Playtime deluxe

[Rail King]

I can think in many many many better songwriters than him, well, I might correct, some better, some equal, and lot of them different.

Let´s say, just for a start, Bob Dylan, Leonhard Cohen, Paul Simon... the list is endless.

I disagree mightily. These are great songwriters, no doubt, but better than Mark? No. Not musically, and not lyrically, either.

That said, of course calling someone "better" or "best" will always be a totally subjective statement. How do you measure that? Number of notes per minute? Number of rarely used words? Number of unusual chord changes? Even bringing "relevance" into play won't help. What's relevance? Number of records sold? Number of cover versions? Number of other artists quoting you as an influence? Number of tears shed while listening to your songs? Measuring that is impossible, and it won't get you anywhere. You can't "prove" greatness.

I think Mark's ability to combine compositional, technical and lyrical skills is unmatched - that's what makes him stand out, just as you described it, Superval99 - but if you value something else higher (energy, for instance, à la Springsteen, or originality, à la Dylan), then you'll prefer these artists, naturally.

Let's agree that they're all geniuses, shall we?   

[dmg]

Relevance seems to be the key word. And relevance to the world and to history, not only to fans.
What a Wonderful World will stay forever, Yesterday will, Smells Like Teen Spirit is relevant for a whole decade, too. In that department, I am afraid MK has not written one relevant song in his life. Sultans got references by very first critics that it had a "Dylanesque voice and a J.J. Cale sounding guitar".., Money For Nothing is famous for being played as first song on MTV Europe and because Sting sings on it. Ask a person from the street (no fan) to quote a couple of lines from a Mark Knopfler song. The answer will be "Mark who?".

Not that I care about that. Gives me the feeling more that he writes especially for me. I know that his writing is excellent and that he is a wordsmith and a man of words. But relevant in any form? No.

LE

Very true words but an explanation may be in the low-key manner in which he keeps himself and the very little promotion he does.  Where other artists are out there self-promoting or perhaps misbehaving and getting attention for it, Mark is just at home penning his next song.

We can all quote a Britney Spears song but it doesn't make it brilliantly written.  Quote me baby one more time!

[Stanko]

Relevance seems to be the key word. And relevance to the world and to history, not only to fans.
What a Wonderful World will stay forever, Yesterday will, Smells Like Teen Spirit is relevant for a whole decade, too. In that department, I am afraid MK has not written one relevant song in his life. Sultans got references by very first critics that it had a "Dylanesque voice and a J.J. Cale sounding guitar".., Money For Nothing is famous for being played as first song on MTV Europe and because Sting sings on it. Ask a person from the street (no fan) to quote a couple of lines from a Mark Knopfler song. The answer will be "Mark who?".

Not that I care about that. Gives me the feeling more that he writes especially for me. I know that his writing is excellent and that he is a wordsmith and a man of words. But relevant in any form? No.

LE

Very true words but an explanation may be in the low-key manner in which he keeps himself and the very little promotion he does.  Where other artists are out there self-promoting or perhaps misbehaving and getting attention for it, Mark is just at home penning his next song.

We can all quote a Britney Spears song but it doesn't make it brilliantly written.  Quote me baby one more time!

Yes, just the another thing amongst the others that distinct him from the others!

[vgonis]

A pleasant surprise, although it reminds me of a swinging Further on up the road. I would really love if MK could be a bit more playful and experimental like this here gentleman, that someone mentioned a few posts before:https://youtu.be/okaqXB6Ns5s   I heard this one on the radio and he had me with just two words, with just the sound behind him.
And this one as well
 

[twm]

Regarding "Mr Bob" and his first show in Russia that was mentioned earlier (the one in St Petersburg on 3 June 2008), this is from an on-line review (I have emphasised the final words):

I wont mention every song played but the first thrill for me was the 'new' Tangled. A sort of Bluegrass swing to it. better than the Helsinki version I thought. Bob sang the the new line "He drifted down to New Orleans ... lucky to be employed..THREE TIMES ON A SAILING BOAT..THREE TIMES IT WAS DESTROYED. Wonderful! Levee was excellent. The band really went for it and Bob was throwing some serious shapes! John Brown was as haunting as ever. Every word sang crystal clear. Honest With Me is rockier than ever. George was pounding the drums so hard I thought he would disappear through the stage floor in a puff of smoke. Just Like a Woman was another high light. Lovely harp from Bob.Crowd kept singing chorus line throughout Its Alright Ma sounded fresh and new Working Mans Blues and Aint Talkin deserve a special mention. I think these two songs are up there with the best of Bobs forty odd year output of great songs. Both were fabulous tonight. Thunder on the Mountain and Like a Rolling Stone ended what was a magical and historic night in St Petersburg. I dont know how many people were at the show but it was like a club show in a biggish venue. The Russian crowd were great, cheering and dancing at the intro to each song. Especially the very pretty Russian girl with black hair and sunglasses on her head beside me who was extremely enthusiastic!

Whatever the size of the audience, those attending obviously felt it was a good show. Dylan played 17 songs, 8 of them different from the preceding show and 4 of them for the first time on that European tour which had started in Iceland on 26 May.

I should add, by way of balance, that I attended the following night's show (Tallin in Estonia  on 4 June 2008) and it is not one of my better memories of Mr Bob's concerts but, again, the on-line reviews that I have read were very positive.  Again, he played 17 songs, 9 being different from the St Petersburg show and 1 new to that 2008 European tour (a song he hadn't played live since 2005).

The Tallin venue (a basketball arena) holds 7200 for the sports games and about 10,000 for concerts  and, as far as I could see, was pretty full - I saw no empty seats and the ground floor (standing only) seemed packed.  In contrast, the Ice Palace in St Petersburg (an ice hockey arena) has capacity of 12,300 for the sports and, while there appears to be no official capacity figure for concerts, I would guess something like 17,500 (maybe more).  In respect of that St Petersburg show, I would therefore suggest that it was the  local Russian promoter who got it wrong by choosing that venue for the show. 

Incidentally, though St Petersburg was Dylan's first concert in Russia, he was invited there in July 1985 by the Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and, unannounced, played three songs (solo acoustic) at Luzhniki Sports Complex in Moscow. This suggests to me that there are some people in Russia who appreciate his words.

[quizzaciously]

Regarding "Mr Bob" and his first show in Russia that was mentioned earlier (the one in St Petersburg on 3 June 2008), this is from an on-line review (I have emphasised the final words):

I wont mention every song played but the first thrill for me was the 'new' Tangled. A sort of Bluegrass swing to it. better than the Helsinki version I thought. Bob sang the the new line "He drifted down to New Orleans ... lucky to be employed..THREE TIMES ON A SAILING BOAT..THREE TIMES IT WAS DESTROYED. Wonderful! Levee was excellent. The band really went for it and Bob was throwing some serious shapes! John Brown was as haunting as ever. Every word sang crystal clear. Honest With Me is rockier than ever. George was pounding the drums so hard I thought he would disappear through the stage floor in a puff of smoke. Just Like a Woman was another high light. Lovely harp from Bob.Crowd kept singing chorus line throughout Its Alright Ma sounded fresh and new Working Mans Blues and Aint Talkin deserve a special mention. I think these two songs are up there with the best of Bobs forty odd year output of great songs. Both were fabulous tonight. Thunder on the Mountain and Like a Rolling Stone ended what was a magical and historic night in St Petersburg. I dont know how many people were at the show but it was like a club show in a biggish venue. The Russian crowd were great, cheering and dancing at the intro to each song. Especially the very pretty Russian girl with black hair and sunglasses on her head beside me who was extremely enthusiastic!

Whatever the size of the audience, those attending obviously felt it was a good show. Dylan played 17 songs, 8 of them different from the preceding show and 4 of them for the first time on that European tour which had started in Iceland on 26 May.

I should add, by way of balance, that I attended the following night's show (Tallin in Estonia  on 4 June 2008) and it is not one of my better memories of Mr Bob's concerts but, again, the on-line reviews that I have read were very positive.  Again, he played 17 songs, 9 being different from the St Petersburg show and 1 new to that 2008 European tour (a song he hadn't played live since 2005).

The Tallin venue (a basketball arena) holds 7200 for the sports games and about 10,000 for concerts  and, as far as I could see, was pretty full - I saw no empty seats and the ground floor (standing only) seemed packed.  In contrast, the Ice Palace in St Petersburg (an ice hockey arena) has capacity of 12,300 for the sports and, while there appears to be no official capacity figure for concerts, I would guess something like 17,500 (maybe more).  In respect of that St Petersburg show, I would therefore suggest that it was the  local Russian promoter who got it wrong by choosing that venue for the show. 

Incidentally, though St Petersburg was Dylan's first concert in Russia, he was invited there in July 1985 by the Russian poet, Yevgeny Yevtushenko and, unannounced, played three songs (solo acoustic) at Luzhniki Sports Complex in Moscow. This suggests to me that there are some people in Russia who appreciate his words.

Thank you for following the thread so closely.

Yes, the Ice Hockey Arena in Saint Petersburg is huge, I even worked there as a FOH engineer, the cool thing is that it has a direct way from the scene to the garage so when Mark was playing there, I think he was on his way to airport when the band was still playing last chords on stage LOL. You can vanish from there in a matter of seconds.

Yes, Mark played the same venue twice, in 2005 and in 2008, like Bob did and there was like 3 of 4 times more people on Mark's show than on Bob Dylan's show. Yes, organising and promotion was awful and the venue was bad. In fact, this hockey field is one of the worst venues in town regarding acoustics, after all it was built for sports. I can't get it.

We have a dedicated concert hall where Mark played in 2001, but for some reason all the big shots are going to play this hockey ring nowadays. There are some people who love Bob Dylan indeed, but Yevgeny Yevtushenko actually an American resident of Bob's hometown for years, so you can imagine why he's so enthusiastic about him. And also Yevgeny Yevtushenko have some great songs with the music written by other people and our girls are pretty, too, it often can lead you off from many things

[twm]

Yevtushenko is an academic as well as being a poet and has worked in a number of U.S. colleges and universities. I'm not sure which you regard as Dylan's "hometown". 

Yevtushenko's  links with the world beyond Russia go back a long way. He was certainly travelling abroad in the early 1960s. I seem to recall that he was in Cuba at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis in late 1962.

I think the earliest published translation of Yevtushenko into English was in 1962 in the Penguin Modern European Poets series, "Yevtushenko - Selected Poems". My own copy is dated 1967, the fourth reprinting of the book by Penguin in five years, which must be some measure of his popularity amongst English readers.

Yevtushenko was being linked with Dylan as far back as 1963. "Mr Dylan's compositions don't fit into any pigeon-hole; the minute you have one characterized, it flies away. His lyrics mix a solo sermon out of Guthrie's conversational folksay with a dash of Rimbaud's demonic imagery or even a bit of Yevtushenko's social criticism" (Robert Shelton, NEW YORK TIMES, 13 April 1963).  This was before Dylan's second album, THE FREEWHEELIN' BOB DYLAN, had been released. The Shelton article prompted a short essay entitled, "Yevtushenko, Lorca and Bob Dylan" in one of the folk magazines (Josh Dunson, BROADSIDE # 27, June 1963).

During Dylan's 1985 visit to Russia, he went down to Odessa, from which members of his own family had emigrated many years before. There was also talk once of a couple of shows to be set up in Leningrad but nothing came of it.

Dire Straits' record sales were immense for certain, fairly extended periods of time (and this brought about sold out concerts all over the world). Dylan has been a different sort of performer and creator: his albums tend to sell well on release and then sales fall away - but he has recorded dozens and dozens of albums and written hundreds and hundreds of songs. So much material has been recorded, not released at the time but subsequently officially released that he probably has more albums of this older material now officially released than Dire Straits, the Hillbillies and solo Mark Knopfler between them have albums released in total. 

After all, just one of the BOOTLEG SERIES albums (last year's CUTTING EDGE) contained 18 CDs and this year's LIVE 1966 box set contains 36 CDs, so that's 54 CDs-worth of (admittedly older) recordings released in just the last year or so.  Next year, we are told that there will a release of material from his "Gospel Years" - 1979 to 1981.

As well as his own songs, he has performed and/or recorded hundreds of songs written by others. There is a book on the subject and it runs to over 400 pages! It was written 2008 and the subject probably deserves a follow-up book.

As well as recording, Dylan has been an active performer. Dylan's St Petersburg show in 2008 was his 2037th since the start of the so-called Never-Ending Tour in the middle of 1988.  Since then, Dylan has performed another (roughly) 700 concerts. None of these figures include all those shows he performed between 1961 and 1987.

In addition to all this, he has written books, made films, exhibited at art galleries (paintings and metal sculptures), been the subject of several documentaries, received many public awards, including most recently, the Nobel Literature Prize, and so it goes on.

Believe me, I'm not trying to put MK or his works down; I'm only trying to say that you are not comparing like with like.

[quizzaciously]

I'm sorry, for "hometown" I meant the place where his Archive was placed, could it count for hometown? Important place so to speak.
Thank you for this deep analysis, I'm actually going to re-read this many times because you provided a lot of useful information here.

[twm]

Ah, you meant Tulsa. Dylan has no real links with Tulsa to the best of my  knowledge.

If Yevtushenko is based there, he will have a good opportunity to see the material in the Dylan archive. Sadly, for me, that is a long (and expensive) journey.

When I was young, there was a song entitled "Only 24 hours from Tulsa" (a UK hit for Gene Pitney) - it has an ironic resonance for me these days.

[Love Expresso]

Don't see a connection with the song Playtime Deluxe though which is the topic of this thread.
 
LE

[twm]

Sometimes threads go off at a tangent. That's the nature of the beast - as we say in the UK.

Another saying, less common, goes something like this - "He who rides the wild tiger cannot easily dismount". 

Sorry if going off-topic offends but I was just following up comments made earlier.

And I did make comments re "Playtime Deluxe" itself earlier.

[Love Expresso]

Of course. Just wanted to have mentioned it. 

LE

[ds1984]

Of course. Just wanted to have mentioned it. 

LE

Same for me. 

[twm]

Not seeking to "offend" further but, in respect of Gene Pitney, have you ever noticed that, apart from a few songs ("24 Hours From Tulsa" being one of them"), his U.S. hits were not hits in the U.K. and his U.K. hits were not hits in the U.S.A. !!!!   [In this instance, I'm defining "hit" as Top 20]

Town Without Pity, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Only Love Can Break A Heart, Half Heaven Half Heartache, and Mecca - all US top twenty hits but not top twenty in the UK. Then came "24 Hours From Tulsa", top twenty both sides of the Atlantic. Next: That Girl Belongs to Yesterday, UK hit (not USA). Next again: It Hurts To Be In Love, US hit (not UK).  Late 1964 - I'm Going To Be Strong - a hit in both USA and UK.  Then the pattern starts again. Two different songs were in the UK and USA top twenties in June and July 1965. Then from late 1965 through to May 1968, he had only UK hits ( 5 in the Top Twenty) before a different song became a US top twenty hit in mid-1968.

This little story will have undoubtedly bored you but it really was quite remarkable. And, just to add an ironic twist, all these Gene Pitney hits were on the Stateside label in the UK!  [While in the States - stateside, as we sometimes say - Gene Pitney was on the Musicor label]

The musicbiz can be quirky and cruel at times.

[jbaent]

Looks like in this song only one of the drummers is playing, but cannot see if it's Henry Spinetti or Graham Broad...