Column: Bob Dylan tribute both far- and way-out

Listening to “Chimes of Freedom,” the new 76-song Bob Dylan tribute to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Amnesty International (motto: “Keeping You Out of Jail Since 1962”), is almost a stream-of-consciousness experience. There are so many styles — rock, punk, folk, country, reggae, cabaret and even classical are all represented — you sometimes feel like you’ve accidentally stumbled into the most way-out coffeehouse in some alternate-universe Greenwich Village, sitting on a beanbag chair between Sinead O’Connor and the Kronos Quartet.

Two overarching impressions become clear fairly quickly: One, it really is impossible to ruin a Bob Dylan song (although he’s mangled a few himself over the years), and two, none of these manages the tricky task of surpassing the original. Beyond that, it’s probably best to just pull up a beanbag and let the impressions flow:

Johnny Cash’s newly recorded duet of “One Too Many Mornings” with the Avett Brothers shows that he’s the best-sounding dead guy still releasing records. (Sorry, Elvis.)

How does Tom Morello get his guitar to make those noises? I think it may actually be a space alien he has trained as a pet.

I want to have Diana Krall and Elvis Costello over to dinner. I get the sense she’d hang politely on my every word, and he’d complain about the fish.

Yes, it’s impossible to ruin a Bob Dylan song. But Ke$ha comes close with “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright” … I think she may have had stomach cramps. Or something else I don’t want to know about.

Seventy-six songs and no “Positively 4th Street”? They’ve got a lotta nerve.

All this time I wondered what “Love Sick” was missing, and now that I’ve heard Mariachi El Bronx’s version, finally I know: Maracas!

Mark Knopfler has sounded like he’s been waking up from a nap since 1995. That’s better than Sting, who’s apparently still asleep, and Jackson Browne, who’s in a medically induced coma. And judging from “Corinna, Corrina,” I fear Pete Townshend may have already shuffled off this mortal coil. RIP, Pete.

Wow, this is a really nice country version of “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.” Wait, it’s Miley Cyrus? Excuse me while my head explodes.

It’s official: Everyone in the world has now covered “Make You Feel My Love.” But Adele’s may be the best. (Sorry, Billy Joel. And Garth Brooks. And Joan Osborne. And …)

A punk Dylan tribute needs to happen, judging by these versions of “Desolation Row” by My Chemical Romance, “Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Rise Against, “The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Flogging Molly and “Song to Woody” by Silverstein, all of which make me want to break something. I mean that in a good way.

Isn’t “I Shall Be Released” sort of the unofficial Amnesty theme song? So why is Maroon 5 singing it like it’s in the background of an Applebee’s commercial?

Michael Franti can’t believe he gets paid for this.

Eskimos must have hundreds of words for “boring,” because every one of them fits Kris Kristofferson’s version of “Quinn the Eskimo.”

Paul Rodgers and Nils Lofgren turn a Dylan song you’ve probably never heard, “Abandoned Love,” into an instant classic. That’s how it’s done, whippersnappers and sleepy old dudes!

Mick Hucknall and Jim James of My Morning Jacket need to have a Bob-off to see who does the best Dylan impersonation. Jimmy Fallon can be the judge. (He’s not on here, but he should be.)

Natasha Bedingfield can ring my bells anytime! Wait, that came out wrong.

Finally, even if the Dylan-cover soundtrack to “I’m Not There” is generally better, at $18 for the MP3 version of “Chimes of Freedom” you’re paying 23 cents per song — the majority of which are keepers — and supporting a good cause. Bob would want you to buy it.

And if you don’t, don’t blame me when you go to jail.

For a full track list and more information, visit amnestyusa.org. Peter Chianca is editor in chief for GateHouse Media New England’s north-of-Boston newspapers and websites. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca.

COLUMN: Kids force you to face the music

If you’ve ever been the parent of a toddler, you’ve probably experienced the urge to take Barney the Dinosaur, or each member of The Wiggles, or that marginal singer who took the gig singing “99 Favorite Nursery Rhymes” to keep from starving, and smother them to death under a Dora the Explorer pillow. Never fear: It’s very common, and no jury in the land would convict you.

It’s tempting to count the minutes until your kids grow out of the phase when this kind of music is their main entertainment option, but as more experienced parents will always tell you, you shouldn’t rush things — first of all, it won’t be long before every look they give you betrays their belief that their actual parents had been forced to sell them as babies to a roving pack of simpletons.

And in this case, beware that Barney the Dinosaur gives way to the likes of Miley Cyrus and Selena Gomez. If you don’t know who these two are, picture the Stepford children that used to hang around with Barney, and then imagine them as if they went through the trampy makeover that Olivia Newton-John got at the end of “Grease.”

If you’re like me, you may have had this misguided idea that as your kids’ musical tastes began to mature, they’d switch to genres you’d find more palatable in your car or household — maybe even including some of the contents of your own music collection. Surely all those years of playing Bruce Springsteen or Billy Joel or progressive rock from the early 1970s had an effect on them, at least subconsciously.

And it turns out you were right: It caused them to hate it.

Sure, I see people with their 8-year-olds at Springsteen concerts now, but they’re the exception; I suspect they’re part of some obscure Mormon splinter sect practicing their brainwashing techniques. Most kids are probably like mine, who view the idea of a Springsteen concert as a sort of sixth circle of hell, like the island in “Pinocchio” where the kids get turned into donkeys.

No, instead they’ve somehow gotten into their heads a penchant for bubblegum pop and dance music. I can blame my daughter’s affection for Miley on Disney’s ubiquitous marketing machine — after all, I’m just one man. But how both she and my son fell for the Black Eyed Peas is beyond me; I rarely let them listen to Kiss 108 for more than the minute it takes to figure out we’re listening to a song about some activity I don’t even want my kids to know exists until they’re in their 20s.

The also don’t get the idea of volume — not loudness, but capacity. I recently helped my daughter load her new iPod Nano, which holds 2,000 songs, and she was extremely picky about which tracks to include.

“Why would I want to put on a whole bunch of songs I’ll never listen to?” she asked.

“That’s the whole idea!” I responded, waving the sleek purple device in front of her face. “The whole point of the iPod is to have hundreds of songs you’ll never listen to! But you could listen to them if you wanted to.” That’s when I got the simpletons look.

I guess kids will always rebel against their parents’ musical tastes, but even if I like guitar rock and they like auto-tuned dance tracks, I figure the fact that we’re all appreciating some kind of music is cause for hope. And that’s not to say there isn’t any common ground, either.

For instance, we all hate Barney now.

This column appeared originally in West of Boston Life magazine and North Shore Sunday. Peter Chianca is a managing editor for GateHouse Media New England. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/pchianca. To receive At Large by e-mail, write to info@chianca-at-large.com, with the subject line “SUBSCRIBE.”