Bob Dylan goes electric: May 17, 1966

image from musicqwest.com

“The most famous bootleg in rock history, with the possible exception of Dylan’s own Basement Tapes.” ^AMG This “is a great performance from one of the most important performers of our time.” ^NO The album didn’t receive an official release until 32 years later when it was released in 1998 as part of Dylan’s Bootleg Series. However, “Dylan's performance at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall on May 17, 1966 (and the bootlegs that followed) set the music world on its ear.” ^NO

The show is often misidentified as being at the Royal Albert Hall – hence the title in quotes on the official release. That show, on May 26, was one of the final shows from the same tour. “The one thing you can't argue is the significance of this tour; and more importantly, this particular show.” ^NO

The first half featured Dylan in a solo acoustic performance. “He was in fine form and turned in a gripping solo performance. The audience was ultra quiet during the seven songs. They had heard most of them several times before. It was familiar territory. They were comfortable.” ^NO

The second half, however, is electric set in which he is accompanied by The Hawks, who later became The Band. “The crowd had no idea that what they were about to experience would change the face of rock music as they knew it.” ^NO Dylan fans were dismayed by what they viewed as a betrayal of traditional folk music as evidenced by the legendary moment when a heckler yells “Judas!” Another man shouts, “I’m never listening to you again, ever!” to which Dylan responds, “I don’t believe you” and “You’re a liar.” Then either Dylan or guitarist Robbie Robertson can be heard instructing the band to “play it fucking loud.” ^WK “Drummer Mickey Jones slams his snare like his life depended on it, and they kick into the best version of Like a Rolling Stone you’ve ever heard.” ^NO Film footage of the incident was found and used in Martin Scorsese’s 2005 documentary No Direction Home.

The Famous Heckling Incident

Sometime in late 1970 or early 1971, the electric portion of the show started surfacing on bootleg LPs. Dave Marsh reviewed it in Creem magazine, calling it “the most supremely elegant piece of rock ‘n’ roll music I’ve ever heard.” ^WK All Music Guide’s Richie Unterberger called it “an important document of rock history. It captures…Dylan…at his most controversial and hard rocking.” ^AMG Critic Jon Landau notes “the booing, the names, the insults he endured just to be standing there with an electric band…The audience claps at the wrong time, claps rhythmically as if to deliberately throw his timing off.” ^WK

While the bootlegs focused on the electric set, the official package is a two-CD set which “not only includes the eight electric rock songs from the original bootleg, but also the seven solo acoustic performances that comprised the first half of the show.” ^AMG “The acoustic disc is not as epochal, but on par with the electric half in the quality of material and performance.” ^AMG “It’s all in very good fidelity, about as good as any copies you could find through unofficial sources.” ^AMG This isn’t “just an interesting adjunct to Dylan’s ‘60s discography; it’s as worthy of attention as anything else he recorded during that decade.” ^AMG “Even if you’re not a Dylan fan, this CD is an essential part of any collection.” ^NO

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Awards:

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Resources and Related Links:

• DMDB page for Live 1966: The “Royal Albert Hall” Concert
• Bob Dylan’s DMDB Music Maker Encyclopedia entry
• ^AMG All Music Guide review by Richie Unterberger
• ^NO TheNightOwl.com
• ^WK Wikipedia

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Lady Gaga hit #1 in U.S. with Born This Way album

Born This Way Lady Gaga

Released: May 23, 2011 Charted: June 18, 2011 Peak: 12 US, 13 UK, 11 CN, 12 AU Sales (in millions): 4.0 US, 1.05 UK, 8.0 world (includes US and UK) Genre: dance pop

Tracks: Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Marry the Night (6/11/11, 29 US, 14 RR, 27 A40, 16 UK, 11 CN, 88 AU) Born This Way (2/11/11, 1 US, 1 RR, 22 AC, 7 A40, 3 UK, 1 CN, 1 AU) Government Hooker Judas (4/15/11, 10 US, 15 RR, 40 A40, 8 UK, 8 CN, 6 AU) Americano Hair (5/28/11, 12 US, 13 UK, 11 CN, 20 AU) Scheiße Bloody Mary Bad Kids Highway Unicorn (Road to Love) Heavy Metal Lover Electric Chapel You and I (6/4/11, 6 US, 7 RR, 15 AC, 6 A40, 23 UK, 10 CN, 14 AU) The Edge of Glory (5/9/11, 3 US, 3 RR, 7 AC, 3 A40, 6 UK, 3 CN, 2 AU) Total Running Time: 61:07

Rating: 3.805 out of 5.00 (average of 34 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: With Born This Way, Lady Gaga nabbed her third consecutive Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, following The Fame in 2010 and The Fame Monster in 2011. The album was hotly anticipated and with more than a million sold in its first chart week in the U.S., it had the largest first-week sales for an album in five years. WK Internationally, it debuted in the top five in every major market. Born This Way “is a work of blessed bombast, all arena-size sonics and Springsteenian romanticism, complete with a Clarence Clemons sax solo.” RS’20 “’Over-the-top’ isn’t an insult in Gaga’s world; it’s a statement of purpose.” RS’20 That showed in some of the album reviews. NME’s Dan Martin said “Gaga doesn’t know when to hold back – and it’s a damn good thing.” WK Sal Cinquemani of Slant magazine called it “an exercise in extraordinary excess.” WK Spin said that “excess is Gaga’s riskiest musical gamble, but it’s also her greatest weapon.” WK Of course, all the reviews weren’t positive. All Music Guide’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said, “Lady Gaga has channeled her grand ambitions into her message, and not her music. Gaga has taken it upon herself to filter out whatever personal details remain in her songs so she can write anthems for her Little Monsters, that ragtag group of queers, misfits, outcasts, and rough kids who she calls her own.” AMG Her “ambition to marry rock & roll rebellion with her disco beats turns Born This Way into [Madonna’s] Like a Prayer by way of [Meat Loaf’s] Bat Out of Hell.” AMG Los Angeles Times’ Randall Roberts called it “unsubtle aesthetically” WK while The Washington Post’s Chris Richards said “it sounds like reheated leftovers from some ‘80s movie soundtrack.” WK The Independent said that “the broader she spreads her net musically, the less distinctive her art becomes.” WK However, the album was commonly commended for its variety of musical styles. While her earlier work consisted primarily of electropop, house music, and dance pop, Born This Way incorporated elements of opera, heavy metal, rock, Europop, new wave, and disco. WK Bloody Mary featured a male vocal choir while” AMG the “thumping, half-in-Spanish” RS’20 Government Hooker is “a synth-pop jam that includes a come-on on to John F. Kennedy.” RS’20 “Americano is a mariachi song using guitar and violin. Bad Kids sported electric guitar and a “metal-disco fusion” AMG while saxophone is featured in Hair and The Edge of Glory. WK The song Marry the Night, which “glistens with a neon pulse,” AMG “contains church bells, a thumping four on the floor house beat, [and] a funk rock-influenced breakdown.” WK You and I is a country-rock-flavored ballad which samples Queen’s “We Will Rock You” and even features Queen guitarist Brian May. WK Influences for the album included Madonna, Whitney Houston, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, Kiss, Pat Benatar, and Iron Maiden. WK Thematically, the album voiced strong messages about sexuality and feminism. It also referenced individualism, equality, and freedom. There are also references to notable figures from Christianity, most obviously in the song Judas. That song turns her earlier hit “Alejandro” “into towering gothic disco.” AMG The title song became the fastest-selling single in iTunes history WK and topped the charts in nineteen countries. WK It served up a message about how everyone is equal and should follow his or her dream and has “a giddiness to its self-importance.” AMG The “Eurobeat-based” WK “glam-slam title track became an LGBTQ anthem.” RS’20 It bore similarities to Madonna’s “Express Yourself” and has also been compared to German electronic band Kraftwerk. WK In the end, the album solidifies Gaga’s “standing as something of a pop visionary, although Gaga is a little bit too eager to embrace her role as messiah, letting her skills as a songwriter slide ever so slightly. Gaga’s true gift is her considerable dexterity at delivering the basics. Unlike so many of her peers, she does not cut and paste her tracks digitally, she constructs from the chords up, then accessorizes at will. She doesn’t abandon this sensibility on Born This Way, but she does take it for granted, never pushing her compositions or productions into unpredictable territory.” AMG “This is an album that’s meant to be more: it’s intended to be a soundtrack to a way of life, but it winds up playing as a collection of songs.” AMG

Resources and Related Links: AMG Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide RS’20 Rolling Stone (9/22/2020). “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” WK Wikipedia Other Related DMDB Pages: First posted 12/3/2011; last updated 4/27/2022.