The answer my friend… is blowing in the wind

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No you're absolutely right. Bob Dylan sucks and I think he's one of those guys that found what worked for him and ran with it. REM and Red Hot Chili Peppers are kind of the same in my opinion both found huge success with borderline nonsense lyrics and ran with it. The two most acclaimed aspects of Bob Dylan are his cryptic and prolific lyrics and his "unusual" voice, both are really terrible and I'm pretty sure the vast majority of fans are just there because they feel they should like his music. I feel like certain artists are just gatekeeping fodder; Bob Marley, Radiohead, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Weezer, Pink Floyd, Bruce Springsteen and so on. Not saying all these artists are bad but there are certain artists that are "you gotta listen to" artists where some gatekeeping friend tells you if you like X genre/artist then you HAVE to like X band because that's their biggest influence or they MADE that scene. And some kid forces themselves to listen to whoever and either reluctantly does so or legitimately falls in love with it but under the pretence that it is somehow imperative that they do so. I've seen plenty of posts here asking how do I like The Beatles, all my friends like them but I just don't get it can someone help me (no joke, I've seen this). Or my friend told me I should like jazz but I'm not really into it. And I feel Dylan is one of those institutions that may have once been seriously radical but is now just not a big deal. Like good comedy used to be a piano falling now it doesn't get a chuckle Bob Dylan probably did mean something but what does he have on new innovation like blazing fast guitar solos and hip hop and a metal band playing instrumental trap music, Run The Jewels? Not much, he sucks and that's ok.

Yeah I’m more of a music guy myself and the lyrics/vocals come in secondary, but Bob Dylan musically isn’t all that interesting to me aside from a few songs (Hurricane comes into mind), which leaves the lyrics in which I’ve already talked about. He has a terrible voice generally speaking but at least he puts in emotion in his delivery, but that’s basically the only good trait I find in him. So here’s a guy that is average musically, and sings passionately about topics in which he himself doesn’t even have a clue about. How he got the Nobel Prize + legendary status is simply beyond me, but hey, if people truly do find him that revolutionary, good for them.

Bob Dylan is high art. Most of it doesn’t really satisfy casual listeners. It’s like when you go to a museum despite not understanding art history. Hopefully you can appreciate some of it, but there is going to be a lot of work that doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand all of Dylan myself, but I can understand it enough to know it’s special.

Also, listen to it stoned if you haven’t.

This is a great analysis. I'm 52, my parents named me after one of his songs and I've never found anyone who comes close in terms of songwriting.

He wrote this song in one night after being refused a hotel room because of his dishevelled appearance. I could die happy if I'd just written this one song. He dashed this off in a few hours before he'd really even started to show what he was capable of. This song encapsulates this year for me. Happy 2023 to all.

https://youtu.be/5c9_XkYYjTU

Dylan can smell colors you can't even hear!

Try Blood on the Tracks.

I mean, he can't sing, his harp hurts my ears and he's a mediocre guitarist. But, he was the first dude in the western rock world to write songs that weren't about heartbreak, teen love and other superficial themes geared towards kids. It was super obvious in retrospect but at the time it was ground breaking. The Beatles would switch from Twist and Shout to A Day in the Life. It shook up the world of rock. It was during Dylan that early Motown groups went from HDH's Baby Love archetype to Norman Whitfield's grittier Ball of Confusion.

i appreciate Dylan's songwriting, but that is it. i prefer covers to his versions. check out 'It's All Over Now, Baby Blue'. by THEM.

his voice is grating and his lyrics can be great, but are often nonsense.

i like Joni Mitchell's take on him: https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-reason-joni-mitchell-hated-performing-with-bob-dylan/

'Furthermore, in 2013, Mitchell fired shots once more, this time while in discussion with CBC. She brutally commented, “Musically, Dylan’s not very gifted; he’s borrowed his voice from old hillbillies. He’s got a lot of borrowed things. He’s not a great guitar player. He’s invented a character to deliver his songs, it’s a mask of sorts”.'

(psst, Joni should win the Nobel--her lyrics are spectacular.)

Well, cool, but I have a music degree and at one point I had a music history professor who took us from medieval music to relatively modern pop music over four semesters. During the course of this, the professor went on an absolute Bob Dylan tirade. Like a whole day spent glowing about Dylan, dissecting his lyrics, straight up telling us “this is good. This is deep.”

I think it’s a farce. Literally every person in that room was a better musician than Dylan. It made more sense when I saw the music history professor’s pathetic faculty recital consisting of “folk music”.

Some people like to write music. Some people like to perform music. Some people like to study music. And lastly, some people just like to talk about music. I’m weary of their strongly held opinions.

People can enjoy what music they choose, and it’s not that I “hate” Bob Dylan. But his fans are the people who WOULD WANT to be in charge of handing out accolades and awards (for an art firm they barely understand). Just stop it already.

Also, there isn’t strong enough weed in the world to fix the bag-of-cats that is a Bob Dylan song.

I think that his best work is The Traveling Wilburys

>he was the first dude in the western rock world to write songs that weren't about heartbreak, teen love and other superficial themes geared towards kids.

Even if we go by your parameters of western rock, which I suppose Dylan could be considered post '65, that statement is still not remotely true. You're trying to re-write musical history without much knowledge of it, seemingly just to hype Bob Dylan beyond reason.

The idea that nobody in the west and/or in a rock band had ever written anything non-teenybopper before Dylan is just silly. MC5 were contemporaries of Bob Dylan ffs, the world wasn't just hold my hand and do the twist until a Woody Guthrie impersonator with delusions of grandeur showed up.

Dylan is not "high art" unless you mean maybe he was high when he created his art.

Dylan is a songwriter with a reputation that is disproportionately gushing and adulatory for the quality and consistency of his output.

There are many Dylan songs I love but there are just as many that seem, to me, to be grating, incoherent drivel.

Dude has had some great moments but then so have many people who get far less attention.

Blowin’ in the Wind

Girl from the North Country

A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall

Don’t Think Twice, it’s Alright

the Times They Are A-Changin’

Lay, Lady, Lay

All Along The Watchtower

Hurricane

Just Like a Woman

Subterranean Homesick Blues

Shelter From the Storm

Like a Rolling Stone

If Not For You

Tangled Up In Blue

Edit: Also Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Honestly I could go on and on, but surely this proves that he had some talent at least

Dylan 100% laughs at people who idolize him, and a couple of his songs are just pretentious (and/or cheeky) name checking (Desolation Row- pretentious. Highway 61-cheeky)... but most of his best and most prominent work are diss tracks? (Like A Rolling Stone, Ballad of A Thin Man, Idiot Wind, Positively 4th Street etc.). It isn't hard to tell what they're about at all. They're just colorful. He also writes a lot of love songs- some of which bother to depict human nuance (Others are just creepy, and may reflect crimes he in fact committed?). Also- not hard to decipher- just less blunt than the lyrics of the jingles the Beatles were writing in 1964.

It's okay to dislike things that are well made. I don't like To Pimp A Butterfly. Good kid, m.A.A.d. city is fantastic, but I can't make myself enjoy TPAB. I don't feel the need to try and convince myself that it's secretly tricking people into thinking it's smarter than it is. It's just not my taste.

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]

https://youtu.be/9u5x9pdInTU

Dylan....a freaking genius

So your theory is that all of the many reputable critics and musicians that think Dylan is a in a league of his own…are morons? And you also think you and your college classmates are better musicians? That doesn’t sound egotistical at all. I’m sure your opinion of Dylan is much more worthwhile than Jimi Hendrix’s or The Beatles’s. What do those guys know about music?

Also, can you link a song of yours that’s supposedly better than Tangled Up in Blue, Visions of Johanna, or Mr. Tambourine Man? I’m dying to hear this.

Lol. Literally more than half of your post history is dedicated to Babymetal, and you consider yourself an authority on Dylan and music? Reddit never disappoints.

Dude, I'm 62. The first time I saw a Babymetal video it was so awful it put me off even looking again for years. Then, this year, I saw the video for 'Karate' and gave them another chance - mostly on the strength of their live backing band, Kami Band. Also, I joined Reddit this year, hence the high % of posts on a band I just discovered were actually good.

Do the arithmetic. I had a musical life for 50+ years before that. All that tells you is that I'm still finding new stuff.

But thanks for your thoroughly researched analysis, lol.

Lol I mean the world does not begin and end with pop music so yeah, I think there are many many numerous musicians throughout the world that are more talented than any of the people you cited as authorities. How is that egotistical?

Here’s me playing guitar at age 16, 100,000 years ago:

https://on.soundcloud.com/SRwTL

Here’s something I’ve been working on lately:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j3782DhstGGR2rMPmrHQYU2afw4F0C1B/view?usp=drivesdk

You have better? Is it not diverse enough?

Maybe you hate my music, maybe you like it, but I know what I’m talking about. My tastes are varied as hell. If you ask me who’s a better song writer, Bob Dylan or Willie Nelson, or even Dolly Parton, or even Taylor Swift—yes. I think Dylan is at the bottom of the list in terms of craftsmanship and artistry. Deal with it.

Also, like, I’m a programmer. I stake zero ego on music. I just like it. So what’s my agenda anyway?

I’ve listened to it. I’ve thought about it. It doesn’t hold up to scrutiny for me.

Look, musicologists are weird. I knew a guy who got a degree in musicology in part by discussing the history of air guitar (seriously). People who are basically non-doing critics have opinions that are different than the people who do the thing. As for Beatles and Hendrix—mediocrity likes mediocrity, no surprise there, but I do like both Beatles and Hendrix. Also, Hendrix died by puking and the Beatles have done everything from stealing songs to weird culty eastern religious shit. My opinion doesn’t have to be their opinion. They aren’t infallible, just humans.

The world is bigger and more full of talent than you think.

The best description of Dylan I ever heard was “you either get it or you don’t”. For the people who “get it” Dylan strikes a deep chord, or as Van Ronk said in the Scorsese documentary, “if you believe in such a thing, Dylan tapped into the collective unconscious”. For those who don’t “get it”, Dylan’s popularity is confusing as hell.

Man, you post mindless noodling and freshman level piano composition and compare that to Dylan? Even ignoring song writing entirely, your music you’ve shown doesn’t even show half the depth. Your progressions are boilerplate, your melodies are meh. I mean, it’s not terrible music, but it’s laughable to compare it to Dylan.

Lol they are not boilerplate chord progressions. The first one is like, one chord, but it's all improvisational. The second one is like... I don't know... modulating constantly? Also like... I'm not sure if you noticed... there's an orchestra there...

Bob Dylan is not known for his chord progressions... They are like 4 chord songs largely, and they are not deep.

Besides, I never compared myself to Bob Dylan. I'm just a hobbyist musician. The previous poster asked for examples of what I've written, those are some examples. I'm clearly literate and competent, am I not? What are you churning out?

To be honest, your characterization of my music shows me you can't hear the depth that is there. It's not like the music is written arbitrarily, it's written mechanically using all sorts of specific techniques, and literally each section of the orchestral piece is modulating to a different key. It's very easy to say a melody is "meh", but saying chord progressions are boilerplate is absurd. If anything, they are much too scattered.

Also like, I showed you some metal shredding and some orchestral+piano music. It's kind of varied, isn't it? I honestly think I could replicate an approximation to Dylan's music than the other way around. I'm a craftsman like that, where as he is not. Granted, there's nothing innovative in it, but there's not much innovative in Dylan either IMO.

So now you’re calling Hendrix mediocre after you post your cheesy shred and elevator music? It’s painfully clear that you don’t have an ear for this, but feel free to keep telling yourself you know what you’re talking about.

First off, its ok to not like something even if "everyone" seems to. Secondly, Dylan's lyrics (in his hay day) were often topical commentary on political and social events of the time. They aren't laid out in a direct way that someone without the cultural context would have an easy time connecting the dots of meaning. Finally, Dylan (especially early career) was a poetic lyricist who often expressed abstract ideas in vague ways that left things up to interpretation. Just like some of the best non-musical poetry/prose. Whether Dylan did it as a deliberate stroke of genius or stoned accident is debatable. As is whether the outcome is high art or pretentious dribble. You'll find scores that will agree with whatever take you choose to adopt.

Post your own music :P

Something tells me I could never post anything that you would equate with the absolute gorgeousness that is Dylan.

And yeah, my track is a cheesy wank fest. I learned from the best (Hendrix).

It's offensive to him that you like what you like, and not the very specific list of rock greats that have been signed off on by magazines and critics and halls of fame.

It's all an appeal to popularity and authority, but can they admit that "Hit me baby one more time" by Britany Spears a banger? Certainly not! Pop trash! Never mind that it has more interesting elements than the average Dylan song :P.

You are an elitist for disliking Dylan! Also, what you like is actually bad, so you are also dumb. A dumb elitist!

I don’t post music here because I want to stay anonymous on Reddit. It’s besides the point, though. You’re the one claiming to be better than Dylan, not me.

Literally never claimed that, only that Dylan is trash and most people are better than Dylan in my opinion.

>It’s besides the point, though.

Lol convenient. Every track you've ever recorded is so tightly correlated to your identity. I'm sure you are Quincy Fuckin' Jones.

> Literally every person in that room was a better musician than Dylan.

lol Fine. Everyone but me. Happy? Honestly, I don't care how good you think I am, or if I'm better than someone else. The only reason I posted anything is to show that I know how to write music.

All you guys do is appeal to popularity, demand support, demand proof of competency, demand agreement, and you provide nothing in return. You aren't even capable of having a technical discussion about Dylan's music seemingly.

Honestly, I'd rather you tell me one specific thing you love about a piece of music Dylan has written, in musical terms. I will go and listen to that thing and try my very hardest to hear it as you do.

This is the best response I could imagine. Fuckin' slicing through it like a knife.

Me neither. I understand he was a big thing when he was young because of the lyrics. But his voice isn’t appealing to me at all. You are definitely not alone

Knocking on heaven’s door is one of his most covered songs. Also “like a rolling stone”. He doesn’t speak to me that much either

'Hit Me Baby' is a classic. It's right up there with 'MmmBop'.

Damn my elitist tolerance for a skillfully executed pop hook. I'm so ashamed...

It’s not enough to merely like something. You must prove it is objectively the best and stifle all other opinions. Only then can you listen to meh music with impunity.