So, Dylan’s Modern Times was both the Billboard and the Rolling Stone critics’ choice as best album of 2006. I know that Dylan has been quite gracious about certain awards in the last several years — in particular his Golden Globe and Oscar for Things Have Changed — but I tend to think his reaction to these particular accolades would be a little more ho-hum. After all, if you believe it when the critics place you at number one, it means you have to take it at least somewhat seriously when they basically ignore you, as was true for quite a few years of Bob’s career (years when some of us were still listening).

Just by the way, a writer named Steve Guttenberg in a publication called Stereophile has a brief meditation on Dylan’s remarks earlier this year about what’s lacking in the sound of modern recordings, and casts a critical ear on the sound of Modern Times itself in that context. I am not the sufficient audiophile to be able to express what my ears tell me, but I think there’s something to be said for his criticism. As hard as Dylan was no doubt trying to make a natural-sounding record, I think that the technology defeated him to some extent. Which is far from a dismissal of the record — it’s just a regret that the quality of the sound couldn’t match the quality of the songs and the performances.

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