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About Season One

We blogged, got social on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and now Mastodon, grew our YouTube Channel, launched on Substack, and produced Seven Days weekly newsletter. We also held a cool Philosophy of Modern Song Reviewers RoundTable and tracked all of the book reviews. All the numbers kept moving up and to the right, including paid memberships, and so we’re encouraged to keep growing and improving.

And we received tremendous help and support from the Dylan community. We think that community needs and can drive a bigger and more ambitious platform like this, and that’s what we’re continuing to build.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1673020918943{margin-top: 30px !important;}”]

Season Two: 2023

For Season Two we’re not going to focus on one album for the whole year. There aren’t many albums that need or would justify it, and frankly we’re together enough now to be more nimble.

We do like having focus and digging deep into specific topics, so we’re adopting a quarterly format. Each quarter we’ll focus on one major theme — usually one of Dylan’s major studio releases. We’ll dive into that theme but also cover topics related to the central them, such as tours, events, or a movie.

The themes we plan to cover this year are listed below. These will drive our podcast, blogging, social, and events. We reserve the right to make a change if necessary, but right now we’re planning to first move backwards from Time Out Of Mind for a while and then end the year by moving forward from it.

Q1 – The Mid-Career Covers Albums

Dylan returned to his roots in the early ‘90s, surprising everyone with two solo covers albums full of old covers and folk songs. We’ll look at these records, the role this shift played in Dylan’s own career and songwriting, plus Dylan’s live performances in the years 1990-1994, and the 30th Anniversary Concert (1993).

Of course, we will also cover the release of Bootleg Series 17: Fragments (The Time Out Of Mind Sessions) quite thoroughly.

Q2 – The Late 80’s Tragedy/Trilogy

Three of the four albums Dylan made in the late 80’s are considered his worst, but everything is relative – Bob’s worst is better than many artists best. We’ll dig into these three albums, the live Dylan & Dead album and show from this time period, as well as the movie Hearts of Fire.

Q3 – Street Legal

Street Legal is a Dylan phase all by itself, as distinct from the Blood On The Tracks / Desire / Rolling Thunder years that proceeded it, as it is from the Gospel Years that follow. Yet it’s a huge album, supported by an equally distinct World Tour. We’ll examine all of it as well as the Renaldo & Clara movie.

Q4 – Love & Theft

To end the year, we’ll jump forward to Time Out Of Mind’s successor, an album many feel surpasses it. We’ll dive into the record, the Jack Frost production, the great touring years of 1999-2001, and the Movie Masked and Anonymous.

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Also In Season Two

• Monthly Picks: Time and resources permitting, we hope to find the right way to usefully feature books and cover albums on a monthly basis.
• Events: We’re still reconsidering how to be have live events, and hope to have at least quarterly Premium Member events that may or may not be related to our quarterly themes.
• Podcasts & Interviews: The Dylan.FM podcast has become a key part of our offering, and will continue as such in 2023. But we also have some major podcast expansion planned that will benefit our Premium Members. Watch for a big announcement in the very near future!
• Twitter, Premium Member Twitter Community, Mastodon, and Instagram: We share all kinds of Dylan content and to the degree these platforms can avoid being instruments of social destruction, we’ll keep on doing so.
• Seven Days: Our newsletter of all things Dylan will continue each week.
• Special Items: As interesting things pop-up, like The Philosophy of Modern Song did in 2022, we’ll cover those as well.

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Membership and Pricing

Free Membership: We will continue to offer free content including a version of the weekly ’Seven Days’ newsletter, podcasts, blog posts, and social media. We do this to contribute to the Dylan community – as many others do as well – and to get exposure in that community so more people will consider becoming Premium Members.We hope members who enjoy our work will become Premium Members because they want access to the increasing quantity of Premium-Only Content, and to contribute to the support our work. But for those who want to contribute without committing to Premium Membership, we’ve also added a tip jar. If you enjoy our work, toss us a few bucks!

Premium Membership Pricing: Our 2023 Premium Membership will cost $9.99/mo or 99.99/yr. Many of you are already on subscription, and if you are paying more your future billing fees will be reduced.If you’re not yet a Premium Member we ask that you consider becoming one. We know there are a lot Podcasts, Patreons & Substacks asking for your subscription dollars. We are fans of many of them, and subscribe to quite a few — so we understand there are budget limits. Our goal is to offer a lot of content and value to our Premium Members and one of the reasons for this post is to show exactly how we plan to do so this year – so you can join us.

Providing this service has real costs, and takes a lot of time from an increasing number of people – so we need paid members to support us. If you like what we’re doing, please become a Premium Member!

Scholarships: Despite all of our begging, we don’t want any Dylan fans who truly can’t afford to join us to be left out. So we now offer ‘scholarships’ for a free year of Premium Membership to those who request them. If joining is financially difficult or impossible, just request a Freak Music Club Scholarship.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]

Dylan.FM / A Brand Update

We’re going to primarily use the Dylan.FM name for all our Dylan-focused activities and events, where before it was technically just our podcast.

Freak Music Club will continue to be the ‘parent’ organization, and all Dylan.FM subscribers or members are Freak Music Club members too. We are planning to launch other ‘channels’ beyond Dylan this coming year.

Thanks!

We enjoyed bringing you Dylan.FM in 2022, and are looking forward to all the conversations, info, and events of doing this again in 2023.

Want to help? Tell Your Friends.

If you like / appreciate our efforts here, the biggest thing you can do for us is forward our material to other Dylan and music fans. There are millions of people who might like this stuff, but we need a friendly intro.

Every new eyeball and member allows us to make this bigger and better – so please take a moment and share us with your Dylan friends.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/3″][vc_custom_heading text=”TL;DR” font_container=”tag:h2|font_size:26|text_align:left|color:%23000000″ google_fonts=”font_family:Open%20Sans%3A300%2C300italic%2Cregular%2Citalic%2C600%2C600italic%2C700%2C700italic%2C800%2C800italic|font_style:400%20regular%3A400%3Anormal” css=”.vc_custom_1673020673428{margin-top: 20px !important;}”][vc_column_text css=”.vc_custom_1673020631165{padding-top: 20px !important;padding-right: 20px !important;padding-bottom: 20px !important;padding-left: 20px !important;background-color: #d8d8d8 !important;}”]The second year of Dylan.FM is about to begin, and this post talks about the programming and content we’re planning as well as the evolution of our free and Premium memberships and a new Scholarship program.

We’ve got a full year of Dylan content coming, with a new focus/theme each quarter. We’ll offer a lot to free members but our focus is on delivering value to Premium members because that’s who is paying for all of this and how we’re able to keep improving it. We hope you’ll join, and tell your friends.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Dylan.FM

Dylan.FM shares news, posts, podcasts, videos and more on web, Substack, YouTube and social.

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