Absolutely - IMO. He's had some stellar moments, but I think those are more down to chance and having the right producer/musicians than any other factor. Add an aversion to the press (not surprising really) and a willingness to talk gibberish when cornered, all of which builds a mystique.

And when he misses, he misses big. His catalogue includes some completely cringeworthy stuff that anyone with half a brain would have removed by now and pretended never happened. That he hasn't done that hints that he either can't tell how bad they are or doesn't care. I haven't heard any merit at all in his more recent albums (including the highly regarded, award winning ones).

IMO a better poet than a musician

Dylan the musician has never really impressed me , but Dylan the song writer ...one of the best

I think he had a brief hot spell. Very hot. Starting with Freewheelin' (the best album from the early 60s New York folk scene - the one by which all others are measured) through to Blonde on Blonde. That's three years - but he changed (or, some would say, invented) rock music fundamentally in that time, expanding it's vocabulary and horizons. Then he has the infamous motor bike crash and has never hit that hot a streak again. I can't make up my mind about Blood On The Tracks. Some say it's his masterpiece, but given his way with words (or the way he had with words) some of the lyrics seem pretty laboured.

Two things
1) I don't see that "overrated" has to equal "not great". I think you can be both. The hype isn't always the artist's fault nor sought by him (classic example being Clatpon).

2) He did warn us repeatedly that there was no message and that he didn't have any answers.

Not at all, love him to bits!

IceCreamMan wrote: Dylan the musician has never really impressed me , but Dylan the song writer ...one of the best

This.

The point of folk music is that anyone can do it, even an uncool kid with bad hair and a weedy voice like Bob. I love how 'punk' this attitude is- don't be held back by your abilities, just get out there and do it.

peterleroux wrote:

IceCreamMan wrote: Dylan the musician has never really impressed me , but Dylan the song writer ...one of the best

This.

The point of folk music is that anyone can do it, even an uncool kid with bad hair and a weedy voice like Bob. I love how 'punk' this attitude is- don't be held back by your abilities, just get out there and do it.

I would dispute that. In the folk world there is nowhere to hide, no showbiz, no effects etc etc so the guys who survive for more than a few minutes have to be really good - all they have is their performance and their material. I've been fortunate to see some of the very best (notably the insanely brilliant and potent Martin Carthy) but also some unknowns as support acts, and even the unknowns are pretty good.

There's more skill to Dylan than he gets credit for. Also he didn't stay in the folk world very long. Which is not to say that his every album has been brilliant or that he hasn't ridden his reputation for all it's worth.

The odd thing about him is that every now and then he still comes out with a really strong song. Either the muse still visits him occasionally or he still has some gems in old note books.

Attila Barath wrote: IMO a better poet than a musician

IMO, a mediocre poet and a great musician and songwriter (have you actually read any of his "poetry"?bleurgh...). His output may be patchy, but then most of the greats have a relatively short "great period" and, unless they have the decency to die young, a lot of iffy stuff thereafter.

His great period from Freewheelin' through to Blonde on Blonde, as IceCreamMan commented, pretty much redefined popular music. He was able to synthesise folk music, rock'n'roll, country and R&B in a way that nobody else even dreamed was possible (or, perhaps, even desirable), and that touched—and changed—pretty much every musician who heard it. His influence is incalculable—both for his remarkable songs and his unorthodox presentation of them.

He's one of those acts, like The Beatles, who cannot be overrated. Whether or not you like them or not is irrelevant; whether or not you think there are people who can play better than them is irrelevant. There is a handful of acts who provide the cornerstones of all modern music and without which it simply wouldn't exist. Dylan is one of those.

Bob the D, no-one else even comes close, he's light years ahead of the pack. 8) 8)

Saw him live a few years back (a friend gave us the tickets - honestly) and we were very not-impressed. I agree with Mike that his influence and legacy can hardly be overrated but my-oh-my is that long ago. Even when he was, as Bob puts it, hot, his contemporaries could do his songs better imho - most notably Jimi.

Gearhead wrote: Saw him live a few years back (a friend gave us the tickets - honestly) and we were very not-impressed. I agree with Mike that his influence and legacy can hardly be overrated but my-oh-my is that long ago. Even when he was, as Bob puts it, hot, his contemporaries could do his songs better imho - most notably Jimi.

Nobody (as far as I'm aware) rates the recent, live, Dylan that highly—apart from that inner coterie of fans that are in on the joke. Which makes that incarnation hard to overrate...

I disagree about his contemporaries doing his songs "better", too. Yes, Jimi did a brilliant "Watchtower", but apart from a
couple of sloppy "Rolling Stone"s live, and that's about it. "Subterranean Homesick Blues", "Ballad of a Thin Man", "Like a Rolling Stone", "just Like a Woman", "Stuck Inside of Memphis", "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands", "Maggie's Farm" (I could go on...). These are the defining Dylan tracks of the key electric period, and the defining versions are Dylan's. That Hendrix turned the lightweight, throwaway "Watchtower" into something magnificent or that the Byrds made "All I Really Wanna Do" into a jangly hit is as irrelevant as GnR's bombastic "Heaven's Door" hitting the charts, in the greater scheme of things.

I agree to a large extent: people like the Birds and even Baez murdered most of the Dylan songs they did - the good Dylan songs don't take well to being prettified and most good singers trying to sing like Dylan are bound to fail.

And where would Simon, Petty, Rafferty, et. al. be without Dylan? Even John Lennon and the other Beatles? Or how about Hendrix (and many other artists with less than perfect voices) who wouldn't have dared singing if it wasn't for the Bobster getting away with it first.

So I suppose, as an influence he cannot be overrated. As an artist he is totally overrated - especially his later output.

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: As an artist he is totally overrated - especially his later output.

How can that be, when nobody rates his later output? As an artist in his prime, though—listen to the Manchester Free Trade Hall gig (often wrongly credited to the Albert Hall). He's a monster. It's all his material, and he kills it. What else do you want an artist to do?

Mike wrote: How can that be, when nobody rates his later output?

Time out of Mind? Three Grammys including best album. One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. And not very good...

As an artist in his prime, though—listen to the Manchester Free Trade Hall gig (often wrongly credited to the Albert Hall). He's a monster. It's all his material, and he kills it. What else do you want an artist to do?

Oh, he's had his moments - I can't argue that (and wouldn't - my wife is a Dylanophile ?). And Live '66 was great - The Band had even tuned their guitars for that one... ? The remaster is an absolute wonder of modern remastering too.

Mike wrote:

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: As an artist he is totally overrated - especially his later output.

How can that be, when nobody rates his later output?

Are you kidding? Every new Dylan release for the last dozen years at least has received hosannas up the wazoo from the critics. What I like about the piece that I linked to is that there's a journo out there who is prepared to face the slings and arrows of outrageous tweeting by suggesting that Dylan is less than infallible.

His recent tours have pulled in a lot of money. But that was no doubt helped along by the lineup he put together. Last summer the tour (mostly stadium gigs) had his name "Bob Dylan presents..." etc but the top-but-one act was Wilco and under them were My Morning Jacket who are apparently quite hip at the moment. Ticket prices for that lot were ... not cheap. Indeed just about anybody who made records in the 60s and 70s can put a package tour together in the USA and rake in the money. Peter Frampton had a very successful tour last year that he loaded with guitar hotshots (mostly BB King and Sonny Landreth).

As an artist in his prime, though—listen to the Manchester Free Trade Hall gig (often wrongly credited to the Albert Hall). He's a monster. It's all his material, and he kills it. What else do you want an artist to do?

Agreed. Which is why I think he can be both overrated and great.

Greats can be surpassed as well. Dylan is not great because he is unsurpassable, he's great because he was a game changer - which is what the Salon article misses. Even the Beatles were influenced by Dylan. They found themselves in the same taxi as Dylan in New York in the mid 60s. He told them they were a great band but needed to write better songs, more personal, more literate songs. Shortly thereafter John's and Paul's songwriting took a major step forwards and John gave a deliberate nod to Dylan on "Hide Your Love Away".

Hendrix was also under the Dylan spell. It may be argued that he did Dylan better than Dylan, but he could only do those songs because Dylan had written them.

X-rated Bob wrote:

Mike wrote:

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: As an artist he is totally overrated - especially his later output.

How can that be, when nobody rates his later output?

Are you kidding? Every new Dylan release for the last dozen years at least has received hosannas up the wazoo from the critics.

Indeed it has. And then it's been quietly ignored.

Time out of Mind? Three Grammys including best album. One of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. And not very good...

I doubt it would make Rolling Stone's top 500 today (not that I regard Rolling Stone as a worthwhile arbiter of taste, any more than I regard the corporate circle-jerk that is the Grammys as having any real meaning). That he has done work that was overrated on its release does not mean that he is overrated—a fine point, perhaps, but one that I regard as significant.

What I like about the piece that I linked to is that there's a journo out there who is prepared to face the slings and arrows of outrageous tweeting by suggesting that Dylan is less than infallible.

Well, y'see, I don't think that consensus exists. I think most people with ears know that Dylan has been hugely fallible over the years (with many, in today's parlance, epic fails). Speaking of ears, the hack in question clearly lacks them—to suggest that Donovan has a greater range than Dylan is simply risible, for a start. Donovan, fer chrissakes!

This isn't brave journalism; it's stupid journalism—click-bait designed to get a rise out of people. That's if it's even journalism (which I doubt—as a long-time journo I'm very glad I got out of the business over ten years ago; it's a profession that has almost ceased to exist!). That's why I didn't pick up on the click-bait itself (until now), but responded only to the initial "Dylan overrated?" question. And my answer is still, with no caveats, "no".

Was Time Out of Mind overrated? Hell, yes. And a bunch of other stuff? Oh, indeed. Is Dylan? Nah... ?

the hack in question clearly lacks them—to suggest that Donovan has a greater range than Dylan is simply risible, for a start. Donovan, fer chrissakes!

took the words right out of my mouth....Donovan, very sweet, but, no where near Dylan.

The article is a bit silly. Why diss an artist, by listing all the people he's inspired, and who were moved to either emulate him or cover his songs, because they liked them so much? Really very silly.

It's hard to put a finger on why he's so popular...he's not very likable - in any way, but he is - in a way. So there you go, it's magic. Although as far as mumbling, self absorbed folk singers go, I think I prefer Leonard Cohen.

Viccy wrote: It's hard to put a finger on why he's so popular...he's not very likable - in any way, but he is - in a way. So there you go, it's magic. Although as far as mumbling, self absorbed folk singers go, I think I prefer Leonard Cohen.

As far as not-very-likeable musos are concerned, Cohen has a reputation that is up there with Van Morrison (and he is the universally-acclaimed leader of the pack!).

I think what people often miss with Dylan (and which came through so clearly on the brilliant Scorcese doc, No Direction Home) is both how self-aware he is, and how funny. For years, the "best" picture I had of him was D.A. Pennebaker's Don't Look Back fly-on-the-wall film of the 1965 British tour where he comes across as pretty aloof, arrogant and sometimes just plain nasty. I now see that he was really just doing what he could to distance himself from the madness around him (something which may have been made easier by the fact that he was speeding like a Ferrari on nitro at the time), and that his act was just that.

(By the way, No Direction Home is worth watching just for Joan Baez's pin-sharp Dylan impression that pops up at one point.)

For me, Cohen wrote some genuinely great songs in the mumbling, self-absorbed school; Dylan changed the face of popular music.