Edgy Personal Album Captures Legendary Artist Straddling Line Between Romance and Suspicion.
Bob Dylan's Planet Waves became an event even before the album was released and revealed itself as an understated masterwork. His first studio recording in nearly four years, the homespun 1974 effort finds him reuniting with the Band, by then firmly established as virtuosos. The chemistry is obvious on every song. And the modest and spare production only magnifies the honesty and purity of the collaboration. Mobile Fidelity's hybrid SACD deepens the music's emotional connection and rustic warmth to the fullest possible extent.
Recorded in just three days time, Planet Waves is at its core an exhibition of the inimitable folk-rock honed by Dylan and the Band. Recalling the Americana spirit of The Basement Tapes while adding a domesticated edginess and subtracting a degree of wildness, the set personifies simple charm and scraggly sweetness. Couched in the context of Dylan grappling with the chasm between family life and the road, Planet Waves fittingly encompasses myriad moods and contradictions, with tunes ranging from unquestionably devotional to overtly dark. In between, the singer attempts to navigate peace, catharsis, and resolve.
Per Dylan's hallmark, many tunes on Planet Waves involve twists and subterfuge. Not, however, the best-known offerings – the often-covered wish "Forever Young," celebratory roll-and-tumble "On a Night Like This," devotional "You Angel You," which spark with love, romance, and prayer-like tenderness. Yet the seeds that blossomed into 1975's traumatic break-up album Blood on the Tracks are also planted here. Complex feelings and deep-seated personal confusion surface on "Wedding Song," the hardscrabble "Tough Mama," piano-centered "Dirge," and knocking-on-heaven's-door darkness of "Going, Going, Gone."
Throughout, Dylan's voice supplies subtle hints about his mindset and intent as the Band shadows him step for step, adding to the thematic ambivalence and contributing to a debate over meaning that continues today. Indeed, such relevance confirms the significance of Planet Waves 40 years after its original release. Mobile Fidelity's SACD version digs beneath the surface and helps expose the record's buried strains.
© 2015 Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab. ℗ 1974 Columbia Records.
Recorded November 5, 6 & 9 1973 at Village Recorder, 1616 Butler, West LA
[On back cover & CD]
Disc made in Austria
[On spine]
Printed in the U.S.A.
Released as a 4-panel digisleeve with a 4-panel MoFi leaflet and SACD inserted into the right hand sleeve.
Tracklist
- On a Night Like This
- Going, Going, Gone
- Tough Mama
- Hazel
- Something There Is About You
- Forever Young
- Forever Young (Continued)
- Dirge
- You Angel You
- Never Say Goodbye
- Wedding Song
Recording information:
Title: Planet Waves
Artist: Bob Dylan
Genre: Pop-Rock
Media: 1x UltraDisc UHR Hybrid SACD Stereo , Limited, Numbered, Remastered, . Playable on SACD player or standard CD player. Original Master Recording. Sourced From The Original Analog Master Tapes For Audiophile Sonics. Mastered by Shawn R. Britton @ Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab on The Gain 2 System.
Label: MoFi - Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab
Cat#: UDSACD2153
Released: 2015 in US
Original release: 1974 by Asylum Records 7E-1003
EAN: 0821797215367
Discogs rel.#: 8312586
