Dylan on a Wednesday

Last year I read Alex Ross' book, The Rest is Noise, a social history of recent Western culture told around music. I learned a lot, but would have appreciated the book even more had I more familiarity with classical music. Dylan appears late in the book, one of the few rockers to count as part of a cultural history.

Ross has a blog, and in a recent issue he has excerpts from an interview with Dylan and a brief review of Dylan's forthcoming cd (April 28 release date). My favorite part of the interview is when Dylan is quoted as saying:

"Some people preferred my first-period songs. Some, the second. Some, the Christian period. Some, the post-Columbian. Some, the Pre-Raphaelite. Some people prefer my songs from the nineties. I see that my audience now doesn’t particularly care what period the songs are from. They feel style and substance in a more visceral way and let it go at that."

Ross's description of the new cd sounds promising, essentially suggesting that if you liked the last three (I did very much), that you will like this one as well.

Yay.

Here's the link for Ross' blog.

http://www.therestisnoise.com/2009/03/new-dylan.html