All posts by Egil

List, Poll

These are the 20 Greatest albums of all time according to the JV community

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Bob_Dylan_-_Highway_61_Revisited

The votes have been counted.

Read further down in the post…..

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I hereby challenge all readers to put out their personal list of the 20 Greatest albums of all time.
Top 15 /10 is also appreciated.

Use the comments section in this post or check out our Facebook page.

The poll will be open till Tuesday’ish.

The rules:

  • ONLY 5 Bob Dylan albums allowed
  • It’s an album list, but 2 exceptions are allowed (Greatest Hits/Very Best/..)
    This is meant to cover artists that didn’t really put out many “albums”, typically older music 40/50s.

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Again: Don’t take theses lists so seriously ! It’s meant to be FUN.

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It was a great poll to host, and we got lists in from 52 musicologists.

notes:

  • It’s nice to see (though hardly a surprise) 3 Dylan albums on top (as on my list)
  • lists with fewer than 5 did not count
  • Live albums did not count, including my own “Live @ San Quentin”, as stated above.. this will be a separate poll
# Album Artist votes
1 Highway 61 Revisited (1965) Bob Dylan 29
2 Blood On The Tracks (1975) Bob Dylan 26
3 Blonde On Blonde (1966) Bob Dylan 25
4 Revolver (1966) The Beatles 18
5 Exile On Main St. (1972) The Rolling Stones 17
6 Astral Weeks (1968) Van Morrison 15
7 Rubber Soul (1965) The Beatles 14
8 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) The Beatles 13
8 White Album (1968) The Beatles 13
10 Abbey Road (1969) The Beatles 12
10 Let It Bleed (1969) The Rolling Stones 12
10 Who’s Next (1971) The Who 12
13 Kind Of Blue (1959) Miles Davis 11
14 John Wesley Harding (1967) Bob Dylan 10
14 The Band (1969) The Band 10
16 Bringing It All Back Home (1965) Bob Dylan 8
16 Dark Side Of The Moon Pink Floyd 8
16 Music From Big Pink (1968) The Band 8
16 Beggar’s Banquet (1968) The Rolling Stones 8
16 Sticky Fingers (1971) The Rolling Stones 8

Lurking under:

  • Beach Boys – Pet Sounds
  • Crosby Stills & Nash
  • Neil Young – After The Gold Rush
  • Van Morrison – Moondance
  • Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska
  • Crosby Stills & Nash  – Deja Vu
  • Pink Floyd – Wish You Where Here
  • Bob Dylan – The Freewheelin Bob Dylan
  • Bruce Springsteen – Darkness On The Edge Of Town
  • George Harrison – all Things Must Pass
  • Grateful Dead – American Beauty
  • The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Are You Experienced
  • Tom Waits – Rain Dogs

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My list – 20 favorite  albums:

Continue reading These are the 20 Greatest albums of all time according to the JV community →

Great albums, Rolling Stones

August 29: The Rolling Stones released “Steel Wheels” in 1989

Rolling Stones - Steel Wheels

“All the ambivalence, recriminations, attempted rapprochement and psychological one-upmanship evident on Steel Wheels testify that the Stones are right in the element that has historically spawned their best music – a murky, dangerously charged environment in which nothing is merely what it seems. Against all odds, and at this late date, the Stones have once again generated an album that will have the world dancing to deeply troubling, unresolved emotions.”
~Anthony DeCurtis (Rolling Stone Magazine)

“The Stones sound good, and Mick and Keith both get off a killer ballad apiece with “Almost Hear You Sigh” and “Slipping Away,” respectively. It doesn’t make for a great Stones album, but it’s not bad, and it feels like a comeback – which it was supposed to, after all.”
~Stephen Thomas Erlewine (allmusic.com)

All rancor and bad vibes, Dirty Work was the Stones; all impartiality and bad boys grown up, the reunion is an amazing simulation. Charlie’s groove enlivens–and IDs–the mature sentiments while gibes at “conscience” and “reason” hint obliquely at self-awareness. But for Mick, self-awareness means above all accepting one’s status as a pop star. Maybe he thinks “So get off the fence/It’s creasing your butt” saves “Mixed Emotions” from its own conventionality. Probably he thinks giving Keith two vocals is democracy and roots. Certainly he thinks he needs the money. Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. B-
~Robert Christgau (robertchristgau.com)

Critical reception was mostly good. The “glossy” sound troubled some people, but there are some really good songs here.

Here is one of the highlights

Blinded By Love

Continue reading August 29: The Rolling Stones released “Steel Wheels” in 1989 →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan other, Bob Dylan video

Bob Dylan: 5 Great Live versions of “Workingman’s Blues #2” (Video & audio)

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Bob Dylan

There’s an evenin’ haze settlin’ over the town
Starlight by the edge of the creek
The buyin’ power of the proletariat’s gone down
Money’s gettin’ shallow and weak
The place I love best is a sweet memory
It’s a new path that we trod
They say low wages are a reality
If we want to compete abroad

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Happy birthday “Modern Times”, here are 5 great live versions of “Workingman’s Blues #2”.

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National Indoor Arena
Birmingham, England
17 April 2007

My cruel weapons have been put on the shelf
Come sit down on my knee
You are dearer to me than myself
As you yourself can see
I’m listenin’ to the steel rails hum
Got both eyes tight shut
Just sitting here trying to keep the hunger from
Creeping it’s way into my gut

Meet me at the bottom, don’t lag behind
Bring me my boots and shoes
You can hang back or fight your best on the front line
Sing a little bit of these workingman’s blues

Continue reading Bob Dylan: 5 Great Live versions of “Workingman’s Blues #2” (Video & audio) →

Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan recording sessions

27 & 28 August 1986: Bob Dylan Hearts of Fire recording sessions

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bob dylan hearts of fire

 

Two years later, back in the studios in London on July 27–28, 1986 for a Dylan session intended to provide fresh material for his ill-advised film Hearts of Fire—material that Dylan had signally failed to compose—the musicians assembled behind him included Clapton on guitar, RON WOOD on bass and guitar and several others. They managed to get through some takes of John Hyatt’s song ‘The Usual’, a ‘Ride This Train’, some stabs at Dylan’s anyone-could-havewritten- this-song ‘Had a Dream About You Baby’, some of Billy Joe Shaver’s ‘Old Five & Dimers Like Me’, a ‘To Fall in Love’, a ‘Night After Night’ and a pleasant cut of Shel Silverstein and Dennis Locorriere’s ‘A Couple More Years’. Several of these made it onto the soundtrack album, several made it into the film, one made it onto Down in the Groove and one further cut even made it onto the Argentine Down in the Groove release.
~Michael Gray (The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia: Revised and Updated Edition)

Townhouse Studio
London, England
27 & 28 August 1986
Hearts Of Fire recording session, produced by Beau Hill

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Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan Concerts, Bob Dylan other

Bob Dylan: 5 Great live versions of “I’ll Remember You”

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empire1

 

I’ll remember you
When I’ve forgotten all the rest
You to me were true
You to me were the best
When there is no more
You cut to the core
Quicker than anyone I knew
When I’m all alone
In the great unknown
I’ll remember you

An ok song from “Empire Burlesque” (1985), but there are loads of Great live versions.

Dylan performed it over 200 times live between 1986 & 2005.

Here are five great live versions:

Westfalenhalle 1
Dortmund, West Germany
15 September 1987

I’ll remember you
At the end of the trail
I had so much left to do
I had so little time to fail
There’s some people that
You don’t forget
Even though you’ve only seen ’m one time or two
When the roses fade
And I’m in the shade
I’ll remember you

Didn’t I, didn’t I try to love you?
Didn’t I, didn’t I try to care?
Didn’t I sleep, didn’t I weep beside you
With the rain blowing in your hair?

Continue reading Bob Dylan: 5 Great live versions of “I’ll Remember You” →