Displaying once and for all that no artist can be trusted, Bob Dylan squanders the chance to make good on the promising Oh Mercy. Another step back for the man who took so many forward steps in his heyday that audiences only noticed the decline when he began rattling out Mark Knopfler synth records. Under the Red Sky may not be the worst Dylan record of the bunch, a staggering and lengthy list that has, at the very least, the good grace to be some of the shortest albums in his discography. Still, the unimaginable and surprising high of Oh Mercy was a tough line to draw for an artist still working through his return to the fold of caring for his work, as he detailed in Chronicles.
Few artists would be bold enough to open with Wiggle Wiggle, a track that would fit a Black Lace greatest hits setlist. Presumably they had more tracks about soup, and this piece from Dylan would fit right in. The nonsensical display of wiggling around like a bowl of soup is thankfully masked by some heavy drumming from Kenny Aronoff. It is just the start of some miserably uninspired material. Nonsensical is better than uninspired, as title track Under the Red Sky proves. Little boys and girls baked in a pie, as Hansel and Gretel’s dreamscape takes control of Dylan’s wheezing vocals. Grizzled and uninspired Unbelievable may be, it is at least a semblance of form for Under the Red Sky.
Even mediocrity can impress when placed next to failure. Playful lyricisms are neither witty nor entertaining on an album that marks a first for Dylan. He has finally considered the route of pastiche. There is tenderness in the fire of Born in Time, the smoking embers an encouraging part of the A-side, which until it broke free from the novelty of its first two tracks, had been all but lost. Under the Red Sky does not suffer from a lack of consistency, it is fairly consistent in its mediocrity. What it lacks is the vision and drive Dylan had on his previous record. There is a brevity to some tracks featured throughout. The two minutes of Wiggle Wiggle, the three dedicated to the forgettable pass that is T.V. Talkin’ Song. None of it amounts to very much. The B-side is no different. 10,000 Men is in line with that mediocrity, although does have some nice acoustics to open it up.
Pangs of that religious rigour settle into 2×2 which soon becomes a track closer to noting plywood and the times tables taught at primary school more than anything. Simple rhyming structures drag Dylan into a piece that is not poor, but redundant. Every 1990s artist was doing this. Johnny Hates Jazz could have stuck their name on this. Any nomenclature of the 1980s pop variety could have rattled out this series of tracks. Even the likes of George Harrison, David Crosby, Slash and Elton John fail to make much of a mark with a collection of uptempo rock and acoustic pieces cast away from the Oh Mercy recordings. They were cast away for a reason. Reservation for the next album was not a reason, as is evident by the state of the sound.
