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35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A true classic--Prine in his prime, May 25, 2004
Although not intuitively obvious from the title, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings is an album of love songs. Ranging from the cynical We are the Lonely, derived from the "personals" craze of the 90's ("SWF with breasts so large, takes Visa, AMEX and Mastercharge") to the soulful Leave the Lights On, from the whimsical Humidity Built the Snowman to the gut wrenching This Love is Real, Lost Dogs and Mixed Blessings is classic Prine. These songs are characterized by highly melodic undertones, crisp, intelligent lyrics and highly professional musicianship and production values.To be honest, I've never understood why Prine never mad it big. He produces songs that work, as exemplified by the huge number of covers of his work. He has an infectious personality and it a tremendous stage performer. He produces albums where you actually want to listen to every single song, as opposed to most albums where you spend as much time skipping through the junk as you do listening to the one or two halfway decent songs on the album. John Prine is a songwriter and storyteller of the first order, and this is one of his all time best albums. Take a pass on all the garbage out there and make John Prine one of your regulars-you'll never regret that you did.
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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
John Prine Proves He's No "New Dylan" By Any Means, October 28, 2000
Indeed, when the critics brand an up-and-coming songwriter "the new Bob Dylan", it gives the artist a complex he may never live down, and a career that's anything but distinguished. However, John Prine is one of those unlucky "neo-Dylans" that not only took that label in stride, but slowly trampled over it. Like most songwriters, Prine's songs have been famous thanks to other artists, while he himself has been restricted to cult status. The title of LOST DOGS & MIXED BLESSINGS is an appropriate summing up of Prine's career, which has seen its fair share of hills and valleys, but resulted in him still alive & kicking. With his most recent recordings, Prine has adopted a more traditional country sound that has turned out to be a great background for his offbeat lyrics and even more sardonic delivery. Songs like the acronym-heavy "We Are The Lonely", the smartly-written "Leave The Lights On", and the easy-to-sing-along "Big Fat Love" are both catchy and original enough to have won some airplay on country radio stations not just by Prine himself, but maybe by Dwight Yoakam or George Strait.. The same goes for well-sung favorites like the infectious opener "New Train", the bluesy "Ain't Hurtin' Nobody" and the sarcastic "Same Thing Happened To Me". Like Dylan, Prine's music has its share of idiosyncrasies, with even the most heartfelt statements being delivered with a slight tongue-in-cheek. BLESSINGS contains "Humidity Built The Snowman", "Lake Marie", "Quit Hollerin' At Me" and "He Forgot That It Was Sunday", which all sound like ordinary ballads, but still contain the heavily-veiled wordplay of his uptempo songs. Then again, there are beautiful love songs that are more straightforward like "This Love Is Real" (featuring a guest appearance by Marianne Faithfull), "All The Way With You", "Day Is Done", and the closing "I Love You So Much It Hurts". I'll bet John Prine still has quite a few great songs up his sleeve, but at this point in his career, he can stand to take some years off before coming up with something new. After this, Prine returned with the mostly-covers album IN SPITE OF OURSELVES. So until another original album comes along, LOST DOGS & MIXED BLESSINGS will be ample proof that John Prine had loads of potential at the beginning of his career, and three decades later, he's still got a lot to accomplish.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lost Dogs And Mixed Blessings, January 31, 2004
Listening to this album and other greats by John Prine, I may be forever puzzeled as to why many consider JP's music as being in a Cult Status. Comparisons to Dylan & others, in my view are extremely unfair. John Prine sounds like one of the Few True Originals to me. Just about every tune on Lost Dogs + Mixed Blessing is worthy of attention, while, and you know I am right about this, just about every other artist puts out an album with 1 or 2 good tunes and a lot of fill. We Are The Lonely and Big Fat Love are Cranked-up Rockers while the other tunes are a good mix of music and lyrics that Can't be put into any one category. John's music is a good contemporary blend of a lot of styles, which indeed has the overall qualities which again, equal originality. Why I think someone like John Prine gets considered as Cult Status is because for years radio stations and record stores put him along with other great artists such as Buffy Sainte-Marie into obscure, out of the way, Folk Music Bins and while the mainstream record hunter was looking in the rock or country sections of stores they were not seeing great offerings such as John Prine. Now in the age of the PC we have a much better chance of discovering new interests/items or finding what we're searching for.
Lost Dogs And Mixed Blessings is just one of many Great John Prine albums and it's a great example of why John Prine does not need to be compared to anyone else. His music is Great on it's own.
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