Grateful Dead 20: Built To Last

In the late ‘80s the Dead were arguably bigger than they’d ever been, and largely hadn’t changed much of their business plan in the decades thus far. So when they decided to record a follow-up to their smash hit of two years before, they didn’t dip into the well that had built up over the previous gap between studio projects. Built To Last consisted of songs that had been written since that last album and, in keeping with tradition, were subject to questionable mixing that didn’t do them any favors. Part of the problem was the embracing of MIDI technology, which combined with synthesizers for a very cold, non-organic sound. Also, for the first time Brent Mydland’s songs outnumbered both Bob Weir’s and Jerry Garcia’s, and one of our favorites, “Don’t Need Love”, wasn’t among them.

Confusing things quite a bit, the cassette and CD versions of the album had an extra track not on the LP, and all three running orders were different. Now that the CD has become standard, that’s the sequence we’re going to explore here, and frankly, it’s the one that works best.

“Foolish Heart” was the first single, and more enjoyable than the production would suggest. Even with that, it sets a low bar the rest of the album doesn’t always meet. To wit: Brent’s “Just A Little Light” is just a little too adult contemporary, not helped by a vocal that resembles that of Dan Hill. A raspy Jerry sings the title track, something of a continuation of the theme of “Touch Of Grey”, but it works. “Blow Away” is a better Brent song, with a cool hook on the keyboards and guitars that complement the vocal well. Bob finally turns up with “Victim Or The Crime”, written with the guy probably best known for playing Beef in Phantom Of The Paradise. This one is tough to unpack, as the last half is slathered with effects too cliché for an album released on Halloween, but there’s a good song in there somewhere.

“We Can Run” was left off the vinyl version, which is mind-boggling because it’s not only one of the better songs here, and it’s one of Brent’s. Jerry (with Robert Hunter) goes three-for-three with “Standing On The Moon”, an affecting meditation on humanity, history, and legacy. While it only follows on the CD, the placement of “Picasso Moon”—another challenging Bob construction—is odd. Interestingly, both of Bob’s songs here seem patterned on his winning pair on the last album, and pale in comparison. And while “I Will Take You Home” is a lovely sentimental lullaby, the windup music box theme and fake strings jar with the rest of the album. It does not belong here.

Save the occasions where they simply played—Workingman’s Dead, American Beauty, even In The Dark—the band clearly never learned how to work in the studio. Certainly from the ‘70s on, “production” just didn’t work for them. But that didn’t matter. They promoted Built To Last by going on tour like they always did, where the songs breathed and sounded better. There was, however, a unique promotion in the form of Dead In A Deck, which packaged your choice of the album on CD or cassette with official Dead-branded playing cards. And as it turned out, this was the last studio album they would complete. (Rather than provide a peek into the recording sessions, the bonuses on the later expanded CD were all live tracks: twelve-minute takes on “Blow Away” with an extended rap and an off-pitch “Foolish Heart”, and a cover of Rodney Crowell’s “California Earthquake”.)

Grateful Dead Built To Last (1989)—3
1989 CD: same as 1989, plus 1 extra track
2006 expanded CD: same as 1989 CD, plus 3 extra tracks