I'm starting a new thread so that I can't be accused of thread pooping, but am I the only one here who doesn't like the Traveling Wilburys? I'm fond of Petty, early Dylan, & some Harrison solo, but to me the TW's are just bad cornball country.

I can't stand Roy Orbison, & like only a Limited amount of Lynne's work; mostly the first 2 ELO albums (I don't like any ELO after the 2nd album). Assuming AMG's list is complete, I'm also not fond of most of Lynne's production, the Tom Petty & Dave Edmunds albums being the exception.

Does ANYONE here agree?

Geff,

I'll admit I'm with you there. The idea of those guys getting together to record was interesting, but I never heard any material that I could get excited about. The unique qualities that made each of these guys great were seemed watered down in the Wilburys. I always thought they were pretty boring.

I don't know what to say. I bought them when they were first released, but haven't played them in at least fourteen years. I don't remember a single song, but with all the fuss about them on this board, I'm going to give them another listen.

I haven't heard those albums in a while either, but I seem to recall that "Handle With Care" was the main track where they really sang together, exchanging vocal lines, etc., and that a lot of the other songs were glorified solo tracks. Or am I remembering wrong?

I plan to get the reissues eventually, but really only to fill the hole in my Dylan collection. I don't recall there being anything inherently terrible about either one of these albums--and certainly Dylan was chronically soused and making some terrible music in his solo career during the late 80's/early 90's--but the whole project always did smack of celebrity cutesey-ness ("There is no volume two!!!--Get it???") and marketing pre-sell prevailing over musical substance.

Frankly, it's telling that the other Wilbury's thread is up to something like nine pages, and has featured more posting about the edition numbers on the certificate of authenticity than about, say for example, the sound quality of the music itself, or the contents of the booklet and the DVD.

That said, I do plan to pick these discs up someday and give them a listen--hopefully they will eventually become available seperately, in jewelboxes, sans DVD.

Actually, the first album is made up of songs with two or more of them sharing lines. Ther's only a couple where one of them take the lead alone. Those being "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" (Dylan), "You're Not alone Anymore" (Orbison), and "Rattled" (Lynne).
Volume 3 is where they went with mostly Dylan vocals

Jeff

BTW, I love 'em, (Oh oh, have I thread crapped because I've said something postive in a negative thread?) lol

Of course you never "got" the Wilburys - the other ICE board members are buying up and hoarding all the copies!!

You've "got" a certain point there...........

I too got the CD's when first released, along with the charity CD (with Nobody's Child) and the She's My Baby single - I listened to them a couple of times and put them away. I have a lot of music and if I don't hit it off with a release right away it gets buried and taken out every so often. Mostly I listen to Zappa releases or tapes of his shows.

I got caught up in the hoopla, I bought the reissue - the deluxe box - because for the price difference it was worth it.

I have to say - giving it a second chance - this is a great record (I like vol. 1 better than vol. 3). The more I listened to it the more it sounds like it's Dylan's band. I guess it's because they recorded the first album around his schedule. I think it contains his best songs since Desire or Blood on the Tracks.

With all 5 stars in the band, I guess they all take a backseat. The songs are all very good - a couple I would consider classics. I listened to the two vols. for nearly a week driving to work (It's Mike and the Mad Dog on the way home). That is a lot for a non-Zappa title for me.

I think Dylan steals the show. George is great when he comes in. Roy's vocals soaring over the top when he sings - makes me realize how under-rated he is and how his catalog (which is top notch quality) could have been so much better for so much longer (he vanished for a good 15 years). Both Tom and Jeff fill in very nicely. It was a super band - all around.

This is a side project and should only be viewed as such. I think George wanted to be in another band and he called around - who is going to refuse a Beatle? What strikes me is that a.) they were having fun and b.) like the early rock n roll - they went to the studio and made it up as they went along.

For my money it's the best re-issue so far this year. I haven't compared the old cd's vs. the new ones - they are just good to listen too after all these years. It is not any of the member's top work - but it is a very listenable release.

At first I was going to pass - then I was going to get the regular pacake - and then I thought the box looked pretty spiffy so I went for it. No second guess here.

In my opinion, there's really nothing to "get" -- it's just a bunch of very talented guys getting together in a low-key, relaxed setting and making some fun music together without the pressure of trying to make a grand musical statement. You can hear the smiles in almost every line.

Jay

I was trying to be diplomatic - I think they are 2 dreadful cd's.

I like it, but it's just 5 guys having fun. I've never taken it to be anything more than that. I got it for my Dad for Father's Day, but didn't actually buy it for myself. I've always loved the song "last Night" which I find darkly funny.
They aren't even close to dreadful in my opinion, but then, I find a lot of stuff praised on here to be garbage but I've learned to not post and say anything negative due to the backlash factor.
But, Geff, I do feel ya here. It's nothing fantastic, and there's some real filler on each CD-it's certainly not worth running around buying 65 copies to look like a genius that's for damn sure.

i like the albums, but don't really love them. i probably didn't listen to them for years either, other than to record a petty song for a petty comp, and a george song for a george comp.

not a big fan of dylan or orbison, and i despise jeff lynne's singing and production.

renny

The band started as an accident among friends... It’s just fun.

I have never heard anyone say that they can’t stand Roy Orbison, but ok, even still despite having the best voice, he hardly dominates the album. The 80s may have not been Dylan’s best time period, but he ended it on a high note, with the strong Oh Mercy album.

Most of the first album has very enjoyable, fun listenable tunes. The second one loses a little bit of the fun, but is good stuff.

Am I the only one who's surprised to hear the Wilburys called "cornball country"? Aside from "Poor House" on the second album, I don't hear much "country" from the Wilburys. I guess "Last Night" is KINDA country-ish, and there's the rockabilly "Rattled," but IMO the country element is pretty minimal.

I do have to backtrack a bit and agree with Joe. "Oh Mercy" is an album that has aged extremely well, sounding better every time I listen to it.

As with a lot of 80's music, I find it important to go back and try to remember the context in which some of this stuff came out. The whole "indie/alternative/grunge" movement really didn't become mainstream until about 1991-92, and emerging artists prior to that time included Milli Vanilli and New Kids On The Block. Also, in the pre-SoundScan days, country music never made the pop charts, and baby boomers refused to acknowledge the fact that rap (there was no such word as hip-hop) was finding a growing white audience. In other words, in an era when the record marketing people were actually managing to sell the crappy music they were releasing instead of whining about lagging sales and attempting to sue everybody on the planet for copyright infringement, the Wilbury's was something unique--the proverbial breath of fresh air, from legitimate rock and roll royalty.

It would appear to that circumstances have conspired to elevate the music of the Wilbury's into something it was never intended to be, which, by all acounts, was a simple musical collaboration between friends. For starters, their music is highly collectable, sought out by both Beatles and Dylan completists. Secondly, the music was unavailable for 15 years--an entire generation of music consumers wasn't even born yet when these CD's went out-of-print.

There is always going to be an illicit thrill in listening to music that, for whatever reason, "somebody" doesn't want you to be able to hear. The two examples that seem to most parallel the Wilbury's would be the Basement Tapes and the Million Dollar Quartet. The Elvis/Jerry lee Lewis/Carl Perkins tapes circulated for years before finally being released, and are more fascinating historically than musically; as for the Basement Tapes--I wasn't alive when those recordings helped create the bootleg album industry in the late sixties, and frankly, it's hard to listen today to an album that came out in 1975 and hear it as anything beyond a collection of demos.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I'm not trying to bash the Wilbury's albums, chances are excellent that their music will never live up to the expectations people might have for it--and I don't think it's the fault of Dylan, Petty, Lynne, Harrison and Orbison.

Well said.

Jeff Lynne is the man. If I have to claim one group as "my band", it's ELO. It's the group that I obsessed over throughout the 70's, the group I mourned as they devolved into strict pop, the group that can immediately send me back to my childhood.

Harrison was my favorite Beatle, Orbison was a huge fave, Petty was high on my list, Dylan I could do without.

When my wife called me to read the line-up of the new supergroup, I thought she was making it up. The first album didn't blow me away, but it was fun. I don't think there's another album that matches it for what it is (a group of guys having a blast). You could see that Harrison was having real fun with the entire concept, Orbison and Dylan were there for a little fun, Petty and Lynne got to share the spotlight with their heroes. It all came through on the album.

It wasn't five superstars trying to make the ultimate album, it wasn't a bunch of prima donnas trying to outdo each other, it was a group of friends relaxing, having fun. And that came through.

I was never a fan of the whole project.

I am a life-long Dylan fan and love Petty's early career.

Picked up the recent release just to get the Bob tracks (and do love the footage of Bob playing acoustic bass guitar on the DVD!)

Thought that George sounded good and happy on the album but thats about it.

...which is my round-about way of not mentioning the person who I feel is to blame for all that I hate about the albums.

Pssst..he's also the guy who I blame for ruining Tom Petty's career...thank god he never got to produce a Bob album which was a REAL big fear of mine during this time!

Why would he lower himself to produce a Bob album?

I have to echo the "positive" comments as I loved these records/CD's. I remember when they first came out and told one of my music friends how you could tell they were having so much fun.

The songs were recorded and lightly produced very fast to not only help with all the full schedules but to give the sense they were recording like they all did way back in the day.

They are absolutly not crap nor the worst things that any of them have done. As others on this board, I try not to bash what others like, even when I think it's crap as opinons are always going to be varied and should be taken with a grain of salt.