Defend the indefensible - Bob Dylan.

Dylan was great, and we was an innovator but he didn't INVENT what you ascribe to him

The value of Bob Dylan is connected to the voice. The 'can't sing' thing.... I think the word 'singer' is used too often, like some people think the word 'genius' is used too often. Dylan really sings. If you don't hear this, just don't bother. The lyrics are good, mostly, fantastic occasionally, but really the point of them is not to let the voice down.

HAhahahahahahahahaha. That made my day. I personally don't enjoy Bob Dylan's music at all. Never have. I've tried, mind you (after a good friend's tireless insistence that in dismissing Bob Dylan that I'm shamefully missing out on the greatest music known to man), but it just isn't there for me. That said, I'd hardly call him "indefensible". If anything. The man's deified to ridiculous degrees, and you're verily taking your life in your hands if you dare say anything against him (or at least around stodgy folkies, roots rockers, aging hippies, self-appointed poetry "slammers", aging rock critics, etc. etc.) I don't think the man should be put to death or anything, but I just don't enjoy his music.

Was Dylan the first real example of the best rock and roll vocal device ever, the SNEER? If so, he deserves canonisation just for that, regardless of any of the other factors. (Thom Yorke and John Lydon to thread.)

Then again, if I like Fred Durst's voice, it should be any surprise I can handle Dylan's.

I wouldn't be too surprised to wake up to similar threads betales, rolling stones and beethoven. its unfortunate but its ilm.

ew

(i said that.)

What's that crap?

(Dan Perry: That's not crap, that's shit, that is.)

kogan, in response: 'i know, who does he think you are? bob dylan?')

Bob Dylan=0.17Robert Forster
Bob Dylan=18.90Tom Petty

Therefore Robert Forster=111.17647Tom Petty

Alex, you rock, but 'Oh the ironing' etc

Bob Dylan is a vocalist, not a singer - crap.

sorry, for the most part bob dylan just doesn't connect with me. there's the odd song here and there that i like -- "positively fourth street," (title? it's the one where he goes "you've got a lot of nerve ..."), "lay lady lay," and "it's all over now, baby blue" -- and i recognize his importance. but my honest reaction is -- BFD. there are some things about him and his music to which i'm just not predisposed in the first place -- the singer-songwriter schtick, his "rootsy"/folksy music, and yeah his voice -- though i've made exceptions re the foregoing for certain others (neil young comes immediately to mind), i just don't connect AT ALL to dylan's music.

09/13/2005 4:04 PM, E! Online
Charlie Amter

Canadians attempting to buy Bob Dylan albums may temporarily be left blowing in the wind.

One of the nation's largest record chains, HMV Canada, has pulled the entire Dylan catalog from store shelves to protest the folk-rock icon's deal to exclusively sell his latest album in Starbucks stores, according to Toronto's Globe and Mail.

Bob Dylan: Live at the Gaslight 1962 collects songs recorded at the famed New York venue, including early versions of the classics "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright." It went on sale Aug. 30 at Starbucks' 4,600 outlets in the U.S. and Canada for $13.95. The coffee giant has exclusive rights to the Dylan disc for 18 months before the disc is available at regular retailers--the longest such window that Starbucks has secured yet.

Felling miffed, HMV Canada, a subsidiary of U.K.-based retailer HMV, reacted by yanking all Dylan discs for the duration of the Starbucks' promotion. The retailer's Dylan diss isn't unprecedented: HMV did the same earlier this year in retaliation for native daughter Alanis Morissette's similar deal with Starbucks.

While it's not immediately clear how much HMV's protest will end up hurting Dylan sales, the timing couldn't be worse for his Sony-based label, Columbia Records.

Columbia had been preparing for a Dylan sales renaissance this fall thanks in part to the release of Martin Scorsese's highly anticipated documentary, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, which gets its world premiere Saturday at the Toronto International Film Festival. It will be released on DVD Sept. 20 and run on PBS the following week. The soundtrack, featuring 26 previously unreleased tracks, drops Tuesday. There will also be a companion coffee-table book. Meanwhile, Dylan's best-selling memoir, Chronicles: Volume One, has just been released in paperback.

HMV Canada's president, Humphrey Kadaner, told the Globe and Mail his company "will not be actively stocking, displaying nor promoting Dylan." He also proudly noted that his efforts in the past to stop exclusives from happening outside of his 108 stores "has prevented other exclusive products from crossing the U.S. border into Canada."

So far, the HMV's U.S. stores have not followed suit, but other traditional music retailers like Virgin and Tower are on record as intensely disliking the exclusive marketing agreements struck by record labels and retail giants like Best Buy and especially Starbucks.

Name-brand artists of Dylan's ilk have been increasingly drawn to the latte-slinging megachain; the Seattle-based company has ramped up its music efforts in recent years, catering to its customer base.

Caffeine junkies can now buy a variety of adult-alternative CDs--from Elvis Costello to Joni Mitchell to Michael Buble--and even make customized discs at some outlets. It was Starbucks that was credited with the massive success of Ray Charles' Genius Loves Company, accounting for a full 25 percent of the Grammy-winning disc's nearly 4 million copies.

Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment told Billboard last month the Dylan exclusive was "a win-win for everybody involved."

Starbucks doesn't always get its way, however. In May, the caffeine-enabling chain was unable to lock up a deal to exclusively selle Bruce Springsteen's Devil & Dust. Starbucks tried to claim the deal fell through because of racy content on one of the tracks, but Springsteen's camp insisted the blue-collar rocker pulled the plug on the disc because he loathes merchandising his music.

I've tried to "get" Bob Dylan, but I can't get past the fact that he sounds like a knackered old mule slowly expiring in the noonday heat.

The only way I can rationalise his appeal is by concluding that some people like listening to Dylan in the same way that other people like being hogtied and sodomised with baseball bats.

I also strongly suspect there is a large subset of people who like to do both.

fuck off.

Sodomy is great! Why don't you try it?

Is that jeffk's brother or something?

His 'Theme Time' radio show is so good. I want to listen to more and more of it. He's a smart, competent and highly amusing presenter without relying on anyone else.

Its like i keep telling people "theres an important and crucial difference between having a good voice and being a good singer. Take Bob Dylan and Michael Bolton. One is a great singer with a terrible voice, the other has a fine voice, but is a terrible singer."

OTFM

Mark Ronson remix of Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I’ll Go Mine) on the Today programme on Radio 4 this morning. And Zane Low yapping about it. Ugh.

i feel that *hoping they didnt do it* element too, definitely going through a bit of that as well
lily, thank you for stating that so eloquently

that's real, lily <3

I'll be in the camp of "now that we've had a full circle of accusations (Bob Dylan, lawyers, biographers, internet, twitter, ILX, legal system), can we stop panicking, go back to being patient, and leave the alleged victim and accused their full respective rights ?" Or does it have to be a shitstorm all the time.

Personally I won’t post about it (unless/until I guess something definitive happens, if it ever does). Posting here was my way of “processing” and dealing with the pit in my stomach. I have more I could discuss about the emotional impact but I guess we have other threads for that, and the time may not be ripe for a while.

The lawsuit has been permanently withdrawn after the plaintiff asked the federal judge overseeing the case to dismiss it “with prejudice,” meaning it will be permanently closed and cannot be refiled. The move came after she was accused of deleting key messages and threatened with monetary sanctions.

peak Dylan

https://archive.org/details/s-08b_full/02.+THE+MAN+IN+ME.flac

nice!

that's a mean cold irons bound too

This show is pretty freaking great. Can anyone recommend me a complete live show on archive I need to hear from the Larry Campbell-Charlie Sexton period?

If I had to pick one, the one at Halle Münsterland in Münster, Germany on October 1, 2000.

Or, if you prefer Dylan on piano, the one at Pauline Davis Pavilion in Red Bluff, CA, USA on October 7, 2002.

great recordings thank you

i love that live album with the flute. budokan. that is my idiosyncratic favorite.

he appreciates the plasticity of his own songs and is essentially devoted to live performance. i love that.

elsewhere on this site i have written about being at the 1999 show at tramps in new york, which was great (elvis costello was there and got on stage for an encore, singing 'i shall be released'). great audio from the soundboard. incredible version of Visions of Johanna. crowd VEWRY rowdy.

https://www.wolfgangs.com/music/bob-dylan/audio/20022342-814.html?tid=54412

https://www.boblinks.com/072699r.html

i'm sure i remember the flacs being available somewhere, or on youtube

Bizarre Bob Dylan melody -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBe8zZ0OKlk

Only actor/singer George Maharis is credited, but there's also folk duo Joe and Eddie, Dionne Warwick and the Animals (their classic line-up) doing a very not-like-the-Animals-at-all rendition of "It Ain't Me, Babe."

Enjoying “philosophy of modern song” and an accompanying playlist on YouTube.

Extraordinary

hoping for some defenses of the indefensible: bob dylan today