Consumer Guide Album

Bob Dylan: Down in the Groove [Columbia, 1988]
Where Self-Portrait was at least weird, splitting the difference between horrible and hilarious, now he's forever professional--not a single remake honors or desecrates the original. All he can do to a song is Dylanize it, and thus his Danny Kortchmar band and his Steve Jones-Paul Simonon band are indistinguishable, immersed in that patented and by now meaningless one-take sound. And yet, and yet, there's a glimmer--the Dylan-Hunter throwaway "Ugliest Girl in the World," guaranteed to remind the faithful how much fun the one-take ethos used to be. C+