Why don't I like Bob Dylan?

For example, I dislike Pink Floyd because they'e boring, bloated, pretentious, cringeworthy prog-wank twaddle for middle-aged men who like to listen to Dark Side Of The Moon in darkened rooms through expensive headphones so they can 'feel it, man' while smoking a joint and reading The Independent and thinking they're bloody Trotskyist revolutionary intellectuals intent on bringing down capitalism when in fact all they're doing is lining the pockets of wankers and perpetuating the momentum of the economy by supporting one of the biggest global industries. With really long, boring solos, and clean shiny production that has no personality, and bleated platitudes for lyrics that are delivered in a deeply pretentious monotone that's meant to reveal the true profundities of their incredibly inane observations about 'great gigs in the sky' and revolting against authority, and three minutes of G or whatever it is at the start of the album and very very boring and now deeply dated and not releasing singles from it because they're trying to make art instead of pop music and so on and so on and this rant is almost as long and boring and wanky as a Floyd album now so I shall stop.

But I can't come up with any reasons why I dislike Dylan other than the fact that I get bored and want to do summat else when listening to him. Maybe it's the hippy thing.

(and you'll be middle-aged one day too nick)

(why would trots read the independent?)

(and the problem w. dsotm is that it ISN'T "bloated", just dull) (whatever "bloated" actually means)

I kind of have a similar-reversed reaction, though Nick. Everything else in my music taste suggests to me I should not like Dylan, but I love him: he's one of the artists my opinions have changed least on over the last ten years. That thing I wrote about him scratches about as to why I like him but comes out too simplistic in the end I think.

"What's this? Got a good beat to it..."

what is the constitution of this club: as patron saint i am surely not allowed *near* the definition end of things?

Although I must say that while Pink Floyd's motivations (political/emotional/whatever) are more than slightly awry, the music is fucking great.

I'll just add that there is quite a lot of variation in Dylan's output over the years, so you might want to try some albums from different periods before you make a blanket judgment. At this point in time, "Blood on the Tracks" is one of my favorites, but it wasn't always that way. "Highway 61 Revisited" was the album that first got me into Dylan. "John Wesley Harding" might also be a good place to start.

I'd say start with Bringing It All Back Home. Side 1 has some really funny songs (especially the real long one that I can never remember the name of), and Side 2 is sensitive acoustic Dylan at his best. Also see the film "Don't Look Back" if you want to see how creepily charismatic Bob was at the time, with his frizzy hair and dark shades and 'fuck you' attitude. In a lot of ways he was really the original punk.

Pink Floyd are fucking brilliant, what are you guys talking about?

i knew this was going to happen. after a lifetime -- all 32 years of it -- of loudly proclaiming my loathing for the silly-haired auld fuck, i found myself oddly drawn to a best-of.

which i'm listening to now.

and CHIZ CHIZ CHIZ it's actually making a lot of sense and i CURSES am really quite liking it.

i still don't get the grovelling reverence, but this is rather brilliant in parts.

oh -- and really, bob, the harmonica. that's not always strictly necessary.

Thanks for reviving this so i could read Fritz above.

Oh, and Ain't Talkin' from Modern Times is up there with Blind Willie McTell

yeh, the fritz post is fritzin' wonderful. ah, the ILM i never knew.

That Fritz post was a keeper and a half. Had almost forgotten it!

hang on, ned, i thought you'd be crosser here. this nascent acceptance of BD makes me JUDAS, surely?

Dude, like what you like. My opinion hasn't changed but yours is your own, so hey.

heh, ned, you really are the least rile-able dude i know and i salute you heartily for it.

i dunno ... i 1) wish i hadn't invested quite so much hatred in dylan, and 2) wish i could remember quite what inspired such outpourings of bile. probably something to do with old men telling me what i should like, but ... hmm.

of course, perhaps i'm just becoming an old man. that could be it.

There ya go. EMBRACE THE ELD.

My point way up near the top about 'tedious reverence' holds, and lord knows there are things I like that I've gone on about accordingly. (Quite honestly I really don't want to write about Loveless ever again -- it's all said on my end now.) Dylan came down for you and I and a lot of others with an overwhelming amount of that. But I stick with my approval of him as ur-figure/source material, that I'm fine with.

urRaggett, yo.

Worth a read:

http://www.mr-agreeable.net/story.lasso?section=Blog%20Archive&id=103

good lord that fritz post is like the greatest thing ever on this board.

What is fritz calling himself these days?

How cool would Ned look if he frizzed his hair, wore Ray-Bans, and rapped about leaders and parking meters.

ned + parking meters

source

and CHIZ CHIZ CHIZ it's actually making a lot of sense

i know this is part of the tedious reverence but it's true that dylan is one of the few artists that i really went through a CLICK moment with -- where at some point i just felt like i went from not getting it to getting it. the key for me was in the singing.

Weird. I’m not a Dylan fanatic, though I’ve slowly become a fan but I’ve always loved Blood on the Tracks with the exception of Jack of Spades.

Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts ... rather.

It's perfectly OK to not be a Dylan fan.
But you have to love "Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat."

heh, ned, you really are the least rile-able dude i know and i salute you heartily for it.
No, that would be Geir. I've seen Ned riled plenty:)

O RILEY?

Grr or something.

thx dudes!

encore!

encore!

will it be his 'best post since TMWDLD' though?,,,,,,,,,,,or will it be Empire Burlesque?

I have to confess, I've been having Daniel Lanois write most of my zings for me.

man, i'd be happy to pull of an Empire Burlesque. I'm in my Down In The Groove phase on ILM.

bob dylan - one of the worst vocals in rock, one of the best songwriters. ( i can't listen to him anyway)

people don't like to hear it, but sometimes you have to grow into stuff. or grow up for stuff. not to say that there aren't perfectly sane people with good taste in music who will never like dylan (like, um, ned), but things change. and you have your dylan epiphany. or your beatles/stones epiphany. or your steely dan epiphany. whatever. it's happened to me a lot over the years. i only had my byrds epiphany a couple years ago! at the ripe old age of 35 or whatever! jazz. classical. same thing. sometimes you just need to hear more to get why someone is considered so special.

and sometimes you won't ever get it even of you try.

Scott's point is that sometimes you don't even try -- it happens.

but trying can be good! people often think that something considered by many to be "genius" or "groundbreaking" or whatever is gonna hit them right of the bat. that it should be obviously great. this isn't always true. and this makes it easy for people to dismiss grandad's fave rockers. and i've made the point on ilm before that it's a GOOD thing when you are young to dismiss your elder's pop faves. it's healthy. but if you are smart-ish and curious, after your youthful denial of oldsters, it's also a good thing to explore the previously deplored. to find out why all these people still foam at the mouth about this stuff. cuz usually there is a good reason. usually. but you need to listen a lot. and hear the tangential as well. in dylan's case: 50's pop, blues, folk, country, art songs, spirituals, gospel, rockabilly, and more. cuz that's what he was taking from. and more besides. and that's too daunting for a lot of people. in which case they can at least agree that he wrote a couple of catchy tunes. or maybe not.

I agree, but the burden of an artist's canonicity can hinder more than usual. That's been my Van Morrison problem. I've gotten to the point at which I enjoy several albums of my own volition, but at the beginning every time I heard Veedon Fleece or whatever I kept hearing colleagues shouting "William Butler Ray Charles!" while I heard formless bleating and bad scatting.

i'm gonna give you my byrds example: i've been listening to the byrds since i was a kid. i think i bought my first byrds album at a yard sale when i was 11 or 12. it was turn turn turn. and i liked that song, but i never really listened to anything else on the album. and as i got older i still listened to the byrds but i never LOVED them. i just knew a lot about them and knew their history and influence and their songs, etc. in the 90's i bought a bunch of the remastered CDs cuz i still wanted to understand and feel byrds fire, but they just didn't do it for some reason. they just didn't sound right to me. too fussy. too something. i was not in love. when i moved to this island 4 or 5 years ago i was finally in the right place and right time. i dont know how. maybe the bucolic natural wilderness of the place. maybe cuz i had kids. who knows. the record store had the first 4 or 5 albums and they were in really nice shape. mono pressings. they sounded GREAT. i'm big on good sound. they TOTALLY hit me. they sounded wonderful. i couldn't get enough. songs i had heard for decades sounded brand new to me. i fell in love with the notorious byrd brothers album and couldn't believe that i had lived without it for so long. i searched out solo byrds albums and loved them too. i was READY for them to hit me. it led me into that whole world of calicountryrock (see the ilm thread) and i haven't looked back since. it took me, like, 25 YEARS of trying to feel like that. which is why i say that it isn't always easy and people don't often want to put in that kind of effort to enjoy something. and that is perfectly understandable.

Scott, I'm with you, not just on the Byrds (though they've never been work for me to love), but on working to get music. I think it's wrong to demand that of others---for most people, music is mostly an easy pleasure (or pain), and it wouldn't make sense for them to work at it, given what they're looking to get out of it. When I do so, as I did for jazz recently and finally got it in a big way, it wasn't the sort of epiphany I would expect others to aspire to. It's just music, and while we obviously value it a lot, it's not like we have some kind of good moral argument for its value.

Dylan meant the world to me as early as my 14th or 15th year. I was a punk, like many in England @ 1977/78, in a provincial nondescript east midlands town, feeling the aftershocks of what the Pistols and the Clash had just wrought down in London, or the Buzzcocks up in Manchester, wearing stupid safety pins in our ears, dog collars and binliners ("garbage bags" for our North American ILXors) Docs and pleather bomber jackets. And yet I still responded to Dylan -- back then, Desire and Street Legal specifically, contemporanously, but really a lot of his back catalogue as I worked backwards (Blood On The Tracks, Blonde On Blonde, The Freewheeling... were personal favourites then) -- despite a cultural gulf. I loved words, so that helped -- although before and since I haven't required any overt poetic or lyric dimension in order to love the music I love -- I did like some Kerouac and Ginsberg, but nonetheless I can't really explain it or anything.

I don't know. His voice is fucking amazing. I can really understand people not liking it, but if, like me, you think his voice is "fucking amazing", listen with all your attention to his phrasing on "Moonshiner" or "Blind Willie McTell", watch the oddness or the ferocity or the indifference of his many performances on stage -- YouTube has plenty of footage from Rolling Thunder, for instance ("Shelter From the Storm" springs to mind), or in The Last Waltz when his sheer weird charisma -- a minah bird who looks at you and speaks obliquely of strange meetings in dark bazaars while scrawling something impenetrable in some dim notebook -- makes you want to pause the DVD and debate doing something a little more lighthearted after a tough day at work, and generally try to figure why this same music can irritate you to distraction one day only to move you to tears the next and make you laugh out loud following that, after which you give up and just accept that it's not really for rational analysis and WHY THE FUCK DID I POST THIS ON ILM WHERE SANER, SMARTER HEADS WILL SHRED ME???? And.... I DON"T WORSHIP DYLAN OR ANYTHING BUT AMID MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH ALL MUSIC, DYLAN HAS BEEN PRETTY MUCH THE ONE CONSTANT, SOMETHING I STILL CAN'T EXPLAIN ADEQUATELY ALTHOUGH PERHAPS NONE OF THAT MATTERS...

Haha

I just out-Bimbled Bimble.

Oh dear.

I agree with Scott for the most part, but I think that many people simply forget (or maybe just never really understood) that Dylan had pop hits--i.e., real honest-to-goodness top ten Billboard pop hits in the mid '60s. In other words, he wasn't all that hard to like back then--it's not as if we're talking about free jazz or Beefheart, ya know.

Here's how my sordid (and no doubt excruciatingly tedious) history with Bobby D. began:

I was a nerdy 15 year old listening to KLOS radio in L.A. one lonely evening when they just happened to be playing the entirety of Highway 61 Revisited. Never having heard it (or any Dylan really) before, I had no idea what to expect, but assumed that it would be something really old and somewhat difficult sounding. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Even though I had missed the opening “Like a Rolling Stone,” I was immediately taken with the sheer wonderful sound of the thing, which for me seemed neither new nor old but just there; seemingly occupying some ever-present, but apparently well hidden, inter-dimensional rift that I had unwittingly fallen through (or maybe I was just born to be old and fucking pretentious—hahaha…oh wait…). Nonetheless, the record seemed to be giving off this sort of weird timeless quality for someone like myself who knew virtually nothing about older pop forms, or such now clichéd roots music calling cards as the blues, or country, or R&B, or etc. In other words, it was a blast!

Also, as Lostandfound touched on, Dylan was really fucking funny back then. I mean Chaplin/Groucho funny! Hell, I’ve been laughing at that “the sun ain’t yellow, it’s chicken” line from "Tombstone Blues" for more than 25 years now (which probably only goes to show what a lame and childish sense of humor I have. Oh well.).

*takes planet waves,which's one of the two dylan's within one's left hand's reach right now, and puts on*

I respect him and all, but I just can't get beyond that fuckin' voice.
That probably sums it up for 95 percent of all Dylan haters. I could never get into Led Zeppelin because of Robert Plant's fucking' voice, so I can't knock someone else for doing the same. Lots of people also don't like Dylan because they simply don't like ANY blues-, folk- or roots-based music.
I think Dylan's a great singer. I don't think he has a lousy voice, either, although it's obviously an acquired taste). Live, however, he can get lazy — singing in octaves and all.

Music's not that interesting either.

**wasnnae talkin' 'bout any aleister crowley condoms up there oh no xpost**

Though the songs are often great. (xp)

I think many are also turned off by all the Dylanology shit, too, or with the notion that you have to have an English degree with a minor in Child Ballads to appreciate his music. I leave it to others, like Greil Marcus, to ponder the relationship between "Million Dollar Bash" and the biblical story of Abraham, or whatever. To me, it's a silly song about getting drunk, and you can sing along to it. It just fucking sounds good.
His music has never been inaccessible; he's a pop singer, no more, no less (a "song and dance man?").

his voice is great
his lyrics are frequently wonderful
his songs are sometimes very good
his fans are often insufferable
his reactionary outlook is regrettable
his recent music is depressingly hackneyed
his earlier work was infinitely better when the organ provided a counterpoint to his voice/guitar/harmonica
his very best stuff is not nearly as exciting or musically interesting as a heckload of other stuff
his most valuable asset is the mood his songs can set
his storytelling is better than his music
his storytelling is better than his poetry

someone post some of these frequently wonderful lyrics. all ive heard are lame or creepy lyrics from bd.

written down they don't work half so well, listen to 'talking world war III blues', 'motor psycho nitemare' or 'stuck inside of mobile with the memphis blues again'...

i love dylan more musically than lyrically. stuff like highway 61 is so distinctive in the way it's produced and arranged, it's got little to do with the rest of the blues rock scene then, like yardbirds or john mayall or whoever, it's sort of this odd, mannered take on the electric blues but there's a certain artifice or fakeness i guess that i like about it, no one is really hitting into a groove and soloing like most white blues people did then, and then obv. dylan's vocals and phrasing really aren't like, well, anything really that came before or since....

dylan's vocal phrasing and singing style as a musical element is by far the most underrated thing about dylan. too much focus on lyrics too little focus on how all these records SOUND.

and scott's totally OTM, most of the stuff i love now i didn't really get or like at first...i'd hate to think of what if i had never WORKED (and it was work at times) to get into jazz or more noisier rock stuff.

i have a couple of bob dylan albums but i think i prefer the best of. most of the things i like about dylan i like more in "your own public execution" by mouse and the traps or "rain of crystal spires" by felt. his lyrics rarely seem that interesting to me, mark e smith does the cryptic spite thing more to my liking. i guess bob does a lot more than that but he doesn't feel essential in the old man music way that the beatles and the kinks do to me. oh god i really am a child of britpop...

i meant to chuck d bowie in with the beatles and kinks there.

"but I think that many people simply forget (or maybe just never really understood) that Dylan had pop hits"

this is true, but people in their teens and twenties now aren't hearing dylan's songs as pop hits. they hear them in a different context. rudy vallee had pop hits too. but to a teen listening now to him, the reaction would probably be something like: "what is up with this dude's voice. it's sounds like he's singing through a megaphone. mark e smith does that kinda thing more to my liking."

Well yeah, of course yer right, Scott. But its also not so inconceivable--even when not compensating for the shifting expectations/assumptions of today's young pop audience(s)--to understand how Dylan could have sold to the same audience that was buying Monkees records at the time, for example. It's just not as out there as being unable to see why a pop audience didn't like Beefheart, or even the Velvets, y'know. Not that anyone here is saying such; I'm just being super obvious, as usual.

I think very few young people are getting into Dylan via his recent releases, however. If you scan any radio you're much more likely to hear "Rolling Stone" than "Thunder on the Mountain." I think they're curious after reading the RS Top 500 Albums list or something similar and seeing Highway 61 or Blonde on Blonde in the top 10 every time. Or, they've seen clips of "Don't Look Back" and dig his cool shades and put downs.

it's good to hear him out of context, which is how i got into 'infidels', my favorite of his.

i like a few of his '60s albums. i've given his '70s stuff like 'desire' and 'blood on the tracks' a shot, but out of all that i really only like 'pat garrett and billy the kid'. i wanted to like 'new morning' but i never came around on it. his output over the past decade bores me to tears.

I just out-Bimbled Bimble.

-- Lostandfound, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 06:24 (Yesterday) Link

Oh dear.

-- Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 25 September 2007 07:09 (Yesterday) Link

I didn't mean this as a bad thing!

Fuck a Bob Dylan.

someone post some of these frequently wonderful lyrics. all ive heard are lame or creepy lyrics from bd.

As others have said, the importance of Dylan's lyrics has been overstated by Boomer critics perhaps eager to give "rock" music some kind of academic cachet, perhaps also (subconsciously) because he took his last name from a famously lyrical Welsh poet.

That said, "wonderful" lyrics don't necessarily exclude creepiness. In fact, he often excels when he's being creepy. Ultimately, separating lyrics from the overall sound of the music is at best dubious, at worst pointless. If you want to hear compelling language within the context of his songs, I'd probably suggest something like "Senor (Tales Of Yankee Power)" or "Visions of Johanna" or something. Maybe even "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands".

Christopher Ricks' Visions of Sin is a good, if too academically "playful," examination of Dylan's lyrics.

Publisher's Weekly review otm: "Sometimes Ricks strives to be too hip and precious—as when he characterizes "Lay, Lady, Lay" as "erotolayladylaylia," and when he concludes that there are similarities between other poems and Dylan's by providing a list of one word correspondences, as he does with "Lay, Lady, Lay" and Donne's "To His Mistress Going to Bed."

Hitchens on Ricks

Less savage than I would have expected.

Fuck a Bob Dylan
Alex, you're so punk!

if i hadn't already decided to start listening to dylan, this thread would make me want to.

but then if i hadn't decided to start listening to dylan, i wouldn't have revived this thread.

aah.

I think many are also turned off by all the Dylanology shit, too, or with the notion that you have to have an English degree with a minor in Child Ballads to appreciate his music

this might just be the root of it -- i'd forgotten all about my prick of an english lit tutor who force-fed us "jokerman" as part of a newly minted postmodernism course he obviously didn't understand at all. i remember coming in the following week and forcing the class to listen to "famous blue raincoat". it made sense at the time. can't for the life of me think what i was trying to prove, but still.

Yeah, that quote is on the money. It's funny, I have an English degree, but that's not why I love Dylan. For me, it's not as rarefied or as academic or even as earnest as that; although I do love words, language, it would all be next to useless without the music and the attitude, the humour, etc. Dusty old texts, with some historical value maybe. Lyrics have never been essential to my enjoyment of music, although they're more integral to my love of Dylan than, say, my love of the Cocteau Twins, obv. Well done countering Bob with Len, though, grimly. I don't get it either, but it's somehow funny (perhaps because of all artists, Cohen's words actually sometimes are closest to poetry?)

Cohen's words actually sometimes are closest to poetry?

Which is precisely what makes them so unbearable as songs - I'm just listening to Maybelle Carter singing I'm thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes, and I think Dylan is the only living songwriter who could write something as perfect (maybe Will Oldham on a very good day) in that transparent, un- poetising but completely poetic idiom

the worst thing about the literary cult of dylan or whatever you want to call it is that it focuses so much on the big cryptic epics that you forget how many simple, direct, great songs he wrote over the years...i like lines like this just as much as "sad eyed lady of the lowlands":

build me a cabin in utah
marry me a wife, catch rainbow trout
have a bunch of kids that call me "pa"
that must be what it's all about

Yeah, or the in-between longer (yet more understated) narratives like "Hollis Brown" or "North Country Blues". I agree that Dylanologists and others (sigh, I have to include myself upthread!) tend to focus far too much on the poetic epics at the expense of his less audacious yet equally engaging material.

I mean, no magic swirling ships or binoculars hanging off of donkeys here:

The iron ore poured
As the years passed the door,
The drag lines an' the shovels they was a-humming.
'Til one day my brother
Failed to come home
The same as my father before him.

heartily agreed. matt just quoted my favourite dylan lines ever. fuck, that song is great.

Well, I took me a woman late last night,
I's three-fourths drunk, she looked uptight.
She took off her wheel, took off her bell,
Took off her wig, said, "How do I smell?"
I hot-footed it . . . bare-naked . . .
Out the window!

Well, sometimes I might get drunk,
Walk like a duck and stomp like a skunk.
Don't hurt me none, don't hurt my pride
'Cause I got my little lady right by my side.
(Right there
Proud as can be)

I's out there paintin' on the old woodshed
When a can a black paint it fell on my head.
I went down to scrub and rub
But I had to sit in back of the tub.
(Cost a quarter
And I had to get out quick . . .
Someone wanted to come in and take a sauna)

Well, my telephone rang it would not stop,
It's President Kennedy callin' me up.
He said, "My friend, Bob, what do we need to make the country grow?"
I said, "My friend, John, Brigitte Bardot,
Anita Ekberg,
Sophia Loren."
(Put 'em all in the same room with Ernest Borgnine!)

Well, I got a woman sleeps on a cot,
She yells and hollers and squeals a lot.
Licks my face and tickles my ear,
Bends me over and buys me beer.
(She's a honeymooner
A June crooner
A spoon feeder
And a natural leader)

Oh, there ain't no use in me workin' so heavy,
I got a woman who works on the levee.
Pumping that water up to her neck,
Every week she sends me a monthly check.
(She's a humdinger
Folk singer
Dead ringer
For a thing-a-muh jigger)

Late one day in the middle of the week,
Eyes were closed I was half asleep.
I chased me a woman up the hill,
Right in the middle of an air raid drill.
It was Little Bo Peep!
(I jumped a fallout shelter
I jumped a bean stalk
I jumped a ferris wheel)

Now, the man on the stand he wants my vote,
He's a-runnin' for office on the ballot note.
He's out there preachin' in front of the steeple,
Tellin' me he loves all kinds-a people.
(He's eatin' bagels
He's eatin' pizza
He's eatin' chitlins
He's eatin' bullshit!)

Oh, set me down on a television floor,
I'll flip the channel to number four.
Out of the shower comes a grown-up man
With a bottle of hair oil in his hand.
(It's that greasy kid stuff.
What I want to know, Mr. Football Man, is
What do you do about Willy Mays and Yul Brynner,
Charles de Gaulle
And Robert Louis Stevenson?)

Well, the funniest woman I ever seen
Was the great-granddaughter of Mr. Clean.
She takes about fifteen baths a day,
Wants me to grow a cigar on my face.
(She's a little bit heavy!)

Well, ask me why I'm drunk alla time,
It levels my head and eases my mind.
I just walk along and stroll and sing,
I see better days and I do better things.
(I catch dinosaurs
I make love to Elizabeth Taylor . . .
Catch hell from Richard Burton!)

I really want to hear Blonde on Blonde-era Dylan do a reading of "To His Coy Mistress."

had we but weerrld enuf and tiime...

<i>Fuck a Bob Dylan
Alex, you're so punk!</i>

Not liking Bob Dylan has less to do with being "punk" and more to do with having ears that function properly. I hated Bob Dylan's voice back when my life was otherwise ruled by Kiss, Queen and Pink Floyd.

No riffs. Sure the voice was offputting at first, and sure the lyrics overwhelmed that. But I grew to like the voice, and the arrangements. But there's never any riffs taht stick, at best an amazing set of chords. And when I find my mind drifting away during the fourth song on a side, it's 'cause there's no riff to hold it all together and lead me between the verses. The best Dylan covers (Highway 51 Revisited, by Johnny Winter or PJ Harvey, say) add a musical hook.

substitute taht/that, 51/61
I like wine!

my eldest brother has been insufferable about dylan since he was about fifteen, which has to have played some part in my aversion of the man.

personally, if i'm looking for a distinctive voice with down-home lyrics i'll put on kris kristofferson. at least his fans are a pretty decent bunch without pretensions.

isn't it, yknow, just at least slightly possible to separate your impression of an artist from your impression of his fans?

i mean these are the most boring reasons imaginable for disliking someone, way lamer at this point than claiming bob dylan is the greatest poet since keats or something

Has anyone else noticed that there were a lot of threads like this one started 5 or so years ago? Someone proclaims a hatred of some famous and well-loved classic rock band, musician, or album and various folk chime in in agreement; then, a few years later, the thread gets revived with an apologetic capitulation.

Was contrarianism popular back in 2002? Is it not so hot now? Please enlighten me...

isn't it, yknow, just at least slightly possible to separate your impression of an artist from your impression of his fans?

actually, J.D. I find him very average at best musically (i'd have the same issues as others about his vocals, for instance), but the constant trumpeting of his talents would tend to push me towards dislike.

i think that's fairly valid when you genuinely can't see anything great about a musician/band that you keep hearing such consistently hyperbolised praise for.

Not liking Bob Dylan has less to do with being "punk" and more to do with having ears that function properly.
I guess I'm off to an ENT doctor tomorrow, then. Funny, they seem to be working properly.

i think that's fairly valid when you genuinely can't see anything great about a musician/band that you keep hearing such consistently hyperbolised praise for.

-- darraghmac, Sunday, 30 September 2007 13:34 (2 hours ago) Link

Hopefully you'll grow out of this--it betrays an inability to think for yourself.

it betrays an inability to think for yourself

oh, come on, it does nothing of the sort. it's a perfectly natural response: if you're constantly bombarded with "DYLAN IS GOD" and -- for whatever reason -- you hear nothing but (say) nasal singing and some well dodgy harmonica, you're going to become more entrenched in your own opinions.

i can be pretty sure about this because it's exactly how i felt. it was when more sensible and less hyperbolic criticism of dylan caught me off guard that i thought, you know, i really should listen to this old git properly (qv my revive, above).

it's the same with the beatles: i couldn't allow myself to like them when i was growing up in the eighties and early nineties because the praise lavished upon them was sickeningly predictable and tedious. like any good teenage iconoclast, i flicked the Vs and refused to listen. and that was, of course, thinking for myself -- not deeply, perhaps, but certainly thinking. it was simply an opinion based not on the music but on the cultural baggage.

tastes change; people change. a pal made me a CD of slightly less canonical beatles stuff, as i've discussed elsewhere here, and that changed everything.

but come off it: with artists like this, "not thinking for yourself" is surely more like following the slavish IT'S GENIUS line? i'm not saying not liking dylan is a particularly radical position to adopt; however, i am absolutely and categorically saying that people wanking on about how fucking godlike he is makes him -- for people like me and, i guess, darraghmac -- a little harder to embrace.

I don't give a fuck about people not liking Dylan; it's when the reason advanced is that he can't sing that i get mad. He's a pretty good singer actually, in terms of musicality, phrasing and expressiveness; it's just that the sound of his voice is defiantly un- Bel Canto- like. It reminds of the Charles Hallé line about the English not caring much for music, just liking the sound of it.

"i think that's fairly valid when you genuinely can't see anything great about a musician/band that you keep hearing such consistently hyperbolised praise for.

-- darraghmac, Sunday, 30 September 2007 13:34 (2 hours ago) Link

Hopefully you'll grow out of this--it betrays an inability to think for yourself."

This still isn't making any sense to me- I can't think for myself because i disagree with the majority opinion on an artist?

grimly, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard re: the Beatles. Why not just listen an make your own decision? I bet you weren't a lot of fun to hang out with.

And not liking something because it "doesn't live up to the hype" is a thoroughly invalid criticism.

Why not just listen an make your own decision

because, dude, i was an angsty and -- yes! -- immature teenager and didn't have the merit of yr worldly wisdom at the time. thanks, though, for this sage advice: it would no doubt have revolutionised my entire existence and that of everyone around me. anyway, i won't take up any more of your time: i guess you've got burma ("why not just let the people have a say?") and world peace ("why not just be nice to each other?") to sort out before bedtime.

He's a pretty good singer actually

he's a great singer. i think if you're looking for his influence (not that "influence" is the reason to venerate him or anyone), i think it's most evident in singing. he changed the way people sing just as much as elvis or ella did.

as for being put off by the canonization, that's just a basic problem with canons, right? received wisdom about the greatness of an artist or work of art serves the valuable function of preserving the art for posterity, but it also makes it harder to fight through the overlay and encounter the art yourself, on its own terms and your own terms.

dylan's phrasing really knocks me out, it's so odd yet musical. he really paved the way for someone like Mark E Smith, who uses phrasing in really awesome ways, serving as a musical element much more than a lyrical one, dylan works like that for me a lot of the time, actually, which is kind of odd given how much thought goes into breaking down his lyrics....

OTM about the MES thing: that was who sprang to mind on more than one occasion.

that feels like a weird thing to say, but ... yeah, it makes a lot of sense, too.

OTM about the MES thing

Either covering the other would be something to hear alright -

Grotesque era Fall doing Tom Thumb's Blues/ Dylan and the Band doing 'The NWRA'

Off topic but...I just saw him sleepwalk through a set last night in Bridgeport. The show was embarassingly bad. No audience interaction (fucker didn't even say thank you.) The playing (while very tight) was uninspired. Dylan just seemed tired, literally and figuratively.

EC was great though...but only a 45 minute set.

'Slow Train Coming'. Yes. Expect extended explanation soon.
-- dave q, Wednesday, May 1, 2002 5:00 PM (5 years ago)

This is gonna be so good...

(though NB that Knopfler is all over that shit, so it's kinda stealth killer. "I Believe In You" surely numbers among both Knopfler and Dylan's finest hours, and that's sayin' something.)

Worst live performer I've ever seen. Honestly. A joyless bore. His recorded music is about 24% better.

I saw him in '78 and he was incredible -- engaged with the audience, just electric (ha) -- but two years later, the born again Bob was indeed a joyless bore. So, after a career spanning 47 years or something, I guess he can be at either extreme or somewhere in the middle and it's not altogether helpful to generalise about how he is as a live performer, just on a night-to-night basis.

and it's not altogether helpful to generalise about how he is as a live performer, just on a night-to-night basis.

I thought I was being rather specific.

No audience interaction (fucker didn't even say thank you.)

yeah but he never says anything to the audience, in my experience at least. So, uh, I wouldn't take that as the leading barometer of his state of "boredom" or "tiredness" or whatever. Seen him three times, once in the late 80s, once in the early 90s, and back in 2005. I don't believe he said a word beyond singing in those three shows. And while I do recall finding those earlier two shows disappointing overall, I was extremely pleased with the 2005 show. He was definitely into the show and the music was cooking.

I just bought tickets to one of his Chicago Theater shows, so kwhitehead I'm hoping you either saw a bad night or were just put off by his silence.

He still playing piano?

I thought I was being rather specific.

I was talking to paulhw, whose post was immediately above mine!

In other words, continue to post your individual specific impressions of live shows toyourheartscontentetc...

He appeared to be playing piano; stood behind it for most of the show. He played guitar for the first two songs.

i've read some years ago that he owned shares of diamond mines in south-africa
(which is the reason my interest in discovering him vanished. yes it makes me musical illiterate)

Why would knowing that about an artist stop you from liking them? (even if it's true, which I doubt)

Because sometimes people can't get past moral objections to artists as individuals, or don't want to get past them. (If you are missing the objection might even be: I am assuming this went back to the Apartheid era of South Africa. Also, the diamond trade throughout Africa is just incredibly destructive and is closely related to various ruthless military factions there, along with the usual story of benefiting outsiders and a small local elite, while in now way benefiting the local population in general. I'm not saying that's how it works in every country, but that's how it works in a lot of places there.) And it seems quite plausible that he would have had such investments. Maybe he had some Israeli chums get him set up during his period of celebrating Israel as neighborhood bully (not sure he's ever backed away from that), given that Israelis are among the biggest investors in Africa's diamond trade, and given it was one of the countries with the closest relationship to Apartheid South Africa.

(But Angel Canales is or was a diamond dealer and I haven't stopped listening to him.)

I can't over my moral objection to Rudipherous.

get over*

great artists/musicians/playwrights who have done portraits of/been court musicians for/written plays for terrible tyrants: a list thread.

I'm more concerned about the fact that because Dylan wrote Neighborhood Bully that must mean he's in cahoots with the evil Zionist empire who likely rewarded him with his own personal African diamond mine. Wtf kinda third-rate Stormfront bullshit is that?

thought u were cool w/ anti-semites tbh mords -- slovenian ones ne way.

nah, that dude isn't an anti-Semite. We chatted about Jews awhile. He has much love for the tribe.

one of his paradoxes?

i found this pretty convincing:

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/disputations-still-the-most-dangerous-philosopher-the-west

i mean he's not really likely to say "i am anti-semitic", but will go right up to the line, describing israel as being like nazi germany, etc.

I've read the article. Look, I'm not saying the dude is perfect (tho a lot of the stuff in the article in out-of-context) and I certainly don't want to apologize for him. But he didn't stand in class and say anything offensive. AND: If he came onto the Bob Dylan thread and said that, I'd tell him to stfu too.

(You know, I hadn't read this one. I had read the original that I guess this is a follow-up too. Yeah. It's disturbing.)

(It's maybe a conversation to have over on the Zizek thread.)

Some of my favorite songs of his are too damned long:

Desolation Row
Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again
Visions of Johanna
Idiot Wind

I don't really care beyond verse three or four. It's not that I don't like interminable folky ballads - shit "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" is one of my all-time favorite songs. I just don't find Dylan's lyrics to be interesting enough to listen to.

I would dig 7" edits of all these. I dunno, maybe they exist. I should try to find them.

Because sometimes people can't get past moral objections to artists as individuals

Fair enough, although personally I find it quite easy.

his period of celebrating Israel as neighborhood bully (not sure he's ever backed away from that)

Why should he back away from it? He's only voicing his opinion.

i've read some years ago that he owned shares of diamond mines in south-africa

Do you have a source for this?

I would dig 7" edits of all these. I dunno, maybe they exist. I should try to find them.

SUGGEST BAN

DNFT

describing israel as being like nazi germany

this is not anti-semitic btw

i think you forgot a T

That TNR article is the worst kind of tendentious selective quotation.

THE FIRST RULE TO NOTE AT BOB DYLAN'S BOXING club is "Don't talk about it." Membership is invitation only. There's no sign to announce the place, which sits in the basement of the 18th Street Coffee House in Santa Monica.

The business permits for both establishments, as well as one for an adjacent synagogue, are in the name of his manager, Jeff Rosen, who doesn't want to talk about it. ("I know nothing about that.... Can't you find something more interesting to write about?") The wild-haired baristas at the coffeehouse don't want to either. "It's a secret," an ex-waitress says of Dylan's ties to the block.

Of course, half the Westside will tell you Dylan owns the boxing club. The performer's even been spotted here a few times recently. The gym exists as his secret garden of sorts, a shrine to the sport in which Dylan has had a long-abiding interest.

He recorded "Who Killed Davey Moore?" in 1963, after the featherweight champion died from injuries sustained in the ring. In 1964's "I Shall Be Free No. 10," Dylan sings, "I was shadowboxin' early in the day / I figured I was ready for Cassius Clay." Then came "Hurricane," which helped overturn pugilist Rubin Carter's murder conviction; Denzel Washington starred in the Hollywood account of his life.

Inside the fluorescent-washed gym, there's nary a whiff of the shabby, smoky grandeur of typical urban boxing dungeons. But Dylan's presence is all around. As the resident trainer, David Paul, gives a tour of the space, ignoring all the Dylan artifacts--beginning with the photos of Larry Bird and Michael Jordan signed "To Bob" in the reception area--can have the effect of pretending to ignore a fuchsia elephant sitting on your lap.

re: something like "Neighborhood Bully," you'd be in big trouble if you looked to Dylan's songs/career for ANY sort of consistent political world-view. Dude has gone through a lot of different stages iirc.

I would dig 7" edits of all these. I dunno, maybe they exist. I should try to find them.

SUGGEST BAN

― that sex version of "blue thunder." (Mr. Que), Tuesday, December 22, 2009 2:21 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

DNFT

― larry craig memorial gloryhole (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 22, 2009 2:22 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

It's trolling to admit being bored as hell by some long-assed tunes on a thread about not liking the artist in question?

but the last verse of desolation row is the best part!

Which may explain why I've never heard it!

(okay, that's a lie)

describing israel as being like nazi germany

this is not anti-semitic btw

― larry craig memorial gloryhole (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, December 22, 2009 7:22 PM (55 minutes ago) Bookmark

perhaps not in itself, but as part of a bigger line of insinuation... it's an INTERESTING choice of comparison, isn't it, when zizek says israel describes gaza as a concentration camp and says it wants the land 'palestinian-frei'. one could choose other analogies than this.

It's trolling to admit being bored as hell by some long-assed tunes on a thread about not liking the artist in question?

haha sorry man shoulda put x-posts, was referring to the reviver of this thread

still, it does rankle me to suggest an edited "Visions of Johanna"! I mean, the power of that song is the way it builds, you know?

one could choose other analogies than this.

that's true, but the Nazi analogy packs the most rhetorical punch, combining the bitterest of ironies with the most strident of moral condemnations. but what do I know, I haven't even read the piece in question.

I'm just tired of criticism of Israel being treated as de facto anti-semitism, its just a dishonest tactic.

x-post

still, it does rankle me to suggest an edited "Visions of Johanna"! I mean, the power of that song is the way it builds, you know?

x10

i mean, someone who says that Visions should be edited down has gotta be a nazi, am i right?

you are correct

(then again, the Byrds' editing of "Chimes of Freedom" is pretty dead-on, I think I prefer their version. But that's not a fraction the song "Visions" is, of course).

i totally don't understand what's going on here.

Bob Dylan owns diamond mines in Israel and is a nazi.

also his songs are too long

Visions of Johanna is about Nazis

diamond studded nazis

I don't think there's been any mention of this on ILM, so ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCnHcqQFxPY
Bob playing with Van Dyke Parks and Ry Cooder! Would pay at least $15 for an album with these guys.

Jews and binoculars hang from the head of the mule

heres my story about Bob... My first encounter with the guy was with a track in the Natural Born Killers Soundtrack, as a typical teenager I was typically into most of the track on the compilation, but I thought at that time that bob dylan song ("you belong to me") was atrocious, that voice man, was like nails in a fucking chalkboard. he represented everything i hated about music and instantly got shelved in my head as what not to listen to.

Fast Forward 16 years later ... breaking up with my fiancee, up to my eyeballs in a shitty job, a layoff eventually. A friend of mine left Essential Bob Dylan in my stereo. "Jokerman", "Everything is Broken", "Not dark yet" and "Things Have Changed" and ("Im not There (1964)" not on that compilation though) just hitted the spot very nicely, its a great soundtrack when your seeing everything turn inside out, and you just crawl into a bottle of whisky.

Not everything the man has done is sold gold, but just give him a chance you might just eat your words like I did.

Hello from Mexicali Mexico

hello! i think you make a good point. i don't even try to convince people that Bob Dylan is worth listening to anymore. sooner or later, it'll probably hit you.

or maybe it won't! who knows. but if/when it does, you're in for some great music.

T|S it's unfair that you legitimately complain about Israel without being called antisemitic V. You can't legitimately complain about Obama without being called racist -- which is the bigger ignorant challops GO!

thread is mainly valuable in confirming n1ck s0uth4ll as valuable ilx contributor since 2002 imo

Yay!

does he still not like bob dylan?

T|S it's unfair that you legitimately complain about Israel without being called antisemitic

I don't even know what this means

T/S challops vs. strawmen

Blonde on Blonde is good seduction/sex music, honestly

I missed the "can't" but I'm not strawmanning here. If you can't see the difference between legitimate criticisms of Israel and calling Israel palestinina-frei or suggesting that bob dylan secret Israeli contacts hooked him up with an african diamond mine (which IMO is about an antisemitic statement as one can make -- the Jewish singer-songwriter is in cahoots with Israel to get rich off the backs of Africans? wtf??), then I don't know what to tell you.

Bah. Commenting on my iPhone is producing lots of typoes. <3 zing tho

Icalling Israel palestinina-frei

^^^in bad taste but not necessarily anti-semitic as there are a lot of legitimate parallels between the ways the Nazis treated the Jews and the way the Israeli gov't treats the Palestinians.

suggesting that bob dylan secret Israeli contacts hooked him up with an african diamond mine

^^^this is totally anti-semitic because its a completely unfounded attack that is based on deliberate misinformation to reinforce a common Jewish stereotype

Ok, I don't totally disagree with that distinction.

Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA. Anyway. I got about three songs in before the interminable boredom took a hold of me, and I had to take it off and put on Mwng by SFA.

He's somewhere out on the highway right now drifting from town to town with eyes steel-grey and impenetrably deep, hunting like a great white wonder for some poor kid in a coffee shop - so easy to spot with their unkempt curly locks and dark sunglasses - some poor sapsucker who swallowed it hook line and sinker. The Man Who Doesn't Like Dylan is here and things will never be the same for any of us, anywhere.

listening to "bringing it all back home again" now. goddamn what a funny, funny album.

calling Israel palestinina-frei

^^^in bad taste but not necessarily anti-semitic as there are a lot of legitimate parallels between the ways the Nazis treated the Jews and the way the Israeli gov't treats the Palestinians.

not really, it's basically an offshoot of holocaust denial - not only are they not victims, jews are the real perpetrators! - and really shouldn't be touched with a bargepole by anyone with the slightest historical or political sense. newspapers in the middle east routinely run cartoons with hook-nosed, vampiric jews wearing stormtrooper helmets with a swastika and a star of david. why would you want to be associated with this shit? it's poisonous rhetoric and making the kind of distinctions you're talking about is like saying "but ronaldinho really does have big teeth!"

i've read some years ago that he owned shares of diamond mines in south-africa

Do you have a source for this?

Suggest Ban Permalink
― Duke, Dienstag, 22. Dezember 2009 19:19 (Yesterday) Bookmark

the source is my corroded memory reading a german print magazine (probably DER SPIEGEL) in the pre-internet era (before 1991).
the reason why i still can remember this, is that i was pretty shocked at the time.
i've spent the last 2 hours searching on google for a reference - sorry to say that i can not provide any.
i have to admit that if someone else would came up with such a story without having any googleproof evidence...well, i would think he's a liar.

"googleproof evidence"

missed the "can't" but I'm not strawmanning here. If you can't see the difference between legitimate criticisms of Israel and calling Israel palestinina-frei or suggesting that bob dylan secret Israeli contacts hooked him up with an african diamond mine (which IMO is about an antisemitic statement as one can make -- the Jewish singer-songwriter is in cahoots with Israel to get rich off the backs of Africans? wtf??), then I don't know what to tell you.

xpost: i'm not aware that Bob has identified as a Jew since before he "turned Christian", anyways

not only are they not victims, jews are the real perpetrators! -

the contention that because someone was once a victim they cannot be perpetrators is wrong - its a fallacy, and its an intellectually dishonest way to defend Israel, in that it deflects attention from the matter at hand (Israel vs. Palestinians) and redirects it to a morally unassailable one (Jews vs. Nazis).

yeah, i'm saying the israel=nazis argument didn't come from a bunch of liberals saying how sad it is that the jews are acting terribly when once they were victims (which certainly has been the case with israel); i'm saying the people who kicked off this line of argument believe the holocaust was a hoax designed to win sympathy for israel while it continues a genocidal campaign cunningly modelled on the very myth that jews supposedly endured.

i agree that it doesn't help to turn people away from the facts of the israel-palestine conflict and onto the morally unassailable case of jews under nazism, which is why i'm the one arguing that people shouldn't make those comparisons. you're the other guy, saying there are "legitimate parallels", albeit in reverse. can you see why there's a pretty ugly context to that line of argument?

just an fyi, mordy otm, s-banning this guy

i've read some years ago that dylan owned cans of Blue Diamond Bold Jalapeno Smokehouse almonds

it just bugs, like an itch you can't scratch. I don't find much in the way of personal connection there, in fact really speaking none, maybe a song or two aside

otm

^ mostly

This is such a great thread. I love that long lyric that scott posted, whatever it is.

I have "personal connections" with few artists though.

scott seward otm for most of this thread too