I disagree. Obviously, Precious Voice from Heaven isn't a new classic like Telegraph Road, but it is way, way better than most of DTRW, which I personally think it is the weakest MK or DS album by far. Leaving this song and Pale Imitation out of that record is the single most absurd piece of decision-making since Dylan left Blind Williw McTell out of Infidels
I was underwhelmed with Down The Road Wherever. That being said, I think 'Drover's Road' was a fantastic song, as is 'Sky and Water', how they were bonus tracks while songs like 'My Bacon Roll', and 'Heavy Up', made the cut Mark only knows. Perhaps he felt he had covered that territory before. I enjoy 'Trapper Man', 'One Song At A Time', and 'Good On You Son' too, but I skip the rest of the album.
There is no album in MK history as bad as DTRW. Half baked ideas, reusing of melodies, way too many fillers, no excitement at all. Like yourself, I like Drovers Road, Floating Away and One Song at a Time, but that's about it from the demented official tracklist. Heavy Up and Nobody Does That are pure, quintaessential, very poor and bland nonsense which go nowhere for way too long time; the Junkie Doll-You'll never Walk Alone mixture is just lazy; Matchstick Man is weak storytelling with a melody fully self-stolen from the amazing, hugely superior Heart of Oak; Back on the dance floor reuses Terminal of Tribute To for the verse and steals the chorus from The Letter, the great Box Tops song. And the rest is forgettable at best. Amazingly, I like very much almost all the excluded material.
For me, DTRW is far better than Tracker, that is full of endless songs where nothing happens during the last 2 or 3 minutes of almost every saong, which are repetitive and boring.
DTRW is very varied and has a lot of interesting new things that are not in previous MK records, also is a record that only features the folkies in two songs, which is rare, and also has women chorus and brass, which also new on MK record.
I keep reading this argument from you about Tracker... I understand what you mean, but I think you completely missed the point of the album.
Tracker was special because it was the first album where Mark started reflecting about time, his life and his past. Probably because he was 65 back then.
But you can feel that theme, if you like, througout the album, of dealing with the passage of time and tracking himself back in both space and time, as he himself said. That's why songs like Long Cool Girl or Silver Eagle have long repetitive outros, it's him thinking about his life and past through the melody. And it's why I also love these songs so much, they would lose the magic if they had a random solo in them.