Politics of Ancient History?
"Our generation has envied our elders' experiences more often than we've questioned them. Growing up in the shadow of the '60s, we couldn't help viewing the political involvement of the age as nobler, the culture and the music as more vital, the shattering of social norms more exciting, than the zeitgeist of our own formative years." Slate's David Greenberg invokes popular culture's (and the academy's) rampant Sixties-ism to suggest why post-John Wesley Harding Dylan gets so little love.
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David is generally right about “Sixties-ism” (which is broadly part of the left interpretation of the decade), but I am not convinced that Dylan specifically is an example of it. Dylan was at the height of his influence then, whether as a folkie, electrified, or shifting toward country; and he never maintained a similar impact on popular music once the decade ended. So to focus on a time when other musicians and the larger pop public followed his moves closely make sense, regardless of how highly fans rate later material.
I would say that David has the motives of interpreters reversed: boomer critics and fans have been more likely to herald post-60s albums with “Dylan is back” while post-boomer critics have concluded that Bob’s greatest achievements were forty years ago, not out of sentiment but analysis.
Hey, don't be hating on Time out of Mind! ;)
Seriously, though, I agree with you. Even Dylan concedes (in his recent 60 Minutes interview and elsewhere) that his later work doesn't quite hold up to the mid-sixties stuff. (Indeed, he even talks of phoning in Self-Portrait, his first '70s album, in Chronicles, Vol One.)
Of course, I'd argue Dylan's post-60's plateau is still much higher than most other artists' peaks.
Also, if Dylan's Visions of Sin (which I'm reading now) is any indication, Greenberg is wrong to say that Christopher Ricks has slighted Bob's post-'68 output. The book skips all over the place.