Bob Dylan Infidels CD

Originally released in 1983, this reissue is a hybrid CD consisting of remastered regular version playable on all players and a super audio CD version for players equipped with the format. 8 tracks. Digipak. Sony. 2003.

Personnel: Bob Dylan (vocals, acoustic guitar, harmonica); Mark Knopfler, Mick Taylor (guitar); Alan Clarke (keyboards); Robbie Shakespeare (bass); Sly Dunbar (drums, percussion); Clydie King (background vocals).
Recorded at the Power Station, New York, New York.
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
This is a hybrid Super Audio CD playable on both regular and Super Audio CD players.
Infidels was the first secular record Bob Dylan recorded since Street Legal, and it's far more like a classicist Dylan album than that one, filled with songs that are evocative in their imagery and direct in their approach. This is lean, much like Slow Train Coming, but its writing is closer to Dylan's peak of the mid-'70s, and some of the songs here -- particularly on the first side -- are minor classics, capturing him reviving his sense of social consciousness and his gift for poetic, elegant love songs. For a while, Infidels seems like a latter-day masterpiece, but toward the end of the record it runs out of steam, preventing itself from being a triumph. Still, in comparison to everything that arrived in the near-decade before it, Infidels is a triumph, finding Dylan coming tantalizingly close to regaining all his powers. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
After using SLOW TRAIN COMING, SAVED and SHOT OF LOVE as sounding boards for his born-again Christianity, Bob Dylan took a trip to Israel amidst rumors that he was repudiating his new faith and embracing his Judaic roots. Upon returning from his overseas excursion, Dylan went straight into the studio with co-producer Mark Knopfler and emerged with INFIDELS, a record that found the legendary singer-songwriter recording songs that were more of a political nature than a religious one.
Backed by a band that includes Knopfler and ex-Stone Mick Taylor on guitar and the legendary reggae rhythm section of Sly Dunbar and Robbie Shakespeare, Zimmy's biting songs don't lack for solid musical support. Speaking out with conviction, Dylan uses the hard-driving "Neighborhood Bully" to praise Israel's fortitude amidst a sea of hostile Arab relations, while the feisty troubador rips into corporate greed within the barrage of twangy country guitar that defines "Union Sundown." "Jokerman," one of Dylan's most enduring songs, offers a flirtation with reggae, with Dylan blowing away on harmonica as Knopfler provides the perfect accompaniment with his distinctive guitar work.