You could die down here, be just another accident statistic
Continuing my trip back through the 1979 album charts.
09/09/79 : Slow Train Coming - Bob Dylan
Our fifteenth visit with Bob, moving him into equal second with The Stones. Do you think he had a disco phase and if so, is this it? It's certainly not a very disco title...
Well, the opening track "Gotta Serve Somebody" isn't disco, but it's way more soulful than I was expect - it's got quite the groove to it. And that theme kinda continues - it's kinda mellow US rock which isn't a sound I feel the need for in my life but, for the most part, it's all done well enough and there are some decent musicians involved. However, I really don't like his voice here so that's a bit of a problem - I also have the suspicion that if anyone else had come out with this, it would have sunk without a trace.
We're at #3 in the charts this week on his second week of a thirteen week with it having peaked at #2 in its debut week. The rest of the top five were Led Zeppelin, Electric Light Orchestra, The Best Disco Album In The World (it's actually got quite the selection of bangers on it) and Earth, Wind and Fire with the highest new entry being Cliff Richard (#29).
Wikipedia has a surprising amount on the album (200 milliPeppers) and it tells us it's his nineteenth album and was recorded after his conversion to Christianity and apparently all the songs are about God or Christian values (which I mostly missed) - this alienated some of his traditional fanbase, but also drew a load of new fans in. Bob really took to Christianity big time, refusing to play any of his old songs live because he wouldn't "sing any song which hasn't been given to me by the Lord to sing" - I can imagine this didn't go down so well with some people who'd paid good money to hear the old stuff.
There are some interesting names on the album with Mark Knopfler and Pick Withers from Dire Straits on guitar and drums and Carolyn Dennis provides backing vocals - she went on to marry Bob and have a child with him, which nobody knew anything about until it was revealed in a biography many years after they'd divorced. The critics were generally very positive about the album and it did well commercially, getting to #1 in Australia, Norway and New Zealand and #3 in the US. There's a nice quote from Nick Cave who claimed this as his all time favourite album because "it's a genuinely nasty record, certainly the nastiest 'Christian' album I've ever come across" - which does feel like a very Dylanesque thing to do.
discogs.com tells us you can pick up a decent version for three quid but you can shell out £120 if you really want to, but I've no idea what more you're getting for the money there. I didn't mind the songs on this without thinking they were anything particularly special - unfortunately my main problem with them was the presence of Bob!
Comments
Post a Comment