Everybody knows Mark Ronson is on fire. He's produced two of the year's hottest albums in Lily Allen's Alright, Still and Amy Winehouse's Back to Black. He even released a very well-regarded LP under his own moniker called Version with vocal assistance from some of the hottest names in the music biz. You know when a DJ/producer releases his own album and it takes off, he's managed to catch lightning in a bottle. Now Columbia Records has asked him to create what is apparently the first official Bob Dylan remix. Why not ask him to repaint the Mona Lisa while he's at it? After combing through the hundreds of songs in Dylan's more than ample catalogue, Ronson arrived at "Most Likely You'll Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine)," a track from 1966's Blonde on Blonde, which is just about the best album ever. The results are acceptable, though not overwhelming. Ronson's affinity for beefed-up horns is evident in his engineering, and it works to a degree, but gone is the core of what Dylan referred to as his "thin, wild mercury sound" that carries in the original. I'd give it a B- for the effort. Nice try Mark, but don't quit your day-job, and by "day-job" I mean making beats for Brit-pop stars and laying down tracks for Ghostface Killah. Stay away from the classics, because chances are you won't improve them. Just ask Madonna and her ill-conceived take on Don McLean's "American Pie," or ask Limp Bizkit and their half-baked cover of the Who's "Behind Blue Eyes." If you can find them, that is.
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