Modern Times

There's nothing like the prospect of a new Bob Dylan album to make me start giggling like a little school girl. In the weeks leading up to the release date, Dylan fans are teased with hysterical proclomations of uber-mastery by the music press and publicity junkets deal out foppish pictures of the old devil left right and centre. Dylan peers at you through the photo lense: squinty eyes, lips pursed and slightly smurky. Nobody delivers a better Blue Steel. Sometimes I just want to grab the photos and yell YOU'RE SO FUCKIN SUAVE Dennis Hopper style into his wisened horsey face.

Expectations are high water and rising for this album. His recent autobiography was sharp and candid. Recents albums have been magnificent and Scorcese's film barely satisfied rabid public interest in even the most banal aspects of Dylan's life. It's been almost impossible to escape the guy in the last year.

Of course it's been a pretty appalling year for new music so far and maybe there's a little bit of Save Us King Bob about the reviews that have preceded the album release. Rolling Stone and Uncut Magazine reviews have been on the crazy side of delirious and some half-baked gobshite managed to compare the album to Matisse, Keats and Yeats. I'm no culture vulture but what exactly do those three all have in common? Ooh, he might say, the album is soooo painterly. Almost poetic. Like a painting.

It's seems like since Dylan's brush with death in the late nineties there has been a compulsion in the press to applaud everything he does in a kind of Quick... Before He Dies kind of hysteria. His live shows have been comically muffled in their delivery and even ventures like the revoltingly wretched Masked and Anonymous have been cheered out of existence. I mean just look at that trailer for god's sake. It makes you squirm doesn't it?

Giovanni Ribisi: Do you ever dream?
Dylan (squinty blue steel, unnecessary pause): Yea...I dream.

I've been listening to Modern Times now for a few days and it's an enjoyable enough affair. It's certainly no equal to Time Out of Mind or Love & Theft, it's partners in Bob's Indian Summer trilogy; but I suppose that those are unfair comparisons. Time Out of Mind was an absolute revelation when it came out. The personal nature of the album and the slow rolling splendour of the production demanded comparisons with Dylan's best work. I still, almost 10 years later, can't get over the sheer majesty of Not Dark Yet. Dylan always seemed to be a bit of a charaltan and here he was staring death in the face and telling it as straight as he could. It seemed to cut through any pretence he could muster. Of course, Love & Theft's witty remarks and breezy tone were all the more enjoyable after that. I remember one review at the time saying that getting to know the album was like drinking with a geriatric door to door saleman in a cheap motel bar. It didn't matter that Dylan was putting up the defenses again - it was just so show biz entertaining.

Anyway, if you're a Dylan fan you are going to buy this album no matter what happens. It's a pity that music journalists are so compelled to tag it in to some kind of near death golden trilogy. Is it asperger's syndrome I wonder? Is it important that Dylan finishes on a prime number of magnificent albums? Let's hope it's 5 instead of 3.