A Film Canon

Saved is Dylan's most unapologetically evangelical album. Unlike Shot Of Love, its songs are all explicitly evangelical in focus. Unlike Slow Train Coming, it is no longer anxious to understand evangelism as engendering a stylistic continuity with, and even development of, Dylan's earlier musical career. Rather, it translates the Christian (and especially evangelical) equation of conversion with deindividuation into musical terms. As a result, it sounds less like Dylan than any other album in his career; or, alternatively clarifies that such perverse exercises as Self Portrait, or Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove's experiments with synthpop, disco and spoken word, merely provide a kind of negative affirmation of Dylan's musical voice, rather than a significant departure from it. Unfortunately, what replaces Dylan's voice in Saved is a fairly generic, self-important blend of gospel and rock, which doesn't even do generic things very well (although "In The Garden" remains a minor classic, albeit one which only stands up to occasional listens). Nevertheless, its a haunting, even Gothic experience to listen to Dylan's shell, as well as the elusive, barely audible residue of its temporarily evacuated inhabitant.