Regardless of your thoughts upon hearing that Timothée Chalamet would be playing the lead in James Mangold’s early-Dylan biopic *A Complete Unknown*, you can’t accuse either the actor or the filmmaker of taking the easy way out. Chalamet performed all the Bob Dylan songs live on set and for the soundtrack, daring to put his own stamp on nothing less than some of the most hallowed and scrutinized compositions in pop history. “It was the most unique challenge I’ve taken on, but where my confidence came through is eventually doing all the music live,” Chalamet tells Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. “Maybe it was the least responsible thing on the actor’s part because the music exists, and the performances exist.” But what is the ideal balance between imitation and interpretation? How do you satisfy an obsessive, far-reaching fandom that’s had more than six decades to calcify their ideas and sharpen their attention to detail while also engaging a younger audience for whom the draw may be the star rather than the subject? The answer, my friends, is “Blowin’ in the Wind”: As familiar and canonical as anything in the American Songbook, it’s presented here, as it is in its original form, sparsely adorned with acoustic guitar as Chalamet offers just enough of Dylan’s most distinctive vocal tics and adenoidal stylings (“how many yeeeeeurhs...”) without veering into caricature. (“It’s not an impression Olympics,” Chalamet reminds.) This is the approach throughout, from the vocals to the arrangements in collaboration with music supervisor Nick Baxter—faithful enough to potentially give even the most ardent Dylanologist occasional pause, but insistent that this isn’t the project’s objective. Rather, the soundtrack is, in parlance that Dylan almost certainly would not himself use, a flex. The (spoiler alert!) full-band electric songs from *Bringing It All Back Home* and *Highway 61 Revisited* capture the originals’ ramshackle spirit, with Chalamet having some fun with “It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry,” “Like a Rolling Stone,” and “Subterranean Homesick Blues” in particular. And he’s not on his own: Monica Barbaro, who plays Joan Baez, harmonizes with Chalamet on a handful of songs and steps out front for “There but for Fortune,” “Silver Dagger,” and “House of the Rising Sun.” Edward Norton recreates Pete Seeger’s interpolation of “Wimoweh” (eventually better known as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”) and Boyd Holbrook channels Johnny Cash’s charming menace in “Folsom Prison Blues” and “Big River.” But just as those artists were eventually eclipsed by Dylan, maybe some more willingly than others, the success of *A Complete Unknown* lives or dies with Chalamet’s ability to embody a mystery that has spent a lifetime refusing to be solved. And while there is an audience that will hungrily seek out every factual or stylistic deviation, Chalamet settled his own nerves by finding solidarity with Dylan’s commitment to blurring the line between biography and mythology. “This is interpretive,” he says. “This is not definitive. This is not fact. This is not how it happened. This is a fable.”
Considering how prevalent Arcángel has been in reggaetón and Latin trap in recent years, his relative silence on the new-music front in 2024 felt odd. Beyond a scant few features, the vanguard rapper seemed on hiatus, all but certain to break his streak of dropping yearly solo projects that began with 2018’s *Ares*. Thankfully, the surprise release of *Papi Arca* in the final weeks of December maintains his admirable release record. The nine-track effort demonstrates his signature style over several musical modes—spitting toughened rhymes with that unmistakable rasp on opener “La Franquicia” and ending as a romantic reggaetonero for “Besitos Pa’ Esas Nalgas.” Between those bookends, he keeps things mostly collaborative, subtly interpolating a J. Cole smash with Eladio Carrión on the R&B-driven “BFF” and recounting sexual conquests alongside Sech on the rugged “La Varita.” Still, a veteran of his caliber doesn’t require guests to shine, as evidenced by the tropical “Pa allá” and the late standout “THC.”
