The Billboard 200 Chart Thread.

[Skummy]

Good songwriter, good musician, terrible singer.

Enough said.

The good musician part is debatable.

Bob Dylan is (or at least was) a tremendous lyricist, and hugely influential, but he's no longer relevant in today's music industry. Not to mention that, in my opinion, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Shane MacGowan, to name but three, have eclipsed his songwriting ability.

[Pesci]

Dylan's pretty terrible these days. I like his older stuff when he could sing a tad... better, but I'm not particularly fond of anything he's released in the past... twenty years.

[Guest JT179]

THANK GOD. Bob Dylan is the MAN and i'm so glad the people in this country can see that. Maybe their is a chance for the people of this world after all.

[ClaRK! Kent]

The good musician part is debatable.

Bob Dylan is (or at least was) a tremendous lyricist, and hugely influential, but he's no longer relevant in today's music industry. Not to mention that, in my opinion, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen and Shane MacGowan, to name but three, have eclipsed his songwriting ability.

[Steeb]

He's always been tremendously musical, and even if you think he can't sing for toffee, can't do this, can't do that, the fact remains that he made, hands down, at least 2 of the best 10 albums of the 20th century, possibly more, and that he's the single most influential singer-songwriter around today.

Edited September 10, 2006 by The Second Stage Turbine Blade

[tristy]

So, did anyone else not even read Sephiroth Clone's mini-essay? I knew as soon as this thread popped up, that you'd be coming in here and slobbering all over Dylan's cock.

[Steeb]

Looks like somebody needs a huuuuuug!

[ClaRK! Kent]

So, did anyone else not even read Sephiroth Clone's mini-essay? I knew as soon as this thread popped up, that you'd be coming in here and slobbering all over Dylan's cock.

[tristy]

Actually, they do. His name is Ringmaster.

You fail.

[ClaRK! Kent]

Well, touche.

The fact remains that I'm still allowed to post in threads about Bob Dylan, much the same way as Ringo is allowed to start entire threads about that crappy Veronica Mars show and nobody bats an eyelid.

People just notice 'cos they all have it in for Dylan is all. I dunno why, pointing you to my previous post re: his awesomeness as evidence.

[tristy]

Yeah, it's your opinion, but sometimes (I've seen it in other threads; something involving the Beatles & Dylan) you take your opinion to be fact and lash out at anyone who thinks different.

[Hobo]

I laughed so much when I heard Thunder On The Mountain for first time (the song with the Alicia Keyes lines). I for one am a fan of all of Dylan's work. The lyrics are always interesting at the least. My one issue with recent Dylan songs is that they're (for the most part) very long but they always grow on me. Dylan has written some great songs even when he's been "passed his prime" (Blind Willie McTell, Not Dark Yet, Make You Feel My Love, Most Of The Time, Workingmans Blues #2, Things Have Changed to name a few). People have always disliked his voice but for me that is one of the appeals. He can be very hit and miss too, I'm not denying that (songs like Highlands from Time Out Of Mind comes to mind).

Recent Dylan songs are better than anything Leonard Cohen has released in the last few years. I'm Your Man and The Future are Cohen's last good albums IMO. Ten New Songs was OK but Dear Heather was poor bar one or two songs. I would've argued at one point that Cohen a far better poet that Bob Dylan but when you think that in his early years Dylan wanted to be Woody Guthrie and Cohen was a poet first and a songwriter second, for me at least they're not comparable. Dylan and Cohen are and always have been on two different paths as far as songwriting goes.

As for Tom Waits, I think that he has his own niche too. I can't really compare him to Dylan. I think Tom Waits is fantastic though. I really find it hard to compare the two as artists or songwriters and say who is better.

Shane McGowen, great songwriter but really can't complain about Dylan's voice in comparison to McGownens (or Cohens for that matter and even Tom Waits has at times sounded pretty rough, but great songwriters aren't always pitch perfect singers)

The plain facts are that Dylan influenced most songwriters that came after him the way Woody Guthrie influenced him. Without Bob Dylan you have no Springsteen, no Tom Petty, no Tom Waits and the list goes on and on.

[ClaRK! Kent]

^

I'd agree with a lot of that, but Blind Willie McTell? Meh to the Nth degree, from me, that one. I'm more of a fan of Rollin' and Tumblin', which is from Modern Times and is probably his best rock song since the stuff he did with the Travelling Wilburies in the late 80s.

Yeah, it's your opinion, but sometimes (I've seen it in other threads; something involving the Beatles & Dylan) you take your opinion to be fact and lash out at anyone who thinks different.

[Guest This is classic Ringy]

The fact remains that I'm still allowed to post in threads about Bob Dylan, much the same way as Ringo is allowed to start entire threads about that crappy Veronica Mars show and nobody bats an eyelid.

Edited September 11, 2006 by This is classic Ringy

[King Ellis]

RK can you say something insulting about something Mudda likes? I'm bored.

[ClaRK! Kent]

I dunno, Arsenal hate is pretty easy. And I genuinely don't like Veronica Mars, I wasn't doing it to be facaetious or anything. It seems a bit... meh. It's like Buffy crossed with Harriet the Spy or something.

But, mudda, right? Umm... Arsenal are teh suck?

[Skummy]

I disagree that without Dylan you wouldn't have Waits, because early on Tom Waits was very much emulating pre-rock and roll lounge singers, more than the 60s folk movement that Dylan was a part of.

Both Dylan and Cohen have gone drastically downhill over the past twenty years, but what do you expect? You can't keep up that kind of quality for that long. Dylan's early stuff, and the stuff from when he first went electric, is phenomenal, and hugely influential, I don't think anyone will deny that.

And I, for one, like Dylan's voice. Probably moreso in his "Autumn years" than during his "prime". Stuff like "Not Dark Yet" and "Love Sick", he sounds great on.

The thing is, though, I don't think Dylan's the best songwriter ever, and I dislike it when it's treated as fact that he is, largely because things like that are purely a matter of opinion, and largely because when you adamantly say "this man is the best", it's closing your mind to what else is out there.

Dylan's recorded some shite (this album, for starters, I can't stand. Not to mention his covers album, or "Spirit Of Rock & Roll", one of the most horrible songs I've ever heard), but I'm happy that he doesn't simply rest on his laurels, even if what he's doing now doesn't appeal to me.

Going back to the Cohen/Waits comparison....Leonard Cohen hasn't done anything worth mentioning in a long time, so as far as contemporary music goes, Dylan wins out there, but in their respective primes, I preferred Cohen's songwriting to Dylan's. As for Tom Waits, I prefer him to Dylan because I feel his songwriting is superior for the most part, and because he's progressed in so many more different directions, while Dylan never really progressed beyond "folksinger gone electric".

[ClaRK! Kent]

Again, I can't really discuss Dylan in relation to Tom Waits, because I haven't heard nearly enough of his stuff, but I've liked everything else you've pimped musically, Skummy (Lucksmiths FTW) so I'm willing to take your word on his merits at least.

Dylan has, as you say, recorded some bilge. Empire Burlesque, Knocked Out Loaded and Infidels are among some of the worst albums of the 70s/80s, and there was a really long time that I was saddened to think that he might never record a decent album without George Harrison and Tom Petty alongside him as the Travelling Wilburies.

Time Out Of Mind and Love And Theft were pretty much a revelation in that department, and Modern Times is another good one, in my opinion. It's nowhere near as good as the stuff from his prime, nobody's gonna argue with you on that, but I guess that after all of the misses he's had in the last 20 years, people are going to cut the man some slack. Ironic really, considering for a long time every album he made was treated as a sort of mythical tablet from on high, with people queueing up to put the record on and hear what words of wisdom he'd spew forth that time.

[TGC]

RK can expect severe retribution for his VM line. Oh yes he can.

[Guest This is classic Ringy]

Clearly he is a shitcunt.