Robert Christgau: Dean of American Rock Critics

Consumer Guide:
  User's Guide
  Grades 1990-
  Grades 1969-89
  And It Don't Stop
Books:
  Book Reports
  Is It Still Good to Ya?
  Going Into the City
  Consumer Guide: 90s
  Grown Up All Wrong
  Consumer Guide: 80s
  Consumer Guide: 70s
  Any Old Way You Choose It
  Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough
Xgau Sez
Writings:
  And It Don't Stop
  CG Columns
  Rock&Roll& [new]
  Rock&Roll& [old]
  Music Essays
  Music Reviews
  Book Reviews
  NAJP Blog
  Playboy
  Blender
  Rolling Stone
  Billboard
  Video Reviews
  Pazz & Jop
  Recyclables
  Newsprint
  Lists
  Miscellany
Bibliography
NPR
Web Site:
  Home
  Site Map
  Contact
  What's New?
    RSS
Carola Dibbell:
  Carola's Website
  Archive
CG Search:
Google Search:
Twitter:
BOB DYLAN IN THE '80S
ATO
8 Bob Dylan in the '80s: Volume One Albums SPIN Rating:8 of 10 Listen: Spotify Release Date: March 25, 2014 Label: ATO March 19 2014, 2:22 PM ET by Robert Christgau

Annotating this friendly takeover by smart young Americana types, Jonathan Lethem argues that the maligned and presumed lost '80s Dylan was only trying to prove "that big as he was, he wasn't bigger than rock 'n' roll itself." He hired hit producers; he married his backup singer; he dominated a supergroup that's worn better than most supergroups. Plus, Lethem insists, he wrote a trove of great songs--14 of which Columbia covertly compiled on 2013's Playlist: The Very Best of Bob Dylan '80s, which even if you think Lethem's blowing some very fragrant smoke ain't bad at all.

This tribute album, however, is a significant improvement, partly because the Playlist material has its flat spots, and partly because Dylan sings it--a third of the selections are from his Christian period, and almost all share the phlegmy gravity he favored when feeling holier-than-thou, as if a head cold was proof of enlightenment. Much younger than that fortysomething millionaire, the singers here sound delighted to be singing goddamn Dylan songs, and should be; smart though they are, only a few--in particular Deer Tick's John J. McCauley III and the Hold Steady's Craig Finn--are much shakes at this songwriting stuff themselves.

Starting with comedian Reggie Watts riffing on the known classic "Brownsville Girl," there's more humor here than on all Dylan's '80s albums, which between outtakes and the Traveling Wilburys and 1990's slept-on Under the Red Sky and the soundtrack-only "Night After Night" provide only half the 17 songs anyway. Arguably, there's also more Dylan, because many frontmen turn imitators for the occasion--note the freewheelin' nasality of Aaron Freeman's "Wiggle Wiggle," the highway-revisiting wail of Langhorne Slim's "Got My Mind Made Up," the rounded-off Nashville Skyline intonations of Elvis Perkins' "Congratulations." Of the (mere) six songs the two resuscitations share, Finn owns Infidels' fondly un-Christian "Sweetheart Like You" in perpetuity, and Dylan's original buries the cover only on "Series of Dreams." This matter-of-fact six-minute report from the subconscious seems hard to ruin, and Yellowbirds don't. But Dylan's vocal, on a song that with his usual contrariness he left off 1989's Oh Mercy, has a concentration he seldom approached earlier in the decade.

The tribute loses steam second half--I wish two of the iTunes-only add-ons, the Low Anthem's "Lenny Bruce" and Jesse Elliott's "Handy Dandy," had been subbed in for Hannah Cohen's wan "Covenant Woman" and Marco Benevetto's instrumental "Every Grain of Sand." But it sure does prove that Bob Dylan isn't bigger than rock and roll--while also proving that rock and roll needs ace songwriters more than many current rock and rollers think.

Spin, March 19, 2014