Self Portrait Music Cd

Bob Dylan - Self Portrait

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Self Portrait      Artist : Bob Dylan      List Price : $11.98 USD        Your Price : $10.99 USD      ProductGroup: Music      Release Date : 1989-08-24      Studio : Sony      Label : Sony      Avg. Customer Rating : (74 reviews)

Reviews Customer Reviews for Self Portrait      "What is this s*@t?"      Rating:      I'll tell you, Rolling Stone Magazine. This s*@t is the epoch of Dylan's great run of 1960s albums. The thing is, hippies and the critics at the time hated this album. And why? Because Dylan wasn't being overtly existential or singing songs that were socially relevant. Heck, many of them were covers! How dare he!? How dare he not be fashionable!? Paul McCartney's wonderful RAM album suffered a similar condemnation. Apparently, the squarest thing you could do at the break of the 1970s was just make well constructed, exceedingly pleasant music to listen to. I mean, why LISTEN to music when you can sit around, passing a joint, and decipher it with your college boy friends? The fact that an album as good-natured, human and sublime as SELF PORTRAIT couldn't bring a smile to these hippies and critics proves there was something missing in them...and NOT in Dylan. This IS a self portrait of the artist at the time: Showing all his different sides and moods. There are lush orchestrated experiments in minimalism ("All The Tired Horses", "Wigwam"), NASHVILLE SKYLINE style country tunes ("I Forget More Than You'll Ever Know", "Take Me As I Am"), campfire folk songs ("Alberta"), hillbilly knee-slappers ("Little Sadie"), boogie-woogie jams ("Woogie Boogie"), sweet soulful ballads ("Let It Be Me", "Belle Isle"), gospel strutting R&B ("Gotta Travel On"), and live cuts that aren't "lifeless" by any means ("The Mighty Quinn (Quinn The Eskimo)"). In short, it's a musical landscape in the shape of America. This was Dylan just being a musician in the purest sense. But I guess all his so-called fans and the music press didn't really like the SOUND of Dylan or his music. They simply liked the IDEA of his music. When they were left to hear Dylan croon "Blue Moon" they couldn't process that. It didn't compute. Why would Dylan just sing a nice little song he liked? Because he was a SINGER and he liked the song. And by this point, Dylan was a very expressive vocalist. They didn't call them covers when Sinatra or Elvis did them. Bob Dylan was an entertainer. This was what he was saying with SELF PORTRAIT. He was a song & dance man. A traveling hobo with a guitar and a tall tale. A man that looked up at the big blue sky and took a breath of air. A balladeer, a vanguard, a clown...a brilliant genius child. It's as Dylan as Dylan gets. I'll take "Wigwam" over any dated protest song any day of the week. Because what you get with "Wigwam" and the other songs on SELF PORTRAIT is the pure joy of music.     Customer Reviews for Self Portrait Cd      One of the worst albums ever      Rating:      What was the event that told us the '60s were really over? Was it the election of Richard Nixon? The Kent State murders? Or was it 1970's Self Portrait? The first song, in which Bob doesn't even bother to make an appearance, consists entirely of women singing the phrase "All the tired horses in the sun / How'm I supposed to get any ridin' done?"--14 friggin' times. Incredibly, unthinkably, it goes downhill from there. Pick your own favorite low point: Ours is the cover of Gordon Lightfoot's "Early Morning Rain." Editorial Reviews for Self Portrait Audio Cd      Amazon.com      Self Portrait stands as a truly perverse collection. Released in 1970 at a time when those on the radical left were hungering for their then-unimpeachable hero to reclaim his role as the conscience of his generation, Bob Dylan instead delivered a pop-inflected collection largely made up of rather indifferently performed covers. Youth culture was at a boiling point and the one figure the vanguard of The Movement hoped would galvanize all those street-fighting men and women was . . . crooning "Blue Moon"? In hindsight, Self Portrait is, at best, pleasant. The uncharacteristically lush likes of "All The Tired Horses," "Wigwam," and "Copper Kettle" are mighty nice, in fact. But then the tepid covers of "The Boxer," "Early Mornin' Rain," and "Gotta Travel On," as well as perplexingly lifeless live versions of "Like a Rolling Stone" and "She Belongs to Me" drag the whole set down and leave one wondering what Dylan was thinking when he selected such a provocative title for such an unrevealing album. --Steven Stolder