The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan

mrbelfry said:
Commercial success is no sign of quality. Lots of people support united. Doesn't make I have to think they are any good :)

I'm offering an opinion of how it made me feel. It didn't once make me feel apprehensive or gloomy which it should have done. It instead made me feel happiness and joy which is the opposite of what i assume it was going for. Using disco as the main driver to convey doom and fear is just making your job unnecessarily hard. I tried to explain why and where I thought it failed for me rather than just say I didn't like it. I employed a large dose of hyperbole in my reply to foggy but I did use quotes from the album as a display of my admiration and enjoyment of. I apologise for any annoyance my glibness caused.

When forced to pick between my score of 3 or 8 I gave it an 8 not because it made me uneasy but because I love how it sounds. The sound of the heat ray is fun to me. It's not scary like it should be.

I've even listened to it this evening for fun after posting my review and been humming bits of it all night. Your post scared me more
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Commercial success isn’t necessarily a sign of quality but it is a sign that you have done something right as far as your target market is concerned.

Also, there’s quality on this album from the performances to the script. It renders the storyline succinctly and successfully.

Does it create an atmosphere of doom, foreboding, gloom? I doubt it does for most people.
 
RobMCFC said:
Funnily enough I stopped short of saying that I saw Return of the Jedi three times in its opening week or so.

At the time, I thought it was the greatest thing I'd ever seen. I think I was dazzled by a few outstanding set pieces. But I quickly came to realise that it still wasn't as good as Raiders of the Last Ark and over time agreed that it was by far the weakest of the original trilogy. And of course I have seen far better films over the years since.

However, it seems that this measured analysis and contextualising as the years go by doesn't apply for some when it comes to this week's album!
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I saw Jedi 10 times at the cinema at the end. Not quite sure why so many but I know I saw it in South Africa when on secondment for 3 months after the UK run had finished, which was something to do of a work evening. The effects at the time were astonishing and I was very into SFX at that time.

New Hope and TESB are better movies.
 
OB1 said:
Commercial success isn’t necessarily a sign of quality but it is a sign that you have done something right as far as your target market is concerned.

Also, there’s quality on this album from the performances to the script. It renders the storyline succinctly and successfully.

Does it create an atmosphere of doom, foreboding, gloom? I doubt it does for most people.
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That's a good point about the script. (For a school project I once tried to create an abridged version of Oliver Twist. It would be fair to say I was less successful than either Bart or Wayne).

It's probably reasonable to assume that had it created a musical atmosphere truly in line with the material it would have had less commercial successful. No idea if this was a conscious commercial decision by Wayne, I suspect not.
 
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threespires said:
That's a good point about the script. (For a school project I once tried to create an abridged version of Oliver Twist. It would be fair to say I was less successful than either Bart or Wayne).

It's probably reasonable to assume that had it created a musical atmosphere truly in line with the material it would have had less commercial successful. No idea if this was a conscious commercial decision by Wayne, I suspect not.
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I think it was a conscious decision to use disco as it was a popular musical genre at the time - clearly a commercial decision. Forever Autumn, according to Wikipedia, even had it's origins in an actual Lego commercial.

In my unconsidered rushed thinking this morning then that actually reinforced my point in the original review. Art has failed. When art is fundamentally about selling you may as well just give the same value to the Mona Lisa as you would a live, laugh, love poster.

So if the intention was to make a speedboat load of money and be successful then yes it's a success. It's a cynical and manipulative exercise though and not worthy of everyone's warm nostalgic feelings. It's Bullseye hosted by Anthony Hopkins.
 
OB1 said:
Commercial success isn’t necessarily a sign of quality but it is a sign that you have done something right as far as your target market is concerned.

Also, there’s quality on this album from the performances to the script. It renders the storyline succinctly and successfully.

Does it create an atmosphere of doom, foreboding, gloom? I doubt it does for most people.
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Hmm we seem to be agreeing but it feels like we arent
 
mrbelfry said:
I think it was a conscious decision to use disco as it was a popular musical genre at the time - clearly a commercial decision. Forever Autumn, according to Wikipedia, even had it's origins in an actual Lego commercial.

In my unconsidered rushed thinking this morning then that actually reinforced my point in the original review. Art has failed. When art is fundamentally about selling you may as well just give the same value to the Mona Lisa as you would a live, laugh, love poster.

So if the intention was to make a speedboat load of money and be successful then yes it's a success. It's a cynical and manipulative exercise though and not worthy of everyone's warm nostalgic feelings. It's Bullseye hosted by Anthony Hopkins.
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But still worth an 8?
 
mrbelfry said:
I think it was a conscious decision to use disco as it was a popular musical genre at the time - clearly a commercial decision. Forever Autumn, according to Wikipedia, even had it's origins in an actual Lego commercial.

In my unconsidered rushed thinking this morning then that actually reinforced my point in the original review. Art has failed. When art is fundamentally about selling you may as well just give the same value to the Mona Lisa as you would a live, laugh, love poster.

So if the intention was to make a speedboat load of money and be successful then yes it's a success. It's a cynical and manipulative exercise though and not worthy of everyone's warm nostalgic feelings. It's Bullseye hosted by Anthony Hopkins.
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That was really unhelpful, I'm now picturing Jim Bowen as Lecter or Mr Stevens. As Miss Kenton's bus drives away Mr Stevens finally vocalises his thoughts, "look at what I could have won".

Re. the commercial decision, my suspicion it wasn't a cynical decision was based solely on a bit of YT footage of the recording of this where Wayne seemed very into what he was doing, but that's clearly quite flawed thinking given people can be exceptionally enthusiastic about making money.

Is a commercial decision always by definition cynical because it's not making the art the centre of things? If the commercial aspect is bound up in a desire for the art to be more "accessible" does that mitigate things? I don't know, too early in the morning/month for questions like that. I did read somewhere that Wayne's project was born of a love of the book as a child, maybe he made choices to bring it to as wide an audience as accessible and/or to make a bucket load. I'm not inclined to dig further on this particular one but it is an interesting subject and artistic intention is important in engaging with or even 'judging' art .
 
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journolud said:
But still worth an 8?
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For me it's a super solid 8 if I allow myself to enjoy the sound of the heat rays for sound itself. If I'm meant to believe the sound of the heat rays is meant to reinforce how the narration describes the effect of the heat ray on the people either experiencing it directly or seeing it in action than it's a 3 because it's not effective.

Snippets of the songs keep coming back to my mind and I find myself humming or whistling bits it. Not just the famous motif but other bits as well. I genuinely, with no nostalgia, think this is great. Stupid but great.
 
threespires said:
That was really unhelpful, I'm now picturing Jim Bowen as Lecter or Mr Stevens. As Miss Kenton's bus drives away Mr Stevens finally vocalises his thoughts, "look at what I could have won".

Re. the commercial decision, my suspicion it wasn't a cynical decision was based solely on a bit of YT footage of the recording of this where Wayne seemed very into what he was doing, but that's clearly quite flawed thinking given people can be exceptionally enthusiastic about making money.

Is a commercial decision always by definition cynical because it's not making the art the centre of things? If the commercial aspect is bound up in a desire for the art to be more "accessible" does that mitigate things? I don't know, too early in the morning/month for questions like that. I did read somewhere that Wayne's project was born of a love of the book as a child, maybe he made choices to bring it to as wide an audience as accessible and/or to make a bucket load. I'm not inclined to dig further on this particular one but it is an interesting subject and artistic intention is important in engaging with or even 'judging' art .
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If in the attempt to make the art more accessible you fundamentally undermine it then you probably have a higher opinion of yourself than the thing you're intending to elevate. If you love Romeo and Juliet and decide to make it more accessible by making it into a buddy cop movie and Juliet is now a dog then you've made Turner and Hooch not Romeo and Juliet. You obviously knew better than Shakespeare OR you assume an audience is too thick to understand it like you.

I didn't argue that it is a failure based on extraneous reasoning. I took it from the art itself. The narration describes clanging and banging and the music reflects none of that. The heat ray sound isn't terrifying in the way the narration describes. In Victorian London we get a pastoral love song that had previously been used on a Lego commercial. In Spirit of a Man the music in no way reflects the mania and fervour of the parson despite Phil Lynott giving it everything. Brave New World is appropriately mad though. Red Weeds has those stupid bright triumphant synths.

In my opinion if fails musically to support the story it is narrating. However the music that is there (as long as I don't judge it with the narration in mind) is fantastic. It's not totally disconnected but it's not connected as strongly as it should be. It makes stupid decisions based on the story it's telling but I love the result of those stupid decisions. I acknowledge those decisions I describe as stupid may make sense to the creators etc these are my opinions of a subjective reality and not facts

However if you want to disagree with me and argue that Spirit of a Man musically conveys what the story is telling me the parson is experiencing feel then please feel free. Don't just tell me I'm wrong because some people like it. the thread has no reason to exist if we just boil it down to album sales
 
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