Positively Jakob

Dylan tackles fame

by Gary Susman

There's no more pathetic cliché than a pop star whining about how hard it is to be famous. Whether you're Kurt "What do I have to do to prove to you all how depressing fame is?" Cobain or Marshall "I dare you to treat me as a role model!" Mathers, nobody believes that you became a musician for any reason other than to get laid and get paid. Say what you will about the Backstreet Boys, at least on "Larger Than Life" they show proper gratitude to their fans for making them celebrities.

When it comes to avoiding this pitfall, Jakob Dylan is in a better position than most pop stars. He learned about it second-hand from his father, who was wise enough to make any complaints he had about his fame as cryptic as possible. ("Idiot Wind" was about as explicit as Bob got: "People see me all the time, and they just can't remember how to act/Their heads are filled with big ideas, images, and distorted facts.") And when Jakob's band, the Wallflowers, became quadruple-platinum stars with their second release, 1996's Bringing Down the Horse, he learned about it first-hand, and he deliberately avoided the topics of fame and his father, both in his interviews and in his lyrics. Unfortunately, this self-protective stance made young Jakob seem like an aloof, unappreciative princeling. How dare he buck the confessional, tell-all culture and not dish dirt? Enquiring minds want to know!

Now Dylan seems to have reached a compromise. He smiles and does interviews where he talks a little about his legacy of fame. And on the Wallflowers' new Breach (Interscope), he addresses the topic as his father did, revealing as little as possible. The track that Dylanologists are scrutinizing most closely is "Hand Me Down," which might seem to be Jakob's assessment of himself as Son of Bob: "You're a hand me down/You feel good and you look like you should/But you won't ever make us proud/Living proof evolution is through." Of course, he sings this in the second person, so it could just be a classic putdown, in the vein of Dad's "Idiot Wind" or "Positively Fourth Street."

Breach is full of such nastiness, which makes it the most fun release yet by this new-traditionalist quintet. The opener, "Letters from the Wasteland," may be about the rigors of touring, but the choicest couplets are "You're every bridge I should have burned/Every lesson I've unlearned," and "It may take two to tango/But boy, just one to let go." On "Sleepwalker," Dylan professes to be less jaded than his background would suggest ("It's where I'm from that lets them think I'm a whore/I'm an educated virgin"), but his cynicism and repudiation of old pop (old Pop?) shine through in the chorus ("Cupid don't draw back your bow/Sam Cooke didn't know what I know"). And that's just the first three tracks; more gems of bitterness lie ahead on "Witness," "Some Flowers Bloom Dead," and "Murder 101." Dylan does balance cynicism with earnestness on the dirgelike "Mourning Train," "Up from Under," and the music-box lullaby "Babybird" (a hidden closing track), as well as on the more upbeat "I've Been Delivered" and "Birdcage." But give the kid a break -- he's only 30. He'll learn yet.

Lest we forget, there are four other guys in the Wallflowers, all of whom can still buy a quart of milk without causing massive swoons. There's the foursquare, solid thump provided by drummer Mario Calire and bassist Greg Richling, the rolling waves of piano and organ from Rami Jaffee, and the snarling guitar of Michael Ward that serves an analogue to the singer's venomous rasp. The ensemble sounds not unlike Tom Petty's Heartbreakers, whose Mike Campbell guests here, alongside such diverse vets as co-producer Michael Penn, Elvis Costello, Frank Black, and Jon Brion, the Los Angeles music wiz whose Warren-Zevon-meets-Kurt-Weill arrangements have been so crucial to Aimee Mann, Rufus Wainwright, and Fiona Apple. Together, these musicians and their pedigrees create just the right sound for Dylan's world-weary ambivalence, mixing LA-style VH1-ready classic-rock enervated decadence with enough whip-cracking rebelliousness to keep the blue-eyed wonder's youngest fans awake. It's the sound of a coiled tension Dylan should be able to ride out for years to come.