Hard to listen to this with fresh ears and hear beyond the beach party soundtrack that this has become. Waiting in Vain and Three Little Birds are the highlights for me. Christgau calls it "solid and enjoyable," and that about sums it up.
Of the many white men in the sixties who are seen as visionaries because they had access to high fidelity recording equipment and intellectual property lawyers, Bob Dylan is Lebron.
It's Woody Guthrie with most of the rough edges sanded down. Folk music with a stylist. And it's nice to listen to, serious but with a sense of humor, well paced and dynamic.
I'm on day 3 of this project, and I'm having to change my expectations. So far I'm listening to nearly ubiquitous music -- Bobs Marley & Dylan, now Paul Simon. Music I've heard nearly my entire life without ever needing to seek it out. Taking the time now to purposely listen to full albums by these artists who've always existed in the atmosphere, is this a useful experiment? I don't know, probably. Is it worth whatever this is going to do to my Spotify algorithm? I'm not sure.
I see the genius in Graceland. There's good music here, but I have to shake off a lot of context to get to that point, and I think I have to work too hard at that to really enjoy it.
I realize I have given this record a chance before.
I'm not sure I have any desire to listen to it again.
It feels like 1986, and surely so perfectly capturing an era is meritorious (honestly, you can learn everything you need to know about the mid-80s by starting at the Graceland Wikipedia page and reading all the linked articles), but it's capturing a particularly slick essence of the time to which I have a bit of an aversion.
There are some songs I might revisit, but, if I'm looking for African vibes, I'll probably listen to some African music. I guess if I'm ever in the mood for mid-80s cocaine vibes, I might reach for this, but I'd rather listen to Talking Heads.
My sister, when we were in high school, was really into this for a while. I think this is my first time as an adult listening to it front to back.
I can hear the roots of so much music that I love in this album. It's the ur-album for so many subgenres of pop and rock music.
I can do without Run for Your Life, but otherwise pretty perfect.
Hard to deny how fun this is.
Big riffs, big drums, high-pitched screeching. It's generic and formulaic, and it's pretty fun.
I love this, especially the experience of listening to it as album. I love the feeling of relief in Franz Schubert after Abuzug ends. I love the way Endless Endless ties everything back together at the end. It feels like reading a novel; there's narrative movement, and it's obvious a lot of thought went into the sequence of songs.
