This Just In: Bob Dylan Might not be God. Options

[mrmcpheezy]

from the 0ct. 13th Edition of the Sacramento News and Review:

With a new album and a new tour rolling into Sacramento this week, Bob Dylan’s name comes up rather frequently these days, and when it does, objectivity regularly gets trashed. I’m consistently amazed at the fawning, hyperbolic, pseudo-poetic fluff that gets passed off as critical discussion. A single disparaging word about Dylan invites tirades from offended myrmidons. Even a critic as esteemed as the New Yorker’s Louis Menand felt compelled to acknowledge, mostly in jest, that his “life may not be worth much” after he called some of Dylan’s lyrics “truly lame.”

Well, fans, the problem isn’t me or Dylan, it’s you. Fans, in general, suffer from an unwillingness to judge entertainment value and cultural status separately from musicianship, but there’s an important difference between the phrases “I like it” and “It’s good.” The safe haven of personal taste is, as Immanuel Kant astutely observed, the excuse “with which every tasteless person proposes to avoid blame.”

I believe Dylan is every bit the cultural icon--the embodiment of an era--that his fans, and most critics and historians, vociferously declare him to be. Instead, I take issue with the assumed impunity with which Dylan supporters weave uninformed paeans to his talent. I’m troubled by the need to “perpetuate the god myth,” as former Dylan girlfriend Suze Rotolo called it (that’s her on the cover of 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan).

Dylan is a masterful songwriter, a skill born of his trenchant observation and his love of the form. Dylan is, despite his protests, a cultural touchstone. Dylan is a very good musician--but there’s the rub. Let’s be very clear: Putting aside his influence, when it comes to objectively evaluated musicianship, Dylan is very good and no more.

As a vocalist, the former Mr. Zimmerman’s tone and timbre--though hardly as bad as early critics proclaimed--are thin and inconsistent, but that’s offset by his impeccable phrasing. As a guitarist, he’s as solid a rhythm player as any troubadour should be, but for folk-guitar skills, look to his peers. He has little of Bert Jansch’s dexterity and none of Davy Graham’s broad technical palette. Dylan’s sound is very distinctive, but to declare that sound “great” is like taking comfort in a “great” case of cancer.

The irony here is that Dylan, older and wiser, seems far less impressed by the quality of some of his recordings than his fans are. “The record was an art form,” he told Jonathan Lethem in a recent Rolling Stone interview. “... Maybe I was never part of that art form, because my records were never artistic at all.” As to his legacy, Dylan’s own words often lie starkly in contrast to public opinion. In his 2004 autobiography, Chronicles, Volume One, he states quite unequivocally, “I had very little in common with and knew even less about a generation that I was supposed to be the voice of.” An exaggeration perhaps, but his fans should take a lesson from Dylan’s humility.

Prejudicial examination exists when we ignore the evident in favor of the empiric. Defending our favorite artists means assuming we share their tastes, but as Menand recently pointed out, the musical tastes of musicians are typically much richer and varied than that of their fans. How many of Dylan’s fans hold a special place in their hearts for Kurt Weill’s “Pirate Jenny”? Can’t we admit, all of us, that the music we revere too often becomes a fetish, adored not so much for what it is, but for what it represents? We expend so much energy defending the quality of our favorite musicians when we’re actually defending our own memories.

We need to remind ourselves that accurate examinations of influential artists, Dylan being but an example, accountings of their missteps as well as their triumphs, are more valuable than a cultural reliquary. Let’s concentrate on expanding our own cultural horizons and let the musicians defend themselves, if they even want to.

http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid%3A36586


So, yeah.

First:

Fans, in general, suffer from an unwillingness to judge entertainment value and cultural status separately from musicianship

there’s an important difference between the phrases “I like it” and “It’s good.”

The safe haven of personal taste is, as Immanuel Kant astutely observed, the excuse “with which every tasteless person proposes to avoid blame.”

Putting aside his influence, when it comes to objectively evaluated musicianship, Dylan is very good and no more.

As a vocalist, the former Mr. Zimmerman’s tone and timbre--though hardly as bad as early critics proclaimed--are thin and inconsistent, but that’s offset by his impeccable phrasing. As a guitarist, he’s as solid a rhythm player as any troubadour should be, but for folk-guitar skills, look to his peers. He has little of Bert Jansch’s dexterity and none of Davy Graham’s broad technical palette. Dylan’s sound is very distinctive, but to declare that sound “great” is like taking comfort in a “great” case of cancer.

Those are the most important points, for those of you too lazy to read the whole thing.


So, I'd like to hear some people's thoughts on this article. Not with specific regards to Dylan, but with regards to the author's manner of viewing music, and of viewing music criticism. I happen to agree with the author more than words can express.

And so my point in posting this article is this:

If you don't talk about music in this way, if you view the statements "it's good" and "I like it", as the same thing, then don't talk to me about music. Don't respond to me when I say things about music.

Also, if you're one of those people, then please explain/defend your point of view here




so that I can tear it apart and call you an idiot.

Thank you.

[cimarron]

Interesting article, and trust mrmcpheezy to bring it up. I sure don't have the musical proficiency to comment on what is "good" and why.
But....... I'm silly enough to reply anyway.

Quoted.."""Can’t we admit, all of us, that the music we revere too often becomes a fetish, adored not so much for what it is, but for what it represents? We expend so much energy defending the quality of our favorite musicians when we’re actually defending our own memories."""

Agreed, examples of "fetishes" pop up on this board (and others like it) everyday. I am a Live fan, but that doesn't mean that I think they are vastly superior writers/musicians etc, etc. I like a fair bit of music that isn't "good", but just because I listen to it doesn't mean I'm deluded. I can admit that I listen to stuff that is ordinary and that it would require no real talent to replicate. And yes, most of it I like because of the memories associated with it.

Quoted.."""We need to remind ourselves that accurate examinations of influential artists, Dylan being but an example, accountings of their missteps as well as their triumphs, are more valuable than a cultural reliquary. Let’s concentrate on expanding our own cultural horizons and let the musicians defend themselves, if they even want to. """

Which is the purpose of reviewing is it not? To expand cultural horizons, put forward opinions backed up with valid arguments and promote discussion. There are very few things in life that are not reviewed or assessed in one form or another. I don't see why music should be any different and we don't all need to get our knickers knotted just because someone says something we don't like about our personal musical favourites.

Quoted from Rocknerd's post """With Dylan it was his lyrics that made people fans, With hendrix it was his skill the Beatles it was every thing."""

I'm sorry, but "the Beatles it was everything"??? Much as I did enjoy the Beatles music at a very early age, I cannot agree that they had everything. The Beatles were popular because they sang sweet, simple songs to begin with. They had catchy chorus's that were easy to remember, they were ordinary musicians, and the band itself was packaged in such a way that they appealed to a young audience, without being overly offensive to adults. Their music changed, but no more than their fans did, they fitted with the era plain and simple. ......and Paul McCartney has been responsible for some of the greatest crud ever written IMHO. Mull of Kintyre, Jet........I rest my case.

You can cut my head off now if you like Mcpheeezy