I’ve got to admit, I really don’t like Planet Waves. For one thing I’m not a big fan of The Band. I’ve not particularly liked any of the stuff they’ve done as a group. Robbie Robertson always seemed like a smug, condescending, pretentious rock-star (like Sting, Bono, or Phil Collins). Back when they were just a band and not The Band, they were good for what Dylan was doing on tour in 1966 (namely loud), but there’s a reason why he always ended up using the Nashville session players on his album. (The fact that drummer Levon helm was too chicken to endure the boos of Tour ’66 is another stroke against them). Their playing has always been as subtle as a sledgehammer. But it’s not entirely The Band’s fault that I don’t like this album. On Planet Waves, Bob finally achieves what he was aiming for on Nashville Skyline and New Morning; he becomes a completely detached, uninvolved songwriter. But where those two discs were charming in the sincere ineptitude, this one actually pulls it off slickly – much to its detriment. And as a result songs like “Tough Mama”, “Hazel”, “Something There Is About You”, “You Angel You”, and “Never Say Goodbye” are almost impossible to tell apart. It’ll become a bad habit that’ll pop up again and again in Bob’s career. The opening number holds some promise. The Cajun Zydeco of “On A Night Like This” promises more of the weird genre experimentation of New Morning’s “Winterlude” and “If Dogs Run Free”, but never follows up on it. “Going Going Gone” is in fact a really good song, but you can hardly tell over The Band’s showboating. (Although I like most of At Budokan, the version of “Going, Going Gone” on there proves it could be much much worse). “Forever Young” ends Bob’s tradition of adding more than one version of the same song to the same album (“Alberta” and “Billy”). While the slower second version is pretty darn good (and proof that Rod Stewart is a thief), the fast version makes the song seem almost as forgettable as the rest of the album. Compare “Dirge” with the similarly arranged (just piano and acoustic guitar) “Blind Willie McTell” from The Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3, and see how distracting Robbie Robertson is in comparison to Mark Knopfler. His little scratching the string thing is all over here and really annoying. Even without The Band, “The Wedding Song” sounds about as tacked on as it really was. Not that the album is painfully unlistenable or anything. With a musician as talented as Bob Dylan, even when he’s coasting there’s bound to be a certain amount of quality to endeavor. It’s just that there’s a real lack of anything interesting or risky going on here.