              |
 |
 December 2006 Back to Table of Contents Back to Archives Main Page Section: Arts & Letters Never Too Old to Rock and Roll By Ron Ehmke
Baby boomers are changing the rules of everything, including the shelf life of pop culture. As documented in various reviews here over the past few years, I’m convinced that artists like Brian Wilson, Bette Midler, Neil Young and Neil Diamond have been creating not just interesting work, but some of the best of their careers, as they reach and exceed the big 6-0. Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones have also been up to more than simply repackaging their greatest hits lately. Now comes Bob Dylan’s latest album, Modern Times, which garnered not only rave reviews from critics and fans a third his age, but which became his first release to debut at number one on the Billboard charts since the mid-70s. Counting the new CD, his ongoing memoir series, a wildly innovative satellite radio show, one of the finest touring bands on the planet, and multiple side projects, Dylan is at the peak (okay, yet another peak) of his creative powers. He turned 65 this year. So did Paul Simon, and while his disc, Surprise, hasn’t garnered as much attention as Dylan’s, it’s just as impressive a piece of work. Actually even better, if you ask me, because Modern Times simply extends the sound and vibe Dylan has been exploring (remarkably well, of course) since Time Out of Mind 10 years ago, while Surprise truly lives up to its title. It’s one of the most exciting, and least predictable, CDs of the last several years, thanks in part to Simon’s collaboration with avant-garde musician Brian Eno (at 59, he’s the baby of the bunch), who contributed a “sonic landscape” of reverb, trippy guitars, and other atmospheric effects that accentuate Simon’s infallible sense of rhythm and groove. Dylan and Simon both enjoyed that rare overlap of good art and mass appeal back in the 1960s when they were precocious rebel younguns; both evolved in interesting, sometimes controversial ways in the 1970s; and both frankly lost me at various points in the 1980s and 1990s. (I know Graceland is supposed to be a landmark album, but I never quite got into it, or the similar world-music-influenced projects that followed. For me, the last truly exciting Simon album was the woefully unheralded Hearts and Bones, way back in 1983. As for Dylan, I quit snatching up new releases around the time he declared himself born again in 1978, then gave him a chance again five years later with the mildly interesting/not-too-embarrassing Infidels, then cut him off again about one album later.) It’s silly to call either of these new albums a comeback; in Dylan’s case, he’s been back a long, long time now (if you love the new one but missed his last CD, Love and Theft — which unfortunately hit record stores on September 11, 2001 — then grab a copy, pronto). Simon never really went away, either; he just quit mattering to me the way he had when I was a sensitive, alienated high school student and thought “Sounds of Silence” was the height of poetry.
Modern Times is pretty consistently pleasing, too. If neither album sounds like the work of sexagenarian, that just means we all need to rethink what exactly a sexagenarian rock and roller is supposed to sound like. Ron Ehmke is a Tonawanda-based writer and performer; more of his work can be found at www.everythingron.com back to top back to table of contents Current Issue | About Forever Young | Where to Find | Advertise | Our Advertisers | Community Calendar | Contest | Clubs | Contact Us | Archives | Home |
