Bob Dylan's Modern Times, a new Masterpiece?

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...........

Dreadhead,

Easy there, fella.

I hope that I made it clear in my post: I like MT a lot (a WHOLE lot), but it still strikes me as a very odd #1 record. Ben's observations notwithstanding, MT replaced something called "Danity Kane" as #1. MT (deservedly IMHO) has gotten a ton of good press, but I seem to recall TOOM and L&T getting similarly rave reviews - without the sales numbers (I believe they peaked at #5 and #10, respectively). One obvious difference is the Apple tie-in in the marketing campaign. Don't overlook the impact.

Or maybe the record buying public has just suddenly woken up to Bob Dylan again. Either way, I'm certainly happy for the man and for the potential benefits to other personal songwriters who may benefit from MT's commercial success.

Marty, fair enough. I'm sure the Ipod spot didn't hurt the sales any, that's for sure. But the Ipod belongs to a different generation. I don't own one. I'm 50 years old and don't want to jam a million songs into a tiny little box. Never owned a Walkman either. Matt's absolutely correct. This album sound's like Dylan is rehashing his own material. Almost every song sounds like it came from another one of his own past albums. That's what I like about it. The man reinvented rock and roll years ago. Once is enough for any artist. There was a time not long ago when Dylan was nothing more then a parody of his former self. I think with this album, like the Stone's "A Bigger Bang" these aging rocker's have found a place they are comfortable with and so is the buying public.