The weekend threads are a bit different, no art work for one. They have a theme and are not the normal indie rock bands. Next weekend will feature Rap (though, admittedly, I will need help) while this weekend threads features old time rockers.

Average Metacritic score 89 (28 reviews):

Bob Dylan
Modern Times (Sony)
US Release date: 29 August 2006

http://www.metacritic.com/music/artists ... oderntimes

Bee, can you please stop clogging the board full of this crap, especially since you have no real opinion on them.

thanks.

My only knock on this album is that some of the songs are a little long, but otherwise I got nothing bad to say. Flat out awesome.

yep.

"When The Deal Goes Down" is about the greatest Willie song that Willie never did.

Some songs are long, but that's not unknown to Dylan (e.g. Desolation Row).

One of the greatest artists of the 20th Century, more appreciated in Europe and South American than he is in North America, just produced some of the best work of his career in the 21st Century, after age 60. Saying you don't like this is like saying you don't like Mark Twain or breathing or the tide

He is getting ready to die, in his way, in our, modern, times.

There's a couple of songs my wife actually likes on the album. She can't stand Dylan's voice normally, but owns up to there being some very moving tracks here.

How the fuck do you qualify this? Not to be dismissive, I'm honestly curious.

From reading a lot of social critical theory from Europe and Latin America. An average college student in Europe, Chile or Australia would know and value the historical status, and continuing relevance, of Dylan's "art"... an average college student in the US might recognize him as somebody the parents' listened to or perhaps as a 60's artifact.

Want me to cite sources?

i like the sound of hte album, the songs haven't really clicked with me yet.

Sure, why not?

My counterargument is completely unscientific; I've been to a bunch of Dylan shows and the crowds are very age diverse, and even the kids seem to know most of the material, plus he tours (mainly) America constantly and draws well everywhere he goes, not as a nostalgia act but as a genuine musical happening (or as you say, a "60's artifact").

Top 25 for me completely. I bought this in Nashville on my honeymoon (on purpose a few weeks after it came out), and it seemed like one of our many soundtracks to the week. On a musically related note to the album, I agree that Dylan is still writing these timeless themes, while somehow many artists his age seem to lose touch with a certain ability to translate their wisdom to music. Dylan has not lost such a step and continues to release relevent music.

I'm pretty sure most of Obner is enjoying Year In Review. Not only am I getting e-mails and PM about that but also suggestions (which is a great thing) on what albums I should cover. Not to worry it will all be over soon enough.

BTW, Dylan is not crap!

I was really disappointed in this album, but truthfully it would have been hard to live up to my expectations. I've put it on the shelf, and might wait a while before picking it back up.

No shit - I really appreciate these threads, if only to remind me of things I've yet to pick up.

Keep up the good work, Bee

Thirded. And I'm putting this record on right now.
Thanks Bee!

I prefer this to Love & Theft and Time Out of Mind. Great record. It's amazing what he can do with his voice and the way that it is now. I think it just shows what kind of talent this man really is.

I really like this one.

Like it but don't have the motivation to revisit it very often.

There's something about his pre-apocalyptic travelling troubadour schtick that I just don't grasp.

Like Love and Theft, I don't feel the need to hear his take on some of these older songs, etc.

I don't know that this album owuld even be mentioned if it weren't by Bob Dylan, and I surely wouldn't feel guilty for saying that I'm not that into it if it weren't Bob Dylan.

Don't read too much into it. I don't totally grasp it either but something about it makes me happy it exists. I can see it resonating more as I grow older and for that I'm glad.

Probably true, since it's very NPR old-guy folk. It'd be revered on World Cafe and he'd get his Greg Brown-y Austin City Limits-type time. But ultimately it'd just fade as another sincere genre rekkid loved by certain people and unheralded by the majority.

Still, I like it.

Not precisely equivalent, but this is like saying a Warhol silk-screen repro of an SOS soap box wouldn't be worth much if it hadn't been produced by Warhol.

Context, source, is more than half the power of the arts in the West anyway, at least since Chaucer.

Oh, Jimmy look at that mess on the wall (says the mother looking with her kid at a Jackson Pollock) you could do that yourself, and better!