Bob Dylan - Rough and Rowdy Days | CD Album Description

The legendary, Nobel Prize winning songsmith Bob Dylan returns with Rough and Rowdy Days, his first album of original material since 2012's The Tempest. A lesser talent than Bob Dylan would have produced a work irrelevant to the modern era, but that's not true for Rough and Rowdy Days. On the contrary, this CD proves that Dylan's confidence and musical gift has not diminished over the years. 

“I'm not what I was, things aren't what they used to be,” sings Dylan on the track “I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You.” Rough and Rowdy Days sees Dylan looking to both the past and the future and finding them equally murky. Thoughts of death and the future are mixed with meditations on the past and classic literature. This album is no maudlin slog, though - there are flashes of levity among the dark background of the album, including playful references to Indiana Jones, Patsy Cline and Stevie Nicks.

This Dylan album features some of Dylan's most ambitious work to date, including the lead single ‘A Murder Most Foul', an epic 17-minute ode to the assassination of John F. Kennedy, an event that would prove to be as defining for the 1960s as Woodstock or the Apollo 11 moon landing.

Dylan begins this album with a reference to Walt Whitman with the opening track “I Contain Multitudes.” It's a fitting statement on the nature of the album, which displays not only Dylan's lyrical  skills but his musical versatility as well: From the loose, heavy blues rock of “False Prophet” to the haunting Spanish guitar of “Black Rider” and the Gothic stylings of “My Own Version of You”, listeners will find plenty of variety among these tracks.

This CD version of the album includes a pair of discs in a retro digipak format. The songs have been mastered at 1,411 kpbs at 16-bit. This provides the album with a great deal of dynamic range, preserving the soundstage of the original recording and letting you appreciate every nuance of Dylan's voice and his band's instruments. 

Universally acclaimed by Dylan fans and music critics alike, Rough and Rowdy makes essential listening not just for rock fans hoping to relive the genre's glory days, but musical fans of every stripe.

Tracklist:

Disc 1:

1. I Contain Multitudes
2. False Prophet
3. My Own Version of You
4. I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You
5. Black Rider
6. Goodbye Jimmy Reed
7. Mother of Muses
8. Crossing the Rubicon
9.  Key West (Philosopher Pirate)

Disc 2:

1. Murder Most Foul

Specification:

• Dimensions: W13.9 x L1.1 x H12.5cm
• Weight: 50g
• Number of discs: 2
• Release date: 19 June 2020
• Total length: 70:33