Is Bob Dylan overrated?

hah seeing his name trending I naturally thought the worst (given the way this year has gone) so this is quite pleasant news, really

Given the basic scenario of a Nobel prize in literature going to a pop singer, one would expect inevitable howls of outrage from at least some corner of the literary establishment. It will be interesting to see if this happens with Dylan- or who will be the highest profile author to voice discontent with the choice. I expect the protests from those rarefied precincts to be scarce. If so, that will be a kind of tribute in itself.

Going by the Irish Times today, its looks like 80% of our literati are pretty cool about it

it'll just be this guy lamenting the fate of the world...

https://nevalalee.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bloom.jpg

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

so many dots to connect for the egghead crowd. they looooove dots.

"for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition"

fuck off and die! Equally as bullshit as your peace prizes to genocidal psychopaths.

an act “wrenched from the rancid prostates of senile, gibbering hippies”.

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

― scott seward, Thursday, October 13, 2016 8:13

That's true. Christopher Ricks' Dylan is more absurd and incomprehensible than Tarantula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP85Uc6H79U

ha, trainspotting. oi, sicky fell in the loo! i remember that movie.

A few snarky takes in here, notably one from Gary Shteyngart:

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trainspotting-author-criticizes-bob-dylans-nobel-honor/

truth is, if anyone is prone to hyperbole where dylan is concerned its academics/poetry professors/lit professors/writers/poets/etc. they love the guy more than anyone.

this is otm. his stuff reads very well as poetry esp if yr hermeneutic is a new-criticism style -- you can break it down, you can do stuff with it, there's always a little something you can't square

It seems like the acceptable move will be to argue that its a category error and not to confront Dylan's worthiness directly.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/jun/30/popandrock.poetry

notably ... Gary Shteyngart

does not compute

"It is funny that the only people who actually approached the ferocity of early pre-motorbike crash Dylan (1966 being the dividing line between scary can-do-no-wrong Dylan and bloody, beaten, bowed, sometimes scary, and good-when-he-feels-like-it Dylan) were the art brut garage and punk bands of the 60's and 70's. The dandies and aesthetes of those eras mainly pegged the corn pone/po'boy/nasal/fake Carter family/should sound like you're 60 when you're 20/spaghetti western Dylan that he could get away with because he was and is a freak of nature and because he invented the shit in the first place. That ferocity was hunger and could previously be heard on Charles Ives and Eartha Kitt records, making it alien to most pop and pop-folk fans at the time. The juvenile delinquents heard Dean and Brando in his voice, but unfortunately his words were too good and the boring people heard Shakespeare."

I can't really buy into that motorbike-crash dividing line theory. A lot of those early albums are frankly kind of uneven. It's true that Bringing it All Back Home through Blonde on Blonde is probably his best consecutive run of three albums, but if I had to choose between only hearing the pre- and post-crash albums for the rest of my life, I would choose the post- in a second.

you can find definitions of literature that include things that are SUNG. i mean it just has to be written to be literature. i think. i'm all for it. would have been happy for leonard cohen too. now HE doesn't have a chance. too dylan-y.

I listen to John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning more than to the mid sixties stuff

if the criterion is "how does this stuff sound when recited unaccompanied" cohen is >>>>>>>> dylan, but it isn't and he's not.

lou reed kinda the supreme example of *please don't try to read this out loud without musical accompaniment*. as far as post-dylan bards go.

I listen to John Wesley Harding, Nashville Skyline, and New Morning more than to the mid sixties stuff

And if you include the Basement Tapes stuff that was also recorded around this time and the Self-Portrait out-takes that were released in the bootleg series, this becomes a very strong contender for best Dylan period bar none.

really kinda wish steve allen had made an album of lou reed recitations before he died.

"Don't you know you'll stain the carpet?" (arches eyebrow)

I definitely think this was informed by the death of Bowie and Prince and they were nervous Dylan he was next and they wanted to do it while he was still alive. He wrote "Love Minus Zero/No Limit," he deserves it.

now he is (to answer the thread title)

I like Dylan a lot but this was a weird thing to do considering there are so many other qualified writers in the world; and it's not like he needed more exposure.

stadows sellin a little slow

i'm glad dylan got it instead of delillo because delillo's dylan-like character was named bucky wunderlick and that is the worst sub-pynchon character name in literary history. it's even sub-pkd. you can't reward a person who could come up with a name like that.

Its like "Twig TheWonderkid"

scott seward
Posted: October 13, 2016 at 8:40:44 PM
you can find definitions of literature that include things that are SUNG. i mean it just has to be written to be literature. i think. i'm all for it. would have been happy for leonard cohen too. now HE doesn't have a chance. too dylan-y.

The only other one I could countenance for something like this would be mark e smith, there's this speedfreak palimpsest source-code-of-consciousness zone that only him and Dylan (of song lyricists) have visited IMO

is bob dylan oversated?

http://66.media.tumblr.com/41507359e09ee5ce462754687654cb8c/tumblr_ni2tfpOkyh1ti7dwio1_400.jpg

I'm a little confused by the Leonard Cohen comparison since Cohen is a poet, even in the most traditional/conservative sense of the word. I'm probably biased because I find his music unlistenable but I always thought of him as a poet first and foremost.

most people don't remember that cohen was a poet first though. and he was obviously heavily inspired by dylan. that's why i thought of him.

Leonard Cohen On Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize: “It’s like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain”

xps when the meth does not hit

most people don't remember that cohen was a poet first though.

Ha, he's often English class material in Canada.

Trying to remember that great quote of his from his mentor's obituary, the name of said mentor escaping me now.

Ah, Irving Layton. “I taught him how to dress, he taught me how to live forever."

I read a lot of Irving Layton when I was 15 or so.

And did you learn to live forever?

"Ha, he's often English class material in Canada."

yeah, i was actually gonna say...except in canada...

i still have nightmares of having to watch that horrible documentary with cohen

he's such a sleazeball

what did he do in it? i probably don't want to know. i like listening to his old records. some of them are amazing. he never raped anyone did he?

i can't listen to john martyn records anymore after reading beverley's horrifying accounts of life with him.

I remember seeing part of a documentary following an obviously heavily depressed and strung-out cohen on tour in the 70s, he gets stage fright and drops acid in jerusalem. it was a bummer

did he do heroin? i honestly don't know much about his life.

recently i listened to new skin for the first time in a long time and is this what you wanted and lover lover lover made me so ecstatic i thought i was gonna die. my kids thought i was nuts. they filled me with the idea that anything was possible in life. it wore off. but still...

listened to "Highway 61" the other day and it's still a great record. the mandolin and the lyrics go together so well on "Desolation Row". it is very poetic. he always has this evocative quality to whatever he does, whether it is folk, country rock, or singing Christmas songs. the uber snarky personality displayed in "Don't Look Back" being an intimidating jerk to Donovan and several journalists is part of this package.

i didn't get into Dylan until way later in my musical development. by then i realized how big an influence he was on so many people. Lou Reed is trying to be Dylan on half the Velvet Underground tracks. that mid 60s run is still my favorite (cos of the garage band and sound quality) but it is a testament to his greatness that it is nearly half a century later and we are still getting new music (and new old music) that is just as captivating and stunning as it has always been. when that Scorcese documentary came out a few years ago I saw a good hour or so of it and all the early footage of Dylan performing is spellbinding stuff. he is a born performer and a born charmer. of course all of that is part of his legend.

did he do heroin? i honestly don't know much about his life.

― scott seward, Friday, October 14, 2016 10:26 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

recently i listened to new skin for the first time in a long time and is this what you wanted and lover lover lover made me so ecstatic i thought i was gonna die. my kids thought i was nuts. they filled me with the idea that anything was possible in life. it wore off. but still...

― scott seward, Friday, October 14, 2016 10:28 PM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm imo he should have prizes or something

I don't think he did do heroin, no. I read and enjoyed the biography of him that came out a few years ago but am a little hazy on the details

Now they should give the next musician/lyricist one to a rapper... probably GZA or RZA.