Bob Dylan
Empire Burlesque

THE REVIEW

I start this review with a touch of rhetoric by saying that "Empire Burlesque" is the most underrated album of Dylan. With this, however, I do not mean to say that we are looking at a “Blood on the Tracks” or a “Blonde on Blonde", but simply that it is too often mislabeled as one of those ugly albums from the second half of the '80s (“Knocked Out Loaded," "Down In The Groove") when things are entirely different. It’s a contradictory album.

Let's start with the sound: it's an '80s sound, in some tracks very heavily, and this is one of the main criticisms levied against it, both at the general level of criticism, accusing it of being a work that has aged, and from the fans, who do not forget the excellent more traditional rock-style versions of some songs like "When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky" or "Someone’s Got a Hold of My Heart" (later transformed into "Tight Connection") which circulated in bootleg form for some time and were later officialized in the “Bootleg Series 1-3”. Indeed, the reworkings by Dylan and Baker on the original performances age the music, "placing" it temporally and giving it a characteristic “light” music flavor, to be consumed then and there, but the effect, even today, is not necessarily negative. The opening track, “Tight Connection to My Heart,” is at least enjoyable and the other big ballad, “When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky” is really remarkable, also thanks to a spirited performance by Dylan, and the synthesizer sound is at times contradictory, yet it makes the song an elusive and intriguing mixture. The more rock-oriented tracks suffer a bit more: “Seeing the Real You at Last,” "Clean Cut Kid" are pleasant songs, but perhaps they could have sounded a bit better; "Trust Yourself" is the only bad track on the album (although I read somewhere that someone considers it one of the strong pieces, another example of how contradictory “Empire Burlesque” is). The slow songs are also really ambiguous: “I’ll Remember You,” “Never Gonna Be the Same Again,” and “Emotionally Yours” (the best of the trio, beautiful) are among the most bare and mundane lyrics Dylan has gotten us used to (“I’ll remember you when I’ve forgotten all the rest. You to me were true, you to me were the best”) but they go straight to the heart without too much fuss, and they are sweet and irresistible. But the main course comes with the last two songs: “Something’s Burning, Baby” has a dark, majestic sound, like a funeral march, showing a really unusual Dylan. An exceptional song. And then there’s the last contradiction of the album: “Dark Eyes”, completely acoustic, a true masterpiece. A hypnotic, compelling, and piercing track in which Dylan plays deliberately wrong chords and delivers a performance worthy of the best tracks from “Oh Mercy”.

I gave 3 stars to “Empire Burlesque” because: 5 stars are (or should be) given only to albums that are milestones not only in the artist’s landscape but in music in general (in Dylan’s case I can identify at least 4 or 5... or maybe 6… hold on! Let’s get back to us!), and 4 stars to faultless albums but less important for the functioning of the solar system (say, a "Street Legal" or an "Oh Mercy"). 3 stars means a good work. It means that there are weaknesses but the effort is positive and there’s good stuff in there. I gave it 3 stars because it shares the sad and unfair fate of most 3-star albums in the world, being listened to only by the most die-hard fans and ignored by everyone else. Truly a sad and unfair fate for an album like this. If at least in some collection you could see a "Dark Eyes" or a "When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky" instead of useless songs like "Silvio"... The Electric SpyPS: This album also has the booklet with the song lyrics! I think it’s the only case in Bob's discography, at least on CD!