Every artist (infinite in potential) limits their range and delineates their limit. In this way the tradition is revised, enhanced and made bountiful in conserved seriousness which establishes new norms and points to farther reaches.Modern Times by Bob Dylan, released yesterday, is a supremely modest, mature and controlled offering of ten songs whose generous appeal and broad, open manner present the most crafted, popular sound of his late career. Those who come to this album hoping for explicit expressions of critique or contempt for these modern, fraught, American times will be turned away not empty-handed, but handed signs and symbols wrapped in tuneful enigmas, swaddled in traditional folk, blues, swing and country sounds and tropes.
Of Dylan's three great albums of the decade begun in 1997, this is the second strongest, the least cryptic, and the most romantic: deeper, socio-political losses figured as absenteed women on the road of a lonesome cowboy band.
However, critics who have tried to lessen the impact of this album are foolish and have stale ears. The Guardian suggested this was no masterpiece. A bit like splitting the difference and suggesting Hamlet ain't Lear. Bob Dylan, friends, is that rare and true thing - a universal genius - he may be America's Shakespeare, and surely exceeds (after equalling) the uncanny gifts of Whitman, maybe even Emily D. Little journalists needn't jockey to blow this house down - this work will be listened to so long as recording technology exists. Dylan's timeless as Aeschylus.
Since this album has been five years in the making, and comes after September 11, 2001 (when his major work, "Love and Theft" was uncannily released), some may have expected it to be political, to take the measure of these days. And it does, in the private, measured, and strange manner that is Dylan's - as fans know, he long ago left the protest stage for a deeper, higher platform, after strange gods and fostering elusive commitments.
The word that crops up most often in this work is "brain" - half the songs have a character with something on the brain - often the heart. In "Nettie Moore" the singer wants to escape the "demagogues" and complains about "too much paperwork".
The last, and strongest, song, track 10, "Ain't Talkin'" is an Oedipal drama set on a plain, where the singer's character takes up his "walking cane" in search of his father's killer, unaware that, in his quest for revenge and slaughter, he seeks himself. The second most common word on the album, is "hill" - where lovers are to meet. This signals the city on a hill from John Winthrop's famous New England sermon, a warning to America that all eyes were upon it, and it should be true to God's covenant.
In the penultimate, prophetic song "The Levee's Gonna Break" the rain is falling (the hard rain) and some people just "take". Katrina is thus invoked, but never named (we know Dylan loves, and derives much from, New Orleans). In mysterious yet clear fashion, Dylan extends his concerns with America, nature and with faith, while never letting the album cease to be simultaneously simply a beautifully-rendered album of moving, attractive tunes, often very upbeat in style.
The three best songs here are all as good as any but perhaps the ten best of Dylan's early period: "Workingman's Blues #2"; "Nettie Moore" and Ain't Talkin" and are startlingly robust and fresh in their big sound. There is nothing flawed or hesitant or old here - just ten timeless, supremely-crafted songs. I am now hungry for the next album, in 2011.
Eyewear's rating: 5 specs out of 5.
The album cover image is copyright Ted Croner's Estate. It is likely no coincidence the title is "Taxi, New York At Night" as this album looms, opaque, out of the dark night of New York's post-9/11 experience.
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