Skip to main content

Nashville Skyline – Bob Dylan

 


Year Released: 1969

Label: Columbia

Year Bought: 2007

On the cover of 'Nashville Skyline' a smiling Bob Dylan stares out at you, with his hand on his way to doff his hat. He seems happy, friendly, inviting.

These are all themes that flow through the record itself, but there is one additional vibe: forgettable.

I'm a huge fan of Dylan. He's made some of my favourite albums, but I just can't get on with this one. 

He goes folk-country on this record, but aside from 'Lay Lady Lay' it all sounds pretty generic with not very memorable lyrics. 

The album opens with a re-recording of an earlier Dylan tune - 'Girl From The North Country' - but this time with Johnny Cash on co-vocals. I've never really got on with this tune, and this strikes me as something that was better in theory than in practice.

Apparently this album was notable at the time for Dylan switching his singing style from nasal to crooner, and that does make everything a bit softer, but consequently a lot of attack has disappeared from his voice. It's all very relaxed and gentle.

The whole album feels a bit throwaway, especially on 'Country Pie' – a tune that even Paul McCartney might have felt was too whimsical.

There's some nice ballads on the record. I'm surprised 'I Threw It All Away' never got the X Factor treatment, and on 'One More Night' Dylan tries a bit of falsetto.

But all in all, there's not much there. 

5/10








Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pointless Nostalgic – Jamie Cullum

Year Released: 2002 Label: Candid Year Bought: Can't Remember Jamie Cullum burst into the nation's consciousness with a performance on Parkinson in April 2003, a showing that was soon followed by the huge-selling album 'Twentysomething'. It was 2002's 'Pointless Nostalgic' that put Cullum on Parky's radar, and shows the jazz singer and pianist beginning to hone the act that would make him such a breakthrough. There's a host of standards here – 'In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning'. 'It Ain't Necessarily So', 'I Can't Get Started' – alongside a couple of originals and a cover of Radiohead's 'High And Dry'. I remember that song being a big deal at the time for some reason. I think it was seen as rare merging of jazz and alt-rock. Cullum's version is not bad, and actually keeps it quite light and subdued without slipping into a dirge. Cullum was just 23 when this was recorded, and perhaps it's his yo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Year Released: 2004 Label: Domino Year Bought: 2004 January 2004. I'd just quit uni. Was back at the family home in Bishop's Stortford. The place I'd been so desperate to get away from, and I was back and already bored.  And then things got a bit less boring. I remember this so clearly. I was having a shower and the radio was on, and on came 'Take Me Out'. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. At first I thought it must be an old tune that had passed me by, but no, it was announced as a new song by a band called Franz Ferdinand. It sounded glorious. It sounded interesting. After the staleness of the post-Britpop years, and beigeness of Coldplay, Travis et al, there was actually a British band doing something interesting. I loved it, and when the album came out the next month, I gobbled it up with glee. Listening back now, and I still love it. The hushed opening of 'Jacqueline', the sleaze of 'The Dark of the Matinee', the homoeroticism of 'M...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ringleader Of The Tormentors – Morrissey

Year Released: 2006 Label: Sanctuary Year Bought: 2006 Released in 2006, 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' in many ways represents the apex of the Morrissey resurgence that began two years earlier with 'You Are The Quarry'.  Whereas that album peaked at number 2 in the album chart (although it did spawn 4 top ten singles), its successor gave Morrissey his first number 1 album since 1994's 'Vauxhall and I'. 'Ringleaders...' raised some eyebrows at the time as Morrissey sang explicitly about something he had previously made a virtue of not discussing. His sex life. "There are exploding kegs between my legs," he sings on 'Dear God Please Help Me' – a tune that swells and grows to a climax with strings written by Ennio Morricone. "Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between," he later adds.  Perhaps this new found desire of the flesh was due to this album being recorded in Italy, and references to the country season the ...
Post a Comment
Read more