Pretty much an essential read: The Death of High Fidelity, in Rolling Stone. It’s a pretty thorough look at the subject of all the bad sounding music these days, from the uniformly loud way that most modern music is engineered, to the loss of fidelity inherent in mp3 compression. Interestingly, Dylan’s Modern Times is singled out as an example of a recent successful album that doesn’t suffer from the same symptoms which afflict much other recent music. I’ve said before that to my ears there is something too loud about the recording, but perhaps I’m not perceiving what I think I’m perceiving (it wouldn’t be the first time, and the treatment is continuing). Inspired by the article, I did look at the “waveforms” of some of the tunes, and indeed they don’t exhibit the obvious signs of pumped-up volume, so that’s good to know. Anyhow, the larger point is, it’s very sad that when we have ample technology to make things sound so good, instead techno shortcuts are being deployed which degrade the quality of music. It will swing the other way, no question, but meanwhile kids are growing up and missing out, arguably, on a lot of the essence of great pop music.

Or am I being too precious about it? Thinking back, as a teenager, I certainly didn’t have anything you could describe as high fidelity equipment. (Yes, I also walked barefoot ten miles to school.) For a long time I had a cheap tape recorder that chewed up more cassettes than it played properly. A tinny sounding radio. A record player that could handle playing half-inch-thick 78 rpm antiques a lot better than contemporary vinyl records. And someone always shouting, “turn it down” (if not worse). Yet, under these less than ideal circumstances, my enjoyment of music was probably the most intense part of my day-to-day life. I’ll never forget how I felt my first time hearing Bringing It All Back Home (this was in the 80s, by the way). And fidelity or no, there was so much music that could bring me to tears and/or paroxysms of joy and exhilaration.

I guess I just don’t know if kids are experiencing that these days with their iPods and their 128 kbps mp3 tunes. Some must be. I certainly hope so.

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Thanks to Jay for the link: “Farewell Israel: Bush, Iran and the Revolt of Islam.” It’s a film (out on DVD) with a definite point of view, clearly. It is written and directed by Joel Gilbert, who has produced a number of previous films related to Bob Dylan, most recently “Bob Dylan 1975-1981: Rolling Thunder and the Gospel Years.” In the case of that film (which “contains no Bob Dylan songs”), I had shrugged it off when it came out as sounding too gossipy for my taste. I broke down and bought it much later, and really was pleasantly surprised. You could certainly call it gossipy, but I wouldn’t call it at all mean-spirited. At four hours long, though, you’d better be pretty into the subject matter to remain entertained. I was. As for “Farewell Israel,” I haven’t seen it. Regarding the soundtrack to the film, Joel Gilbert says this in an interview on the website:

… all of [the musicians playing on the soundtrack] have recorded and performed with my Bob Dylan tribute show, Highway 61 Revisited, in the past. Violinist Scarlet Rivera and Bassist Rob Stoner were featured on Dylan’s Desire album, Rolling Thunder Review Tour and Dylan’s film Renaldo and Clara. Bruce Langhorne, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” was second guitarist on early Bob Dylan albums like Freewheelin’ and Bringin’ It All Back Home - that’s Bruce playing tambourine on “Like A Rolling Stone.” I play harmonica on the soundtrack. You can download 10 soundtrack songs as MP3s from the DVD. All together it sounds like a Bob Dylan Middle Eastern album, if you can imagine that!

So there you go.

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As for the man himself: Bill Pagel’s authoritative tour guide page has Bob Dylan concert dates, confirmed and otherwise, in Mexico and South America from late February through late March. The tour includes a stop in Buenos Aires. I can’t say if Bob will be dropping in on Claudette.

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