 "Music, History, English Class in one convenient package for 21st Century Kids on the Go" | 2009-09-13 |
| - Reviewed By User: AC75C4CV56VHE |
| Bought for my 14 year old son at his request, its as good a summary of mid 60s state of the union as you're bound to find for the nano second attention generation. It still retains that sense of kick butt,tension-release exuberance. Demonstrates the value of alternate renditions of songs found on later bootlegs and live releases - nuances abound from version to version, all to our musical enjoyment. Assigned listening for this decade's students. |
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| "Revisited for the first time." | 2009-05-10 |
| - Reviewed By byrd52 |
| Only recently, more than four decades after its debut have I discovered this amazing album by Bob Dylan. The only song familiar to me is "Like a Rolling Stone", which I remember from the radio when I was a kid. It must sound incredible to longtime Dylan fans that someone who appreciates this music could have remained unaware of it for so long, but such things happen. And truthfully, at my age, it's importance in my life is going to be limited. But I have to say I was blown away by the originality, intelligence, and latent ideas contained in the lyrics of these songs. I think they are definitely poetry, many of them dream-images with symbolism to be pondered. There is something jarring rather than soothing about this poetry, but rather than being jarred into irritation, I felt as though I was being jarred into a more comprehensive and perceptive state of mind. The music which Dylan devised to go with these unique lyrics seems to serve the same purpose of prompting, not too gently, a state of mind receptive to some sort of unconscious communication. These are the impressions I experienced when I first listened to this album. Besides "Like a Rolling Stone", my other favorites were "Desolation Row", with its incredible cryptic lyrics which never seemed to end(but which I didn't want to end), and "Ballad of a Thin Man", a strange, strange little song which seemed to invade my psyche and take up residence. All this interest in Dylan was prompted by a more or less random curiosity which led me to watch the documentary, "No Direction Home". I'm not sure how I feel about Dylan as a person. Some web research I've done leads me to believe some of these songs were inspired by the desire to exact vengeance on those who have offended him. One of my favorites on this album, "Ballad of a Thin Man", is said to be a put-down of a newspaper interviewer who irritated Dylan with foolish questions. If so,I find that a little disappointing. But how I feel about such matters as that is not really pertinent to the quality of the songs and music, however they were inspired, except maybe as a caution against going overboard with reading meaning into them. Whether he was inspired by visionary insights or more mundane causes, he was very adroit at adapting these inspirations into imagery that leaves a strong mental impression on the listener. Dylan refused to let his fans force him into a niche, and quite rightly so, in my opinion. If, as has been said, he has constantly invented himself, then this album was one of his outstanding inventions. |
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| "The Sound of the World Changing" | 2009-03-18 |
| - Reviewed By User: AEEZON8Q0V694 |
Smack in the center of the two-dozen-or-so albums of the 1960s that changed and redefined both rock `n' roll and Western culture, are the three albums whipped off by Bob Dylan right after he "went electric." Bringing It All Back Home (1965), Highway 61 Revisited (1965) and Blonde on Blonde (1966) form an escalating trilogy of realization, transformation and power that are simply unmatched anywhere else in the music. If you do not have all three of these mind-blowing epics, you are simply doomed not to understand the conceptual genesis and limits of late twentieth-century art, nor do you have an adequate standard by which to make judgements, even up to this day.
While the palm usually goes to Blonde on Blonde for being the most extreme statement a popular artist has ever made, Highway 61 Revisited probably packs the most awesome, powerful wallop. It is the most dynamic and viscerally relentless of the three. It begins with Dylan's most dizzying, category-changing shot of his career, "Like a Rolling Stone," arguably the greatest rock song ever written, and then proceeds to become strangely more intense as it goes along.
"Strangeness" is a wonderful but inadequate word for this music. Dylan digs deeply into the collective unconsciousness of folk music and applies it directly to a new electric form that applies precisely to the moment of its creation. Miraculously, by doing so, he radically alters it and defines it. That "strangeness" is embodied perfectly in the magnificently taunting "Ballad of a Thin Man," where Dylan challenges his listeners to rise up and attempt to comprehend the implications of what they are hearing.
By metaphorically shifting ordinary categories of thought into a hard-blown, electric, apocalyptic vision, this music manages to be both honestly descriptive as well as transformative. As Dylan recreates himself - and music - right before our eyes and ears, we are, in a large sense, recreated ourselves. Once the extraordinary vision of this music captures your imagination and spirit, you become permanently transformed. It doesn't work for everyone, but if you want to know why Bob Dylan is so damned important, this is precisely the place to come to find out.
Ultimately, this is why Dylan has the reputation of being the "spokesman for his generation" - since so many people who heard this got their consciousness permanently altered, including the Beatles and the Stones. As much as Dylan needed the early `60s rock explosion to ignite his flame, I promise you there would not have been a late-60's counterculture had it not been for Bob Dylan.
Even placing this music in its proper historical and cultural context is too limiting to define it. The playing, the lyrics, the singing on this album is timeless and awe inspiring. This is music older than the hills, yet futuristic beyond comprehension. Highway 61 is a marker, a monument - an unshakable reference point for measuring the maturity of all popular music, both before or since. This is why Sgt. Pepper became necessary for the Beatles to remain valid. This is why punk rock had to happen. This is the reason that Frank Zappa had a place to enter popular culture on any level whatsoever. And it goes without saying that this is why anything else Dylan himself has done matters so much - or even at all.
Throughout his eighteen-month creative explosion, Dylan tore down all the walls, rewrote all the rules and gave a new meaning to the idea of conceptual reality through music and the genius of his unflinching vision. This album still has that same power to transform - and it steamrolls the listener like a prophetic force of nature. |
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| "One of the Top Releases Ever" | 2009-03-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3GS5WAQVO4CFB |
| This is one of the great albums of all time. Dylan wails against his newly found electric backing band, showcasing a different style from the protest folk tunes made him famous. Rockers like "Tombstone Blues", "From a Buick 6", and the title song with its dialogue between God and Abraham are classic rock standards that stand the test of time. "Ballad Of a Thin Man" is a slow ballad with heavy handed piano where Dylan laughs joyously at his command of illiteration. "It's a Lot to Laugh/It Takes a Train to Cry" is a great song with another unusual title. "Queen Jane Approximately" follows suit with Dylan's songwriting style at that time. Dylan stays true to his roots with the closer, "Desolation Row", which paints a bleak picture with protest song elements. This is a wonderful release. |
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| "Tales Of Desolation Row, Riches To Rags, and Hysterical Brides in Penny Arcades!" | 2009-01-21 |
| - Reviewed By mwarren122 |
So much has been written about Bob Dylan, but what's really so great about Bob Dylan is in the listen, really (greatness is in the ear of the beholder! ha ha). After listening to this, my beholder is impressed.
To tell you the truth, I haven't been this fascinated by lyrics in a long time. Dylan's lyrics on here are cryptic, funny, biting, surreal, literal, and have the capability of telling a story like a poet. Name dropping is always intact And his smokey (ocassionaly monotonous) tone of voice is timeless, of course. It's in top form here, where he sneers, tells, soars, sounds beat down, and adds excitement. Like any great voice should, it is the sound of Bob Dylan, and nothing else.
Although you deservedly hear lyrics here, lyrics there when this album is discussed, one thing that also strikes me so: The music behind the voice. One thing that struck me from the beginning of my many listens is the loose, sometimes lo-fi playing, dirty and untrained yet lushly preformed. It's an excellent evolution and the real reason why switching to electric was a good idea after all (we all know he switched to electric because he WANTED TO TRY SOMETHING NEW INSTEAD OF THE SAME THING). Organs, pianos, jangly guitars, ramshackle drums, ripping blues guitar solos, elegant gorgeous Spanish Guitars, tin whistles, and a bluesy harmonica where you can often feel the lips touch the metallic taste of the harmonica's body and blow (which occasionaly goes overboard, but that's not exactly a bad thing). And don't expect the same type of music, they are extremely varied. It's one of the reasons why this album is so damn great. It can't be beat.
Wildly consistent for fifty one minutes, this album is eclectic and varied. It is bubbling with classic songs, and I consider them classic songs being this is a person who wasn't exactly there when his songs were first made (they say sometimes you just had to be there to appreciate Dylan even more). Even with that in mind, I absolutely love this album. Here is my track listing
1. Like A Rolling Stone-Between the sparkly piano intro, the howling lyrics, rolling tambourine tinged drums, and the intertwining guitars, it all comes together. This is hands down one of the most famous Dylan songs, and for good reason.
2. Tombstone Blues-An extremely awesome, ramshackle driven, garage rock song. The short guitar solos blaze, the drums pound away with swagger, the acoustic guitar is harrowingly good, and The lyrics are wildly awesome. Dylan's lyrics are surreal, funny, there is some downright brilliant song lyrics in this one. In my mind, this is the best song on the album.
3. It Takes Alot to Laugh...-A standard Dylan blues song. Dylan's lyrics and voice are worn down here, and there is a classic harmonica solo as well.
4. From A Buick 6-Showing off one of his new features (an electric band), this is a funny cool rock and roll song. The bassline is excellent and follows the music like butter.
5. Ballad Of A Thin Man-This dirge of a song is my least favorite, but it's still cryptic as hell, with it's dirge piano slam and the floating organ. I love the piano slamming. The camel metaphor is just creepy.
6. Queen Jane Approximately-The Piano is quite gorgeous. My favorite little part is the open strum that appears in the song, and the organ.
7. Highway 61 Revisited-At the start of a penny whistle, the runnin' blues of Highway 61 Revisited kicks off. Dylan spins five absurd tales of people going to Highway 61 to have their problems solved. Just what Doctor Dylan (DD! B____!) ordered.
8. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues-A lazy, free floating song, with an excellent honky-tonk feel. A pretty silly story, and there is fantastic playing to back it up. Dylan sounds all tired as hell here, like he singing recalling a past story of his lifetime.
9. Desolation Row-Ah yes, the epic eleven minute tune. Dylan's cryptic lyrics drop references as much as any later Bloodhound Gang song did. Oh, the music is fantastic. It never falters for it's time and never turns dull. Consisting of Dylan's dirty guitar strumming (at one point it turns pretty) and beautiful flamenco-esque soloing. Believe the hype, this song rules.
I'm not a huge fan of Bob Dylan, but this is simply an album without a single bad track. Buy it please, or else. |
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| ""I ride on a mail train, can't buy a thrill..."" | 2009-01-01 |
| - Reviewed By User: A218HWVG3OAM92 |
Love it or hate it, Highway 61 is Dylan's masterpiece, a real watershed moment in the evolution of the folk revival and the mid '60s rebirth of rock 'n' roll at the hands of Bob, the Beatles, etc. Bob probably gained as many new fans as he lost old ones (think Newport '65), and this move produced likely as much controversy in the folk world as John Lennon's "Beatles are bigger than Jesus" comment did in the world in general--'66 would prove to be a difficult year for both of these rock icons--but once Highway 61 hit the racks in August of 1965, there was no going back.
The album opens with Dylan's great riches-to-rags anthem, "Like a Rolling Stone," a 6:07 single that went to #2 in the late summer of '65, prevented only from reaching the top spot by the Beatles' "Help!", which was #1 for three weeks. "Stone" was also Dylan's final production with Tom Wilson behind the mixing desk; the remainder of the album was produced by Bob Johnston, with whom Dylan would work through Nashville Skyline. Next up is "Tombstone Blues," featuring some of Dylan's most amazing psychedelic poetry and some amazing guitar soloing from the late, great Michael Bloomfield, and then the track from which this review's title is drawn, the slow blues "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry." Then, the oddly upbeat car-death rocker "From a Buick 6" and Dylan's slow, vituperative "Ballad of a Thin Man," a poison dart cast with deadly precision at Dylan's critics and detractors ("Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is...do you, Mr. Jones?").
Side two opens, then, with "Queen Jane Approximately," honestly my least favourite track on this album, probably because it seems excessively trebly and piercing (notably Dylan's harmonica solos between the last two verses); we then have the title cut, where Dylan's harmonica has been temporarily replaced with a police whistle, and the eponymous highway becomes a staging point for human sacrifice, homeless shelter, flea market ("I got 40 red white and blue shoestrings/And a thousand telephones that don't ring/Can you tell me where I might get rid of these things?"), Oedipal commingling (the Second Mother and the Seventh Son) and even the next World War. "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is more of Dylan's acid-poetry, and the album closes with the epic "Desolation Row," featuring a cast of thousands as only Dylan can write them (including Einstein Disguised as Robin Hood, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot fighting in the Captain's tower, Romeo, Cinderella, the Phantom of the Opera and Cassanova). Through it all, Dylan has the backing of Michael Bloomfield, Al Kooper (in his first-ever shot at playing the organ, for which Tom Wilson laughed at his hubris), the great Harvey Brooks (still known then as Harvey Goldstein), and Russ Savakus and Charlie McCoy (who would also play on Blonde on Blonde), among others.
The casual fan might wish to stick with the compilations that include "Like a Rolling Stone" among Dylan's other classics, but for the real devotee, or the collector, this is a necessary item. |
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