FEATURE:
Bob Dylan at Eighty
His Albums in the 1980s
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ONE cannot deny that…
PHOTO CREDIT: Keith Baugh/Redferns
Bob Dylan enjoyed some incredible periods where he would release amazing album after amazing album. I think his output in the 1960s was beyond anything anyone else was offering. He had fertile periods in the 1970s and, in the last decade or so, he has released some of his best work. Ahead of Dylan’s eightieth birthday on 24th May, I am highlighting a decade that, maybe, was not among his best. Dylan did put out some great songs in the Eighties; there are clear and definite highlights. I am going to source a couple of articles that discuss Dylan’s work during the Eighties and how his career went through this dip. Rather than use this opportunity to underline a rough period for him, I think it is important to assess and address various angles of his career. In future features, I am going to talk about my favourite Bob Dylan album; in addition to his lyrical genius. I think Dylan during the 1980s is a really interesting period. Dylan in the Seventies is a really fertile period. Blood on the Tracks (1975), The Basement Tapes (1975), Desire (1976), Street Legal (1978) and Slow Train Coming (1979) boast many of his greatest tracks. He began a ‘Christian trilogy’ of albums that started with Slow Train Coming. He continued this with 1980’s Saved – many people regard this as the start of a bit of a downward turn. By 1997’s Time Out of Mind, Dylan was back in fine form. As I said, the master has produced some of his best work in the past decade or so. It is interesting thinking about the 1980s and what it was about the decade that meant that his work was not as its usual genius level.
I guess all prolific artists experience weaker runs. Think about David Bowie in the mid-‘80s to the mid-‘90s and Prince’s albums during the 2000s. I think it is important to looks at the 1980s and examine Dylan’s output in closer detail. I want to source from a 2014 article Ultimate Classic Rock published. Rather than paste the entire thing, there are some illuminating sections that are noteworthy:
“Dylan's religious fervor produced some of his less-beloved albums, but with 1983's Infidels, he seemed to shake off the creative doldrums. Sadly, that respite would prove to be short-lived; in fact, that album presaged a period of profound creative drift that drove his recording career into a seemingly irreversible slump even as he managed to mount some of his more financially successful tours. To this point, new Dylan records had always been an event; by the time he eked out 1988's Down in the Groove, they were hard to even look forward to.
Part of the problem, he acknowledged, was simply coming up with new songs that could stand alongside all the towering classics in his back catalog. "There’s still things I want to write about, but the process is harder," he told the Sunday Times in 1984. "The old records I used to make, by the time they came out I wouldn’t even want them released because I was already so far beyond them."
He expanded on this problem in a 1985 interview with Bill Flanagan, saying, "When I'm making a record I'll need some songs, and I'll start digging through my pockets and drawers trying to find these songs. Then I'll bring one out and I've never sung it before, sometimes I can't even remember the melody to it, and I'll get it in. Sometimes great things happen, sometimes not-so-great things happen. But regardless of what happens, when I do it in the studio it's the first time I've ever done it. I'm pretty much unfamiliar with it. In the past what's come out is what I've usually stuck with, whether it really knocked me out or not. For no apparent reason I've stuck with it, just from lack of commitment to taking the trouble to really get it right. I didn't want to record that way anymore. ... About two years ago I decided to get serious about it, and just record."
"There’s never really been any glory in it for me," he insisted during his conversation with the Sunday Times. "Being seen in the places and having everybody put their arm around you, I never cared about any of that. I don’t care what people think. For me, the fulfillment was always in just doing it. That’s all that really matters."
A noble outlook, but one Dylan seemed to lose sight of during the drawn-out sessions for his 'Infidels' follow-up. Released on June 10, 1985, Empire Burlesque stitched together a patchwork of new songs that had been recorded in a variety of studios with a long list of session players – all of which were then polished by Arthur Baker, a prolific producer and DJ who'd risen to prominence as a house producer for the rap label Tommy Boy Records before branching out into 12" remixes for rock artists like Bruce Springsteen and Hall and Oates. Needless to say, many fans were taken aback by the album's polished sound.
As Dylan started working on what would become 1986's Knocked Out Loaded, he seemed to be searching for a way to recreate the jam-sparked sessions he'd had with the Band, with recent tourmates Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers initially serving as a sort of house band that could be augmented with session guests as Dylan saw fit. But that old spirit seemed to elude him on a more and more frequent basis; for instance, when Waterboys frontman Mike Scott peeked in on the process, he came away somewhat less than impressed.
"It was basically a free-for-all," Scott recalled. "Dylan turns around and says, 'Listen, you can play your heart out, just keep playing. It doesn't matter if you overplay, it doesn't matter what you do, just keep playing and we'll keep the best bits and we'll dump the other bits." As for what they were playing? "He had a verse, a chorus, a middle eight, and that was the structure," observed Scott. "Maybe he'd be humming along to himself, but he didn't actually stand at the mic and sing."
What proved most frustrating for fans and observers during this period was the perception that Dylan was still capable of periodic flashes of brilliance – it was just that, as often as not, he'd toss out his best material before anyone else could hear it. Journalist Mikal Gilmore recalled sitting in on several days of sessions for Knocked Out Loaded, and he described some of what he heard as "pretty wondrous," adding, "Sitting there in a studio, it didn't sound to me like he was somebody with a studio problem – he was working very fast, moving from track to track, and really directing the sound."
"There was enough stuff cut on Knocked Out Loaded to have put out a great album," agreed session player Al Kooper. "There was some really wonderful things cut at those sessions, but I don't think we'll ever hear 'em."
Whether or not they lived up to the expectations he'd created with his best work, the songs on Down in the Groove were what he had to offer at the moment – covers and all. "There's no rule that claims anyone must write their own songs," he reasonably argued in Bob Dylan: Performance Artist 1986-1990 and Beyond. "And I do. I write a lot of songs. But so what, you know? You could take another song somebody else has written and make it yours. I'm not saying I made a definitive version of anything with this last record, but I liked the songs."
More importantly, said Dylan, his own songs weren't flowing as freely as they used to. "Every so often you've got to sing songs that're out there," he noted. "Writing is such an isolated thing. You're in such an isolated frame of mind. You have to get into or be in that place. In the old days, I could get into it real quick I can't get to it like that no more”.
It is worth reading the whole piece. I feel that, when Dylan joined The Traveling Wilburys (a supergroup also consisting of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty) and their released their first album in 1988, he had regained his spark and was writing some incredible material!
I think one solid album from the 1980s came with 1983’s Infidels. In 2014, The New Yorker re-examined Dylan’s 1980s and stated that, whilst there were some overlong or unfocused albums, there were some genuinely great moments. I think Infidels is an album where we saw a little more of the ‘old Dylan’:
“On closer inspection, Dylan’s work from the eighties isn't lacking in good material; rather, it suffers from a deficit of direction and distillation. Dylan’s eighties seem like three or four decades rolled into one: the early years represent the tail end of his Christian period, the middle is a mix of bracing returns to form and tossed-off roots rock that sounds like dispatches from a lazy wasteland, and the end is a retrenchment that paved the way for his full renaissance in the nineties and beyond. At the time, the period seemed like a mess. At a distance, it seems like a delirious mess, equal parts honest devotion to the songwriting form and cynical experimentation bordering on a perverse rejection of success.
Fans trying to make an argument that reclaims the decade usually start with “Infidels,” from 1983. It's the most traditional Dylan album of that decade, in the sense that its songs are melodic, structurally sound, and loaded with mysterious imagery. The tribute devotes two of its first four slots to “Infidels,” to great effect: Built to Spill covers “Jokerman,” and Craig Finn, from the Hold Steady, tries his hand at “Sweetheart Like You.” Both versions succeed wonderfully, in large part because they’re founded on unimpeachable source material. “Jokerman” remains a marvel: beautiful, scriptural, and surprisingly violent. “Sweetheart Like You” contains some of Dylan’s most vivid writing (“You know you can make a name for yourself / You can hear them tires squeal / You can be known as the most beautiful woman / Who ever crawled across cut glass to make a deal”)”.
It would be harsh to blame Dylan’s songwriting and more faith-based direction for a slight decline in quality and critical affection. Having released his debut albums in the 1960s, he underwent an electric shift by 1965’s Bringing It All Back Home. Dylan was ahead of his time, but he was also perfectly in keeping with the sounds of the times. His modern work marries his 1960s acoustic material and sharper and more fiery electrics. Listen to the music of the 1980s and there was a tendency for big synths, layers of sound and over-produced tracks. I really love the decade but, for someone like Dylan, were producers going to keep things stripped and pure - or would they try to update his sound to fit in with the tastes of the 1980s? Vanity Fair examined this point in a 2013 article. They highlighted a mid-‘80s album where the worst traits of the decade were all over Dylan’s music:
“That decade, alas, was the shoal upon which so many classic rock acts ran aground. Dylan, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Stevie Wonder, the Rolling Stones—all released arguably their worst-ever music in the 80s. Why? I blame the unfortunate confluence of baby-boom artists reaching their mid-life crisis years at the precise moment popular music was staggering through one its most vapid eras. Surely it didn’t help that record producers were just learning how to use new digital technologies while they and musicians were simultaneously ingesting mountains of cocaine. And would you have had the courage to tell voices of their generation with declining record sales that they shouldn’t try to compete with Duran Duran and a-ha?
Empire Burlesque, 1985.
What Rolling Stone thought: “Affords Dylan more pure street-beat credibility than he has aspired to since . . . well, pick your favorite faraway year.”
This is the album where Dylan most fully engages the 1980s, in a sonic sense: processed drums, synthesizer washes, a pop-reggae beat on one song, electro squiggles and old-school hip-hop textures throughout. The producer was Arthur Baker, known for his work with Afrika Bambaataa and New Order, and for his club remixes of decade touchstones such as “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” and “Dancing in the Dark.” One might argue that everything horrible about 80s pop is encapsulated in the notion that Dylan or anyone else felt he required “street-beat credibility” in the first place. It sort of worked, though: the album was generally well-received by critics though sales were lackluster. Needless to say, Baker’s sonic frosting hasn’t aged well. Underneath it, committed fans have detected a handful of first-rate songs and strong performances. To my ear, Empire Burlesque is best enjoyed as a clever parody of what it might have sounded like if Dylan had tried to cut a commercial album in 1985”.
I feel Bob Dylan produced a lot of great material in the 1980s. Entering his forties in 1981, I guess it was a period where was no longer a young man looking at the politics and events of the 1960s and 1970s. He was approaching middle-age and, with it, his music adapted. I feel Dylan in his sixties and seventies has produced some truly mesmeric and thought-provoking music. I will touch on this in future features. Ahead of the songwriting legend turning eighty, I wanted to address the Eighties themselves and why it was quite a ‘difficult’ decade. That said, a compilation album was released years ago that shed new light on a maligned decade. Perhaps we need to reappraise Dylan in the ‘80s and give his albums their due! There were definite flashes of genius in even his most ordinary records from that decade. Fans needn’t have worried too much. Before too long, the chameleon-like and hugely prolific Bob Dylan would…
BOUNCE right back!