[padi56]

Maybe someone can help me out here, it is widely accepted that Bob is one of the founders of modern pop music. Creating many different styles like country rock and folk rock, as well as destroying the notion that a performer had to have a good voice (yeah cheers for that) and creating more introspective lyrical styles. I know all this. I realise his importance. But I still cannot bring myself to like him.

I cannot understand why people hold Bob Dylan and his music in such high regard. And it’s not for want of trying. I have bought and downloaded most of his ‘classic’ albums and I have sat and forced myself to listen, over and over again to his tuneless droning voice, permeated with the ever present grating mouth organ. And I feel precisely nothing, not even a gentle stirring. In fact the only thing I feel is an almost irresistible urge to chuck my Hi-fi out of the window, to escape that awful blinking mouth organ, I really hate that mouth organ. And his voice, barrier breaking it may be, but that does not distract form the fact that it is absolutely terrible. A horrible rough sounding drawl, which he uses to great effect, singing every single line and verse in exactly the same way,

I have tried to put his music into the context of the times, figuring that people must like him because of what his lyrics related to during the turbulence of the sixties, but I can’t decipher them. After 30 seconds of concentration it becomes an exercise in extreme masochism, but without the sexual pleasure. I have tried comparing him with his contemporaries, and he comes out worse. I have tried listening to his pre-motorbike accident albums, where his voice is supposed to be better, it’s not. I have tried listening to his later albums, they are awful. In fact, I have come to realise that the only Dylan songs that I like, are the ones that have been covered and sung, by other artists.

So it was with great excitement last night that I sat down to watch a documentary on the man himself, hoping to finally get some enlightenment into the why and wherefores surrounding this living legend. After half an hour I had almost lost the will to live, it was so depressingly boring. Even some of the interviewees seemed bemused by Dylan’s mass appeal. And I found a tuneless,duet with some sixties so called artist that was at least a semi-tone different from each other. Worse than a dawn chorus of Tom cats after a night on the tiles

I have finally come to the conclusion that his popularity is a case of the emperor’s new clothes, and a generous portion of nostalgia. I mean, nobody could seriously enjoy listening to the awful cat-wailing of this fuzzy haired chancer could they?

Are there any Bob fan’s out there. If so can one please explain to me how, or why this 'musician' has become a living legend? Because I’m blowed if I know,perhaps the answer my friends is blowing in the wind,just blowing in
the wind. Well we in the UK spawned our own Dylan in the form of Donovan, now IMO a much better all round artist.