BOB DYLAN: DOWN IN THE GROOVE (1988)
1) Let's Stick Together; 2)
When Did You Leave Heaven; 3) Sally Sue Brown; 4) Death Is Not The End; 5) Had
A Dream About You, Baby; 6) Ugliest Girl In The World; 7) Silvio; 8) Ninety
Miles An Hour (Down A Dead End Street); 9) Shenandoah; 10) Rank Strangers To Me.
A slightly delayed twin brother to Knocked Out Loaded in almost
everything, beginning with the somewhat ironically self-deprecating title, not
to mention the approximately same short running time, the surprisingly low
ratio of originals to covers, and the rag-taggy origins: the album was scrapped
together from at least six different sessions, and chronologically, the songs
reach all the way back to the Infidels
period. Small wonder, then, that it was received with even more hostility than
its predecessor — and this time, there isn't even a single pretentious
eleven-minute epic to feed as a juicy soup bone to the critical hounds.
On general terms, the record is certainly
expendable: with such similar birth conditions, there is just no way one could
condemn Knocked Out Loaded while at
the same time patting its follow-up on the back. On a more particular note, Down In The Groove has always seemed
ever so slightly more listenable to me, mainly because the production has
improved a bit, and those rather pedestrian rockers that sounded all muddled
and flaccid two years back now get a little extra bark by way of a sharper electric
guitar sound and cleaner vocal mixing. Let's admit it, when the guitar and
harmonica kick in at the start of ʽLet's Stick Togetherʼ, this does induce a
bit of a jolt, doesn't it? Definitely a more intense and immediate sound here
than on ʽYou Wanna Rambleʼ.
Furthermore, although ʽWhen Did You Leave
Heavenʼ does greet you with a «plastic heaven» synthesizer onslaught, this is rather
an exception: for the most part, Down In
The Groove avoids soft adult-contemporary and concentrates on rock'n'roll —
much of it simple, unassuming, and sometimes even humorous rock'n'roll, as if
Bob was intentionally trying here to produce a solo match for his Traveling
Wilburys image (or, rather, the reverse is more likely: early Wilburys material
was being written and recorded at the same time as the first copies of Down In The Groove were finding their
accursed way to the store shelves). In a different age, this wouldn't be such a
bad choice, but for 1988, it was still a disaster.
As these rockers fly past you, one by one,
there is nothing to distinguish them from one another — you get no idea of how
«dear» they are to Bob himself, who sings them in the exact same monotonous
tone, you sense nothing but bored professionalism from the backing bands, and
at times, you start to suspect self-parody: I mean, what is something like ʽThe
Ugliest Girl In The Worldʼ but self-parody? Play it back to back with ʽFrom A
Buick 6ʼ and remind yourself of the difference — both songs poke fun at the singer's
imaginary and slightly caricaturesque lover, but the former was all turbulence
and garage rage, whereas this one is just a flat out dumb joke; too bad that
the talents of Robert Hunter, the loyal / royal lyricist of the Grateful Dead,
had to be wasted on this unfunny tripe.
Like its predecessor, Down In The Groove is usually let off the hook for just one song:
ʽDeath Is Not The Endʼ, for which Bob is inexplainably joined by Full Force on
backing vocals, is a quiet, suggestively «optimistic» outtake from the Infidels sessions, presented as a
minimalistic gospel ballad, quietly mumbled and humbly arranged, in a very
sharp contrast to the louder-than-good-taste-recommends-it sound of the rest of
the album. It is repetitive and very sparse on musical ideas, but you can't go
wrong with the nostalgic harmonica part, or the mesmerizing vocals, still
connected through an invisible feeding tube to Bob's cauldron of Christian inspiration
— Nick Cave, a big fan of Bob's Christianity, would later cover the song for
his own spiritual purposes, and Nick's usually got a good taste in covers, so
take his word for it.
Everything else is, at worst, ridiculous
(ʽUgliest Girlʼ) or very boring (ʽWhen Did You Leave Heavenʼ), and, at best,
mildly-pleasantly-listenable, like the acoustic rocker ʽSilvioʼ, punctuated for
the pleasure of your attention by an extra ukulele part, but still coming
across as a flimsy trifle for some reason. Maybe it would have sounded better
on a Traveling Wilburys album. Even the attempt to cap off the record with
something more subtle and sentimental, namely, the cover of Albert Burmley's
gospel tune ʽRank Strangers To Meʼ, is only halfway credible: lazy guitar strum
+ echo-laden voice + dull backup singing = why should we bother? Thumbs down
in the groove; much as I like disagreeing with mainstream criticism on Bob's
low points, defending this album would be a disreputable affair. Funny enough,
it does confirm the usual trend — the more time Bob Dylan spends on making a
record, the worse it usually comes out. It's a good thing he never tried
auditioning for Pink Floyd.
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