Desire
| Bob Dylan
Desire
Desire is the 17th studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on January 5, 1976 by Columbia Records. It is one of Dylan's most collaborative efforts, featuring the same caravan of musicians as the acclaimed Rolling Thunder Revue tours the previous year (later documented on The Bootleg Series Vol. 5). Many of the songs also featured backing vocals by Emmylou Harris and Ronee Blakley. Most of the album was co-written by Jacques Levy, and is composed of lengthy story-songs, two of which quickly generated controversy: the 11-minute-long "Joey", which is seen as glorifying the violent gangster "Crazy Joey" Gallo, and "Hurricane", the opening track that tells a passionate account of the murder case against boxer Rubin Carter, whom the song asserts was framed. Carter was released in 1985, after a judge overturned his conviction on appeal.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
1976. Desire is a very special album, although Bob Dylan‘s adamantly antimusical approach keeps it from greatness.
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Rolling Stone
2016. Bob Dylan’s ‘Desire’: An ‘Exotic’ Masterpiece Turns 40. Collaborators recall 1976 album featuring a gangster, a boxer and one of Dylan’s most personal songs.
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All Music
This may not add up to a masterpiece, but it does result in one of his most fascinating records of the '70s and '80s -- more intriguing, lyrically and musically, than most of his latter-day affairs.
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Ultimate Classic Rock
2016. Like many albums in Bob Dylan's extensive discography, Desire didn't start the way it ended up. But it's still one of Dylan's most ambitious records, built around two sprawling narratives
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The Escapist Magazine
2015. Desire, on the other hand, is one of Bob's most epic records to date: in every song, the additional musicians are given a lot more prominence (not to mention the music is ever so more complex
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Need some Fun
2016. To the devilry of the music, which radiates a charming flair of the wanderer and arcane would be difficult to capture in words, is an arduous task to escape.
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The Student Playlist
2016. While neither as special nor as iconic as …Tracks, Desire is as distinctive and musically varied as anything else he’s made in his career, even during his golden age, and one of the few occasions he dropped his protective shield of cryptic songwriting and, to the extent that Dylan ever did so, bared his soul.
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Countdown Kid
2013. Bob Dylan’s 1976 album Desire was notable for its exotic, violin-tinged, gypsy sound and its ambitious, sprawling story-songs. The bold gambit paid off in spades for Dylan, as the album turned out to be one of his biggest commercial successes.
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The Current
2017. To me, it’s an underrated gem. It’s loaded with strong story-songs like the protest classic “Hurricane,” Dylan’s passionate account of boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s murder charges.
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Acoustic Sounds
Desire lives up its title, a masterwork that Dylan would not equal in creativity, performance, and lyricism for another two decades.
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50THIRDAND3RD
2016. Music for anytime of the day and night. Always. So much choice. DESIRE was released on January 5, 1976 and hit the US top spot on 24 January 1976 – 40 years ago today.
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MoFi
Reeling from the effects of his disintegrating marriage, the singer penned several of the most heartfelt songs of his career, including "Sara," the most overtly public broadcasting of his private life and emotions committed to tape.
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Album of the Year
Perhaps Dylan’s final “great” album is layered with amazing songwriting and storytelling while effortlessly returning to his folk roots. No song has had such a cultural impact on 1970s America more than “Hurricane”.
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itunes Apple Music
Dylan collaborated with theater director Jacques Levy. The two wrote much of what became 1976's Desire, one of Dylan's most commercially successful albums. Songs like "Hurricane," "Isis," "Joey," "Romance in Durango," and "Black Diamond Bay" took on heady narratives that proved the collaboration was an artistic success.
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PULUCHE
2014. While Dylan’s creative genius is still noticeably present on this nine-track album, he uses this release to allow for his talents to be matched by the collaborative efforts of fellow artists such as Emmylou Harris, Rob Stoner and Jacques Levy.
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Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews
This album, mostly written with novelist Jacques Levy, is well worth listening to, but I can't really say why I like it, aside from the brilliant protest story-song "Hurricane." It's not as focused as its predecessor.
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Adrian Denning
2013. I so love the sound this group of musicians create. Especially the violin, it's an unusual but very effective touch.
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Sing Out!
2014. The album is a rich tapestry of myth, legend, folk tales, and exotic settings. It plays like a series of dramatic vignettes in which all of the main characters — including Carter and Gallo — experience heroic extremes of loss, isolation, violence, and death, either by the hands of other men or by cruel acts of Nature and Justice.
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Robert Christgau
His voice sounds viscous and so do his rhymes, while sisters Ronee and Emmylou sound distinctly kid, following the leader as if they're holding onto his index finger. More genuinely fraternal (and redeeming) are the pained, passionate marital tributes, "Sara" and "Isis."
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Paste Magazine
2012 It’s perhaps one of Dylan’s more collaborative albums, but that doesn’t make Desire any less focused. With Emmylou Harris and bassist Rob Stoner making appearances on the album, we still see classic Dylan shining through on timeless tracks like the driving “Hurricane” and the slow-burning “One More Cup of Coffee.”
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Prindle Record Reviews
Very good, but a bit overblown to my rock and roll ears. The stripped-down sound of the last record has been replaced by violin and accordion "augmentation" that clutters up a bunch of otherwise really good ditties.
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The RS 500
2011. It invites speculation and repeated listening and fairly bleeds with the sounds of pathos, love, remorse, lust.
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George Starothin's Reviews
Anyway, this is one really super album, and probably the last truly great album he ever did.
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