Modern Times (Bob Dylan album)

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Modern Times
Studio album by Bob Dylan
Released	August 29, 2006
Recorded	February 2006
Genre	Folk/Rock, Blues
Length	63:04
Label	Columbia
Producer(s)	Bob Dylan (as Jack Frost)
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link ARTISTdirect link Being There link Blender Sep 2006, p.139 Entertainment Weekly A link The Guardian link Los Angeles Times link Music Box link musicOMH.com link The Observer (favorable) link Pitchfork Media link Planet Sound Prefix link Rolling Stone 9/7/06, p.99 Sputnikmusic link Static And Feedback link Tiny Mix Tapes link Twisted Ear link Uncut Sep 2006, p.72
Bob Dylan chronology
Live at The Gaslight 1962 (2005)	Modern Times (2006)

Modern Times is Bob Dylan's 32nd studio album, released on August 29, 2006 by Sony BMG.

The album was Dylan's third straight (following Time out of Mind and "Love and Theft") to be met with nearly universal praise from fans and critics. It continued its predecessors' tendencies toward blues, rockabilly and pre-rock balladry, and was self-produced by Dylan under the pseudonym "Jack Frost". Along with the acclaim, the album sparked debate over its uncredited use of choruses and arrangements from older songs, as well as many lyrical lines taken from the work of 19th century poet Henry Timrod.

Modern Times became the singer-songwriter's first #1 album in the U.S. since 1976's Desire. At age 65, Dylan became the oldest living person ever to have an album enter the Billboard charts at number one. ^[1] Modern Times sold 192,000 copies in its first week of release in the States. It also reached #1 in Canada, Australia, New Zealand,Ireland,Denmark, Norway and Switzerland, debuted #2 in Germany, Austria and Sweden. It reached #3 in the UK and The Netherlands. As with its two studio predecessors, the album's packaging features minimal credits and no lyric sheet.

Contents 1 Promotion 2 Band and production 3 "Trilogy"? 4 Anticipation 5 Critical reaction 5.1 49th Annual Grammy Awards, 2007 6 Credit Controversy 6.1 Adaptations 6.2 Henry Timrod lyrics 7 Track listing 8 Artwork 9 Versions 10 Notes

[edit] Promotion

The album was TV advertised (a rarity for a non-compilation Dylan album) in the U.S. and UK, in conjunction with Apple's iTunes.

[edit] Band and production

The album was recorded with Dylan's current touring band, including bassist Tony Garnier, drummer George G Receli, guitarists Mike Hansen, Stu Kimball and Denny Freeman, plus multi-instrumentalist Donnie Herron. Dylan produced the album under the name "Jack Frost".

Early rehearsals were held in late January and early February 2006 at the Bardavon 1869 Opera House in Poughkeepsie, New York. Days after the rehearsals, recording sessions were held in a Manhattan recording studio where the album was taped in roughly three weeks.^{[citation needed]}

Dylan's comments about albums not sounding as good as earlier recordings hints that Modern Times was recorded digitally. The debate about which medium, i.e. analog or digital, sounds better has been raging since digital's inception. Dylan said in a Rolling Stone magazine interview, "We all like records that are played on record players, but let's face it, those days are gon-n-n-e. You do the best you can, you fight that technology in all kinds of ways, but I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really. You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them. There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like -- static. Even these songs probably sounded ten times better in the studio when we recorded 'em."

[edit] "Trilogy"?

While it has been marketed as the third in a conceptual trilogy, beginning in 1997 with Time Out of Mind, Dylan himself has rebuffed that notion; in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, he stated that he "would think more of "Love and Theft" as the beginning of a trilogy, if there's going to be a trilogy." ^[2] In that and several other moments in the piece, Dylan casts doubts on whether he will record another studio album.

[edit] Anticipation

Dylan's historical stature, as well as his renewed critical acclaim following Time Out of Mind (1997) and "Love and Theft" (2001), helped to make Modern Times a highly anticipated release. As with Theft in 2001, Sony held a listening event for critics far in advance. At the same time, however, those invited were forbidden from disclosing details or opinions about what they heard.

Modern Times was leaked online through various BitTorrent websites on August 21, 2006, and the album was first released in some European countries (including Germany and Ireland) on August 25, in the UK on August 28 and premiered in the U.S. on August 28 on XM Satellite Radio, a satellite radio service which already broadcasts a radio program hosted by Dylan.

[edit] Critical reaction

The response from critics was overwhelmingly positive. The publications Rolling Stone and UNCUT both crowned Modern Times with five-out-of-five stars. Rolling Stone critic Joe Levy called the album Dylan's "third straight masterwork". Robert Christgau of Blender magazine described it as "startling [and radiating] the observant calm of old masters who have seen enough life to be ready for anything -- Yeats, Matisse, Sonny Rollins". Jody Rosen of the online magazine Slate concurred, calling Modern Times "a better album than Time Out of Mind and even than the majestic Love and Theft, which by my lights makes it Dylan's finest since Blood on the Tracks". ^[3]

Dissent came first from Alexis Petridis of The Guardian, who called the glowing reviews "[a] competition to see who can slather Bob Dylan's 32nd studio album with the most deranged praise known to man". While Petridis enjoyed the record itself, he said Modern Times was "not one of those infrequent, unequivocally fantastic Dylan albums".^[4] Jim DeRogatis of The Chicago Sun-Times appreciated the lyrical content but found fault in the languid music, writing that "with the exception of the closing track 'Ain't Talkin', one of the spookiest songs he's ever written, Dylan disappoints with...[his] inexplicable fondness for smarmy '30s and '40s balladry". ^[5]

Otherwise, some reviewers who liked the album were slightly critical of its musicianship, such as The Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot^[6], and Jon Pareles of The New York Times, who wrote that "onstage Mr. Dylan’s touring band regularly supercharges his songs. But on Modern Times the musicians play as if they’re just feeling their way into the tunes." ^[7]

According to Metacritic, a site that tracks prominent critical opinion, Modern Times' approval rating hovers around 89%.

The album also became Dylan's third successive album to win the Village Voice's Pazz And Jop poll. "Love And Theft" and Time Out Of Mind won in 2001 and 1997 respectively.

[edit] 49th Annual Grammy Awards, 2007

• Bob Dylan won a Grammy Award for Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance for the song, "Someday Baby".

• Modern Times won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk/Americana Album.

[edit] Credit Controversy

Shortly after its release, the album sparked some debate in the media concerning its songwriting credits - mainly the liner notes' contention of "All songs written by Bob Dylan", which appears in most editions of Modern Times.

[edit] Adaptations

Many of the album's songs have roots in well-known older compositions. In all cases, Dylan has at least given the songs new verse lyrics.

• "Thunder on the Mountain" takes its entire second verse from the song "Ma Rainey" by Memphis Minnie. Dylan cuts and shuffles Memphis Minnie's lyrics substituting Alicia Keys and Hell's Kitchen for Ma Rainey and her Georgia birthplace.

• "Someday Baby" is based on an old standard, made famous in versions by Lightnin' Hopkins and Muddy Waters. It is sometimes referred to as "Trouble No More".

• "Rollin' and Tumblin'" is thought to have been authored by the bluesman Hambone Willie Newbern. An arrangement very similar to Dylan's was a hit for Muddy Waters.

• "When the Deal Goes Down" uses the melody of "When the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day", a signature-song for Bing Crosby.

• "Beyond the Horizon" takes its entire melody and structure from the song "Red Sails in the Sunset," written by Jimmy Kennedy and Hugh Williams in 1935.

• "The Levees Gonna Break" is based on "When the Levee Breaks" by Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie. It has been previously adapted by rock acts such as Led Zeppelin.

• "Nettie Moore" takes its title, and some of its chorus, from an old standard, though Dylan's melody and lyrics are otherwise unrecognizable.

• "Aint Talkin" derives its chorus from the more up-tempo "Highway of Regret" by the Stanley Brothers.

None of these previous incarnations or their authors are credited, though Dylan has casually acknowledged some of the uses - in a 2004 Newsweek online feature, Dylan mentioned that he was working on a song based off of a Bing Crosby melody, now known to be "When The Deal Goes Down".^[8] The lack of official credits is not a legal problem, given the age of the songs, but it troubled journalists such as Jim Fusilli of the Wall Street Journal. Fusilli thought that this was contrary to Dylan's long track record of noting his influences, as in the liner notes of 1994's World Gone Wrong. ^[9] Joe Levy of Rolling Stone claimed to have raised the question with Sony BMG executives, who shrugged it off as a non-issue. Levy and others have supported Dylan in the context of a larger, older folk tradition of evolving old songs into new ones, which Dylan was no stranger to in the 1960s.

[edit] Henry Timrod lyrics

In September 2006, The New York Times ran an article exploring similarities between some of the lyrics in Modern Times and the work of 19th century poet Henry Timrod. Albuquerque disc jockey Scott Warmuth is credited as the first to discover at least ten substantial lines and phrases that can be clearly traced to the civil war poet, across several songs. Dylan and Sony have declined to comment on the matter, and Timrod's name is nowhere to be found on the liner notes. ^[10], ^[11], ^[12].

Robert Polito of the Poetry Foundation wrote a detailed defense of Dylan's usage of old lines in creating new work, saying that calls of plagiarism confuse "art with a term paper".^[13]

[edit] Track listing

1. "Thunder on the Mountain" – 5:55
2. "Spirit on the Water" – 7:42
3. "Rollin' and Tumblin'" – 6:01
4. "When the Deal Goes Down" – 5:04
5. "Someday Baby" – 4:55
6. "Workingman's Blues #2" – 6:07
7. "Beyond the Horizon" – 5:36
8. "Nettie Moore" – 6:52
9. "The Levee's Gonna Break" – 5:43
10. "Ain't Talkin'" – 8:48

[edit] Artwork

The cover photo is "Taxi, New York at Night", 1947, by Ted Croner. The image was previously used as a CD cover by the defunct band Luna, on their 1997 single "Hedgehog/23 Minutes in Brussels".

[edit] Versions

The album was released in both standard and special edition formats, with the special edition including a bonus DVD of four Dylan music videos. It contained the songs, Blood In My Eyes (Promo Video), Love Sick (Live at the Grammys 1997), Things Have Changed (Promo Video) and Cold Irons Bound (Masked and Anonymous Video).

The LP edition is a two-disc set, produced on 180-gram audiophile vinyl.

[edit] Notes

Preceded by Danity Kane by Danity Kane

Billboard 200 Number 1 Album September 16, 2006 - September 22, 2006

Succeeded by B'Day by Beyoncé