Bob Dylan 31: Knocked Out Loaded

After playing Farm Aid with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and taking that band on a tour of the Far East, we hoped Bob would capitalize on the momentum and put out an album sure to deliver the same punch and wild mercury of Blonde On Blonde. In fact, based on a Rolling Stone article written by Mikal Gilmore and published shortly before the album’s release, Bob and the Heartbreakers were busy in the studio, recording hours of inspired material, bursting with promise and potential—a view Mr. Gilmore maintains to this day.

Despite all that, Bob apparently hadn’t written any songs worth keeping, and instead cobbled together Knocked Out Loaded, a hodgepodge of recordings from the recent past and present, making for something of a cross between Self Portrait and Dylan. (That’s not meant in a good way.) The only cohesiveness comes from the Queens of Rhythm, consisting of four to six female vocalists, slathered over each track, along with way too much reverb.

The opener “You Wanna Ramble” isn’t that adventurous for R&B. “They Killed Him” is a Kris Kristofferson cover (not a good sign), something of a rewrite of “Abraham, Martin & John”, and just when you think it can’t get any worse, it includes a children’s choir. “Driftin’ Too Far From Shore” is a cheesy remix of a synth track left off the previous album, “Precious Memories” is an old hymn that might have been a nice idea, but it’s torpedoed by a steel drum solo, and “Maybe Someday” is another noisy synth track that takes too long to end.

The second side would seem to show some promise, as it consists of three songwriting collaborations with three distinct collaborators, in order: playwright Sam Shepard, rocker Tom Petty, and MOR legend Carole Bayer Sager. At eleven minutes, “Brownsville Girl” is the long-awaited, highly touted epic, but you’re likely to get stuck trying to follow along with the story amidst all the slushy echo and Queens of Rhythm. (We wondered if Gregory Peck himself had ever sat through it; apparently he did, and wrote that he was both “pleased” and “honored”.) “Got My Mind Made Up” is the only true Heartbreakers track here, and a letdown; it’s too bad he couldn’t have included “Band Of The Hand”, released earlier that year for the movie of the same name nobody saw. The album finally ends with the comparatively pleasant “Under Your Spell”, but it only succeeds in the face of everything that has gone before.

Ultimately, the effect of the album was summed up by the cover art, with the listener identifying with either the bandito or the guy being strangled. Knocked Out Loaded was product, plain and simple, put out while Bob and the Heartbreakers (and the Queens of Rhythm, naturally) toured America. (Only two of the album’s songs were tried on the tour, and only once each.) It was hard to feel spoiled by such traffic on the shelves when the albums weren’t worth the plastic they were printed on. For all the pre-hype of recordings with the Heartbreakers, this one just plain hurt.

Bob Dylan Knocked Out Loaded (1986)—1½