| 100 |
PopMatters
"Love and Theft" sees Dylan roaring back from Highway 61 at full bore, reminding us -- as he did on Blonde on Blonde, The Basement Tapes, and Blood on the Tracks -- that, like him or not, there isn't anybody else who can do his job.
|
| 100 |
Rolling Stone
The remarkable achievement of Love and Theft is that Dylan makes the past sound as strange, haunted and alluring as the future...
|
| 100 |
E! Online
[Dylan's] most cohesive work in over a decade...
|
| 100 |
Blender
Not since 1966's Blonde on Blonde has Dylan sounded so happy and alert. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.102]
|
| 91 |
Entertainment Weekly
It may not be a better album than ''Time Out of Mind,'' but it glides from genre to genre with a sprightly glee, as if Dylan were traversing the American musical landscape in search of thrills, revenge, and reparation.
|
| 90 |
New York Magazine
"Love and Theft" showcases the gloriously sloppy spontaneity he's displayed onstage but only rarely captured on record.
|
| 90 |
Village Voice
The voice you hear on "Love and Theft" is not that of the cocky young rock star who wrecked folk by simply strapping on an electric guitar, nor is it the vengeful and crotchety man who dripped Blood on the Tracks. This Dylan is older, wiser, and grousier, but sweeter, more sanguine if still unsettled too.
|
| 90 |
Neumu.net
A work of real substance, brimming with honesty, humor and beauty.
|
| 90 |
All Music Guide
Not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he's made since The Basement Tapes.
|
| 90 |
Mojo
An album virtually bereft of fluff and filler. [Album Of The Month] [Oct 2001, p.104]
|
| 90 |
Spin
Where [Time Out Of Mind] stared down heartbreak and mortality with somber melancholy, Love and Theft finds Dylan taking on those same themes loaded up with piss and vinegar. [Nov 2001, p.127]
|
| 90 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Love seems to come from a far more freewheeling Bob Dylan than the one on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, or virtually any other album he's recorded.
|
| 88 |
Spin Cycle
It doesn't really break any new ground, but that's not the point. This record is about Dylan cutting loose and celebrating the richness of American music.
|
| 80 |
Q Magazine
This is little short of a treat: a rambunctious dance through the more sepia-tinted corners of US musical history. [Oct 2001, p.122]
|
| 80 |
Launch.com
No one--and I mean, no one, not even people paid to say such things--is going to confuse this with Highway 61 Revisited or even Nashville Skyline, but when the official Bob Dylan bubblegum card is issued, Love And Theft will certainly rank ahead of Knocked Out Loaded and Saved.
|
| 80 |
Dot Music
'Love And Theft' is a much tricksier, elusive and - important, this - entertaining beast, one that mingles reflections on ageing with a host of jokes, both good and bad, and some wickedly limber music.
|
| 80 |
Sonicnet
It's been a good three decades since Dylan has sounded as footloose and, er, freewheeling as he does on much of Love and Theft. That it comes on the heels of '97's haunted, hellhound-on-my-trail-vibed Time Out of Mind makes it all the more remarkable.
|
| 80 |
CDNow
Love and Theft is a strange trip through Dylan's personal relationship with the blues, whether it's the silly story-song "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum," the mandolin lament "Mississippi," or the solid blues-rock of "Lonesome Days Blues" and "Summer Days."
|
| 78 |
Austin Chronicle
He's a thief, a con, a 60-year-old with nothing to say. And he continues saying it.
|
| 70 |
Shredding Paper
Doesn't come together as a cohesive effort, as a number of songs just don't fit in. [#11]
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