Shadow Kingdom

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The album's cover photograph is a black-and-white still image of Bob Dylan playing the harmonica taken from the film Shadow Kingdom: The Early Songs of Bob Dylan, directed by Alma Har'el and shot by Lol Crawley. It has an interesting track list, Now do I hate it 'No' he's made worse studio albums but I certainly don't love or dig it as he's made studio albums on completely different levels. A livestream designed to be ephemeral, to disappear like the smoke from all those cigarettes after a couple of days. It’s a dream Dylan destination, but it’s one which is, as per his Philosophy, “of a time but also timeless”.

The album was preceded by a single for " Watching the River Flow", which was released on streaming platforms and as a YouTube video on April 13, 2023. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Shadow Kingdom presents Dylan performing revelatory 21st century versions of songs from his storied back catalogue – including fan favourites like “Forever Young” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” and deep catalogue gems like “Queen Jane Approximately” and “Wicked Messenger.

In 1962, however, a Bon Bon “supper club” in Philadelphia was the subject of a court case with Pat Lynn Hackett, a folk singer, accusing the owners of racketeering. Although no musicians are listed in the credits, various sources have identified the session players as consisting of veterans such as T Bone Burnett and Don Was. Shadow Kingdom the album, then, turns out to be an extremely useful addition to the Dylan catalogue, and very much of a piece with his current manoeuvres. A location shrouded in enigma and subterfuge (a Santa Monica soundstage being somewhat less romantic).

I don't quite know what this album is about other than it was some project that Dylan worked on last year, and I don't know what the musical interlude between each song is about.As well as appearing on More greatest hits, it was a rare and unfairly overlooked single, with Spanish is the loving tongue on the B side.

Directed by Israeli-American filmmaker Alma Har'el, it was shot on a soundstage in Santa Monica, California over seven days in 2021 while Dylan was sidelined from his Never Ending Tour due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Tim Cumming, writing at The Arts Desk, noted that the "best song performances – " Queen Jane Approximately", " Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" and " Tombstone Blues" from Highway 61, a poignant " Forever Young" and a killer version of "What Was it you Wanted", one I may never hear bettered – make this required listening when it comes to later-period Bob, a rare look back in studio conditions, and from a high point in his career". At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional critics, the album received an average score of 84 based on 13 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". Bauer also claimed that the album "stands as a good retort for all the naysayers who have argued, seemingly from day one, that Dylan can't sing. The album’s setlist includes 13 original songs handpicked by Dylan for his Shadow Kingdom performance plus the closing instrumental, “ Sierra’s Theme.Musicians were listed at the end of the livestream – among them Shahzad Ismaily on accordion, and Big Thief’s Buck Meek, though none of Dylan’s road band – but aren’t mentioned in the album credits. Uncut's Damien Love also invoked the work of Lynch, describing Shadow Kingdom as "deeply-felt surrealist-noir-Americana", as well as the paintings in Dylan's own "Beaten Path" series ("a handmade place of lost highways and forgotten barrooms and city lights in smeary rain; of lonely drive-in movie lots and funky diners and juke joints that all seem to float in some unfixed time that could be anywhere from the early-1930s to early tomorrow morning") and the Depression-era boarding-house setting of Conor McPherson's musical play Girl from the North Country. It’s particularly impressive on What Was It You Wanted, a cut from 1989’s Oh Mercy that doesn’t seem especially ‘Early’ until you realise it was recorded 27 years into Dylan’s career, and that 34 years have subsequently elapsed. Originally reinterpreted for an exclusive streaming film event, which aired in July 2021, Shadow Kingdom is now available on vinyl and CD for the first time.

Shadow Kingdom debuted at number 71 on the Billboard 200 but was the seventh best-selling album in the US during its first week of release based on pure album sales. Bizarrely the band are all wearing masks on the inner gatefold and there is no insert or sleeve credits.from 1989's Oh Mercy favourite tracks include Queen Jane Approximately, Most Likely You Go Your Way [ And I'll Go Mine], When I Paint My Masterpiece and Watching The River Flow.