Tempest

At least three tracks on here are twice as long as they should ever be. Title track is beyond tedious. At least I can still listen to Sad Eyed Lady of The Lowlands every decade or so . I can't make it through Tempest . Was considering buying tickets for his current tour, when I heard he was featuring this album, I changed mind .

I lost contact with Dylan for last decade or more as his voice became more ragged and rough it just obscured and marred the music for me. Perthaps a song here and there might have caught my ear but I couldn't rally any enthusiasim for Dylan any longer. That altered abruptly when I heard Duquesne Whistle. The opening melody really got me hooked, whereas the song itelf was a little slower to appreciate (again it's the voice) but it gradually grew on me. The accompanying video is just bizarre. Temptest has some of the best Dylan songs I've heard in a long time, especially the epic tital song that seems like a good companion piece to Gordon Lightfoot's The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald--both songs haunting and tragic. Long and Wasted Years is another breathtaking song that seems it needed to be longer and ends rather abruptly. It all ends with the stunning Roll On John. Vocal quibbles aside Dylan can still write some compelling songs. Hopefully there are no thoughts of retiring any time soon. Dylan s among the elder statesmen of artists who prove that advancing age does not mean their contributions are any less valid---they are needed all the more as music seems to become more mechanical and inhuman. Roll On Bob.

If this had come out in 1970, it would have been hailed as the continuation in a line of masterful albums. Now it’s just one for the people who are listening. Lucky us!

How does he do it? How does he manage to keep going to the well and delivering this kind of awesomeness? Wow. Just wow.

I own every single Bob Dylan CD (besides all his best of's). Every single CD of his is different from the last. The main thing they have in common is musical genius. Bob Dylan is still writing masterpiece stories about love and society. That's all his political songs were back in the day, a take on society. He's still doing them its just not as subtle. Although I think his best latest album was "modem times" I still could listen to "Tempest" over and over again. I love Bob Dylan's voice. His voice is the only one I want to hear singing his songs. If you want Dylan to still be a folk singer from the 60s..well I have to tell you that, for the times they are a-changin.

Bob can crank these songs out in his sleep, he doesn't even have to try. I don't mind his poor singing quality, that's always been a draw for me. He was able to write from the heart and it's a rather intangible quality but I don't feel it on this album, except for the song "Soon After Midnight" which I bought and liked. The rest is, well, pathetic.

Everyone raves about any Bob Dylan release and if you've been listening to his material all your life (I'm 58) you've got to listen just a little harder to find that one gem and quite frankly I'm not hearing it. I mean its OK but come on it certainly does'nt rate up there with Oh Mercy or John Wesley Harding. I'm sure he's enjoying the process and drinking raspberry wine but to get all riled up over music is like snacking on the local mushrooms. It gets old.

Not every song on this album is perfect. Some are a bit punishing in fact. But the title number, Tempest, is well worth the price of the album. It is an epic song, in the fashion of Tangled up in Blue or Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands. Except Dylan is much older now, and the lyrics run far deeper. Truly a masterpiece.

This sounds awful. Maybe Bob should write the music and let someone else sing it.

maybe it's over . . . . Bob was one of my icons in the '60's, but this has gone too far . . . .