Pariah

There's a tendency for a certain type of fan to claim that an acknowledged worst album of a certain artist is their favorite, or the worst track on a certain album the best. This has the effect - they imagine - of making them seem fascinating individualists, unswayed by mass opinion. I'm not doing that here. "Dylan" isn't his best album, nor is it my favorite, but it does deserve that hoariest of critical processes, the re-assessment.

Known in some quarters as the "spite album", this is the collection of outtakes released by Columbia without his involvement when Dylan sought Asylum in '73. Robert Christgau's opinion echoed many, and it's worth quoting here because Christgau carves his reviews in Travertine marble with a silver chisel while his brow is mopped by sloe-eyed odalisques [? - Ed.], so he must be right:

Listening to this set of rejects from what used to be Dylan's worst album [sic - Ed.] does have its morbid fascination [...] Not only are the timbre and melody off - he was always wild - but he also doesn't phrase cogently, and the songs just hit the dirt. E

But wait! There's more contumely and opprobrium! Here's Jon Landau, whose opinion I am at least interested in:

[...] bizarre choice of material, insipid, incompetent production and erratic and uncontrolled singing [...] utter disgrace [...] inept package of a great artist’s weaker moments, best left forgotten.

So that, as they say, is that. It's been shunned and ignored by everyone from Dylan down, appearing briefly on CD only as part of a premium box set. So why do I enjoy it? It's not out of perversity. I'm not a car-crash rubberneck, or kitsch enthusiast with a sophisticated sense of the ironic. It's a nice album, is all. Let's imagine - be a come-with guy! - this had never been released until yesterday, and it's suddenly appeared without any hype or back story. Let's suppose Dylan decided to shunt it out anyway. What have we got? A short album of songs by other people. The choices range from the inspired to the baffling. But who would come down on it so heavily today? The reaction would be, I'm guessing, one of fascinated appreciation, especially after the way-late critical re-assessment of Self Portrait. Who wouldn't want to listen to Dylan delivering a sweet bunch of covers from the "I can still sing" years? That's the album I'm listening to. Not Christmas In The Fucking Heart.