Sound and Fury Signifying Nothing

Well, maybe just a little something. Two reviews:

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Counting Down Bob Dylan: His 100 Finest Songs by Jim Beviglia
 
Most of us are dilettantes most of the time. We dabble in this and that, sometimes out of simple interest and sometimes for some productive purpose. Either way, we rely on the specialists who research, organize, and present the information in which we can dabble. Suppose you wish to write some historical fiction involving, say, a Carthaginian merchant trader: you will want to know something about what the ships of that era were like. (The book to consult in that case would be The Ancient Mariners by the superb classicist Lionel Casson.) You don’t need to know everything: just enough to suit the needs of your story, but that requires the detailed work of a scholar from which to pick and choose.
 
Jim Beviglia is quite the specialist regarding the music of Bob Dylan. His familiarity with Dylan’s albums from repeated listening goes beyond simple fandom. For example, he writes about understanding the gist of the song “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” from the 1975 Blood on the Tracks album, “It probably won’t happen the first time; it may not even happen the tenth.” I’m more of a Dylan dilettante. I like and admire much of his music, but I have no wish to listen to the Western-flavored “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts” ten times. I’m glad Beviglia did however. I’m also glad he wrote about it since the next time I do hear it I’ll be able to get more out of it than I likely would on my own.

All such lists are idiosyncratic. His #1 pick “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands” from the 1966 Blonde on Blonde album probably isn’t yours. Though I like the song it isn’t mine. Songs and genres (Dylan performs in several) affect each of us in a personal way. He acknowledges this when commenting on his #10 pick “Like a Rolling Stone”: “Which is why labeling it the best rock song of all time and labeling it the tenth best Dylan song need not be contradictory statements.” Fortunately, 100 songs are enough to cover the spectrum. He gives a page or two of analysis to each number.
 
Dylan’s lyrics can be deep pockets that accommodate a lot of different meanings, but they somehow often affect us on a subverbal level as well. Beviglia makes sense of the lyrics where he can and explains why opacity is sometimes better where he can’t. The lyrics even when seemingly simple often subvert themselves. In the case of It Ain’t Me, Babe, for example, the narrator’s surface admission that he doesn’t measure up has an underlying accusation that the demands are unreasonable: “someone who will die for you and more.” Beviglia doesn’t get hung up on the words alone but gives due regard to the musical whole. Dylan no doubt would approve, for in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize in literature he told the committee they had made a mistake: “But songs are unlike literature. They’re meant to be sung, not read. The words in Shakespeare’s plays were meant to be acted on the stage. Just as lyrics in songs are meant to be sung, not read on a page. And I hope some of you get the chance to listen to these lyrics the way they were intended to be heard: in concert or on record or however people are listening to songs these days.” (He took the prize money though: he’s not a dummy.)
 
A lot of the expected Greatest Hits songs are included on Beviglia’s list but so are relatively obscure selections from every studio album (and from a couple bootlegs) up through 2012 including albums from the 1980s, which were not Dylan’s best regarded decade. (“Greatest hits” and “finest” are not interchangeable terms, after all.) There are also representatives from every one of his genres including folk, blues, country, rock, and however one might categorize what he did with the Traveling Wilburys. My copy of the book is currently on a shelf under my stereo where it is likely to remain for consultation the next time I dabble with a Dylan album.
 
One glaring omission from the book is not the author’s fault since it was published prior to Dylan’s 2020 album Rough and Rowdy Ways, which I reviewed positively last August. I think one or two numbers from this album might otherwise have muscled into the 100.
 

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The Pretty Reckless – Death by Rock and Roll
 
Like most of my generation I find the bulk of today’s hit pop music uninspiring – not offensive, just meh. Fortunately for those of us who don’t want to just keep replaying old music instead, there is plenty of solid work being done by young rock and blues artists. They even have big youthful audiences: just not big enough for any of their albums to have cracked the top ten billboard chart in more than a decade. One finally has. It is by a band Amazon has recommended to me for years based on my other purchases, and on this occasion I took the AI’s advice.
 
There always are some bands that it is chic to dismiss (along with their fans) for reasons other than their music even as they remain a significant presence in the industry. One of them since 2010 has been The Pretty Reckless. It’s been a long time since I was a kid and I have no kids of my own, so I never watched a kid-oriented TV show called Gossip Girl and thereby was unaware prior to a few months ago that frontwoman Taylor Momsen, currently 27, had a previous career as a child actress. It has been a double-edged sword for her: instant name recognition but a tendency for many not to take her seriously on that account. Also, she happens to be an exceptionally attractive young lady and isn’t remotely shy or apologetic about exploiting the fact, which is also double-edged in today’s peculiar social environment. The band’s 2021 album Death by Rock and Roll should put an end to that dismissal. It is rock to take seriously.
 
Out of curiosity I have also sampled the band’s previous three albums, which are OK. They have a few genuine highlights, but overall they are generic hard rock that is just OK. They sound like a band that would be a favorite at the local pub but nothing more. (Remember music clubs? Was that only a year ago?) The new album is still straightforward rock and roll but it has a mature sound and definitely has benefited by input from members of Soundgarden and Rage Against the Machine. For those of us tired of electronic sounds and overmixing, it is refreshingly real. The lyrics are affecting, the vocals are strong, and the instrumentals professional. It’s a good album.
 
Three of the tracks may be familiar to the reader since they were released as singles in 2020. The title track was a major hit while an acoustic version of it (not on the album but on YouTube) was almost as popular as the fully amped one. The album itself was delayed, first by the deaths of two people associated with the band and then by covid restrictions. The tracks are not all of a kind but range from the thumping “My Bones” to the melodic “Got So High.” “Rock and Roll Heaven” refers back to Taylor’s own age: 27 being the year rockers notoriously have trouble getting past.
 
It is only February and, in truth, I don’t listen to many new albums anymore anyway, but with those caveats it’s my favorite album of the year so far.

Death by Rock and Roll, title track