It ain't really for me babe
Deserved Nobel laureate Bob Dylan can do whatever the hell he likes, and the world will most certainly be a greyer place when he’s no longer in it, but this is hard work. Following on from Shadows In The Night and Fallen Angels, Dylan dips again into the classic American songbook and gifts us a triple album – an illegal manoeuvre since the Sandanista! amendment to the Geneva Convention – containing 30 songs across three, apparently, thematically sequenced discs.
Listening to this collection for the first time, one would think Dylan was in the middle of his under appreciated “jarred auld lad at a wedding” period. There is no way to get around the main problem here: Dylan’s voice doesn’t hold up against the Sinatras, Bennetts and Fitzgeralds that we would most associate with these songs. He valiantly reaches for notes that just aren’t there.
Take the version of ‘September Of My Years’ – all pedal steel and croaking, although it does have a certain appropriate melancholy. Then compare it to Sinatra’s reading from 1965 – carried on a glorious swell of strings, it makes you weep for memories you don’t even have.
Dylan’s band can’t be faulted but these songs cry out for orchestration of a grander sort. ‘I Could Have Told You’ is a genuinely affecting performance but it can’t hold a candle to the Nelson Riddle/Sinatra version from 1953. Better-known songs such as ‘The Best Is Yet To Come’, ‘As Times Goes By’ and ‘Stardust’ should just be avoided. All that being said, spend time with it and some of the mess swims into focus. The third disc is the strongest, finishing with a rather lovely ‘Why Was I Born?’
Perhaps Bobcats, including me, can take comfort from this thought. The last time Dylan went back to the well of his youth, for the good-in-places folk/blues covers of Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong, he emerged with the mortality-baiting masterpiece Time Out Of Mind. Only a fool would bet against him pulling a similar rabbit out of this old hat.
The documentary will be re-aired December 10, the night of the Nobel prize-giving ceremony.
Read More
The Committee seem okay about the no-show...
Read More
If it is at all possible, that is! The bard has finally broken his silence on being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature 2016.
Read More
The decision of the Nobel Committee to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Bob Dylan had some culture snobs frothing at the mouth. Even Bob doesn’t seem to know what to make of it all.
Read More
Meanwhile, Tom Waits and Leonard Cohen have congratulated Bob on his nobel win.
Read More
From Jimi Hendrix, Adele, The Byrds, Rage Against The Machine and Jeff Buckley.
Read More To celebrate all things Dylan today we are digging up the best clips of the folk legend.
Read More The man recognised as one of the finest lyricists to ever walk the earth has been awarded the prestigious prize this morning
Read More The animation was created by PBS series, Blank on Blank.
Read More Second album of old time standards from His Bobness.
Read More Columbia Records announced yesterday that Dylan's latest album, Fallen Angels, will be released later in the month.
Read More Amazon Studios and Lionsgate TV are in the process of developing a series based on Bob Dylan's song catalogue
Read More Icon's 37th studio record slated for May release
Read More Dylan is laying down tracks in Capitol Records and they sound “great” according to his long-time engineer Al Schmidtt
Read More Event premieres exclusive pics from the folk legend's Greenwich Village days
Read More Producer to Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, Bob Johnston dies
Read More The Dylanologist and Hot Press legend will be waxing lyrical on the airwaves.
Read More The Late Show host is bowing out in considerable rock 'n' roll style!
Read More A tune from Shadows in the Night gets an appropriately noirish video treatment
Read More Bob Dylan was the recipient of the MusiCares Person of the Year 2015 award designed to "to commend musicians for their artistic achievement in the music industry and dedication to philanthropy". He delivered a 30-minute acceptance speech that was honest, heartwarming and inspirational. Just like the man and his music.
Read More The 73-year-old shows young singer-songwriters how it's done.
Read More
Anne Margaret Daniel's verdict on Dylan's latest collection of covers.
Read More Legendary artist releases 'Stay With Me' from forthcoming covers album
Read More
DYLAN AND THE BAND’S HOLY GRAIL FINALLY SEES THE LIGHT
Read More
In a forthcoming Culture Night lecture, legendary Hot Press writer Jackie Hayden will discuss the interweaving legacy of the “two Dylans” – Bob and Thomas – and their influence on him as a young man growing up in consaervative Dublin.
Read More Not your run-of-the-mill heritage act, the 'Like A Rolling Stone' star might be croakier these days, but he still enjoys the odd spot of chaos.
Read More Glen Hansard is among those contributing to Bob Dylan In The ’80s: Volume One, which according to ATO Records is deigned to “highlight Dylan’s most ignored, understood, and maligned decade.”
Read More A new video for the 1965 track has been released in support of The Bob Dylan Complete Album Collection Vol. 1.
Read More
A Thrilling Dip Into The Dylan Archives
Read More With the Strypes blasting The Beatles' classic 'Come Together' in an ad for Harley Davidson, we look back at other musicians who've appeared in commercials
Read More We've seen him turn his hand to prose with the majestic Chronicles in 2005, we obviously heard his many musical masterpieces from his thousand-strong back catalogue of songs, now it's time for the critical glare to turn to Dylan's pastel portraits...
Read More The good folk at Jameson have announced details of Dylan Fest, a charitable nod to Bob, which takes place on August 9 in the Dublin Academy.
Read More
The master songwriter's new record is called Tempest – and it includes both a tribute to John Lennon and an epic chantey on the sinking of the Titanic. A world exclusive preview by Anne Margaret Daniel.
Read More And the master songwriter remembers the Titanic too...
Read More Suede will also play this year's festival.
Read More
To the average person in the street May 24 may be a date like any other. But Bob Dylan fans know differently...
Read More The singer-songwriter was addicted to heroin and contemplated suicide in the 60s, it was revealed in a newly discovered interview.
Read More Bristol University to host one-of-a-kind conference on May 24
Read More The festival of Irish music returns after 7 years
Read More An animated performance, from a voice that can still mesmerise like no other voice in the universe..
Read More Pádraig Hanratty is the winner of our recent Bob Dylan competition - his live review is published in our new issue
Read More
For the thirteenth time in the last decade, Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour landed at Irish shores
Read More The art of storytelling and the home of the quintessential Limerick storyteller, Michael Hogan - The Bard of Thomond, were in safe hands on July 4 when Bob Dylan and his band performed at Thomond Park Stadium.
Read More How ironic that Bob Dylan, on the final date of his current tour, should blow into the newly refurbished Thomond Park Stadium on one of the windiest days this year.
Read More As the low lull of the final soundchecks finished, Limericks Last Days of Death Country confidently delivered their set to the assembling crowd in Thomond Park and were met with vigorous applause at the end of memorable favourites like ‘Words’ and ‘Strung Out’.
Read More After the crowd was adequately warmed up by a blistering 45 minute set by Seasick Steve and his assortment of homemade guitars...
Read More
As if Dylan's show at Thomond Park isn't enough, a County Donegal festival will host the European premiere of a new play about the great man
Read More The fight to the rock 'n' roll death is taking place this Friday in Dolan's!
Read More In addition to our original prize - your chance to review Dylan's Thomond Park gig for Hot Press - we've now added a whopping 45 albums from the singer's back catalogue to the first prize winnings!
Read More YOU could be reviewing the legendary singer's Thomond Park gig in July for Hot Press
Read More David Gray and Seasick Steve will be joining him in Limerick.
Read More
Columbia Records have announced details of a Bob Dylan album of Christmas songs due for release on October 13.
Read More As Bob Dylan's new album Together Through Life goes No.1 in the UK, we have a look HMV's top 5-selling Dylan catalogue recordings...
Read More
Folk fans who are too purist about the genre forget that it’s the flaws that make traditional music so wonderfully distinctive in the first place.
Read More The legendary Bob Dylan has just announced that he will perform a second gig in the 02 Arena in May
Read More The legendary performer makes his first trip to the new newly revamped Dublin venue on May 5th
Read More The Bobfather’s more recent back pages yield a wealth of riches
Read More Bob Dylan bands and fans will decend on Moville this week for DylanFest
Read More A new Bob Dylan Facebook application is among the smartest pieces of viral advertising yet. That's the view of influential e-media commentators at Techcrunch (who described it as "the coolest Facebook application yet"), Face Reviews and PSFKT – as well as the Sun newspaper.
Read More Bob Dylan has been revealed as the artist who will present a new Sunday night show on Dublin's Phantom 105.2
Read More Bob Dylan may not have won the Nobel Prize for Literature just yet, but with this year's Spanish Asturias Arts Award, he's definitely getting closer.
Read More Dylan fans wishing to pay homage to their idol might not consider Donegal their first port of call, but DylanFest 2007 is set to change that.
Read More Annual article: Bright young things like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen captured the HP critics’ hearts this year, though they somehow neglected Johnny Cash and Mark Lanegan...
Read More Semi-officially, Modern Times is being touted as the third in a trilogy that began with 1997’s Time Out Of Mind and the follow up Love and Theft. Recorded with his current touring band and produced by Dylan himself, it treads very similar territory sonically with that raw, live feel and no-nonsense, almost 1950’s production that made his last two albums so compelling.
Read More The Source Festival in Kilkenny kicked off the first two Dylan dates in Ireland this weekend - though he faced tough competition from support act The Flaming Lips.
Read More If you're off to see the legend that is Bob Dylan play at the Source Festival in Kilkenny this weekend, we've got the full line up and stage times.
Read More He may have been making music for over 40 years, but Bob Dylan remains as vital a force as ever.
Read More Bob Dylan and the Flaming Lips will perform in a double bill spectacular.
Read More Lest we forget, for a long time there most of us Dylan-ites were glad just to see the man could get his boots on of a morning, but post Chronicles, the stakes have been upped.
Read More An extraordinary letter, written by Bob Dylan, offers a remarkable insight into the greatest songwriter of his generation. It also offers a hugely challenging perspective on the role of the artist.
Read More With his first show there completely sold-out, Bob Dylan plays a second consecutive night at Dublin’s Point Theatre.
Read More Bob Dylan’s Never Ending Tour rolls into Dublin again for a by his standards intimate gig in The Point.
Read More Why American rock writing has disappeared up its own arse – and the true story of the creation of Bob Dylan's most famous song.
Read More
The sound of history in the making, here’s a warts, gags and all document of young Bobby Dylan, folk hero, in the process of creating a rock revolution.
Read More Some people reckon that Bob Dylan has sold out by flogging his music on a lingerie commercial. but our consumer affairs correspondent disagrees and has some even better ideas for Irish rockers
Read More According to our political correspondent, Bob Dylan’s upcoming gig in Stormont marks a diefinitive end to the war. Hurray!
Read More As revealed exclusively on hotpress.com Bob Dylan has revealed plans to play Galway.
Read More hotpress.com understands that Bob Dylan is being lined-up for a show in Galway's Pearse Stadium
Read More Fab Moretti, drummer with The Strokes, tells us how Dylan has inspired him.
Read More Having been lucky enough to have witnessed Mr. Zimmerman’s legendary gig in Vicar St. a few years back, it seemed almost inevitable that a trip to this East Wall arena would prove anti-climactic. And so it proved to be.
Read More There will be major disappointment for the Bob Dylan fans of Cork tonight, with doctors advising him against performing
Read More
Rolling Thunder finds Dylan and his travelling minstrel band reveling in novelty, comradeship, a sense of the mischievous and, most tellingly, the freshness of the then newly released Desire album.
Read More For the most part, Love and Theft is made up of two distinct musical strands, blues-based floor-shakers and romantic, ragtimey ballads.
Read More Those more familiar with Dylan’s modus operandi know that he has latterly treated the recorded versions of his songs as mere rough demos and starting points from which he walks a tightrope of adventurous reinvention from which he sometimes topples off.
Read More
Five albums, fifty-eight songs, sixty-eight pages of liner notes, one large container, and a title that's as bone-dry academic as anything you'll find sitting atop a legal document - against that backdrop, perhaps the first and most useful thing to say about Bob in the box is: don't be intimidated!
Read More Van Morrison came along too, for a three-way summit organised by Hot Press, backstage at Slane Castle, in the summer of 1984...
Read More Bob Dylan at Slane - The music, the magic, the mayhem and so much more...
Read MoreFor information including benefits, key facts, figures and rates for advertising with Hot Press, click below
Advertise 
