some of the albums l've been listening to today, and my favourite tracks from them.

Bob Dylan - Another Self portrait box set.  When the album 'Self Portrait' first came out, it was famously reviewed by Greil Marcus, who started with 'What is this shit?', as it was indeed crap compared to what Dylan had produced before. However, the album has grown on me over the years, and the box set (part of the bootleg series) has some decent out-takes, plus the Isle of man concert, but it's nowhere near as good as some of the earlier bootleg series releases. Not a release l will listen to all of the way through on a regular basis, but it helps keep me out of mischief.

Jesse Winchester's album suffers because it is dominated by Black Dog, the last song on the album, which is unlike the previous tracks on the record, but a magnificent piece of work (later covered by Babe Ruth amongst others). Otherwise it's a slightly better than usual country lp.

'No Such Place' is also a country type album, but a lot more modern sounding, and with better songs overall. Jim White's singing puts across a tale in a believable and emotive way, and the standout track for me is the first one, 'Handcuffed to a fence in Mississippi'.

Old Crow Medicine Show sound like an updated old country band, but once again, there is one standout track, the much covered 'Wagon Wheel', which has become a standard in a short amount of time.  I know Bob Dylan wrote the bare bones of the song (naturally l've got the unreleased version), but the way it has been added to by OCMS (and then performed) makes it into something special.

Dion is a long way from his hits such as 'Runaround Sue' on this record, and 'Born To Be With You' has a big Phil Spector production, coupled with a moody atmosphere and vocal performance.  Sometimes sounding a bit like John lennon's 'Rock and Roll' album from the same period, which is no great surprise, as Phil Spector produced that as well. It gets better with repeated plays, and like most of the music above, is probably best listened to late at night in a darkened room.



I've realised these albums make me look like a sad old git, so here's something noisy l revisited as well (I watched some of my DVD of it).  Nine Inch Nails at Woodstock, performing 'Wish' in the mud, the blood, and the beer.  One of my favourite shows, even if Trent Reznor was apparently not that keen on their performance (idiot).



Right - time for Match of the Day!

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