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Bob Dylan - Self Portrait

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  • 05-07-2015 2:21am
    #1
    Rory Gallagher
    Registered Users Posts: 292 ✭✭


    I've just listened to this album after reading that it was placed number three on a worst albums ever list. Then I read the scathing condemnation it received upon release(E.G ''What is this ****?'').

    I'm convinced fully now that most rock critics are up their own hole.
    This album was a really fun listen! No it wasn't Bob Dylan the prophet with master poetry enlightening the people listening. It was Bob Dylan having a laugh with the music he loved.
    He sings really well throughout the album, the instrumentation and arrangments get spotty in places but it gives it raw feeling to a genre which demands such rawness.
    It's also like a document of obscure american country and folk songs.
    I went and found old Johnny Cash recordings of I forgot more than you'll forget and Leadbelly doing Alberta which led me to believe that this album solidified Bob Dylan in the lineage of great folk and country performers.
    He already composed master works and did some guthrie esque covers on his debut, but here he shows that his knowledge of American music went alot further than 'Man Of Constant Sorrow', and his versatility is great(Who else would place Blue Moon and a really strange rendition of Like A Rolling Stone on the same record?)

    I'm not trying to make outlandish comments and say that Self Portrait is a masterpiece, it's obviously not.There are two versions of two different songs and a few throwaway instrumentals(Woogie Boogie was a waste of two minutes, good fun either way though), but I believe the album deserves re appraisal and urge people that would be turned off by it from its poor reputation to have a listen to it.

    What do those of you who have heard it think of it?


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    #2
    blastman
    Registered Users Posts: 5,451 ✭✭✭blastman


    The Unpopular Music Opinions thread is over there >>>

    :D


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Rory Gallagher wrote: »

    I'm convinced fully now that most rock critics are up their own hole.




    What do those of you who have heard it think of it?

    Never mind "rock critics" (a term which always makes me think of 60 year old college lecturers complete with pipes and leather arm patches on tweed jackets contemplating the place of Meatloaf lyrics in our lives).

    The best opinion on that particular album came from Dylan himself.... he's always freely admitted it's dreadful rubbish, even by his own standards which include a few turkeys. He said on public record that he knew the record was a train crash as soon as he started it, but said "fukc it, it's bad, let's just pile everything as bad as possible on top of it, and cut our losses with the next one."


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    #4
    Rory Gallagher
    Registered Users Posts: 292 ✭✭Rory Gallagher


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Never mind "rock critics" (a term which always makes me think of 60 year old college lecturers complete with pipes and leather arm patches on tweed jackets contemplating the place of Meatloaf lyrics in our lives).

    The best opinion on that particular album came from Dylan himself.... he's always freely admitted it's dreadful rubbish, even by his own standards which include a few turkeys. He said on public record that he knew the record was a train crash as soon as he started it, but said "fukc it, it's bad, let's just pile everything as bad as possible on top of it, and cut our losses with the next one."

    The artists intentions are irrelevant to how the album is received by the listener.
    Besides, Bob Dylan himself is hardly a reliable source on anything. I read his book and some of it was so full of **** I couldn't believe my eyes.


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    #5
    loyatemu
    Registered Users Posts: 15,002 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    the follow up "Dylan" is supposedly worse.

    I listened to "Self Portrait" once - it's not as bad as it's reputation suggests, but there are plenty of great Dylan albums to listen to instead.


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    #6
    Rory Gallagher
    Registered Users Posts: 292 ✭✭Rory Gallagher


    loyatemu wrote: »
    the follow up "Dylan" is supposedly worse.

    I listened to "Self Portrait" once - it's not as bad as it's reputation suggests, but there are plenty of great Dylan albums to listen to instead.

    ''Dylan'' was put out by Columbia records after Bob 'defected' to Asylum records in 1973(The record label that put out Planet Waves, an album I personally detest).

    The Bobster didn't have anything to do with its release, and the song choice is very poor.


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    #7
    loyatemu
    Registered Users Posts: 15,002 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    TBH, only Blood on the Tracks and Desire really grab me from his 70's output. The early 70s stuff is patchy and after Desire he "found god" and his music didn't really benefit from this development.


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    #8
    blastman
    Registered Users Posts: 5,451 ✭✭✭blastman


    Street Legal was a good album too, especially side 2. It had all gone south by the time of Slow Train Coming, though.


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    #9
    GerB40
    Registered Users Posts: 2,047 ✭✭✭GerB40


    loyatemu wrote: »
    TBH, only Blood on the Tracks and Desire really grab me from his 70's output. The early 70s stuff is patchy and after Desire he "found god" and his music didn't really benefit from this development.

    Empire Burlesque wasn't too bad, Infidels was very good (despite the religious stuff). Dark Eyes and Jokerman are cracking songs...

    But I agree, Desire and Blood On The Tracks stand head and shoulders above anything Dylan released after the motorbike crash imo.


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    #10
    Rory Gallagher
    Registered Users Posts: 292 ✭✭Rory Gallagher


    GerB40 wrote: »
    Empire Burlesque wasn't too bad, Infidels was very good (despite the religious stuff). Dark Eyes and Jokerman are cracking songs...

    But I agree, Desire and Blood On The Tracks stand head and shoulders above anything Dylan released after the motorbike crash imo.

    This is possibly my favourite Bob Dylan song from the eighties, a sadly overlooked track.

    Tempest is probably my favourite post-motorcycle crash album next to John Wesley Harding and Blood On The Tracks.


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    #11
    loyatemu
    Registered Users Posts: 15,002 ✭✭✭✭loyatemu


    Rory Gallagher wrote: »
    Tempest is probably my favourite post-motorcycle crash album next to John Wesley Harding and Blood On The Tracks.

    Interesting choice - of his post-90s-writers-block albums I'd go for Love and Theft but TBH I nearly always go back to the 60s/70s stuff (most frequently recently Nashville Skyline)


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    #12
    Rory Gallagher
    Registered Users Posts: 292 ✭✭Rory Gallagher


    loyatemu wrote: »
    Interesting choice - of his post-90s-writers-block albums I'd go for Love and Theft but TBH I nearly always go back to the 60s/70s stuff (most frequently recently Nashville Skyline)

    I felt Nashville Skyline is a little bit lacking. I wish more of the Johnny Cash duets appeared on the album.
    For example, One Too Many Mornings, they did an excellent version of that which should have appeared.

    My personal favourite track though, is Tell Me That It Isn't True.
    Lovely organ in that one.


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