Return to the main Bob Dylan page ... where it's all legal ... Street Beagle Overall Album Score: 6.9 out of 10 Oh maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! Well, you cannot officially claim that Bob Dylan's quite in the gutter of dismal failure with Street Legal, but this is probably the guy's first true clunker. Geez ... this is almost too depressing to even want to talk about! A Bob Dylan album getting an overall score of a 6.9?! That's even worse than his hopelessly boring The Times They Are A-Changing album. There are definitely some good songs on Street Legal and some fun/uplifting moments, but this is truly a huge disappointment, you know, for THE MAN. Because, as we all know, Bob Dylan is THE MAN. Here, he is just being average. And that's not cool. He was going in the same sort of pop footsteps that he started in Desire. ...He concentrates more on the production and the sound of these songs rather than the actual feeling of them ... or even his own signature brand of personal UMPH he used to inject in them. Yep. This is another batch of pop songs! This time, unfortunately, the melodies aren't nearly as good as they were in Desire. He replaces that wonderful sounding violin with some completely dismal sounding female backup singers (although, they aren't as blatantly awful as they were on Self Portrait). Street Legal is no indication that Bob is washed up. He's just bored. Overall Album Score: 6.9 out of 10 (One of Dylan's career low-points. It still has some good moments in it, though.) Average Song Score: 7.3 (If you look at the overall picture, this isn't an awful set of songs. However, "No Time to Think" is so danged awful that it dragged down this score quite a lot. The rest of the songs, while they may be amusing, don't do much to make up for it, unfortunately) Album Tilt: 7.0 (This is one of Dylan's most BLAH efforts. You'll like this one depending on how well you are able to block out "No Time to Think.") Artist Rating: 6.5 (Verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry disappointing. Dylan doesn't appear to even want to try being artistic with this one. The lyrics are fairly trite, and the music itself is rather yawn-inducing.) Track Reviews Changing of the Guards 8.5/10 Bob Dylan does a pretty good job at recreating that good-time, light-hearted pop vibe that he gave us at various points in Desire. Unfortunately, with the absence of Scarlett Rivera's violin, "Changing of the Guards" can only be considered lightweight, and the instrumentation can only be considered feeble. But it's an entirely pleasant pop diversion. It's a little bit too long, but I hardly grow weary of it. The choice of the background singers are questionable. They aren't as annoying as the ones from Self Portrait, but the song would have benefited greatly without them! New Pony 6.5/10 Disappointing! This is an almost unbearably uneventful blues number. At this point, I really am disliking these background singers. Dylan's music was pretty good ... but they really screw it up. I can't believe that they were allowed to screw it up! Without them, though, I doubt the overall quality of this track would have improved much. This is a boring song. No Time to Think 4/10 This one is just one big misfired piece of pigswill. Not only is this WAY TOO LONG (clocking in at well over eight minutes) it is BOOOOOOOOORINGGGGGGGG. Even if it were two minutes, it'd be boring. Oh, Bob! You used to be so righteously bonzer! What is this?????????? Baby Stop Crying 8/10 Whew! After that previous track, which was huge clunking piece of CRAP, Bob Dylan totally redeems himself with this nice, touching little pop ditty "Baby Stop Crying." It ain't perfect, but it sure is listenable. Is Your Love in Vain? 9/10 AWESOME!!!! You know, after Street Legal, Bob Dylan would undergo his [in]famous three-set-series of Christian rock albums ... and I suppose that it's just a coincidence that this sounds a bit like a Christian hymn. (As legend has it, his girlfriend invited a priest over to Bob's place, and he was converted a few days later ... so I guess this song has nothing to do with that.) Anyway, this song absolutely soaaaars, and it's the most memorable song on the whole album. Senor (Tales of Yankee Power) 8/10 People like this song. I like it, too. Although, I fail to get caught up into it enough to really go out and start praising it. It's just missing that little *umph* that would turn this into a mesmerizing classic like Dylan seemed to be shooting for when recording this. It's pretty good, though. It's one of the best things on here. True Love Tends to Forget 8/10 Awwww... I'm sorry, Bob, about blaming you for being totally washed up before. You're not washed up. I like this album! It's just not as good as some of your other stuff ... and you've got to admit yourself that some of the songs earlier on this album REALLY SUCKED. But the other songs are pretty good. This one might have benefited from a better melody, but it has a nice, pleasant atmosphere to it and is really quite luverly. We Better Talk This Over 7/10 Again. This poppy song really isn't that bad. The production, at least, was solid ... and the melody was fine. It definitely ain't awe-inspiring, but ... ARGH! DYLAN USED TO BE AWE-INSPIRING. But this isn't awful. Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through the Dark Heat) 7/10 Boooooooooooooooooooooooriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!!! Alas. But I don't hate this track at all. And, at least Bob Dylan gets louder at the end of this, so it doesn't get excruciating like it might have. I'm still unimpressed, though. Goodnight. Give me your spiel about Street Legal here!

All reviews are copyrighted by the author, Michael Lawrence. He once drank printer cartridge ink and liked it.