Empire burlesque
| Empire burlesque | ||||
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| Studio album by Bob Dylan | ||||
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Publication |
June 10, 1985 |
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| Label (s) | Columbia Records | |||
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Format (s) |
LP |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
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| occupation |
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Bob Dylan |
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Studio (s) |
January to March 1985 |
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Empire Burlesque is the 23rd studio album of Bob Dylan , published 1985th The album received mostly negative reviews from the critics. Commercially, it was also unable to build on the success of more famous Dylan albums. Even including all of Dylan's albums in the 1980s that were rated below average, Empire Burlesque is considered a particularly negative outlier.
Content and background
Empire Burlesque was created against the background of increasing expectations of a new album. After the release of Infidels in October 1983, Bob Dylan had temporarily withdrawn. In May and June 1984 he carried out a major European tour. With several stadium concerts (including at Wembley Stadium in London), the tour took on gigantic proportions. The backing band consisted mostly of well-known musicians from the two rock formations Rolling Stones and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers . There were also guest appearances by well-known artists such as Joan Baez and Carlos Santana . Immediately after the tour, the first recordings for Empire Burlesque were made. In the fall of 1984, Dylan put together the material for Westwood One: Dylan On Dylan - a representative, media-only promotional album . A second recording session for Empire Burlesque took place in December. With a break in January, the recordings continued until March of the following year. The recording locations were three different studios in New York .
In addition to the unusually long recording time, Empire Burlesque came up with other special features. Compared to other Dylan productions, the recording sessions were poorly and fragmentarily documented. The producer was Bob Dylan himself. The final mix was done by Arthur Baker - a producer and remixer who had worked for artists such as New Order and Afrika Bambaataa , among others . Another unusual feature of Empire Burlesque was the above-average number of musicians involved - a total of 30. When recording the individual pieces, Dylan worked with various accompanying musicians, who came into play based on the title. The musician pool of the Empire Burlesque recordings consisted partly of rock business veterans of the Rolling Stones ( Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood ), the US stadium rock band Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers ( Mike Campbell , Benmont Tench and Howie Epstein ) as well as Jamaican reggae - and Dancehall duo Sly & Robbie ( Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare ). There were also studio musicians and an even more opulent than usual background choir - including Dylan's future partner Carolyn Dennis and her mother Madelyn Quebec.
The pieces for Empire Burlesque come exclusively from Bob Dylan himself. The album was dominated by the rock sound typical of the 1980s - enhanced by funk elements and extensive background vocals. The contrast made several in Crooner - pop style ballads held. Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love), the opening track of the record, was practically a showpiece for the rock sound that shaped the release. The song structure was based on Dylan's hit songs like Like a Rolling Stone and Hurricane . Lyrically, the song is determined by the Dylan-typical imagery and metaphor language. The farewell song Seeing the Real You at Last is also kept in rock style . The third song on the record, I'll Remember You, is a 1970s Kris Kristofferson style country song . Clean Cut Kid, another rock song, is the only takeover from the preliminary recording session in the summer of 1984. Thematically, it deals with the situation of Vietnam veterans who have become numb during the war and can no longer integrate into society. Never Gonna Be the Same Again, a ballad, describes the morning after a night of love. Trust Yourself, the opening track of the B-side and also determined by the rock sound typical of the record, lyrically comes up with the message to trust yourself. The next song is Emotionally Yours - another ballad and, according to Dylan, a tribute to Elizabeth Taylor . The subsequent rock piece When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky thematizes the trials and tribulations of two lovers. Something's Burning, Baby is also devoted to relationships. The special feature of this organ-borne ballad is the duet singing performance with Madelyne Quebec. The final song Dark Eyes forms a clear contrast to the rest of the record - a consolation ballad carried by guitar and harmonica in a slimmed-down folk manner. Inspiration for this piece was Dylan says that it carried a nighttime accident Impression: one with black eyeliner made- call girl in the lobby of a hotel .
Released from Empire Burlesque was June 1985. In addition produced two video clips . The clip for Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) was directed by Paul Schrader . Visually in the center are city impressions from the recording location Tokyo as well as Dylan, who poses as a disoriented musician or city visitor via the clip action. The second piece that was filmed as a clip is When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky. Cinematic center is in black and white filmed live performance in a small, obviously in a barrio located Club .
Reception and criticism
In commercial terms, Empire Burlesque was one of Dylan's less successful albums. The record was not very well received by both critics and fans. The main point of criticism was the accusation that Dylan was following current trends in pop and rock music. The arrangements were sometimes rated as overloaded and seemingly lifeless. Michael Gray , author of the 2006 Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, has criticized both lyrics and music. Empire Burlesque is determined by "fashionable pop gimmicks", the pieces contained are partly "completely unacceptable hits". Nigel Williamson, author of The Rough Guide to Bob Dylan, also rated the record poor considering Dylan's overall oeuvre. However, he credited her with the fact that she was still better than the majority of average rock productions. Rolling Stone author Kurt Loder also made a mixed assessment . From a musical point of view, Empire Burlesque is a real rock'n'roll explosion. However, he predicted that fans would miss the emotional density of other Dylan albums.
The US magazine Entertainment Weekly also gave it a bad grade (“C +”) . Reason: the record is overproduced. However, the magazine explicitly highlighted Dark Eyes as an exceptional song. The German Dylan biographer Olaf Benzinger also essentially agreed with this assessment. In his opinion, however, external circumstances were also to blame for the record's failure. For example, Dylan's participation in the first major Live Aid event due to the famine in Ethiopia in 1985 - a media spectacle that has drawn attention from the album that has just been released. In retrospect, critics and fans usually rate Empire Burlesque as the ultimate case study for Dylan's artistically weak phase in the 1980s - surpassed at best by the cover version compilation Down in the Groove (1988), which many consider to be the absolute low point of Dylan's oeuvre. The retrospective website Warehouse Eyes characterizes Empire Burlesque as a pop record with a few above-average songs. The music website Stereogum is similar , whose reviewers classify Empire Burlesque under “The 10 Best More-Obscure Bob Dylan Albums” and also state a mismatch with the contemporary trend of the 1980s.
Outtakes and cover versions
What is remarkable about Empire Burlesque is the unusually high number of outtakes. From the first two recording sessions, only three songs were adopted in the end. One (Driftin 'Too Far From The Shore) appeared on the follow-up album Knocked Out Loaded, six have not yet been released. Five songs of the main recording phase February to March 1995 have not yet been released. An alternate version of When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky appeared on The Bootleg Series Vol. 3 .
Empire Burlesque does not include typical Dylan highlights that have remained well known over the years . The number of cover recordings of individual songs is comparatively manageable. Only the Austrian Dylan interpreter Michel Montecrossa covered almost all of the songs on the record . There are also the following third-party interpretations: Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) by the country singer Marty Stuart , Seeing the Real You at Last by the punk band The Zimmermen, I'll Remember You by the singer-songwriters Thea Gilmore and Grayson Hugh , Clean Cut Kid by rock musician Carla Olson and Trust Yourself by blues singer Etta James, and country musician Carlene Carter (who had a relationship with Empire burlesque recorder Howie Epstein in the 1990s ) . Emotionally Yours covered Robyn Hitchcock , the soul band O'Jays and the Danish singer Hanne Boel , among others . Jeff Healey contributed a version of When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky for the soundtrack to the film Road House . From Dark Eyes finally there is a cover version of Calexico - as the soundtrack component of the fictional Dylan-life film I'm Not There .
Track list
- Tight Connection to My Heart (Has Anybody Seen My Love) - 5:22
- Seeing the Real You at Last - 4:21
- I'll Remember You - 4:14
- Clean Cut Kid - 4:17
- Never Gonna Be the Same Again - 3:11
- Trust Yourself - 3:29
- Emotionally Yours - 4:30
- When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky - 7:30
- Something's Burning, Baby - 4:54
- Dark Eyes - 5:07
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Olaf Benzinger: Bob Dylan. The story of his music. Updated new edition, dtv , Munich 2006/2011, ISBN 978-3-423-34673-3 ; P. 211 ff.
- ↑ Song Stories: "Dark Eyes" , Rolling Stone, accessed March 2, 2014
- ↑ a b Olaf Benzinger: Bob Dylan. The story of his music. Updated new edition, dtv, Munich 2006/2011, ISBN 978-3-423-34673-3 ; P. 216
- ↑ Reviews: Bob Dylan - Empire Burlesque , Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone, July 4, 1985 (Eng.)
- ↑ Dylan Catalog Revisited , Bill Flanaghan, Entertainment Weekly, March 29, 1991 (Eng.)
- ↑ Olaf Benzinger: Bob Dylan. The story of his music. Updated new edition, dtv, Munich 2006/2011, ISBN 978-3-423-34673-3 ; P. 276 ff.
- ↑ Empire Burlesque , Warehouse Eyes, accessed March 2, 2014.
- ↑ The 10 Best More-Obscure Bob Dylan Albums - 10th Empire Burlesque (1985) , Timothy Bracy / Elizabeth Tracy, stereogum.com, September 12, 2012 (Eng.)
- ↑ Performances in the iTunes Music Store , accessed March 2, 2014
literature
- Olaf Benzinger: Bob Dylan. The story of his music. Updated new edition, dtv , Munich 2006/2011, ISBN 978-3-423-34673-3
- Bob Dylan: Chronicles, Volume One. Autobiographical work. Simon & Schuster, New York 2004, ISBN 978-0-7434-7864-9 (English; German by Kathrin Passig and Gerhard Henschel, Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2004, ISBN 978-3-455-09385-8 ; Kiepenheuer and Witsch , Cologne 2008, ISBN 978-3-462-04052-4 ).
Web links
- Empire Burlesque at Allmusic (English)
- Empire Burlesque on Dylan workpage Warehouse Eyes (English)
