Bob Dylan's Modern Times, a new Masterpiece?

I feel vindacated. This album has debuted in one of the top 3 positions all over the world. Five stars from Rolling Stone magazine, their highest rating. Calling it one of his three masterpieces. Mark my words, this will win the Grammy for album of the year. The songs are rich in texture and melody and the production, his own by the way, is crisp and clean. Martykl, what a silly obsevation from someone who thinks this is Dylan's best in ages. The music speaks for itself. Word of mouth has driven this record to the number one spot on the charts. A position it rightly deserves.

Media is so overblown if your not in it you have no chance, so good for BD. American consumers especially are like blocks of clay waiting for media-land to mold an opinion or thought. Ever watch football on ESPN, you can't get a feel for the game because of the high tech media circus, it's almost like watching a video game.

Looks like I'm burned out on TV!

I'm a huge Dylan fan, and I like to see that people still consider his new work worth listening to, but I can't see how you can call "Modern Times", anything more than a three star disc. And that is probably being overly generous.

It sounds ok, but it is almost entirely recycled from classic blues and folk tunes and from his own material. He has done this picking things here and there all through his career of course, but he used to make things his own, now he is just copying them. That being said, he is 65, and that is a hard lived 65, lots of concerts and lots of partying have left him with limited vocal ability and apparently not much to say.

So what, accept he is past his prime and revel in all the great music he has made. Even if most of it was made before 1979 or is that 1969?

matthew

I've listened to it about 10 times so far which IMO is far too little for any final evaluation. However, at this moment I feel Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde, and Blood on the Tracks are better.
Everybody has their opinion on Dylan's best as evidenced in the two current threads, but Modern Times for me at this point is not his best. It has, however, received more hype than any of his releases I can remember.

There's little doubt since TOOM Dylan has came back into vogue critically.
Several things happened Dylan got ill gave everybody a fright he was on his way out and there was a sea shift in musical taste. Country,Blues and roots music (call it folk if you like) has been much more in vogue in the decade that followed, people picked up on Johnny Cash, alt-country et al and re-evaluated the worth of that type of music-in general terms(different generations converged musically)Also last years Scorcese documentary really captured peoples attention and reminded just how powerful Dylan was.
Finally with that in the background Dylan has marketed this album very well with his teaser sessions and masses of very positive reviews.

Obviously I'm a massive Dylan fan but there is an element of "this is the moment" for Bob again.

I can't say it's a masterpiece but it is widely seen as the latest proof that Dylan remains relevant and enjoyable today and I can't disagree with that.
For my money Love And Theft deserved the praise and attention more however that did get released on 9/11 so...........