Hard Rain

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ALBUM INFORMATION
LIVE

Total Tracks: 9   Total Length: 51:06

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Douglas Wolk

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Douglas Wolk writes about pop music and comic books for Time, the New York Times, Rolling Stone, Wired and elsewhere. He's the author of Reading Comics: How Gra...more »

06.30.09
Bob Dylan, Hard Rain
1988 | Label: Columbia

A document of the 1976 leg of the Rolling Thunder tour, Hard Rain debuted yet another side of Bob Dylan: an entertainer with murder in his eyes, playing good-time rock 'n 'roll with a horse's head hidden inside it. Released to coincide with a live TV special, it's the slickest-sounding album he'd ever made, bubbling arena rock with quicksilver glam-rock guitars (the band featured five guitarists, including T-Bone Burnett and Mick Ronson). The repertoire, though, focuses on the vituperative resignations and half-contemptuous love songs in his catalogue, and his performances twist them into something even darker than their original form — "Idiot Wind," in particular, becomes a ten-minute thunderstorm of bitter rage.

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A near-travesty

BrianJF

Dylan never really released a halfway-decent live album until Live 1966. Get Live 1975 if you really want a live recording from this period, although the Idiot Wind here might be worth the full album download. Maybe.

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excellent live album!

Bennn

this is perhaps my favorite live dylan album of all the lot. i picked this up on sale at a used cd shop and was blown away by the entire album. all of the songs have been reworked, so they all bring something new to the table. i would highly recommend purchasing this gem!

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They Say All Media Guide

Hard Rain is a snapshot of Bob Dylan’s fabled Rolling Thunder Revue, a traveling circus that was more notable for its excess and character than the music. There are some new interpretations along the lines of what appeared on Before the Flood. A few of the new versions hit home and Dylan is generally spirited throughout. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine

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