Let me state upfront that, while I was very apprehensice of the movie, I ended up really liking the non-delinear interpretation of Bob Dylan's life by director Todd Haynes. The structure of the film had the potential to turn this into a (well-intended) disaster, but it turned out to be quite the enjoyable surprise. When you watch the film. you hear a lot of Dylan songs, mostly from Dylan himself, and once in a while fragments from Dylan-covers also can be heard. The "I'm Not There" is a collection of those covers."I'm Not There" (2 CDs, 34 tracks; 159 min.) brings 33 covers, many of which do not appear in the movie. I am generally speaking not a great fan of these types of collections (cover songs of big name artists) but must admit that it works quite well here. Among the many highlights on tis collection, my personal favorites include "Goin' to Acapulco" by Jim James & Calexico (done brilliantly in the movie), "One More Cup of Coffee" by Roger McGuinn & Calexico, Jeff Tweedy's somber take on "Simple Twist of Fate", Charlotte Gainsbourg (who stars in the film) whispering-soft version of "Just Like A Woman", a surprising appearance of the Hold Steady for their cover of "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?", an almost subdued performance of the Black Keys on "The Wicked Messinger", and a memorable "Highway 61 Revisited" from Karen O (of the Yea Yea Yeas). The very last song brings Bob Dylan himself, doing "I'm Not There", along with the Band (from the Basement Tapes-era).Bottom line: I was very pleasantly surprised by this album, which is so much more than a soundtrack. The best proof of that is of course that you can play this and it will resonate just as well, whether you've actually seen the movie "I'm Not There" or not.
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