My favorite Dylan cd

I think I bought Oh Mercy when it first came out, probably my first Dylan purchase. I have since bought lots of his other cd's, and I like them all for various reasons, but Oh Mercy still has to rank as my favorite. It may not have the historical impact of "Blonde on Blonde", "Highway 61 Revisited" or "Blood on the Tracks", but the songs on "Oh Mercy" really speak to me. I love the way the cd kicks off with "Political World" ("your houses are haunted, your children aren't wanted, your next day could be your last"), slows down with "Where Teardrops Fall", and back at it again with "Everything is Broken" ("broken hands on broken plows, broken treaties, broken vows"). I like that little 4 beat drum thing at the end of Everything is Broken. I didn't care much for "Man in the Long Black Coat"("there's a soft cotten dress on the line hanging dry") at first, but after a while the imagery really grew on me. I love the "love-and-lost" of "Most of the Time" ("she ain't even on my mind, I wouldn't know her if I saw her, she's that far behind"), the plaintiveness of "What Good am I?". I love that he would end this gem of a cd with a gem of a song "Shooting Star"("was I still the same, had I ever became, what you wanted me to be?"). All in all, just a wonderful cd.

New Orleans suits Mr. Dylan just fine

Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy CD is one of his finest. Great songs, haunting production and a band that can't be matched. Bob was wise to hire Daniel Lanois as a producer as well as members of the Neville Brothers band, Willie Green, Tony Hall and Brian Stoltz. These musicians have all contributed to some of the best records out there especially Stoltz who recently released a great

solo CD titles "East OF Rampart Street". New Orleans seems to suit Mr. Dylan just fine!

Oh Mercy, Revisited 4 1/2 *s

Like a couple of other reviews that preceed me, I had been inspired to put this one on after reading the chapter detailing the creation of this album in Dylan's excellent CHRONICLES VOL. 1. I had always considered this to be a good Dylan album, though not to be confused with BLOOD ON THE TRACKS or any of his early/mid-sixties masterpieces.



As Dylan had noted, his eighties output had been largely uninspired, so OH MERCY came as a pleasant suprise upon it's release (i.e. it didn't suck). Braced with a handfull of solid tracks, Dylan also benefited from the interaction with producer Daniel Lanios. Lanois, who had made his name producing U2,would push to create the classic album that maybe Dylan did not think to have in him.



The creative tension between these two did move Dylan back in the right direction. Lanios' production and arrangement advices elevated middling tracks like EVERYTHING IS BROKEN and POLITICAL WORLD to great affect. He also added what would become his patented production values to enhance solid tunes such as the Johnny Cash-like MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT, the soul searchin WHAT GOOD AM I? and the sublime MOST OF THE TIME to great affect.



Dylan himself, long a butt of jokes concerning his singing style, nails these performances with effective and emotional vocal performances. He will never be confused with Marvin Gaye, but Dylan, when inspired, is a master at wringing the emotions out of a great lyric.



Overall, OH MERCY is a solid album and a turning point in the career of Bob Dylan. To that point Dylan looked like he would become a sorry nostalgia act, flogging endless greatest hits comps and touring endlessly on his sixties catalog. He rebounded well in the nineties with two solid sets of non-original material, as well as what can be considered his best since BLOOD ON THE TRACKS, 1997'S TIME OUT OF MIND and 2001'S GREAT LOVE AND THEFT.

Haunting, mood evoking sound

Somehow I had always overlooked this cd until I read Dylan's Chronicles book. In it he describes the sessions in New Orleans that resulted in this recording and I was intrigued since I could tell that Dylan was clearly pleased with this work. Well, the cd does not disappoint. Dylan's songs are solid with a couple of real standouts including Man in the Long Black Coat , Most Of The Time and What Good Am I. The sound mix is really something with the really moody echo/phaser effect on the guitars and when Dylan blows his harmonica,though sparingly, it cuts like a knife. This may not be on the same plane as some of his masterpieces lyrically but man the sound just knocks me out.

One of the Four Best Albums By Bob !

Every Dylan fan has his own best-of list "tatooed to the back of his head" :) My all time favorites are the great 'Desire', & the monumental trilogy 'Infidels','Empire Burlesque' and 'Oh Mercy' (Well -'Knocked Out Loaded' had a few good tunes - but it's miles away...).

Two tracks stand above the rest - 'Political World' & 'Everything Is Broken', that are fast & furious Rocki'sh Masterpieces, that would fit better in Infidels' sound...

And than again, they give great contrast to the rest of the album, which is mellow and enchanting: you can actually feel the Dark, gloomy, swampy quality emenating from your speakers

as you listen to 'She's Gone With A man in a Long Black Coat'...

This Is One CD I can listen to over & over agin for hours.

Yes - It's that Good !



The production is imaculate, the singing - in it's best, everything clicks !

The great guitar sound is so distinctive - you couldn't confuse it with anything else !

So - If you're a Dylan fan - And ever plan to spend some time on a Dsert Island - (& only allowed to bring a few cd's along ...) - Go for this one first !

Two Cuts Short of Brilliant

I went back for the first time in years to Oh Mercy because of the long chapter in Chronicles that Dylan devotes to its making and to his stress-ridden but fruitful collaboration on it with Daniel Lanois. A Lanois production in this day and age is as distinctive as Phil Spector's work was in the 60's and 70's. But what's fascinating to me is that despite the multi-tracking, the use of reverb, and unique instrumentation (love the saxophone ending on Where Teardrops Fall!), the heavy sound never banishes intimacy. And Dylan has seldom written less obliquely about intimacy and fragility of relationships than on Mercy, with classics Most of the Time, Man in the Long Black Coat, and -- best of all -- Shooting Star. Similarly, the production in the two jangling rockers, aural caffeine if I've ever heard it, Political World and Everything is Broken, wraps but does not bury the despairing news Dylan delivers. Mercy, as its title suggests, also gives us Dylan at his most compassionate in Ring Them Bells, a work that lyrically celebrates and forgives us all. What Good Am I?, an unremarkable oral self-flagellation, and the musical disaster Disease of Conceit keep Mercy from being one of Dylan's half-dozen best records. Despite those throwaways, listening again to Mercy provides abundant hindsight evidence that the decade-later Dylan/Lanois collaboration Time Out of Mind was no surprise blast of Dylan renewal. Rather, it was a more finished and brilliant melding of a Dylan direction in sound and words that began here with Oh Mercy in New Orleans in the late '80s.

A Contrarian's View of Dylan

Once again Bob switches tracks on us. And much like I hated to agree with the popular consensus about Blood On The Tracks, I've got to admit I really like Oh Mercy!. Of course the fact that this was the first Dylan album I ever bought (okay... permanently borrowed from my father) may have something to do with it. Sure "Man In The Long Black Coat" threatens to bring up comparisons to his earlier work in much the same way "Dark Eyes" or "Brownsville Girl" did, but luckily the song is strong enough to stand on its own - and the atmospheric touches Daniel Lanois added, help it seem like less of a throwback. Aside from that song, my other two favorite numbers on here are "Political World" and "Everything Is Broken". Two up-tempo rockers based on simple blues riffs that help keep this album from being a complete refutation of the two albums that came before it. Personally my least favorite tunes are the ones that everyone else liked: the slower material like "Where Teardrops Fall", "Ring Them Bells", "Disease Of Conceit", and "Shooting Star", but they're not bad. Every Dylan album has its ups and downs, but it's really the quality of the songs in the middle ("What Was It You Wanted", "What Good Am I?", "Most Of The Time") that really make the album work as a whole.

A merciful album

In 1988,Bob Dylan joined forces with Tom Petty,Jeff Lynne,the late Roy Orbison and the late George Harrison under the name The Traveling Wilburys. Dylan powerfully delivered his vocals to TWEETER AND THE MONKEY MAN,CONGRATULATIONS,MARGARITA and DIRTY WORLD. The following year,Dylan as himself(he and his 4 fellow TW's had aliases),put out this album which is precisely 39 minutes long. The tunes I like best are RING THEM BELLS,POLITICAL WORLD and MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT. This album was produced by Daniel Lanois,who produced albums for U2 also. U2 recorded Dylan's composition ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER. Also Dylan sang background and played harmonica on another U2 recording,LOVE RESCUE ME. Dylan has recorded countless albums on the Columbia label since 1962.