It's been almost three months since Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' was released, so the dust has settled enough to jot down a few thoughts. I kept on thinking I'd write some big review of it, but thankfully, didn't get round to it.
Some people have said it's his best album since 'Blood on the Tracks'. Is it? Maybe. It's in the front row of "old man" Dylan albums, along with 'Oh Mercy', 'Time out of Mind', Love and Theft' and 'Modern Times', and after that, it's whatever's your preference.
One great thing about it is the consistency, and variety, of the songs. I'm not sure any of them will make it into my Top 10 Dylan songs, but I think all of them may make it into my Top 100. If I was seeing him live, and he played any of these, I wouldn't be disappointed. There are three "blues jams" ('False Prophet', 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed' and 'Crossing the Rubicon') and often (going all the way back to 'Bringing it All Back Home'), those are the Dylan tracks I switch off on a little, but these three all have fresh life, flair and some killer lines.
That's really the main point - there are so many great lines on this album. The fact that this man has, in his late 70s, taken the time and effort to piece together 100s and 100s of sharp and notable couplets is the great wonder of it. The things it reminds me of 1. a rapper 2. a stand-up comedian 3. a quizmaster. So many brutal two-line put-downs, so many set ups of jokes, pause, delivery of jokes, so many facts and references. Films and songs and battles and generals and Romans and Greeks and presidents and criminals and rivers and coastlines and books - you can imagine being tested on it by Dylan at a pub quiz.
Alongside that, there is some real musical variety, and he deploys his voice as well as he's done in decades, bringing different styles and moods, tender, combat, wry, as the song fits. While his live show in 2019 was very piano-led, that's in the background here.
It is above all a cohesive album, it feels like it was lovingly planned, recorded, sequenced even publicised. The most talked-about song has been 'Murder Most Foul' the 17 minute, slow-build history lesson/musical playlist. When that was the "first single" I admit I was a bit puzzled, and more so when I heard 'I Contain Multitudes' next, which, for me, on its own, was a far better song and less subject to qualms that Dylan had "lost it". But he was right. The world took to 'Murder most Foul', its peculiarity brought a real buzz to the album's release. As a song, it makes much more sense to me as an album closer, but he clearly had enough confidence in it to put it out there and say "this is what I've got for you, I'm still here".
I'm currently wondering what Dylan's been doing in lockdown. Writing another album? 'Chronicles 2'? Let's see ...
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