The Nineteen Seventies were a period which saw the release of fifteen officially released Bob Dylan albums. However, three of those releases were live albums entitled, Hard Rain, Before the Flood and Live at Buddokan. Two more of the album releases were compilations albums listed as, Greatest Hits Vol II, and Masterpieces. One album was an issue of a mid-1960s’ recording session titled as Bob Dylan and the Band: The Basement Tapes. Another album was a soundtrack in the name of Pat Garret & Billy the Kid. And interestingly, there was an album that defies classification as it was filled with cover songs and some questionable original material. The Self Portrait album frustrated many fans and critics as it was viewed to be not up to the standards that most people expected from Bob Dylan.
The remaining albums defined an artist escaping various labels from the 1960’s that had left the songwriter uncomfortable at times, to put it mildly. When looking back at Bob Dylan’s nineteen seventies period, one will easily find that Bob Dylan released two brilliant albums in the middle of the decade while one being defined by many critics and fans as a true masterpiece. (Blood on the Tracks) Author Bruce Schulman wrote a book on the nineteen seventies that was defined by the Washington Post as the “standard text of the times.”
Schulman argued about the impact Blood on the Tracks and Desire had on interpreting the nineteen seventies period. According to Schulman those two album’s “expressed the era’s fears and experience, capturing and defining its zeitgeist.”[1] However, we argue here that while that expression was clearly found in the Desire album, the Blood on the Tracks album tended to search for more of an escape from those same fears.
Regardless of interpretation, Bob Dylan’s nineteen seventies output continued to define Dylan as the most influential single artist of his generation. This is a ten week course and costs £55. For more informtion please ring 07592330467 or email squabs@hotmail.co.uk.
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