Masked And Anonymous: Music From The Motion Picture Soundtrack

This collection is an exercise in frustration. The soundtrack to the film Masked and Anonymous--a bizarre and surreal mirror held up to contemporary America and starring Bob Dylan as himself by another name--features covers in various languages of Dylan classics. Some of these work (though I still question needing a cover from both the Grateful Dead and The Jerry Garcia Band), but a lot of them lose their impact when you can't understand what's being sung.

The larger frustration, though, lies in the fact that several songs featured in the film ("Blind Willie McTell," a reworking of "I'll Remember You," and a gorgeous Gospel-style a capella version of "The Times They are A'Changin'") are totally absent from this collection. The liner notes mention that Dylan and his band recorded 8 new songs for the movie's soundtrack, but only four of these are included here. It seems downright absurd to record new songs (or even new versions of old songs) and not include them here, but give us a rap version of "Like a Rolling Stone" (and in Italian, of all things).

Admittedly, some of the covers work quite well, especially Los Lobos' bilingual version of "On a Night Like This" and Jerry Garcia's "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)." The real strong point of this record is that it features lesser-known Dylan tracks rather than just the old warhorses. Admittedly, some of the warhorses do make an appearance--the aforementioned "Like a Rolling Stone" and a Japanese version of "My Back Pages"--but you've got some more obscure tracks to balance it out. Dylan's own contributions are quite good, including a nice reworking of "Down in the Flood" and a completely different "Diamond Joe" (which is totally unrelated to the song of the same name on Good as I've Been to You). "Dixie" is a neat reading of a traditional standard, while "Cold Irons Bound" isn't really all that different from the studio version from Time Out of Mind.

What remains is a song by The Dixie Hummingbirds, "City of Gold." It's a previously-unreleased Dylan tune, never even recorded by the man himself, and it's a solid way to round out the album. Too bad you have to wade through so much muck to get to the end. With a little editing and better song selection, this could have been a fantastic soundtrack to a weird little film.

~chuck

Song of the Moment: Bob Dylan, "Dixie"