BOB DYLAN: KNOCKED OUT LOADED (1986)
1) You Wanna Ramble; 2) They
Killed Him; 3) Driftin' Too Far From Shore; 4) Precious Memories; 5) Maybe
Someday; 6) Brownsville Girl; 7) Got My Mind Made Up; 8) Under Your Spell.
It would take more time to type up the names of
all the musicians responsible for this record than to listen to all of its
thirty-five minutes — two ominous signs for Dylan, whose best records have
always tended to be recorded over brief periods, with minimal staff, and run for
far longer than the usual 40-45 minutes; the «country-western» period of
1968-70 being a notable and perfectly intentional exception. But Knocked Out Loaded is not even a proper
album, in a way. It consists of outtakes from previous sessions, throwaway
pieces hastily and fuzzily knocked out (loaded) with members of Tom Petty's
band during rehearsal breaks on the True
Confessions tour, and a random selection of covers by various people,
without any organizing principles or quality control. Whatever in the world
made Bob want to put this stuff out as his next LP is beyond me. Out-of-control
drug and alcohol consumption on the tour seems to be out of the question, but
so far, this sounds like the optimal explanation anyway.
Without Sly and Robbie at the wheel, the record
sounds less electronic and «plastic» than Empire
Burlesque, but its heavy reliance on synthesizers, echoes, and monotonous
paid-by-the-book gospel background vocals, somehow ensures that everything is
even more tired and boring than it used to be. The rock'n'roll numbers have no
drive, the ballads have no feeling, and the melodic hooks are not even an
active topic. You'd think that a Dylan/Petty collaboration, of all things,
could have gone down real well (especially in the light of the Traveling
Wilburys' revival just a couple years later), but ʽGot My Mind Made Upʼ turns
out to be just a semi-improvised blues-rock jam without any redeeming
qualities, other than maybe some nifty, but noisy acoustic slide playing, and
even that is dissolved in the grayish production.
At least once the whole story borders on the
ridiculous: Dylan covering Kris Kristofferson's freshly written ʽThey Killed
Himʼ, a young-adult retelling of the uneasy common fates of Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi,
Martin Luther King, and Jesus Christ Superstar. The song is trite from each and
every point of view, melody and lyrics included; at least in the days of Self Portrait, Bob used to come up with
interesting rearranging and artistic twists to justify inclusion of such
material, but this is downright crazy
— why take a bad song and cover it if you do absolutely nothing to compensate
for the corny atmosphere? Then again, it was barely a year since Bob took part
in the ʽWe Are The Worldʼ embarrassment (although that one at least made some
sense in that some of the money went to charity; ʽThey Killed Himʼ will only
begin making sense when Bob decides to throw in an extra verse on Kenny, but I
don't know how well he gets along with South
Park these days).
The one song that, in stark contrast with the
rest of this «album», has usually gotten rave reviews was ʽBrownsville Girlʼ
(formerly ʽNew Danville Girlʼ, as the tune dates back to the Empire Burlesque sessions). Its format
is certainly unusual — not only does it return us to Dylan's «epic» length that
we haven't really seen since the days of ʽJoeyʼ, but it also features alternating,
«clashing» sets of lyrics that revolve around several sets of memories, one of
which involves a movie starring Gregory Peck; ironically tinged «taunts» from
Dylan's backup singers from time to time; and some sax solos that add some sort
of muscular Springsteen grandeur to the proceedings. In a different age, this
could have worked. Unfortunately, the sound
of the song is just as colorless and mucky as everything else on here — big
stupid drums, meaningless guitar and keyboard rhythms, echo and reverb all
over the place, and a bombastic chorus whose bombast is only slightly louder than the bombast of
everything else, so do not really hope for a grappling build-up effect. It is
certainly an intriguing tune when compared to everything else around it, but
truly that is not saying much.
Thumbs down, of course,
although calling this «the worst Dylan album ever» or at least a worthy
candidate and shooting fat fish in a tiny barrel would be acts of comparable
importance — like I said, this isn't even a proper «album», more like an
uninteresting drunk escapade of which Bob himself might not be retaining any
particular memories. Had he ever stated that the songs were released by
Columbia without his approval (again!), I think nobody would have a hard time
believing him. Like that silly album from 1973, it is best to forget Knocked Out Loaded, as an object that
adds nothing credibly positive or starkly negative to the man's legacy. Even
the album sleeve is probably the silliest picture in Dylanology.
Check "Knocked Out Loaded" (CD) on Amazon
Check "Knocked Out Loaded" (MP3) on Amazon
Check out Bonnie 'Prince' Billy's cover of Brownsville Girl if you wanna see it done right.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6O_FJ426O84