I was listening to Off the Wall the other day, and especially digging this song. The album isn’t quite the equal of Thriller but it’s a terrific funk/pop record.
Started wondering what ever happened to Michael Jackson. He just sort of disappeared after Dangerous.
Turns out he died last year. How did I miss that? Must have been drowned out by all the coverage of Farrah Fawcett’s passing.
I salute you, Jacko! You will be missed.
Josh Rouse kept up his ‘one album per year’ pace and released Country Mouse City House in 2007. The album picked up where Subtitulo left off, both thematically and musically, and for my money it’s the first Rouse release that suggests he’s treading water.
That perception won’t last, however, as I’ve just read about Rouse’s next album, due out in March of this year. It’s called Turista and based on the clips I’ve heard, he has now had enough time to immerse himself in his Spanish surroundings that it’s showing up in big ways in his music.
Josh Rouse spent the year after Nashville‘s release in Spain, where he moved in with girlfriend Paz Suay. So the Nebraska boy who made his name in Nashville was suddenly a Spaniard.
His next release, 2006’s Subtitulo, reflected the move in its lyrics as well as, to some degree, its music. The album is predominantly made up of Rouse’s brand of smart acoustic pop but he introduced a few Latin flavors, including Suay’s charming vocals on one track.
Bringing It All Back Home is, of course, another of those six albums I consider Bob Dylan’s absolute finest. Not only did it signal a groundbreaking, eye-opening new direction for Dylan, folk music, rock music, music in general… it’s also chock full of some of the most amazing songs ever committed to tape.
Yesterday’s track, ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues,’ kicks everything off in classic style but look at some of what follows: ‘She Belongs To Me,’ ‘Maggie’s Farm,’ ‘Tambourine Man,’ ‘Gates of Eden,’ ‘It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding),’ and ‘It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,’ to name just a few. I’ve said it before and I’ll no doubt say it again… Bob Dylan could have ended his career five years after it started and he’d still go down as one of the greatest musical artists in history.
Volumes have been written about the shock waves created when Bob Dylan “went electric.” My favorite depiction of the occasion comes in Todd Hayne’s extraordinary Dylan biopic I’m Not There, in which Dylan and his band take the stage at the Newport Folk Festival, open their guitar cases, pull out machine guns and begin firing on the crowd. Then a quick cut to them tearing into ‘Maggie’s Farm,’ with about the same effect on the audience.
As an aside, if you’re any sort of Dylan fan (or movie fan) you should make a point to watch I’m Not There. It’s an “art film,” no doubt — it does, after all, include portrayals of Dylan by both a young black boy and Cate Blanchett, among others — but it comes closer to capturing the spirit and wonder of Bob Dylan than anything else I’ve ever seen.
