but most Dylan fans don't put on very often. Some really good songs on it. 'Planet Waves' ('On a night like this') and 'New Morning' ('Three angles', 'If not for you', 'Day of the locusts') also have some gems on them that don't see much light of day.

    I didn't really like 'Modern times' at all. Personally i find Dylan's back catalogue to be incredibly over-rated by some people - even though I really, really like much of it.


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    #8
    Hardrain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 290 ✭✭Hardrain


    Amazotheamazing wrote: »
    Street Legal, really? Which version do you have, I've heard the re-mastered is much, much better than the original mix? I have the original and the mix is really murky and tinny. .

    The Re Master is well worth getting, sound is crystal clear


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    #9
    Hardrain
    Closed Accounts Posts: 290 ✭✭Hardrain


    Amazotheamazing wrote: »
    Street Legal, really? Which version do you have, I've heard the re-mastered is much, much better than the original mix? I have the original and the mix is really murky and tinny. .

    The Re Master is well worth getting, sound is crystal clear, love the album even put up with the awful original mix for years!!



    WIKI
    In 1999, Don DeVito revisited Street Legal and remixed the album with modern, digital techniques in an attempt to improve the mix. Admirers of the album generally seemed pleased by the new mix, but many critics who dismissed the album the first time around remained unimpressed. The new mix was later used in a 2003 SACD reissue of Street Legal.


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