When Bob Dylan announced a collection of covers previously recorded by Frank Sinatra for 2015's Shadows in the Night, it was very easy to dismiss it. After all, in 2012 Dylan released the stunning Tempest, one of his best contemporary albums, which showed the continuing power of his lyrical gifts. Plus, the Dylan estate released two Bootleg Albums that emphasised his song-writing gifts, Another Self Portrait and the legendary Basement Tapes. Both these albums are connected by Dylan taking influence from classic, standard songs and morphing them into original compositions (the 6-disc Basement Tapes set essentially shows this process). So Shadows in the Night launched to genuine surprise. The biggest shock was Dylan's voice. No one would describe Dylan as having a smooth voice, like Sinatra, but somehow we managed to make them his. His broken, spectral voice gave a real sense of darkness and understanding to the songs, accompanied by minimal accompaniment by his backing band. While it's not a Dylan album I spin often, I have do have warm feelings and genuine respect towards it. Dylan surprised again by rapidly following it up with Fallen Angels in 2016, which continued with the same formula, albeit with lighter songs. Fans were truly taken aback when Dylan announced a triple album in 2017, entitled Triplicate which would again continue to mine both famous and obscure standards from years past. Has the creative muse escaped Dylan (a la in the early 1990s, when he last released a duo of cover albums) or is it something a bit more complex than that? He is, after all, the 2016 Nobel Prize Winner for Literature.
Clearly, the overall project has taken on a new meaning for Dylan with each successive album. Some fans are crying fowl, demanding a new album of original material but, if Dylan has taught us anything, it's to expect the unexpected. If you look back over Dylan's career, it's clear what has always influenced him is the Great American Songbook. One of his most celebrated and brilliant recordings, The Basement Tapes, is essentially based around this central tenant. Dylan morphed these influences into some of his most powerful songs. So with Shadows in the Night, Fallen Angels and now Triplicate, Dylan clearly wants to pay respect and tribute, whilst providing his own unique take on these classic songs. My problem is literally my problem. I don't have any connections to these songs the way Dylan or maybe an older generation does. I can only judge them on how Dylan is presenting them. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a new collection of original songs but with Dylan I think you never know what you really want until it's given to you. An album uncovering the demos and unheard recordings from Self Portrait, one of his most reviled albums? It's a brilliant and illuminating set, that gives a strange new respect to its parent album. An album of bitter confessional songwriting, in stark contrast to his surreal 60s work? It was met with mixed reviews at the time but Blood on The Tracks is now regarded as one of his best. And the whole concept of going electric in the mid-1960s, one of the most ground-shaking moves in popular music, was met with disdain by his mostly folky, political fan base. So Dylan has always surprised and I respect him as an artist so much that I would gladly listen to 90 minutes of music of covers I don't really have a connection to to hear how Dylan interprets them.
This finally brings me onto Triplicate. And it truly is a behemoth. Three discs, 30 songs, split thematically, total running time 32:00 each. Did this need to be a triple album, considering the storage space of a CD? Dylan says this is evoke the running time of an older LP, which is fair enough considering the mood he is trying to evoke (and I imagine this plays great on vinyl). The good news is that this is, in my opinion, the best of the three albums Dylan has released in this style. I says this because simply due to the sheer amount of content on the discs, he is able to run the gambit over various different styles. Dylan is able to touch upon more famous material, such as Stardust, As Time Goes By and Stormy Weather but also highlight more obscure material. The backing band is cool, relaxed and controlled, anchored by a constant deep and vibrant cello. What surprises most about these songs is the directness of their lyrics and how their power to connect can still be felt after all these decades. To help digest all this, each disc is split thematically. Disc One, 'Til The Sun Goes Down, focuses on songs about memory, time and loss (which is hard to read as anything but auto-biographical). Disc Two, Devil Dolls, deals with fiery romance that have been extinguished. And Disc Three, Comin' Home Late, focuses on the more famous songs in the set. There are a multitude of highlights, such as deeply affecting How Deep is the Ocean?, When The World Was Young and That Old Feeling to the more up-beat Braggin'. There is some fatigue in the sequencing of the albums, with a few too many similarly tempoed songs in order, but, like The Basement Tapes Complete, I honestly feel this is best dipped into rather than a sit down listen to the full 90 minutes. There are plenty of surprises and beautiful moments to uncover on this record.
The elephant in the room though is Dylan's voice. And whether you love or hate his aged, crackly, broken voice will come down to personal taste and your overall enjoyment of the album. Personally, I love the sound of older Dylan's voice. He brings experience, personality, wisdom, sensitivity and age to songs known for being interpreted by big singers with big voices. He clearly understands the content and how best to communicate it with his range. Certainly for someone who has no sentimental attachment to these songs, he manages to pull you into this older world. In an excellent interview with Bill Flanagan, Dylan states that these songs are "meant for the man on the street, the common man, the everyday person...these songs are some of the most heartbreaking stuff ever put on a record and I wanted to do them justice. Now that I have lived them and through them I understand them better...these songs are cold and clear sighted, there is a direct realism in them"(1). This collection is far from a quick easy fix for Dylan, whose clear logical in what the set represents make it greater than the sum of its spare parts. And it's far from dry as well. These are emotionally engaging songs that remind us a time when direct song-writing was not scoffed at.
Honestly, while I'm not sure I'll be spinning the full 90 minutes of Triplicate often, I do have a tremendous amount of respect for it. Because both this and the previous two albums have highlighted songs and a period of American music I am largely unaware of. For artists like Dylan, the Beatles and the Stones effectively took influence from these songs to create revolutionary new styles of music that effectively rendered the Great American Songbook mute for a long time. Dylan clearly wants to change this and highlight this crucial period of popular music development. There is variety and excitement to the selection. While Triplicate is far from my favourite Dylan album, it is essential if you want to uncover a period of time before the musical upheaval of the 1960s, when the emphasis was on the words and the voice. And I feel I will be dipping back into its library for a long time to come.
Rating: 9/10
References
(1) 'Q&A With Bill Flanagan' https://bobdylan.com/news/qa-with-bill-flanagan/ (accessed 06/04/2017)
No comments:
Post a Comment