Bob Dylan Voted Into American Academy of Arts and Letters

Bob Dylan in Los Angeles, California. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for VH1

Bob Dylan has been voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, marking the first time a rock musician has been chosen for the elite honor society. Officials in the Academy – which recognizes music, literature and visual art – were unable to decide if Dylan belonged for his words or his music and instead inducted him as an honorary member like previous honorees Meryl Streep, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

100 Greatest Artists: Bob Dylan

"The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture," executive director Virginia Dajani told the Associated Press. "Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization."

Outside of the honorary choices, the American Academy of Arts and Letters consists of 250 artists, musicians and writers. Openings are available upon a member's death, and current members conduct the nominating and voting process. The Academy, founded in 1898 and based in New York, has historically locked out the likes of Dylan, dismissing jazz artists to modernist poets; it has largely recognized classical musicians but has also honored artists like Stephen Sondheim and Ornette Coleman. Dajani and other officials have pointed to other organizations that recognize rock music, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as to why the Academy has skipped out on rock musicians.

50 Best Albums of 2012: Bob Dylan, 'Tempest'

For his part, Dylan has accepted the membership – a stipulation for him to be voted through – but his manager, Jeff Rosen, had no comment on whether he'll attend the Academy's April dinner or May induction ceremony. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon will be the keynote speaker at the May ceremony, and his address is titled "Rock & Roll."

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Bob Dylan Voted Into American Academy of Arts and Letters

Bob Dylan in Los Angeles, California. Christopher Polk/Getty Images for VH1

Bob Dylan has been voted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, marking the first time a rock musician has been chosen for the elite honor society. Officials in the Academy – which recognizes music, literature and visual art – were unable to decide if Dylan belonged for his words or his music and instead inducted him as an honorary member like previous honorees Meryl Streep, Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese.

100 Greatest Artists: Bob Dylan

"The board of directors considered the diversity of his work and acknowledged his iconic place in the American culture," executive director Virginia Dajani told the Associated Press. "Bob Dylan is a multi-talented artist whose work so thoroughly crosses several disciplines that it defies categorization."

Outside of the honorary choices, the American Academy of Arts and Letters consists of 250 artists, musicians and writers. Openings are available upon a member's death, and current members conduct the nominating and voting process. The Academy, founded in 1898 and based in New York, has historically locked out the likes of Dylan, dismissing jazz artists to modernist poets; it has largely recognized classical musicians but has also honored artists like Stephen Sondheim and Ornette Coleman. Dajani and other officials have pointed to other organizations that recognize rock music, like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as to why the Academy has skipped out on rock musicians.

50 Best Albums of 2012: Bob Dylan, 'Tempest'

For his part, Dylan has accepted the membership – a stipulation for him to be voted through – but his manager, Jeff Rosen, had no comment on whether he'll attend the Academy's April dinner or May induction ceremony. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon will be the keynote speaker at the May ceremony, and his address is titled "Rock & Roll."

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Mumford & Sons: Bob Dylan 'Didn't Give a Sh*t About Authenticity'

Mumford & Sons know the knocks against them, but in a new interview with The Guardian, the English folk group brush off detractors who question the band's authenticity, citing Bob Dylan as an inspiration. "The authenticity thing has never been an issue for me," frontman Marcus Mumford said. "Not since I came to the realization that Dylan, who's probably my favorite artist ever, the richest artist for me, didn't give a shit about authenticity. He changed his name. And modeled himself on Woody Guthrie. And lied to everyone about who he was."

Banjo player Winston Marshall chimed in, "We get accused of inauthenticity because we play the instruments we play," but also pointed to British blues guitarist Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac and his background as an example of a misguided focus on authenticity. "He's from [East London District] Bethnal Green – and he's this fucking incredible blues guitarist. Nothing fucking authentic about that, right?" said Marshall. "But actually there is. He loves it. It's what he's good at. It's not like he's saying he's from the Delta. It's not like we're saying anything like that."

And despite Marcus Mumford's Christian family background and supposedly spiritually inclined lyrics, the band makes clear they're not a religious group. "We said we're not all Christian, so we can't be a Christian band," Marshall said of meeting a fan who asked how they defined themselves. "We're not all religious. In fact none of us are, really. We, er, we have a full spectrum of beliefs," added bass player Ted Dwane. "I don't know many artists who've managed to go a career without bringing these things up. "Saying the word 'God', 'Jesus' – it happens in a million rock songs."

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Flashback: Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones Perform 'Like a Rolling Stone'

Flashback: Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones Perform 'Like a Rolling Stone'They played together during a 1998 South American tour $(document).ready(function() { $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .email-content').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.email').hide(); } ); $('.socialActionsTop .pageActions .print-page').hover( function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').show(); }, function() { $('.socialActionsTop .bubble.print').hide(); } ); }); By

In January of 1998 New York music fans faced a tough choice: Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones? Both were doing a run of shows at Madison Square Garden over the exact same nights: Dylan was in the theater and the Stones were in the arena. In honor of Dylan, the Stones performed "Like A Rolling Stone" every single night. At one point their setlist said "with Bob Dylan," but he never showed.

Three months later, fans in South America were in a much easier position. The Stones came down for a stadium tour, with Dylan as their opening act. This time around, Dylan didn't stand them up.

"We'd like to do a song we wrote," Jagger told the crowd midway through a show in Rio de Janeiro, quickly correcting himself. "That Bob Dylan wrote for us." With that, Dylan took the stage to join the group on his 1965 classic "Like a Rolling Stone." Earlier attempts at the duet that month were a little ragged, but by this point Dylan had adjusted to the band's arrangement of his song. He even appears to be enjoying himself, and at one point he actually smiles.  It was good timing, because the show was broadcast on television.

Dylan has been friends with the Stones for decades, and he's performed numerous times with Keith Richards and Ron Wood (most notably at Live Aid). But this was the only time he actually performed with the full band. At the 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony he performed "Like a Rolling Stone" and "Satisfaction" with Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel, John Fogerty, the Beach Boys, Little Richard, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, Les Paul, Neil Young, Elton John, Ben E. King, Jeff Beck and about 20 other people, but that doesn't quite count, either. It was pretty cool, though just a tad sloppy. As it turns out, 15 guitar players don't actually improve a song.

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London Studio Where Dylan, Radiohead Recorded Could Become Apartments

Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics and Bob Dylan.Rob Shanahan/Getty Images; FRED TANNEAU/AFP/GettyImages

A London recording studio where Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and the Eurythmics have worked could become apartments, the BBC reports.

Owner David Gray, who's also a musician, has applied to local authorities to convert Church Studios in North London into five apartments and office space, despite objections from some neighbors. Eurythmics partners Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart turned the former chapel into a studio in 1984, and the oak-paneled main room, one of the largest recording spaces remaining in London, has hosted sessions by Dylan, Costello, Radiohead and Depeche Mode. Gray bought Church Studios in 2003. He's best known for his platinum-selling 1998 album White Ladder.

Gray's architect says the recording facilities "are now obsolete and do not offer a viable future for the building," though local residents say that losing the space would have "a significant effect on the vitality of the local arts scene" and the local musicians who use the space.

Stewart once lived with Lennox in an apartment adjoining the studio, where they recorded songs including "Sweet Dreams." The songwriter and producer said recently on Facebook that he sympathizes with Gray.

"It has so many memories for me," Stewart wrote. "Not just recording sessions. I would host evening soirees with poets, philosophers, musicians, etc. . . . Dylan would turn up with his band and hold court, or Joni Mitchell would play drums! Things have changed now. Music Scene is not the same, I understand him [David Gray] having to sell. I wasn't bothered about the cost of running it (always at a loss)."

No date is set to consider Gray's application to convert the space, but the planning committee of the local council holds monthly meetings.

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London Studio Where Dylan, Radiohead Recorded Could Become Apartments

Dave Stewart of The Eurythmics and Bob Dylan.Rob Shanahan/Getty Images; FRED TANNEAU/AFP/GettyImages

A London recording studio where Bob Dylan, Elvis Costello and the Eurythmics have worked could become apartments, the BBC reports.

Owner David Gray, who's also a musician, has applied to local authorities to convert Church Studios in North London into five apartments and office space, despite objections from some neighbors. Eurythmics partners Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart turned the former chapel into a studio in 1984, and the oak-paneled main room, one of the largest recording spaces remaining in London, has hosted sessions by Dylan, Costello, Radiohead and Depeche Mode. Gray bought Church Studios in 2003. He's best known for his platinum-selling 1998 album White Ladder.

Gray's architect says the recording facilities "are now obsolete and do not offer a viable future for the building," though local residents say that losing the space would have "a significant effect on the vitality of the local arts scene" and the local musicians who use the space.

Stewart once lived with Lennox in an apartment adjoining the studio, where they recorded songs including "Sweet Dreams." The songwriter and producer said recently on Facebook that he sympathizes with Gray.

"It has so many memories for me," Stewart wrote. "Not just recording sessions. I would host evening soirees with poets, philosophers, musicians, etc. . . . Dylan would turn up with his band and hold court, or Joni Mitchell would play drums! Things have changed now. Music Scene is not the same, I understand him [David Gray] having to sell. I wasn't bothered about the cost of running it (always at a loss)."

No date is set to consider Gray's application to convert the space, but the planning committee of the local council holds monthly meetings.

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Jack White Talks 'Blunderbuss,' Hidden Tracks and Bob Dylan at the Grammy Museum

Speaking with Iggy Pop prior to the 2009 death of Ron Asheton, Jack White described how he might go about producing a new Stooges album. One idea? Having the legendary Detroit proto-punks rent a house and live together, Monkees-style. "There was silence on the phone call for about 10 seconds," according to White, before Iggy Pop replied, "I’m gonna have to think about that."

The Stooges story was one tidbit White revealed Friday afternoon in an hour-long conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where the former White Stripes frontman touched down this weekend for two shows at the Shrine Auditorium in support of his first solo album, Blunderbuss. Following the Grammy talk he also played a surprise 20-minute set at Mariachi Plaza in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood; White pulled a similar stunt last Wednesday at an auto-body shop in Denver.

Dressed in checkered slacks, a dark button-down shirt and a gray fedora, White told the Grammy Museum’s executive director, Robert Santelli, about learning to play drums at the age of 5 in the attic of his family’s home and how he only picked up the guitar when none of his pals would: "I said, 'All right, well, I’ll play guitar so we can play.'" He also described his earliest live act, in which he performed the songs from Bob Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut – in their original order – at coffee shops around Detroit. (Asked by Santelli what it’s been like to get to know Dylan in recent years, White laughed and said, "He’s very good at making sure you don’t know him.")

Of Blunderbuss, White said he’d begun work on the album one day when RZA called at the last minute to cancel a recording date they’d set at White’s Third Man Records complex in Nashville. "I had all these musicians in the studio and needed something to do," he explained. "So I just wrote a couple of songs."

White earned the biggest reaction from the audience – which numbered approximately 200 fans and various music-biz types – with a demonstration of where he’d hidden a secret track on the vinyl edition of the Dead Weather’s Sea of Cowards album. (It’s etched into the record’s center label.) Yet despite his well-documented love of old music and old technology, White was quick to denounce what he called the "all those words that start with R-E: retro, recreate, reinterpret."

"It’s kind of ridiculous to try to emulate a certain time period or person or what they did," he said. "You could go onstage and be like, 'I love Robert Johnson so much, I’ll try to sing and play like Robert Johnson.' That doesn’t do anybody any good, and you can’t do it anyway. You need to be yourself."

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Jack White Talks 'Blunderbuss,' Hidden Tracks and Bob Dylan at the Grammy Museum

Speaking with Iggy Pop prior to the 2009 death of Ron Asheton, Jack White described how he might go about producing a new Stooges album. One idea? Having the legendary Detroit proto-punks rent a house and live together, Monkees-style. "There was silence on the phone call for about 10 seconds," according to White, before Iggy Pop replied, "I’m gonna have to think about that."

The Stooges story was one tidbit White revealed Friday afternoon in an hour-long conversation at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where the former White Stripes frontman touched down this weekend for two shows at the Shrine Auditorium in support of his first solo album, Blunderbuss. Following the Grammy talk he also played a surprise 20-minute set at Mariachi Plaza in L.A.’s Boyle Heights neighborhood; White pulled a similar stunt last Wednesday at an auto-body shop in Denver.

Dressed in checkered slacks, a dark button-down shirt and a gray fedora, White told the Grammy Museum’s executive director, Robert Santelli, about learning to play drums at the age of 5 in the attic of his family’s home and how he only picked up the guitar when none of his pals would: "I said, 'All right, well, I’ll play guitar so we can play.'" He also described his earliest live act, in which he performed the songs from Bob Dylan’s self-titled 1962 debut – in their original order – at coffee shops around Detroit. (Asked by Santelli what it’s been like to get to know Dylan in recent years, White laughed and said, "He’s very good at making sure you don’t know him.")

Of Blunderbuss, White said he’d begun work on the album one day when RZA called at the last minute to cancel a recording date they’d set at White’s Third Man Records complex in Nashville. "I had all these musicians in the studio and needed something to do," he explained. "So I just wrote a couple of songs."

White earned the biggest reaction from the audience – which numbered approximately 200 fans and various music-biz types – with a demonstration of where he’d hidden a secret track on the vinyl edition of the Dead Weather’s Sea of Cowards album. (It’s etched into the record’s center label.) Yet despite his well-documented love of old music and old technology, White was quick to denounce what he called the "all those words that start with R-E: retro, recreate, reinterpret."

"It’s kind of ridiculous to try to emulate a certain time period or person or what they did," he said. "You could go onstage and be like, 'I love Robert Johnson so much, I’ll try to sing and play like Robert Johnson.' That doesn’t do anybody any good, and you can’t do it anyway. You need to be yourself."

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50 Years Ago Today: Bob Dylan Released His Debut Album

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

When Bob Dylan's self-titled debut LP hit shelves on March 19th, 1962, it didn't sound anything like the popular music of the time. It was the height of "The Twist" dance craze, and 11 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart had the word "twist" in the title, including "Dear Lady Twist" by Gary U.S. Bonds, "Twistin' The Night Away" by Sam Cooke, "Hey, Let's Twist" by Joey Dee and the Starlighters," "Twistin' Postman" by the Marvelettes and "Alvin Twist" by the Chipmunks. (A new California group called the Beach Boys reached a new high of Number 77 that week with their first single, "Surfin.'")

To most of America, the Kingston Trio were the embodiment of folk music. The clean-cut, sweet-voiced California group hit Number 25 that week with their cover of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" Dylan was also a fan of Seeger's, but he sounded nothing like the Kingston Trio. The 20-year old singer-songwriter from Hibbing, Minnesota had been playing the coffee houses in New York for a little over a year, mostly singing traditional folk songs in a nasal voice that was virtually impossible to imagine hearing on the radio. 

It was Columbia record executive John Hammond who saw the huge potential in Dylan. The 51-one year old, who famously discovered Billie Holiday and countless other jazz legends, became acquainted with Dylan when he played harmonica at a recording session with folk singer Carolyn Hester. They met during a rehearsal in a Greenwich Village apartment. "We were all seated around a kitchen table, and John was seated next to Bob," Hester recalled to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes in his book Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. "Bob starts in on the harmonica and John turns and looks at him and couldn't take his eyes off the great character." His interest grew when he learned that Dylan wrote his own songs.

Right around that time, Dylan opened up for the Greenbriar Boys at Gerde's Folk City and earned a rave review in the New York Times by pop writer Robert Shelton. Hammond didn't need any more convincing; on October 25th, 1961, he signed Dylan to a five-year contract. A little more than a month later, they entered the studio together to record Dylan's first album. They cut the whole thing in just six hours (spread across two days) for an estimated $402.

"There was a violent, angry emotion running through me then," Dylan said. "I just played played guitar and harmonica and sang those songs, and that was it. Mr. Hammond asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no. I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That's terrible."

Much like his live set at the time, the album consisted mainly of old folk songs, including "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" by Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Highway 51" by Curtis Jones and "Fixin' to Die" by Bukka White. It was his rendition of "The House of The Rising Sun" that caused him trouble in the tight-knit Greenwich Village folk music community. Dave Van Ronk – one of Dylan's earliest supporters and a huge presence in the Village – was famous for his arrangement of the traditional tune. "Before going in the studio, he asked, 'Hey Dave, mind if I record your version of "Rising Sun?'" Van Ronk recalled to Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto. "I said, 'Well, Bobby, I'm going into the studio soon and I'd like to record it.' And later he asked me again and I told him I wanted to record it myself, and he said, 'Oops, I already recorded it and I can't do anything about it because Columbia wants it.' For a period of about two months we didn't speak to each other. He never apologizes, and I give him credit for it."

The album did contain two original songs: "Talkin' New York" and "Song to Woody." The first song recounts Dylan's earliest days in New York when he "got a harmonica job, begun to play/Blowin' my lungs out for a dollar a day." Dylan claims he wrote "Song to Woody," a tribute to his musical hero Woody Guthrie, just weeks after arriving in New York, a trip partially inspired by the fact that Guthrie was living at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey and Dylan wanted to meet him. "('Song to Woody') was written in New York City in the drugstore on 8th Street," he said to Sing Out! magazine in the summer of 1962. "It was one of them freezing days that I came back from Sid and Bob Gleason's in East Orange, New Jersey…Woody was there that day and it was a February Sunday night…and I just thought about Woody, I wondered about him, thought harder and wondered harder…I wrote this song in five minutes…it's all I got to say."

The album failed to crack the Billboard charts and sold about 5,000 copies that year. Executives around Columbia referred to Dylan as "Hammond's Folly." Undeterred, Hammond brought Dylan back into the studio just one month after the album came out to begin work on his second LP. In the five months after the first album was recorded, Dylan had turned his attention towards political causes. He recorded "The Death of Emmett Till" and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" at the first session, and in July of 1962, he returned to Columbia Studio A with a new song called "Blowin' In The Wind." It had been a part of his live show for months, and by the next summer, it would completely transform his life. 

To read the new issue of Rolling Stone online, plus the entire RS archive: Click Here

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50 Years Ago Today: Bob Dylan Released His Debut Album

Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

When Bob Dylan's self-titled debut LP hit shelves on March 19th, 1962, it didn't sound anything like the popular music of the time. It was the height of "The Twist" dance craze, and 11 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart had the word "twist" in the title, including "Dear Lady Twist" by Gary U.S. Bonds, "Twistin' The Night Away" by Sam Cooke, "Hey, Let's Twist" by Joey Dee and the Starlighters," "Twistin' Postman" by the Marvelettes and "Alvin Twist" by the Chipmunks. (A new California group called the Beach Boys reached a new high of Number 77 that week with their first single, "Surfin.'")

To most of America, the Kingston Trio were the embodiment of folk music. The clean-cut, sweet-voiced California group hit Number 25 that week with their cover of Pete Seeger's "Where Have All The Flowers Gone?" Dylan was also a fan of Seeger's, but he sounded nothing like the Kingston Trio. The 20-year old singer-songwriter from Hibbing, Minnesota had been playing the coffee houses in New York for a little over a year, mostly singing traditional folk songs in a nasal voice that was virtually impossible to imagine hearing on the radio. 

It was Columbia record executive John Hammond who saw the huge potential in Dylan. The 51-one year old, who famously discovered Billie Holiday and countless other jazz legends, became acquainted with Dylan when he played harmonica at a recording session with folk singer Carolyn Hester. They met during a rehearsal in a Greenwich Village apartment. "We were all seated around a kitchen table, and John was seated next to Bob," Hester recalled to Dylan biographer Howard Sounes in his book Down The Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan. "Bob starts in on the harmonica and John turns and looks at him and couldn't take his eyes off the great character." His interest grew when he learned that Dylan wrote his own songs.

Right around that time, Dylan opened up for the Greenbriar Boys at Gerde's Folk City and earned a rave review in the New York Times by pop writer Robert Shelton. Hammond didn't need any more convincing; on October 25th, 1961, he signed Dylan to a five-year contract. A little more than a month later, they entered the studio together to record Dylan's first album. They cut the whole thing in just six hours (spread across two days) for an estimated $402.

"There was a violent, angry emotion running through me then," Dylan said. "I just played played guitar and harmonica and sang those songs, and that was it. Mr. Hammond asked me if I wanted to sing any of them over again and I said no. I can't see myself singing the same song twice in a row. That's terrible."

Much like his live set at the time, the album consisted mainly of old folk songs, including "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" by Blind Lemon Jefferson, "Highway 51" by Curtis Jones and "Fixin' to Die" by Bukka White. It was his rendition of "The House of The Rising Sun" that caused him trouble in the tight-knit Greenwich Village folk music community. Dave Van Ronk – one of Dylan's earliest supporters and a huge presence in the Village – was famous for his arrangement of the traditional tune. "Before going in the studio, he asked, 'Hey Dave, mind if I record your version of "Rising Sun?'" Van Ronk recalled to Dylan biographer Anthony Scaduto. "I said, 'Well, Bobby, I'm going into the studio soon and I'd like to record it.' And later he asked me again and I told him I wanted to record it myself, and he said, 'Oops, I already recorded it and I can't do anything about it because Columbia wants it.' For a period of about two months we didn't speak to each other. He never apologizes, and I give him credit for it."

The album did contain two original songs: "Talkin' New York" and "Song to Woody." The first song recounts Dylan's earliest days in New York when he "got a harmonica job, begun to play/Blowin' my lungs out for a dollar a day." Dylan claims he wrote "Song to Woody," a tribute to his musical hero Woody Guthrie, just weeks after arriving in New York, a trip partially inspired by the fact that Guthrie was living at Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in New Jersey and Dylan wanted to meet him. "('Song to Woody') was written in New York City in the drugstore on 8th Street," he said to Sing Out! magazine in the summer of 1962. "It was one of them freezing days that I came back from Sid and Bob Gleason's in East Orange, New Jersey…Woody was there that day and it was a February Sunday night…and I just thought about Woody, I wondered about him, thought harder and wondered harder…I wrote this song in five minutes…it's all I got to say."

The album failed to crack the Billboard charts and sold about 5,000 copies that year. Executives around Columbia referred to Dylan as "Hammond's Folly." Undeterred, Hammond brought Dylan back into the studio just one month after the album came out to begin work on his second LP. In the five months after the first album was recorded, Dylan had turned his attention towards political causes. He recorded "The Death of Emmett Till" and "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues" at the first session, and in July of 1962, he returned to Columbia Studio A with a new song called "Blowin' In The Wind." It had been a part of his live show for months, and by the next summer, it would completely transform his life. 

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New Reviews: 'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan' Is Sprawling and Inconsistent

'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan'

In this week's slate of Rolling Stone reviews, Joe Levy assesses Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, a sprawling and inconsistent 80 track collection of Dylan covers for Amnesty International with artists ranging from "Pete Seeger (folk-music deity, b. 1919) to Miley Cyrus (hot mess, b. 1992)." Also, Rob Sheffield praises Craig Finn's "ear for the way American losers talk" on his debut solo album and David Fricke raves about Bruce Springsteen's new single "We Take Care of Our Own," which he says is a "precise, devastating assessment of a nation exhausted by economic straits and locked in an uncivil war of values stoked by selfish Washington gridlock."

ALBUMS

Various Artists - Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan (stream one song)

Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes (stream one song)

Tim McGraw - Emotional Traffic (stream one song)

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar (stream one song)

Big Deal - Lights Out (stream one song)

The Little Willies - For the Good Times (stream one song)

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (stream one song)

Chairlift - Something (stream one song)

Ani DiFranco - Which Side Are You On? (stream one song)

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur (stream one song)

SONGS

Bruce Springsteen "We Take Care of Our Own" (stream)

Scissor Sisters "Shady Love" (stream)

Delta Spirit "California" (stream)

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New Reviews: 'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan' Is Sprawling and Inconsistent

'Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan'

In this week's slate of Rolling Stone reviews, Joe Levy assesses Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, a sprawling and inconsistent 80 track collection of Dylan covers for Amnesty International with artists ranging from "Pete Seeger (folk-music deity, b. 1919) to Miley Cyrus (hot mess, b. 1992)." Also, Rob Sheffield praises Craig Finn's "ear for the way American losers talk" on his debut solo album and David Fricke raves about Bruce Springsteen's new single "We Take Care of Our Own," which he says is a "precise, devastating assessment of a nation exhausted by economic straits and locked in an uncivil war of values stoked by selfish Washington gridlock."

ALBUMS

Various Artists - Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan (stream one song)

Craig Finn - Clear Heart Full Eyes (stream one song)

Tim McGraw - Emotional Traffic (stream one song)

First Aid Kit - The Lion's Roar (stream one song)

Big Deal - Lights Out (stream one song)

The Little Willies - For the Good Times (stream one song)

Cloud Nothings - Attack on Memory (stream one song)

Chairlift - Something (stream one song)

Ani DiFranco - Which Side Are You On? (stream one song)

Kathleen Edwards - Voyageur (stream one song)

SONGS

Bruce Springsteen "We Take Care of Our Own" (stream)

Scissor Sisters "Shady Love" (stream)

Delta Spirit "California" (stream)

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