NEWS: Blowing Chunks in the Wind

CULTURE: Blowing Chunks in the Wind

I hate Bob Dylan so much it's hard to express it. There is no more overrated figure in modern music, and none more bizarrely worshipped. As far as I can see, there's only one good thing about him: watching desperate pundits explain the demented ramblings of the dottering Emperor Ming-looking motherfucker.

Everything that's supposed to be good about the artist formerly known as Zimmerman is something bad. Even though he was over-lauded in his early 60s Woody Guthrie rip-off phase, he "bravely" stopped playing protest music at pretty much the only point in American history protest music could have mattered. He courageously "went electric" after the Beatles and Stones proved it was big business, and only altered the then-popular-music-model by injecting a killer lode of pretension and shitty singing. And his over-praised impressionistic lyrical style has been the inspiration for so much bad high school poetry that he and all of his children should be burnt at the stake.

He's supposed to be the main avatar of smart pop music. I got news for him and all of his fans; "War Pigs," written and performed by allegedly dumb metal ensemble Black Sabbath is an infinitely more succinct, direct and accurate anti-war, anti-elite statement than anything in the catalog of Dylan, Baez or any other coffee shop staple. And it rocks.

So when the voice of an obsolete generation says "I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really," it's cause for grim celebration.

Really, you whiny, nasally voiced troubadour. Have you listened to any of the records you've put out in that span of time? I'm just spit-balling here, but I have a feeling that like most of your surviving audience, you put each one on once and shelved it along with the rest of your faded hopes.

And why would 1986 be your cut-off point? I mean, shit, they're not even my favorite band or anything, but that was the year the Pixies put out their first record. And that's just one example, one that doesn't require going into the deep cut record bins.

The continued existence of Bob Dylan is embarrassing for everyone. Sometime around 1966, Dylan was in a motorcycle accident. If he was the genius everybody claims he is, he wouldn't have pretended to have survived it.

back away from the glue-bag

Hilarious bullshit from someone who lists travelling nostalgia baby boomer act the Rolling Stones as their favorite band. How edgy!

Good lord this news section is a joke.

did you follow and read this link? might add a bit more perspective

uhhhh he was referring to the overly processed digital studio recordings where songs are so littered with crap that they sound nothing like they do live. I sould have expected that the main point of your article would have been founded on confusion when almost everthing you said is just so many levels of wrong that i read it three times to make sure i was not missing some fear the reaper esque sarcasm.....no, no sarcasm just ignorance. but hey, congratulations you inspired my first ever comment on this site.

The funniest thing is that the writer of this piece clearly didn't read what Dylan said.

He was talking about the sound and how the material is recorded and mastered, not the actual music, genius.

so, yeah, that's a pretty brilliant article you just wrote.

Ya'll got to the point before I could. I am so slow.

That "commentary" tab is the like the worst thing to happen the news wire since ever. 'Cause pretty much all it seems to encourage is ridiculous polemics that are working really hard to be super hip and mostly just sound like, well, like stupid polemics.

Hey, I love my stupid polemics. (every article I write is filed under "commentary" to avoid the "is this really news?" questions)

As to the original post, I've never really understood what's supposed to be so great about Bob Dylan's music. But I don't really get the vitriol that's being thrown at him either. At worst he's mildly entertaining, and there are people who care a lot more about music than I do who seem to think he's great, so I'm guessing there's probably something to it.

Johnnyfu makes some excellent points. I could never understand how Dylan got to be so worshipped after watching him drunkenly argue in "Don't Look Back". "I just want to know who threw that glass, man!"

The commentary, or someone saying they hate Bob Dylan, doesn't bother me at all (especially seeing as how I have a chance to respond in the comment section), but it's sort of lame that the author, through ignorance or deliberate manipulation, has tried to make it seem like the guy said something he didn't.

oooooh, this is from the "Commentary" ..we should have a "Humor" tab . maybe this shit should go under that.

The author and the editor should be embarrassed for not understanding what they are writing/editing about.

As for what Dylan is actually talking about, he's been saying that for a while, and of course he's dead right. It made me recall the Wikipedia entry for Time Out of Mind.

i am dreading the release of the new Dylan album. the regular customers at my store are aging neo-hippies and they eat this shit right up. i'm hoping i won't hate the new album anywhere near as much as i hated the newest Neil Young and Paul Simon albums. they all try to talk to me about these artists as if i am also infatuated with them. i didn't grow up in the sixties, i'm not nostalgic for mediocre artists with obnoxious voices and exponential pretentiousness.

stupid aging neo-hippies.

Oh, look, another new newswire editor with another strident, inchoate rant.

I don't know if I can masturbate to the
pretty girls on this site.. I mean, how could
this organization allow such a mediocre
and unresearched rant take place against
such a talented lyricist/musician.
I mean, DESIRE is just so beautiful.

I don't know if I can bring myself to
look at this website after "publishing"
this shite article.

Just kidding, I'll still masturbate, but
seriously, who let this guy publish this,
and who hired this editor?

While I personally appreciate a lot of Bob Dylan's work and don't agree with the claims in this article, Johnnyfu is by no means "new." He's been an SG member since 2003, and has written on a variety of subjects for newswire since July. Just had to say that. Alright, let the reaming resume.

Um dude... you're just bitter because you found out you were conceived while your parents were smoking grass and discussing how "deep" Dylan's version of "All along the watchtower" is compared to Hendrix's.

to the writer of the rant:
it's ok to say sabbath is better than dylan, but ask ozzy who inspired him to write those kind of lyrics, and well, we all know the answer..also, dylan didn't make the change to electric for business reasons, it was artistic, in fact his first ever recording was electric, the point is that he wasn't chained to the acoustic folk movement, are you some kind of luddite who doesn't believe in progress? Noone has to feel obligated to love Dylan, just like Shakespeare or Picasso, but a close listening of most of the Sixties albums or Desire or Blood on the Tracks or Time out of Mind, even if you didn't want to hear it again, any sane person has to admit there is a brilliant talent at work there..

"Emperor Ming-looking"??

You make my dictionary happy.

Ozzy didn't write War Pigs. Geezer did.

Fuck this article.

MUSIC I DON'T LIKE IS BAD!