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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
I respectfully but emphatically disagree, although I guess it depends how you define "cognoscenti." The average Joe doesn't think much of Bach, so far as these things go. So what?
It's okay to not like rock'n'roll, but you're operating with a bum compass and an armful of mouldy Roncos if you don't like -- or at least significantly address:
The Beatles
The Rolling Stones
The Who
The Kinks
Jimi Hendrix
Bob Dylan
Led Zeppelin
Dull-seeming and obvious, perhaps, but there you have it. Dylan powerfully influenced the very idea of what a song is and can be -- that's why he still resonates.
One doesn't have to like classical music, for that matter -- and if one does, one needn't be gaga over Bach. But you can't just leave him out of the conversation, either.
It's f'ing terrible! I turned it off after 10 minutes, and I love 70s glam.
You thank god for Tom Waits, Tom Waits thanks god for Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan thanks god for Woody Guthrie, who in turn thanked god for Leadbelly. So the world turns.
All the rest is just Ronco.
there are lots of good poets.
I come from the school of thought that a good artist is knowable by others, or at least there is some gleaning of genius available to almost ANYONE with some basic, cursory knowledge of the medium.
A second school of thought is more about 'status', so that even those who know a lot about the art may not be in on the supposed artistry of some specific artist. Indeed it becomes a nested Russian doll collection of initiates inside initiates. Til you reach the inner initiate who is so pure, so perfect that only he or she TRUUUULY understands that this artist is a genius in ways only he or she understands.
It is thus a sophomoric power play and you have to take people's word that the artist they worship is so INCREDIAWESOME!!! !! ! If only YOU, you simp, were skilled enough to understand.
Basically, this second school of thought is a JOKE. an IN joke, a joke on the initiates, and a joke on anyone willing to take them seriously.
The kind of joke similar to when a Buddhist stares at a grain of sand until that grain of sand contains ALL the secrets to the universe. BUT ONLY TO THAT BUDDHIST experiencing it at that time. Most people then grow up, once they get out of high school and quit the pot.
In the first school of thought, Springsteen is almost universally acknowledged as a genius, by those who know something about rock music. But, unlike BD, he is not inaccesible to most people. You need only hear Born to Run to comprehend that this was a genius at his best.
I can, on the other hand, listen to BD songs for months or years (til my face falls off) and still not understand if there is a THERE there.
Sorry, but the "I know better than you, and you are a simp" school of artist worship is crap and always will be.
GO FOOL SOMEONE ELSE.
Bruce Springsteen is a joke. As in, he sucks balls.
Sorry.
Oh, and Highway 61 ain't exactly Ives.
Look, I'm a bigger music snob than any of you. Though I admit it, I can't understand it. Why do I like Dylan but not Springsteen? Why do I like the Beatles but not Neil Diamond? Or Bo Diddley but not Keb Mo? Or Lucinda Williams but not the Dixie Chicks? Or Howlin Wolf but not BB King? Either it's because I have the most exquisite taste ever or what I like is unfathomable and meaningless to everyone except me. I have a hunch it's the second one. I'll go to the movie, but I'll probably hate it. So here is my review: If you like Dylan but hate Springsteen you might hate this movie unless you actually go see it and happen to like it.
You are operating on the premise that Dylan is not a "popular" artist. But he is, and he has been for some time. Those lyrics that seem so inscrutable to you have made people happy when he sang them and when scores of others sang them. He is not Beatles popular, but he's an artist that millions know at first or second-hand. So your canard ain't exactly flying.
Bruce is great in an entirely different, crowd-pleasing, way. There is no need to compare--unless, of course, you want to get into the Dylanesque self-invention of Springsteen's onstage self-mythologizing (all those stories about taking "the Big Man" out to the end of a desert road to find God, etc.), the Dylanesque rejection of pop godhood that Nebraska represents, the blatantly Dylanesque move of The Seeger Sessions, the Dylanesque literariness (e.g., Bruce's namedropping of Flannery O'Connor, Ron Kovic, etc.), and so on--okay, then there's something to compare.
Opinions are like *ssholes, right? We are all entitled to feel however we want about the man and his music, but as a member of a younger generation, I'm just sick to death of having to hear about how SIGNIFICANT and IMPORTANT Dylan, the Beatles, Woodstock etc. were. Did anyone read David Brooks' column yesterday? My God! I'm a musician myself, and I don't need some weiner from the E Street band telling me I don't know the history of popular music any more than I need to see yet another film about how Mr. Zimmerman was actually Jesus Folkie Christ.
One thing I appreciate about my parents (who are boomers) is that they actually follow and enjoy all kinds of contemporary music.
Also, I have to agree with the earlier poster who mentioned the apparently unmentionable (and highly embarrassing) "Christian" phase.
"into the Dylanesque self-invention of Springsteen's onstage self-mythologizing (all those stories about taking "the Big Man" out to the end of a desert road to find God, etc.), the Dylanesque rejection of pop godhood that Nebraska represents, the blatantly Dylanesque move of The Seeger Sessions, the Dylanesque literariness . . ."
This is the kind of asinine worship I'm talking about.
"The Big Man" out to the desert: no, that's inspired by Jesus being tempted by the Devil, and any number of cops and robbers folk songs.
"The Dylanist rejection of pop godhood". . . no, that's Woody Guthrie-ist, if anything. Or the many, many cases where a pop star decides to go folk (true of the Beatles, though NOT of Dylan).
"The blatantly Dylanesque move of The Seeger Sessions" . . . no, that's, um, Pete Seeger!! When exactly did Dylan do anything "Dylanist" like this??
NONE of these things owe anything to Dylan. And I don't think any of his songs will survive the generation that idolizes him.
Now, though we're supposed to be closing at three the day before Thanksgiving, I'm working past five, because there's work to do. I'm a rebel but I'm pissing off the rebels by making the Man think I'm on his side. How Dylanist!
My parents want me to get some soda for tomorrow's big family get together. I'll get soda but some wine too. How Dylanist!
My initial comment had a mistake in it (I meant to say, "the sun rises in the WEST") but I didn't immediately correct it because you KNOW what I meant. . . How Dylanist!
Yours in Dylan,
captcrisis
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