Triplicate

Bob opens up the Great American Songbook one last time and closes off his Sinatra trilogy with the best but also most bloated entry in the triad.

It's honestly really ironic how this is the only album of the three that's actually worth a listen. Both Shadows In The Night and Fallen Angels are so damn boring that they just aren't worth the listen, and Triplicate actually has a number of covers that I'd actually argue are worth listening to. But then you realize that the album itself is 90 minutes long and three discs, making it the longest album in Dylan's discography. Triplicate suffers greatly from this length. Obviously there have been times where longer albums have benefited his work, like in Blonde On Blonde and Time Out Of Mind, but a three disc cover album is unheard of, and downright intolerable. It's rare to find a genuinely amazing cover album as it is, so when you think of cover albums that are this long you likely aren't going to want to even think about listening to it, especially when the artist in question has such a bad track-record when it comes to cover albums. And, unsurprisingly, Dylan doesn't do much to justify the stupid run time. It's yet another album that is close to identical to its predecessors. It's just another album filled with covers of classic vocal jazz songs from Frank Sinatra's era. There's absolutely nothing special about it outside of quite a few of the covers being amongst Dylan's best covers. Honestly, though, if you wanted to listen to any one of Dylan's cover albums from this period just to see what it's like, I'd recommend either disc one or disc three from this album, both of which are possibly the best discs out of any of his cover albums. The album as a whole may be bloated, but you can definitely tell that each individual disc could have been something had they not been made to be apart of one big thing.

Favourite Tracks: September Of My Years; Day In, Day Out; Trade Winds; I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night; I Guess I'll Have To Change My Plans; Stormy Weather; There's A Flaw In My Flue

Least Favourite Tracks: As Time Goes By; How Deep Is The Ocean