For his 36th (!) album, Shadows in the Night, Bob Dylan decided on another full disc of covers. As he actually put it – “they’ve been covered enough. Buried, as a matter of fact. What [he’s] doing is uncovering them…bringing them into the light of day.”

Cutesy turn of phrase aside, this cover album of Frank Sinatra hits is well executed, but Dylan’s voice still seems somewhat out of place since he’s mimicking a crooner, a style so anti-him. On top of that, his voice is mixed quite high. Still, he reins in the Dylan-isms you see in impersonations, and he actually manages to sound more like a traditional pop singer here, more so than, say, his ill-fated Christmas catastrophe.

As for whether Dylan actually ‘unearths’ or dusts off these songs, I’ll use the track that was my original favorite as a template, “Autumn Leaves,” an old french tune adapted into English in the 40s that caught a bit of traction with versions by Édith Piaf and Nat King Cole, Sinatra taking the reins on his 1957 effort, Where Are You?; [LISTEN].

Outside of the country guitars in the background, when Dylan starts singing, he sounds impressively similar to Sinatra, but he gets pitchy as the piece progresses. Again, it’s not very noticeable, and the tracks – all ballads – are arranged in a way where it doesn’t take away from the effect (like most of Dylan’s non-Yuletide recordings).

The “Autumn Leaves” seasons-changing allegory for the bittersweet end of a romance may also speak towards Dylan’s place in the artistic world. Even old-timey, classic rock and roll songs “weren’t serious” enough, unlike his preferred folk music, which featured “more despair, more sadness,” as he reflected in a 2006 interview. Add that to the scientifically proven decline of pop music and Dylan’s decades-long shift from political representative of the counter-culture into bureaucratic figurehead atop the corporation that is rock and roll, and the man has to feel a bit exhausted.

Since you went away the days grow long/And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song/But I miss you most of all my darling/When autumn leaves start to fall

But, “Why Try to Change [Him] Now?” The fact of the matter is he’s one of many legends with a nine-digit USD net worth who we allow to do whatever they want. Every song on here has been sung by somebody (most likely not Sinatra) who will never be topped. But, you can play them anywhere and offend absolutely no one. It’s basically a Christmas album for the first financial quarter of a dreary midwinter. And he definitely does a better job this go around, but sadly Shadows in the Night still amounts to a further burying of these songs with unnecessary re-makes.