Under the Red Sky
| Under the Red Sky | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Bob Dylan | ||||
| Released | September 10, 1990 | |||
| Recorded | January 1990, March–May 1990 | |||
| Genre | Rock | |||
| Length | 35:21 | |||
| Label | Columbia | |||
| Producer | "Jack Frost" (Bob Dylan), Don Was, and David Was | |||
| Bob Dylan chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Robert Christgau | A− |
| Entertainment Weekly | C |
| MusicHound |  |
| Rolling Stone | |
Under the Red Sky is the twenty-seventh studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on September 10, 1990 by Columbia Records.
The album was largely greeted as a strange and disappointing follow-up to 1989's critically acclaimed Oh Mercy. Most of the criticism was directed at the slick sound of pop producer Don Was, as well as a handful of tracks that seem rooted in children's nursery rhymes. It is a rarity in Dylan's catalog for its inclusion of celebrity cameos by Jimmie Vaughan, Slash, Elton John, George Harrison, David Crosby, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Bruce Hornsby.
The album is dedicated to "Gabby Goo Goo", later explained to be a nickname for Dylan's four-year-old daughter. This has led to the popular assumption that the album's more childlike songs were for her entertainment, something that has never been confirmed nor denied by Dylan.
Dylan has echoed most critics' complaints, telling Rolling Stone in a 2006 interview that the album's shortcomings resulted from hurried and unfocused recording sessions, due in part to his activity with the Traveling Wilburys at the time. He also claimed that there were too many people working on the album, and that he was very disillusioned with the recording industry during this period of his career.
Dylan critic Patrick Humphries, author of The Complete Guide to the Music of Bob Dylan, was particularly harsh in his assessment of Under the Red Sky, stating the album "was everything Oh Mercy wasn't—sloppily written songs, lazily performed and unimaginatively produced. The first bridge of "2 X 2" ("How much poison did they inhale?") was reminiscent of the menace which pervaded Oh Mercy, but otherwise, where before there had been certainty and sureness, here was confusion and indecision."
Humphries saved his harshest attack for the album's opening song, "Wiggle Wiggle":
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