Planet Waves

Description

Chart-Topping 1974 Record Reunites Dylan With the Band: Interplay Alone Worth Experiencing Set in Highest-Possible Fidelity

Mastered from the Original Master Tapes: Mobile Fidelity Version Brings Underrated Gem to Fullest Light With Warm, Revealing Sound

Edgy Personal Album Captures Legendary Artist Straddling Line Between Romance and Suspicion: Includes Beloved Favourites Forever Young and You Angel You

Bob Dylans Planet Waves became an event even before the album was released and revealed itself as an understated masterwork. His first studio recording in nearly four years, the homespun 1974 effort finds him reuniting with the Band, by then firmly established as virtuosos. The chemistry is obvious on every song. And the modest and spare production only magnifies the honesty and purity of the collaboration. Mobile Fidelitys 180g LP deepens the musics emotional connection and rustic warmth to the fullest possible extent.

Mastered from the original master tapes, this collectable audiophile edition brings to the surface the communal interplay and warm, relaxed vibe established by Dylan and the Band. Listeners will finally sense the sensitive tones made possible by the ensembles laid back nature and watertight playing. The deep body of Richard Manuels piano, pinpoint decay of Garth Hudsons organ, and clarity of Dylans vocals emerge with new perspective. As a result, Planet Waves leaps from the background of Dylans catalogue into the fore, the revelatory sonics helping earn the record serious consideration as one of the Bards finest.

Recorded in just three days time, Planet Waves is at its core an exhibition of the inimitable folk-rock honed by Dylan and the Band. Recalling the Americana spirit of The Basement Tapes while adding a domesticated edginess and subtracting a degree of wildness, the set personifies simple charm and scraggly sweetness. Couched in the context of Dylan grappling with the chasm between family life and the road, Planet Waves fittingly encompasses myriad moods and contradictions, with tunes ranging from unquestionably devotional to overtly dark. In between, the singer attempts to navigate peace, catharsis, and resolve.

Per Dylans hallmark, many tunes on Planet Waves involve twists and subterfuge. Not, however, the best-known offeringsthe often-covered wish Forever Young, celebratory roll-and-tumble On a Night Like This, devotional You Angel You, which spark with love, romance, and prayer-like tenderness. Yet the seeds that blossomed into 1975s traumatic break-up album Blood on the Tracks are also planted here. Complex feelings and deep-seated personal confusion surface on Wedding Song, the hard scrabble Tough Mama, piano-centered Dirge, and knocking-on-heavens-door darkness of Going, Going, Gone.

Throughout, Dylans voice supplies subtle hints about his mindset and intent as the Band shadows him step for step, adding to the thematic ambivalence and contributing to a debate over meaning that continues today. Indeed, such relevance confirms the significance of Planet Waves 40 years after its original release. Mobile Fidelitys analogue version digs beneath the surface and helps expose the records buried strains.