Bob Dylan's Modern Times, a new Masterpiece?

I also really like the album having heard it a couple dozen times now but prefer both Time Out of Mind and Love and Theft. It is not a masterpiece. It is not a great album.
YMMV

Wendell,

Just compare Modern Times to Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy", for example, take the track "Man in the Long Black Cold" and hopefully it will become clear what I mean about compression. I find Dylan's voice is uniformly loud clear and monotonous on Modern Times...sounds like compression but it might be bad miking....of course it may likely be an intentional "effect" rather than a mistake and some people may prefer it....to me it lacks dynamics of real music.

(There are often two points of view; Daniel Lanois messed up U2 sound IMHO but he was also praised for the sound "style" by many. So we may disagree simply due to preferences)

Shadorne,
If I'm not mistaken you're a digital only guy so the assumption here is your source is a cd. I've not heard the digital release so I cannot speak to its' sonics. However, like Narrod I have the vinyl. In my system it does not display any of the characteristics you describe. I'd like to hear the digital release for comparison's sake.

The Mp3 CD copy I listened to first sounded flat and lifeless, that's why I bought the album. It rings true, I find that to be the norm.

Just to add to the music debate.
I'm on one mailing list of long term Dylan fans nearly all European.
The reaction to the album has been quite muted (more negative than how I view it).

I think the concensous amongst the Bobcats (for want of a better phrase)is that it contains three excellent songs (NM,WMB#2,AT) and a fair share of ordinary songs.
A lot of then struggle with the Jazz shuffle material (which I don't).
Finally there is a very common conclusion that there is a flatness to the record but there is much debate about how to define that-some think it's the predictability of the music,others the production or finally the arrangements.