Infidels - Reception

Reception

While Infidels was better received than its predecessor, Shot of Love, Graham Lock of New Musical Express still referred to Dylan as "culturally a spent force...a confused man trying to rekindle old fires." Rolling Stone and The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau was not impressed either, writing that Dylan had "turned into a hateful crackpot. Worse than his equation of Jews with Zionists with the Likud or his utterly muddled disquisition on international labor is the ital Hasidism that inspires no less than three superstitious attacks on space travel. God knows (and I use that phrase advisedly) how far off the deep end he'll go if John Glenn becomes president." Greil Marcus dismissed it many years later as another "bad that made no sense, didn't hang together, had no point, and did not need to exist."

But even the skeptics found some merit in Infidels. In the same review, Christgau wrote, "All the wonted care Dylan has put into this album shows...His distaste for the daughters of Satan has gained complexity of tone—neither dismissive nor vituperative, he addresses women with a solicitousness that's strangely chilling, as if he knows what a self-serving hypocrite he's being, but only subliminally. At times I even feel sorry for him, just as he intends." Indeed, critics were unanimous in praising the overall sound, "one case where the streamlined production doesn't seem to work against the rugged authority he can still command as a singer," wrote Tim Riley. Music critic Bill Wyman conceded that "the songs are mature and complex" even though "melodically they are similar sounding and the affair as a whole still has echoes of his crackpot Christian days."

Infidels would place tenth on The Village Voice's Pazz & Jop Critics Poll for 1983, Dylan's highest placement since 1975 when The Basement Tapes placed #1 and Blood on the Tracks placed #4. Years later, when outtakes like "Someone's Got A Hold Of My Heart," "Blind Willie McTell," and "Foot Of Pride" began to circulate, the album's stature would in some ways grow, becoming a missed opportunity at a potential masterpiece to some critics like Rob Bowman and Clinton Heylin.

Without a tour in 1983, Infidels still generated modest sales, selling consistently through the Christmas shopping season. CBS even produced a music video for "Sweetheart Like You," Dylan's first in the MTV era. The female guitar player featured and who mimed Mick Taylor's guitar solo is Carla Olson. This appearance led to her recording a live album with Mick as well as numerous studio sessions with him. And Dylan gave her the unreleased song "Clean Cut Kid" for her debut album Midnight Mission (A&M Records). "Sweetheart Like You" was followed by a second video for "Jokerman," which CBS issued as a single in February 1984.