(As published in the Times of Acadiana ... )
Masked and Anonymous: Music from the Original Motion Picture
(Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax)
By no means is this soundtrack as consistently enjoyable a Dylan-covers album as Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint’s Lo and Behold (1972, and in print), but it comes nearer the mark than Gotta Serve Somebody from earlier this year, in part because it contains four new performances by Dylan himself, the least predictable of which is “Dixie,” the Civil War-era minstrel classic that grows more politically incorrect with each passing day. There is, alas, esthetic incorrectness as well, most notably the Magokoro Brothers singing “My Back Pages” in Japanese and Articolo 31 rapping “Like a Rolling Stone” in Italian. (I was hoping for “Ugliest Girl in the World” in Tagalog myself.) Furthermore, the bigger-name performances are more interesting than definitive. One cut, however, stands out, and it’s not even in the film: the Dixie Hummingbirds’ “City of Gold,” a luminous gospel number that Dylan performed during his 1981 tour but that’s gone unreleased in any version 'til now. Rating: Three properties of Jesus out of five.
Masked and Anonymous: Music from the Original Motion Picture(Columbia/Sony Music Soundtrax)
By no means is this soundtrack as consistently enjoyable a Dylan-covers album as Coulson, Dean, McGuiness, Flint’s Lo and Behold (1972, and in print), but it comes nearer the mark than Gotta Serve Somebody from earlier this year, in part because it contains four new performances by Dylan himself, the least predictable of which is “Dixie,” the Civil War-era minstrel classic that grows more politically incorrect with each passing day. There is, alas, esthetic incorrectness as well, most notably the Magokoro Brothers singing “My Back Pages” in Japanese and Articolo 31 rapping “Like a Rolling Stone” in Italian. (I was hoping for “Ugliest Girl in the World” in Tagalog myself.) Furthermore, the bigger-name performances are more interesting than definitive. One cut, however, stands out, and it’s not even in the film: the Dixie Hummingbirds’ “City of Gold,” a luminous gospel number that Dylan performed during his 1981 tour but that’s gone unreleased in any version 'til now. Rating: Three properties of Jesus out of five.
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