Bob Dylan - Modern Times

Mon 25th Sep, 2006 in Music Reviews

Bob Dylan’s 31st studio album, Modern Times, continues one of the most assured and faith-affirming career renaissances ever seen from an aging journey man of rock music. The last two albums he has released have been two of his best and covered the typically kaleidoscopic terrain of personal reflection to comments on the changing ways of society to the damaging and restorative power of human relationships. Thankfully little has changed both lyrically and musically. The sound of this album continues where Love and Theft left off employing dirty blues (multiple songs use older blues choruses and riffs) and folk played by some young and some slightly older hipsters with the warm warble of an experienced and weathered Dylan, sounding somewhere between his 60’s troubadour style, Tom Waits and Captain Beefheart. These seemingly shaggy and tossed off virtues come together to create a poignant collection of songs not necessarily looking at our ‘Modern Times’ but how Dylan sees the individual coping with turmoil and fast paced changes that life can throw at both individuals and collectives.

Produced by ‘Jack Frost’ (a pseudonym of Bob Dylan’s) a distinctly personal edge is given to the albums ragged and at times drunken party sound. Some tunes positively spit and fire with bristling agitation and disturbing satire yet the majority of songs employ either an unnervingly soothing tone or a gentle romantic feel that reminds one that Dylan is not merely telling us about how twisted the world is becoming around us. The band personnel has not changed much since Love and Theft and connections between the two albums can be heard in the soft shuffling rhythms of the percussion and the controlled yet Bloomfield-esque guitar licks of Charlie Sexton.

Individually the songs run the gambit from blues to ballads and hope to caution. There are apocalyptic rollicking blues numbers like ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’ and ‘Thunder on the Mountain’ that describe scenes of at times destruction and other moments depression. ‘Rollin’ in fact is based quite explicitly on an old blues number sung by Muddy Waters. Tunes similar to this are balanced by a mix of ballads that; see love through optimistic eyes (‘Beyond The Horizon’), declare strong and undying commitment (‘When The Deal Goes Down’) and remind us in no uncertain and acerbic terms that for Dylan a relationships can provide as much pain and disappointment as joy (‘Spirit On The Water’). Undoubtedly the two masterpieces of the album are ‘Workingman’s Blues #2’ and ‘Ain’t Talkin’. ‘Workingman’s Blues’ is almost a union song more akin to the writings of Springsteen than Dylan and employs a truly beautiful melody reminiscent of ‘In The Ghetto’ to describe a dieing industrial town from the perspective of a struggling, family-providing Blue-collar worker. ‘Ain’t Talkin’ finishes the album with an epic foreboding ballad in which the main character walks through a world of changes that describe pain and injury in a confusing stream of consciousness type landscape. It’s a song nothing like Dylan has ever created and distills the essence of Modern Times into 9 disturbing minutes.

Interestingly, Modern Times went to #1 on the US Billboard Charts (and in Australia), making Dylan the oldest man ever to achieve that ‘honour’. Its critical reaction overall led it to be hailed as a masterpiece by some, most notably being given 5 stars by Joe Levy of Rolling Stone mag. Overall, the hype is deserved and Dylan has yet again shown us that being a part of the old crew in music is no obstacle stopping artists making resoundingly successful albums, commercially and artistically.