302 - Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP

I'm annoyed, so this will be a quick review. I could have sworn that I did this entry already. I took my sweet time listening to The Marshall Mathers LP looking for things to like and to formulate a good idea on what exactly I don't like about Eminem. But those notes are now gone, lost to the trash since I thought I had already done this post.

So, I will leave a quick and dirty entry here instead. I don't care for Eminem. This album didn't change my opinion. I dislike rappers that scream at you and that is what Eminem does all. the. time.

I have no interest in having a voyeuristic peek into the depraved mind of these characters on the album. These characters (whether faked or an alteration of Eminem's bio) are so off my mindset that I just don't understand their mentality and have no interest in investing my time to understand what makes them tick.

Why invest myself into Stan? Yeah, it is sad he killed his girlfriend, but I don't have any reason to sympathize with him or the story presented in the song. I nearly passed out from excessive eye-rolling each time I reached the end of "Stan" and heard Eminem unemotionally "realize" that the story he heard was actually Stan. Oh, please.

I'll skip the usual fields at the bottom because I don't have the sheet I jotted this on and have no interest in listening to the album again to refresh my memory.

301 - Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding

It's Bob Dylan's version of country! Um, well, other than some instrumentation, I didn't find it all that different from what I'm familiar with of Dylan's work. I certainly did not listen to his album in the way people did when it originally came out. There is no transition I'm having to make from the electric sound of Blonde on Blonde to John Wesley Harding. To me, a Dylan newb, it is just a slightly twangier version of him...and includes noticeable Biblical references.

I have to say that the album wasn't as painful as I feared. One thing about Dylan that I don't care for did jump out to me. Previously, I've listened to latter-day Dylan for this list. In the later recordings, Dylan wasn't partnered with a harmonica. The mouth harp is on full display here...and I hate it so much. I've cheered John Popper's complaints about the praise that Dylan has received for his harmonica playing. I don't doubt that Dylan followed some sort of folk tradition of sloppy harp playing, but it is not a method of playing the instrument that I care for. Replacing the sloppy harp with psychedelic guitars is definitely the way to go. The only thing worse than the original version of "All Along the Watchtower" is XTC's cover of it.

Songs I knew I liked: None

Songs I didn't know but now like: "As I Went Out One Morning" and "Dear Landlord"

Songs I can go the rest of my life without hearing again: "The Ballad of Frankie Lee" - OH, all of the alliterative word play! *cringe*