Time Out of Mind

tem umas até legais, vai.
mas não me pegou nem um pouco. hoje num era dia pra bob dylan nao po

An album of 2 halves. or more accurately alternating killer/filler. Lovely melodic songs intertwined with more repetitive long formulaic "woke up this morning..." blues songs.

I liked this album a lot more through headphones than listening in the car. Also very glad there was only one song with 'harmonica' (why is it called that? harmonic it definitely isn't).
'Lovesick' 'Tryin to get to Heaven' (yes even with mouth organ), 'Not dark yet', 'Make you feel my love', 'Highlands' great. Other stuff less so but still a solid 3.

Not the best Dylan has ever done, but not the worst either... Has a couple of genuinely great songs in "Not Dead Yet" and "Make You Feel My Love" with the latter I had heard before covered by many other artists like Adele, Garth Brooks, and Billy Joel.

Its an enjoyable return to form for Dylan after the 80s and most of the 90s were lost times.

Some great songs, but fucking hell, that voice. Just find later stage Dylan near unlistenable. Would love to hear a cover version of this album.

This is just boring. I've never been a huge Dylan fan, but this is the 5th Dylan album so far on the list, and the others have been easy 4 stars at the very least. This is just too slow and feature poor to work for me. The music is solid, but it's static - nothing changes, nothing evolves, there are no crescendos or surprises. The lyrics are obviously still interesting, but everything progresses so slowly that it's a struggle to stay focused.

Somehow this album felt less engaging than the older ones he's made.

No one needs to hear 90's Dylan albums

I don't care for bob Dylan and I've even seen him live. This album did not deviate. It was not good and I'm a little confused about how Dylan was and remains so highly regarded? It feels like the inversion of the fact that the world's greatest rapper probably stocks shelves at target.

The renaissance record of all renaissance records. What Time Out of Mind did for Bob’s career can never be overstated. Fortunately, it still holds up 25 years later.

As he did for Oh Mercy, Daniel Lanois provides a swampy magic with his production, utilizing the exact right amount of reverb and textural coating to sonically enhance the proceedings. By all accounts, he and Dylan had an even harder time balancing their differences while making this album, but the results speak for themselves.

For the most part, Time Out of Mind lives in two equally excellent worlds. In the first, we find Bob embracing the blues to a degree he hadn’t since the mid-60’s, and he embodies the spirit of the genre as well, if not better, than he ever has. “Can’t Wait”, “‘Til I Fell in Love with You”, and “Million Miles” are effortlessly groovy and engrossing, never straying far enough to call their “bluesiness” into question but never settling for complete cliché either. The opening “Love Sick” is on another level, a masterclass in dynamic intensity, and “Cold Irons Bound” offers up one of the deadliest combinations of virtuosity and sheer coolness in Bob’s entire catalog. These tracks in particular benefit from Lanois’ production and the first-rate studio musicians that contributed to these sessions (Brian Blade, Jim Keltner, Bucky Baxter, Duke Robillard, and Jim Dickinson among them).

In the second world, we find Bob writing some of the most crushing meditations on life and love that he’s ever committed to tape. Whereas he approaches the bluesier numbers with a formidable growl, he deftly handles the melodies on these tracks while continuing to establish the voice he began discovering on Oh Mercy. “Not Dark Yet” and “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven” are hair-raising; even if you didn’t know about the near-death experience Bob had suffered in the year leading up to this record or the myriad of other hardships he’d faced in his life, you’d have to be heartless to not recognize and appreciate the emotional depth of these songs. “Standing in the Doorway” is proof that the man can still write as perfect a heartbreaker as anyone; on the flip-side, he proves he can still casually write a timeless love song with “Make You Feel My Love”, already a modern-day standard. The brilliance is almost unfathomable.

I’m also a fan of the four tracks that didn’t make the cut: “Mississippi”, “Red River Shore”, “Dreamin’ of You”, and “Marchin’ to the City”, all available on the tremendous Tell Tale Signs Bootleg Series. Unlike Shot of Love and Infidels, however, I don’t feel as if this album suffers for not featuring these songs. The latter two are atmospherically coherent with the tracks that made the album, but given that they lyrically evolved into “Standing in the Doorway” and “‘Til I Fell in Love with You”, I’m perfectly fine valuing them as strong outtakes. The former two are both beautifully evocative, and I love them individually out of context, but I simply have a hard time imagining how they would have fit on the record. They certainly wouldn’t have made it a worse project, but overall, I’m very satisfied with the final track list. Ultimately, I think Time Out of Mind deserves all of the praise and accolades it’s received in the last two-and-a-half decades, and will rightfully be heralded as a crowning moment in Bob’s discography for the rest of time.

Least favorite track: “Highlands”. It’s definitely cool; I tend to zero in on a different series of verses every time I listen to it, though I appreciate the whole journey. I also never skip it when I listen to the album as a whole, despite its length and being the final song. But it doesn’t interest me as much as many of his other epics, and I find a bit more in every other song to enjoy.

Favorite track: “Cold Irons Bound”. Lyrically, my answer might be “Standing in the Doorway” or “Not Dark Yet”. This one’s no lyrical slouch, though, and as a full listening experience, it’s a top 10 Dylan track for me. A tidal wave of guitars and organs crash around David Kemper’s irresistible drum beat and an all-time bass performance from Tony Garnier; only “Most of the Time” rivals this track for coolest bass line in Dylan’s catalog. Just an absolutely phenomenal recording, one that will forever be a favorite of mine.

5/5

First Bob Dylan album for me, crazy that it’s his 30th. Also weird to start with something so late in his career. His voice is so rough.
Highlights: standing in the doorway

I "liked" two songs on this album - Love Sick and Can't Wait. The rest of the album is overly long blues songs and it's just boring. Dylan's voice is peak annoying here and the music is forgettable at best.

Oh my God my chainsaw can finally sing

Mellow and comfy...too comfy...

Not his best for sure.

Bob Dylan has 7 albums on this list. Do we really need his 1997 blues-inspired comeback album to appreciate his legacy? When artists like Harry Belafonte, The Cranberries, Weezer, Vampire Weekend, and Bon Iver are so glaringly left off the list? I posit that no, we do not. If any other artist put out this album, it would not have been loved or remembered. It’s on the list because it was Bob Dylan’s first decent album in nearly 2 decades.

It brings nothing new to the blues, nothing emblematic of the 90s, and no worthy entries to the Bob Dylan songbook.

Jazzy and cool

A Bob Dylan album I’m not familiar with, given this came out late 90s for a man who was in his peak in the 60’s I didn’t have high hopes. Funnily though I recognise a few songs off this album, one probably thanks to Adele.

This is actually a really good album and would mark a return to form for Dylan. I’m sure at the time it would have be marketed as his best since blood on the tracks.

Glad I listened and this deserves to be on the list, will I come back to it? Probably not I’m more likely to stick on classic Dylan.

Voy a escucharlo, pero de entrada esto no tiene buena pinta. Y oído y olvidado. Lo siento Bob, pero me ha parecido un peñazo.

Brian Hinton once wrote, and I paraphrase:
"Perhaps 'Time Out Of Mind' is Dylan's equivalent of the great modernist poem The Waste Land [by T.S. Eliot from 1922]: contemporary despair evoked through a cauldron of images and echoes"

Now, maybe not all songs are among the best, there are certainly a few mediocre ones to be found on this album, and even though Highlands has these amazing lyrics, 16 minutes feels a bit too long.

But when you have songs like 'Love Sick,' 'Standing In The Doorway,' 'Iron Bounds,' and the absolute magnificently beautiful 'Not Dark Yet' on an album you can afford a few barely decent ones.

A great album.

Today's album is the second Bob Dylan record I've gotten on this generator. The first one I reviewed came out in 1965 (Highway 61 Revisited). This one came out in 1997, 32 years later. Dylan's vocals and sound are quite different than that first album.

Dylan was 56 when he wrote this album, compared to the other album, where he was only 24. That being said, his voice aged between the two records quite a bit. On his 1965 release, his voice was a bit nasally, but on this record, it is more gravelly, and rough. It reminds me of Tom Waits style of singing.

The musical stylings on this record are also different than the other one I reviewed. In 1965, Dylan was heavy into folk. On this record, he is more into Blues. That being said, that gravelly voice suits this genre well!!

There is an up and coming east coast Canadian artist named Ryan Stanley who has absolutely been influenced heavily by Dylan, and I would say this album in particular. Especially the song Not Dark Yet.

Overall, a fantastic listen for a slow Saturday. I absolutely love the Blues, and Dylan certainly makes it his own on this album!! I'd never heard any of these songs before today, but there are definately a few that will be going on a favourite song playlist in the near future!!!

Favorite songs: Dirt Road Blues, Cold Irons Bound, Not Dark Yet, Tryin' to Get to Heaven, 'Til I Fell in Love With You, Standing in the Doorway, Million Miles, Can't Wait, Highlands

Least favorite songs: if forced to pick, Love Sick

4/5