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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
by Bob Dylan


9.5

based on 16 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 35 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Official Artist Site

The latest collection of unreleased and rare songs recorded between 1989 and 2006.

LABEL:	Sony BMG
RELEASE DATE:	07 October 2008
DISCS:	2 disc
GENRE(S):	Rock

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Entertainment Weekly

Excitingly, Tell Tale Signs jumps decades ahead to offer an alternate history of a less leaky period: the creative renaissance that started at the end of the 1980s and has been bearing fruit ever since.

100

Uncut

Tell Tale Signs is awash with evidence of his staggering mercuriality, his evident determination even in the studio to repeat himself as little as possible, re-takes not merely the occasion for refinement, the honing of a song into static finality, but serial re-imaginings.

The Onion (A.V. Club)

As Dylan's official bootlegs go, this is one of the series' best.

Rolling Stone

Tell Tale Signs makes plain that Dylan knows the caprices of the world he lives in, now more than ever.

All Music Guide

Tell Tale Signs feels like a new Bob Dylan record, not only for the astonishing freshness of the material, but also for the incredible sound quality and organic feeling of everything here.

PopMatters

The reason Tell Tale Signs works so well from start to finish is that all the songs, even those that are modest on their own ('God Knows,' 'Miss the Mississippi'), are illuminated by the company they’re in.

Paste Magazine

Tell Tale Signs subtly makes a good argument that Dylan’s later work is richer than expected.

Boston Globe

With a musician as important as Bob Dylan, our appetite for fresh material and new insights is as deep as the artist's song trove, and Tell Tale Signs, the eighth installment of the songwriter's Bootleg Series, is a feast for casual fans and Dylanologists alike.

The New York Times

For the familiar songs the original album choices were usually better, with tauter lyrics and arrangements pushing away from the generic. Still, with a songwriter like Mr. Dylan the rough drafts, alternate lyrics and multiple versions of “Dignity” and “Mississippi” are fascinating glimpses of how restlessly he tinkers with mood and meaning.

Blender

The eighth volume of the erractic and fancinating Bootleg Series, exhumes his unreleased music. [Nov 2008, p.80]

Hartford Courant

The result is a wealth of different musical imaginings, which provides a fascinating glimpse of his creative process on Tell Tale Signs.

Observer Music Monthly

Not everything is perfect here, the five live cuts, in particular, not particularly inspired choices. But you could lose yourself in these recordings.

The Guardian

The eighth treasure trove in Dylan's Bootleg Series of unreleased material and alternate takes further illustrates that there is no such thing as a definitive recording of a Dylan song, just a snapshot of the great man's prevailing mood.

Billboard

The material from '97 on offers many surprises, particularly a dreamy alternate take on "Someday Baby" from "Modern Times" and the strident "Dreaming of You," which wouldn't have fit at all on "Time Out of Mind. Less essential are the live cuts, which only reinforce how Dylan's unpredictable phrasing and enunciation can render a song transcendent one moment ("Lonesome Day Blues," which sounds sourced from a bootleg), then unrecognizable ("Things Have Changed") or ordinary the next ("Cocaine Blues").

Slant Magazine

While the album undoubtedly brings more than a few great moments, what is most disappointing is that instead of celebrating the past two decades of Dylan's career, it calls the idea of such a celebration into question.

Q Magazine

Nothing here is essential, but there will always be enough completeist to warrent airing of Dylan's old laundry. [Nov 2008, p.127]

The average user rating for this album is 9.5 (out of 10) based on 35 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Penine H. gave it a9:
Fantastic, many revealing surprises, and at least 2 of my now favorite Dylan songs.

Matthew B. gave it a10:
My only quibble, and it's a small one, is that I'd rather have more studio boots (more Bromberg sessions, please!), and less of the live stuff. The Bootleg Series has worked terrific when the live stuff has been specific shows (Live '66) or compilations of specific tours (Rolling Thunder). Taken out of those contexts and thrown in haphazardly...they just seem jarring and unexpected. I felt this way about Biograph, too. Still...there's not a track on there that won't become immediately essential to those who care about Mr. Dylan's work. The genius glows like burning coal (to steal from...let's see...who was that...?).

John H. gave it a10:
A dark and gloriously complex take on modern times, this album will be playing in my house every day for a long time. Rich, thick, beautiful.

Gene D. gave it a10:
One of the best of the "official" bootleg series so far.

Ross L. gave it a10:
Unquestionably still the greatest song writer of the 20th and so far 21st century. His rejects are better than most of the pablum out there today. Only the "Boss" or maybe Neil Young come close.

Bald B. gave it a10:
OMG, what an album. There is a musicality to these songs that were missing from his last few albums. This is hypnotic stuff and extremely well recorded.

Dean D. gave it a9:
Dylan, weathered to perfection.

Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 by Bob Dylan

Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
by Bob Dylan