Oh Mercy

Bob Dylan | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 12, 1989)
• Original Release Date: September 19, 1989
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Sony
• ASIN: B0000026UL
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,126 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Political World

2. Where Teardrops Fall

3. Everything Is Broken

4. Ring Them Bells

5. Man in the Long Black Coat

6. Most of the Time

7. What Good Am I?

8. Disease of Conceit

9. What Was It You Wanted

10. Shooting Star

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The '80s was a particularly shifting, uncertain decade for Bob Dylan's creative voice. But he capped it off with his first album of all-original material in several years and his best since Infidels. A lot of the credit for Oh Mercy's distinctive appeal has been given to producer-musician Daniel Lanois (who backs Dylan on all but one cut), and there's no denying the effect of his magnetic, fog-thick sound sculpturing here. Overlays of lap steel, dobro, and mercy keys along with a slithering subterranean bass evoke a complete sonic climate, and the synergy between Lanois and Dylan would have a huge payoff with 1997's devastating Time Out of Mind. But however tightly produced, Oh Mercy also displays Dylan at the peak of his songwriting craft, fracturing words and phrases for the things-fall-apart jeremiads of "Political World" and "Everything Is Broken" and stringing images together for the noirish ballad "Man in the Long Black Coat." There's the usual dichotomy between Dylan's slashing accusatory mode ("What Was It You Wanted") and the self-effacement of "What Good Am I?" Aside from the miscalculated, sappy "Where Teardrops Fall" (the disc's sore thumb), this album has the classic staying power of Dylan's finest efforts. --Thomas May

Product Description

Japanese remastered reissue packaged in a limited edition miniature LP sleeve. CBS/Sony. 2004. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

39 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Haunting, mood evoking sound, December 28, 2004

By 

R. J. Marsella (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Oh Mercy (Reis) (Audio CD)

Somehow I had always overlooked this cd until I read Dylan's Chronicles book. In it he describes the sessions in New Orleans that resulted in this recording and I was intrigued since I could tell that Dylan was clearly pleased with this work. Well, the cd does not disappoint. Dylan's songs are solid with a couple of real standouts including Man in the Long Black Coat , Most Of The Time and What Good Am I. The sound mix is really something with the really moody echo/phaser effect on the guitars and when Dylan blows his harmonica,though sparingly, it cuts like a knife. This may not be on the same plane as some of his masterpieces lyrically but man the sound just knocks me out.

43 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nobody Else Will Say It - Let Alone Sing It Like Dylan, October 18, 2005

By 

Katherine Graham "Katherine Graham" (Sparta, NC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Oh Mercy (Reis) (Audio CD)

Being the Mom of a Deaf kid, when I heard "Ring Them Bells" from Bob Dylan, I could not believe that there was anyone of his stature in music who cared...about the rejected in society (including many of "the normals") who don't even know that they are being used and rejected as well. But there was so much more to inspire this woman: "Political World" and "Everything Is Broken" could have been written and released right now. It is so incredibly timely: Is that not what we all appreciate today about Dylan's deserved resurgence in music and film? I have often asked over the past few years (especially): WHERE ARE THEY? The artists, musicians, poets, writers who were willing to risk it all (their money or their life) to tell the truth. This is one of Bob Dylan's most eloquent, poignant, passionate and profound releases ever. And if one doesn't get it - try this: Go to a school for the blind or the deaf; or watch poor elderly people stand on line in a pharmacy and try to decide whether they can pay for food or medicine. I hope and pray that more musicians will stand up and do more than glamorous benefit concerts and release music (without the back-up of others) about what is an enormous catastrophe of our American "culture" which has forgotten entirley - the difference betweeen...right and wrong. In the meantime, I'll just keep ringing those bells.

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Four Best Albums By Bob !, July 30, 2004

By 

Lord Grenvile (Neighborhood Bully ( Dig the song, dudes)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Oh Mercy (Reis) (Audio CD)

Every Dylan fan has his own best-of list "tatooed to the back of his head" :) My all time favorites are the great 'Desire', & the monumental trilogy 'Infidels','Empire Burlesque' and 'Oh Mercy' (Well -'Knocked Out Loaded' had a few good tunes - but it's miles away...).
Two tracks stand above the rest - 'Political World' & 'Everything Is Broken', that are fast & furious Rocki'sh Masterpieces, that would fit better in Infidels' sound...
And than again, they give great contrast to the rest of the album, which is mellow and enchanting: you can actually feel the Dark, gloomy, swampy quality emenating from your speakers
as you listen to 'She's Gone With A man in a Long Black Coat'...
This Is One CD I can listen to over & over agin for hours.
Yes - It's that Good !

The production is imaculate, the singing - in it's best, everything clicks !
The great guitar sound is so distinctive - you couldn't confuse it with anything else !
So - If you're a Dylan fan - And ever plan to spend some time on a Dsert Island - (& only allowed to bring a few cd's along ...) - Go for this one first !