All the answers saying “yes he was talented”: irrelevant. All the answers saying “no he wasn’t talented”: irrelevant. All the answers saying: “He was the first to do x, y & z”: irrelevant.

Well, not irrelevant… but these things need to be discussed objectively.

There are so many “what’s the big deal with x, I don’t get it” questions on Reddit, and the only useful answers should be objective ones which begin with a) an admission that x was a big deal [or a refutation of the claim that it was a big deal], followed by b) a theory as to why it was a big deal.

These are sociological questions about why certain things tapped the zeitgeist.

Whether Dylan was a good or bad musician is only relevant with regard to the cultural context [consider for example that maybe some people enjoyed the wobbly musicianship; much like people did with punk a couple of decades later].

Whether Dylan’s lyrics are nonsensical trolling or earnest artistic explorations is irrelevant — the question is why did people respond to these lyrics.

There are so many factors involved. And keep in mind that not every Dylan fan in the ‘60s was a Dylan fan for the same reasons. Fans’ reasons for liking anything should be considered to exist on a Venn diagram [some fans maybe liked the audacity of Dylan’s cryptic lyrics but didn’t care if they were nonsense or not; other fans maybe liked Dylan’s lyrics because they felt they were able to decipher the true meanings of them]