Bob Dylan is one of the most successful artists of all time, but I have no idea why. He can't sing, he can't play the guitar very well and his lyrics, which are supposed to be the best part are really lower sixth, "I want peace, I want poverty to end ...." Lame. So what is it about Bob Dylan that you like, his expert harmonica playing? Or do you see something in his music that I don't. The only song I like of his is "Like a Rolling Stone".
Bob Dylan
- Thread starter Tastycles
- Start date
I dont like anything about Bob Dylan, in fairness to the man he is one of the most prolific songwriters in the world.
By his own admission he cant sing or play guitar, but he did write "all along the watchtower" and let Hendrix have the song. That's what makes him so good. His music's shit as he'll admit, but the stuff he's wrote for others is frankly amazing.
By his own admission he cant sing or play guitar, but he did write "all along the watchtower" and let Hendrix have the song. That's what makes him so good. His music's shit as he'll admit, but the stuff he's wrote for others is frankly amazing.
I am not a Bob Dylan fan, always preferring Neil Young over him. Though learning about social changes dating back to the 1960s, and events such as the Rhode Island Music Festival, I can see why he grew in popularity. He wrote music that went with the time, and that is what people wanted, music that fit their lifestyles. I think a lot of today's affluent youth view Bob Dylan as a symbol of a funner time, and latch on to his music as a brace that helps them feel retro.
Razor Blade Dream
The Thread Killah
I got into Dylan from a friend of mine. I'll admit I'm not clamoring to listen to him any chance I get but his lyrics are thought provoking, "It's alright ma, I'm only bleeding" is nothing short of amazing.
"Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred."
"And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only."
I do prefer when others cover his songs but you can't deny his lyrical prowess.
"Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Made everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred."
"And if my thought-dreams could be seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only."
I do prefer when others cover his songs but you can't deny his lyrical prowess.
Wow. If I were you, I would find someway to delete this thread so that there can be no evidence to this musical heresy you are currently speaking.
He can't sing? I suppose he doesn't have the pipes of an opera singer or 50's crooner, but that doesn't mean he can't sing. If you think Dylan's singing is bad, then you must think Johnny Cash is among the world's worst vocalists in recorded history, because neither of these two guys could carry a note, and both of them still evoke more emotion out of their voices then every current popular rock singer combined and multiplied.
He can't play the guitar very well? Are you joking me? Unless your definition of guitar playing is Jimmy Page-esque twelve minute solos with violin bows, you're severely wrong. Bob Dylan plays a mixture of folk, blues, and rock, so yeah you won't be seeing any Iron Maiden guitar assaults or solos, but Dylan is certainly far from being an untalented guitarist. His songs are among the most highly respected and listened to music of the 20th and 21st centuries, second only to the Beatles in terms of global acclaim and adoration. So you're clearly wrong here, and that's really not debateable.
And as for a cheap dismissal of the mans lyrics as being all about peace and love and hippie BS, you clearly officially have proven yourself to not truly understand what you are talking about. Do you understand what folk music is? Have you any idea whatsoever of the history of folk music, or what it's entire existence is about? I'll give you a hint: PROTEST SONGS. That's what FOLK MUSIC IS MAN. That's like criticizing a punk band for singing about anarchy, what the hell do you think you're listening to?
Besides, only his early work in the 60s is really meta-political, everything he's done since picking up an electric guitar in '65 has really expanded entirely on the entire human experience. Go read the lyrics to songs like "Visions of Johanna", "Subterannean Homesick Blues", "The Times They Are A-Changin'", "All Along the Watchtower". If you don't understand why that's considered poetry at it's best, then again, and no offense intended, but you truly don't understand what constitutes beautiful poetry and prose.
Another aspect you haven't addressed is the fact that Dylan was/is more then just a musician. His music awakened a political and cultural revolution in America. He made people care about politics, about fighting for people's rights and realizing that everyone can make some kind of difference. He helped spark a grassroots revolution. Tell me any recent artists who have done anything remotely similiar to this.
Bob Dylan is one of the America's most important voices in music and in life in general. He represents the idea that music can help spark real change in people's lives. And to top it all off, no one has the pure massive amount of amazing , 5 star classic albums like Dylan does.
The man's a musical god, and you can't mess with that. What's next, a "Why Guitars Have Ruined Rock Music" thread? Or a "Why Beethoven Was a Poseur" thread?
In summation...Bob Dylan > You
I really don't get him either.
My friend, who's a solo accoustic bluegrass type musician was talking about his new album today. I asked him why he was so good. My friend then went on a long winded explanation of why I don't get blues music and why it's so awesome.
From what I could gather from his explanation, the summary was the sloppier the musician in blues, the more famous they become, much like punk was in the 70's. That's not my personal opinion of blues as I don't really listen to the genre, but that's essentially what he said.
My friend, who's a solo accoustic bluegrass type musician was talking about his new album today. I asked him why he was so good. My friend then went on a long winded explanation of why I don't get blues music and why it's so awesome.
From what I could gather from his explanation, the summary was the sloppier the musician in blues, the more famous they become, much like punk was in the 70's. That's not my personal opinion of blues as I don't really listen to the genre, but that's essentially what he said.
Either you misheard him or he doesn't really know much about blues music. I think what he probably was trying to get at was that the best blues is sung and played with the grittiest raw emotion, which I suppose could sound sloppy to some people.
Really though, Bob Dylan has only turned to real true blues over the last 2 decades, his most popular and important work in the 60s is solidly in the genres of folk and folk-rock.
How anyone could possibly listen to the album "Blonde on Blonde" and not understand why Bob Dylan is amazing, is beyond me.
The Dewbliners
WZ's Whedonite. Now 20% Cooler
Y'know, it's kinda funny. You used this same arguement (essentially) especially the Johnny Cash bit, against me the other night about Nirvana, and I wouldn't hear of it. Tonight, it's a different story.
Bob Dylan is fully deserving of his "legend" status. He brought Protest Music to the forefront, and sure he wasn't a classically trained singer, but who amongst that genre was. I guess people are gonna say that Arlo Guthrie doesn't deserve his? Anyhow, with or without an angelic voice, Dylan inspired more modern Singers than most of his contemporarys.
Next, how do people get he couldn't play? Just because he wasn't plugged in for a VERY large chunk, and preferred the accoustic? Or is it because he used simpler chords than Hendrix? Either way, his guitar work is nothing short of amazin', and made better by his simultaneous harmonica playing with interspersed singing. You can bank on the fact that without BD, you'd not have political rock bands like Rage Against the Machine.
On an aside, just for shits and giggles, I say we need a thread about how much another Icon of Music sucks. That would be fun to see the shit hit the fan. Oh, and let's not forget Bob sired Jakob, without whom we wouldn't have the Wallflowers. What kind of world would that be?
Nah, it's alright, I stand by everything I said.
Cash, I agree with, right up until the end he could get a lot of emotion out of his voice. Dylan, not so much, He has no sense of timing whatsoever, his lyrics never fit the music and he is basically shouts the chorus. The emotive qualities are absent. His songs are pretty much all melancholic, so it's hard to find comparisions, granted, but he sings every single song in the same style, whih is a lack of versitility. Compare that Cash who sounds completely different in Ring of Fire than he does in something like Hurt.
Isn't it? Billy Bragg is a folk singer and his guitar work is far better, Woody Gutherie is also miles better. His songs are second only to the Beatles? Last time I checked, he had sold a lot fewer records than a lot more bands than that, but I suppose he's a poet, so it doesn't matter, as long as music journalists like him.
I get that folk music is built around chord patterns, but Dylan's music is less versitile than a Punk band. G,A,C,D and repeat.
My point isn't about the content, I am well aware of folk music, thanks. I'm not criticizing him for writing about peace and love, I'm criticising him for songs like Blowin in the wind, which instead of offering anything interesting just has a load of cliches. People seem to mistake a series of nonsensical ramblings as some sort of high and mighty symbolism, when it really isn't. Half of Desolation Row is just sprouting things that rhyme out of his arse, but you will definitely respond by saying "I don't get the message", when in fact it's because there isn't one. The fact of the matter is that his lyrics aren't very insightful at all.
The true master wordsmiths write their poetry/music or whatever so that it is in natural form. Like A Rolling Stone is completely twisted and distorted so that it doesn't really make any sense if you read it how he's written it, and you have to reorder the words yourself. At least it rhymes though, right?
Errr... Subterranean Homesick Blues is completely political, and it isn't very beautiful, what exactly is so good about it? Visions of Johanna: "See the primitive wallflower freeze/ When the jelly-faced women all sneeze/ Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze/ I can't find my knees" I cannot understand why you think that is good, that is Dylan rhyme finding at his worst. The Times They Are A Changin is quite a cynical attempt to make a protest song, again rhyme finding along with about two salient points.
Beautiful Prose? Dylan wouldn't know prose if it punched him in the face. Dylan strives for rhymes that aren't there all of the time. If he wrote good prose, he wouldn't need that. Prose by it's definition is without rhythm and rhyme. No offence intended, but if you think Dylan writes prose, you truly don't understand what constitutes prose full stop, let alone beautiful prose.
Civil rights movement had nothing to do with it then? The 60s were a time of massive cultural and social change. If you want to know who got that bandwagon rolling, look at Rosa Parks and the inventor of the contraceptive pill. Dylan's popularity was a result of that culture not the cause.
What has Dylan changed? Last time I saw the big cultural changes in the 60s were about the emancipation of women and black people, I don't see how Dylan caused that. Protest at the war in Vietnam also had a lot to do with it. These are things that would have happened with or without Dylan.
I'll give him longevity, but do you really think that he had anything approaching relevance in the 80s and 90s? Apparently he's cool again now, but he was so far from the forefront of culture in 1980. His albums in the 1970s were often 1 or two star albums by all accounts. The five star album thing is often flawed anyway, because music journalists get taken up in hype. If Radiohead released an album of Thom Yorke's bathroom noises tomorrow, it would get 5 star ratings.
I really don't think he is though. You seem to be arguing at me as if I don't know anything about Dylan. In truth I've spent about 6 years trying to listen to his music, but I've always been hugely underwhelmed by it, I just don't think it deserves the reverance attributed to it. The biggest issue I have is in calling a rhyme seeker as bad as Dylan a poet, but there we go.
Probably, but then I don't have anybody bigging me up.
justinsayne
Cody Rhodes is an excellant
Bob Dylan is about as overrated as they come, his voice sounds like absolute shit, now I know because I listen to metal and shit that that will be the first thing people like Xfear will attack me at for saying such a thing, but that doesn't change the fact that when ever I hear Bob Dylans voice it makes me feel like my ears are about to bleed, his guitar playing skills really aren't all that impressive to me either, as has already been said in this thread about the only talent the guy had was as a song writer... for other people, when he sings his songs sound like crap to me, I not saying the guy needs to be able to play with the likes of Hendrix, or Page, or needs to have voice comparable to say Freddy Mercury or someone else great, but it would be nice if his voice didn't sound nails on a chalkboard, and his guitar skills didn't sound so...well shitty, I get that people like the guy and like his music and that's fine, but for people to claim he's a musical god when it's clear the guy has very little talent is just ridiculous, and just goes to prove that he's overrated by the vast majority of his fan base
(BTW I fully expect this post to get ripped apart by the oh so great, and all knowing Xfear[/SARCASM])
(BTW I fully expect this post to get ripped apart by the oh so great, and all knowing Xfear[/SARCASM])
Every criticism you just made about Dylan I'm assuming refers to his recent work. Because Dylan's recent work falls more under what you're saying...and you have to remember the man is almost 70 freakin' years old now. Find me a 67 year old with a melodic singing voice.
But his classic 60's and 70's work is very different from the descriptions you just made. As for saying Dylan couldn't get alot of emotion out of his voice...that's ridiculious. Listen to the song "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" and tell me there's no emotion in his voice. Or the song "Girl From the North Country". The yearning emotion in his voice for a girl he once loved is almost palpable.
Billy Bragg is great, but Bragg would be the very first to tell you that he doesn't even hold a candle to Dylan. Guthrie is also a legend, and the main influence on Dylan's career, but also was hardly a guitar virtuoso. I'm not sure how you can criticize Dylan's guitar playing but not Guthrie's...Guthrie (and folk music in general) was as simplistic as it comes.
Check out Dylan's 1975 Rolling Thunder Live CD. Maybe that'll change your mind about Dylan's guitar playing.
What's wrong with simplicity? I never understood that criticism, especially in reference to punk. Who ever made the decree that the more varied chords you play the "better" of a band you are? That was always ridiculious to me, because emotion and soul are probably just as if not more important than actual musical skill.
A load of cliches? You have to remember that song came out in 1963, and in 63 those lyrics were not a cliche. It was big-time taboo to write anything even resembling anti-war or pacifist lyrics, for fear of being labelled a communist. This was before the hippies remember. So I'm not sure where you're getting the cliche ideas. Also, if you look at the majority of Dylan's lyrics, the majority are not about peace and war, but about love and life. You can't pigeonhole the man into only singing about politics because that's crap.
Sprouting things that rhyme out of his ass? Are you aware of the term "beat poetry"? Because that's pretty much the definition of it. Desolation Row however isn't just a slew of random rhyming words thrown together, it's a minstrel song at heart, and under those definitions it works pefectly. Aside from that, it's just a great song through and through.
As for his lyrics not being insightful...that's also pretty ridiculious. Cite me an example of what you would consider to be "insightful" lyrics, and I'll reply with some Dylan lyrics.
Since when did lyrics/poetry have to make any sense? That flies right in the face of the entire spirit of the cultural revolution of the 60s, and especially the beatnik movement from which Dylan took major inspiration. The entire point of that movement was to break rules and show that poetry didn't have to fall under your basic A B A B rhyming scheme. If you think Dylan's poetry doesn't make sense, you'd absolutely hate Jack Kerouac or Allen Ginsberg, but they're both still among the most respected artistic voices of the 20th century.
Besides, Like a Rolling Stone makes absolute perfect sense. What doesn't make sense? Dylan describes someone who's out on their own for the first time in their life. It's rather obvious.
SHB is not an overtly political song at all. It's got maybe two lines referencing politics. The rest is entirely about the culture of the time and growing rift between the young and old generations. As for what's beautiful about it...beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If you can't appreciate the beatnik poetry of the song, then that's on you man. It doesn't somehow negate his work. Again, Dylan's lyrics are incredibly similiar to beatnik poetry, and if you have an appreciation for beatnik poetry like I do, then Dylan's lyrics will always make you smile.
Again, refer to the beatnik poetry explanation I've just given. Besides, from that same song:
Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn
That's great lyricism right there.
Cynical? The Times They Are A-Changin' is anything but cynical, contrarily it's a song full of hope over the changing culture of the US. Yes, the song does send out warnings to those that refuse to keep up with the times, but it's hardly a cynical song. Any song about politics could be considered cynical quite honestly, it's inherent to the subject.
"Strives for rhymes". How the hell would you know? Were you sitting in on Dylan while he writes lyrics? If anything I would have thought you'd argue the opposite, that he just throws words out there at a breakneck speed without a second thought, not striving for rhymes.
As for prose, yes, Dylan has written prose. Example A would be his semi-autobiography Chronicles Vol. 1. I believe you're thinking of prose as it applies to poetry, which it does not always do.
Where did I imply that Dylan was more important then the civil rights movement? I did no such thing, at all. Not sure where you're getting that. But as for your average white American growing up in the 60s, Bob Dylan's influence was tenfold that of Rosa Parks of Martin Luther King. The hippie movement didn't start because of the civil rights movement, though it played a big part, the hippie movement grew from the same beatnik roots that Dylan did.
Dylan obviously didn't invent the culture of the 60s, and I in no way implied that he did. Simply that he played a major role in it, which he did, just like the Beatles or LSD. Not to mention Dylan's total reinvention of folk music itself; the man practically invented electric folk music (coincidentally he invented it right here in my home town of Newport, Rhode Island at the Folk Festival in 65).
Dylan was a major influence on young people to become politically active, which they did in record numbers during that time. Again, I never said that Dylan invented the culture of the 60s, but just like John Lennon or Jim Morrison, Dylan represented his entire generation of people. Who do you think those people protesting Vietnam were listening to? Who's songs do you think they were likely playing? Every Vietnam war protest under the sun at some point had some jackass covering Dylan's "Masters of War". Not to mention Dylan's influence on music itself, especially folk music.
You'd have to present me with something even resembling a solid point for me to rip it apart.
Really Justin, just stay away from this argument. You have no musical taste whatsoever, so anything you say on the subject is totally irrelevent. Come back when you can use punctuation and possibly have atleast one or two solid points. In the mean time, I'll debate with Tastycles, whose intelligence and understanding of music I've clearly underrated. Top notch points made by him.
Criticizing Dylans singing ability is just laughable. Dylan was influential during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war and so much more. It's a shame, Dylan has written many many studio albums, won many awards during his time. His music influenced a decade, and can still be seen as influential today. You don't have to like him, but questioning his success is just laughable. All the awards, top hits, great guitar play, shit, he even sounds great with a freaking harmonica.
These are some of my favorite Dylan songs. His voice isn't shitty, it just doesn't appeal to you.
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These are some of my favorite Dylan songs. His voice isn't shitty, it just doesn't appeal to you.
[youtube]L8itFRCpkLg[/youtube]
[youtube]XRiMZgzp3wU[/youtube]
[youtube]s8mszy9CgSc[/youtube]
Razor Blade Dream
The Thread Killah
I will admit that Dylan's voice is questionable, "Maggie's Farm" is as nasally as they come. Yet, he stopped smoking apparently for "Lay, Lady Lay" and it wasn't that bad. Better than half the shit that comes out lately.
Dylan is a lyrical genius, his songs make people think and really question life and how things are run in America and the world in general.
Granted, people might find it hard to relate to his lyrics now then back in the 60's but lyrics are mainly up for interpretation and we can make his lyrics apply to the world at large now. So, no I do not find Dylan to be overrated whatsoever.
Dylan is a lyrical genius, his songs make people think and really question life and how things are run in America and the world in general.
Granted, people might find it hard to relate to his lyrics now then back in the 60's but lyrics are mainly up for interpretation and we can make his lyrics apply to the world at large now. So, no I do not find Dylan to be overrated whatsoever.
To further validate my point, listen to this live recording of Dylan from the famous 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour, and try to tell me that Dylan can't sing, play the guitar, or write quality lyrics.
[youtube]O91LYWN4RPE[/youtube]
Just thought I'd that for a final nail in the coffin. Amazing song, amazing performance. The great thing about Dylan's live shows is that he always changes his songs. Tweak a lyric here, change the pace of a song there, add instruments, he's always experimenting with it to give the audience an even better show then before.
[youtube]O91LYWN4RPE[/youtube]
Just thought I'd that for a final nail in the coffin. Amazing song, amazing performance. The great thing about Dylan's live shows is that he always changes his songs. Tweak a lyric here, change the pace of a song there, add instruments, he's always experimenting with it to give the audience an even better show then before.
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