Quad LP/Tape Poll Dylan, Bob: Nashville Skyline [SQ/Q8]

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Rate "Nashville Skyline"

  • 10: Great Sound, Great Mix, Great Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 6

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 5: So-so

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 4

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 3

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 2

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • 1: Bad Sound, Bad Mix, Bad Content

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    17

EMB

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
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Feb 8, 2004
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4,101
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The Top 40 Radio of My Mind
Bob's laid-back 1969 Lp.

Side 1:


1. Girl From The North Country [w/Johnny Cash]
2. Nashville Skyline Rag
3. To Be Alone With You
4. I Threw It All Away
5. Peggy Day

Side 2:

1. Lay Lady Lay
2. One More Night
3. Tell Me That It Isn't True
4. Country Pie
5. Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You
 

Attachments

  • Dylan Nashville.jpg
    Dylan Nashville.jpg
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Good Q8. For some reason I was thinking that all the songs were rather short and that the program times for the tape was unusually short. Like around 14:00 a program. I'll have to give this tape another listen. :phones
 
No, not a lengthy Lp at all...but a very pleasing one, and more varied than one might expect, given how JWH turned out, and what this appeared to be like with "Lay Lady Lay" as the hit. Mixwise, I'd give it an '8,' very fitting for the performances...:)

ED :)
 
I finally got around to giving my Q8 of this a listen, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I'm not much of a Dylan fan, but this is a nice album, and a nice quad mix. I give it a 9. I'm cuing up audition to record this in right now, this will make a nice dvd-a, since they saw fit to leave this off the sacd.
 
7. I don't get what's so great about this mix. 10 for the music, 4 for the mix. This had been announced in Quad long before it hit. I waited with baited breath. There's just too much echo on many of the tracks. The album is great, although there's nothing profound in the lyrics. People who think he can't sing should listen to this. He's a crooner. Dylan singing about love and nesting. I popped for the Dylan SACD box and don't understand why the three Quads were on 2ch SACD's. I've owned this on SQ, Q8, SACD, 2ch LP, CBS Mastersound 1/2 speed mastered LP and CD. I just don't get it. The SACD and 1/2 speed master are the best ways to listen to this. Blasphemous!!
 
I'd like to find someone willing to share the NON CONVERSIONs of this and Desire. A link on torrent or message me if you have either one of them. MY NS LP go ruined, and the Desire LP I have I bought was roughed up by the previous owner.
 
I like this one a lot! Gave it a 9.

It is indeed very short- I was shocked how little tape was inside the cart, almost to the point where I wondered if someone cut a huge chunk of tape out of it and re-spliced it, but luckily that was not the case.

Mix-wise this is a real four-corner job. Drums take the right rear, Bob is upfront with some heavy echo on his vocals in the rears, lead guitars are generally upfront, and secondary guitars, piano, and organ are usually in the rears.

"Nashville Skyline Rag" is a quad demo cut. Each soloist gets their own channel- steel guitar left front, acoustic guitar right front, another acoustic guitar right rear, then finally piano left rear. Then at the very end, there is a quick flourish from each channel playing the theme.

Nashville Skyline Rag.jpg

It's a shame the old Sony SACD was stereo-only, and an even bigger shame AF didn't get to tackle this one, but thanks to The Collection we know the master tape is around and in good shape. Maybe one day it will be reissued, along with the Desire and Planet Waves quads.

nash_sky_Q8.jpg
 
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I think one of my favorite parts of this whole multichannel audio hobby is that I will sometimes listen to things I never thought I'd enjoy, or give some things an extra chance just because they have a multichannel release. While our selection for multichannel and quad goodies is actually pretty good all things considered, it's still admittedly a bit of a niche thing. But it's a good niche and one that has brought me a ton of joy in my life. I don't think I'd ever have listened too much to Björk if it wasn't for her having a bunch of surround releases, and now she's easily my favorite artist and I'm a massive Björk fan.

Anyways the reason why I said all of that is that this is a release I probably would never have listened to if it wasn't for the quad version. I always love myself some dylan, and really enjoy my Blood on The Tracks and Blonde on Blonde SACD's, they're also my two favorite Dylan records. But I don't think I'd ever listen to Nashville Skyline. It seems to be considered a bit of "lesser Dylan" if you will, at least to my knowledge. If you look at his page on rateyourmusic.com Nashville Skyline is relatively lowly rated compared to his other releases from the time period, and is also one of the few non bolded ones too (bolded releases means they're in the top 10,000 highest rated).

I had actually not really heard any tracks off this one before, not even Lay Lady Lay, but with the first track I was turned off immediately by his new crooning voice. Sooooo I put this one off for a while. Yesterday though, I thought I'd give it a bit better of a chance, and it absolutely grew on me. Sure this album isn't classic after classic like Blonde on Blonde, and this isn't nearly as heavy as some of his other releases, but it sure is some great fun Country Rock tunes that somehow pans out really nicely. It doesn't overstay it's welcome, clocking in at about only 27 minutes, but I don't think it needed to be any longer than that. The clear standout here is the absolutely stunning Lay Lady Lay which honestly might be my favorite track by Bob Dylan now. It's at least up there. The other highlight to me is the wonderful Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You, which is a great way to end off the record.

This album isn't about tackling hard social issues, it isn't about complex and introspective lyrics, it's just about having a great time and enjoying yourself, which can honestly be a nice change. I'm not going to pretend that this is Bob Dylan's best work because it obviously isn't, but is it fun and enjoyable? Absolutely. I'm really glad I discovered this release especially for tracks like Lay Lady Lay.

Oh and I almost forgot to mention, the quad mix. I'm usually not a fan of having the drums in somewhat weird places, like having one in the rear left and front right or the other way around, or just having them all in the rears, but I feel like putting the drums mostly into the rear right works well and somehow doesn't really feel unbalanced. I like how they used the rears for ambience with his voice, and for some reason i feel like that specifically adds quite a bit to the music here. Everything blends together nicely, and doesn't feel too discrete which is a more common problem i occasionally hear with quad.

I think I'll give this a 8/10 all around, mix, music and overall. Great release and I'm glad I got the chance to hear it.
 
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