Bob Dylan says modern music is worthless

Entertainment Weekly ^ | 8/22/06 | Reuters

[NormsRevenge]

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Bob Dylan says modern recordings sound "atrocious," and even the songs on his new album sounded much better in the studio than on disc.

"I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past twenty years, really," the 65-year-old rocker said in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine.

Dylan, who released eight studio albums in that time, returns with his first recording in five years, "Modern Times," next Tuesday.

Noting the music industry's complaints that illegal downloading means people are getting their music for free, he said, "Well, why not? It ain't worth nothing anyway."

"You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them," he added. "There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."

Dylan said he does his best to fight technology, but it's a losing battle.

"Even these songs probably sounded ten times better in the studio when we recorded 'em. CDs are small. There's no stature to it."

[Michael.SF.]

Elton John His ability to turn Bernie Taupin's lyrics into some of the songs he has is a remarkable achievement. The two are one of the best song teams as there has been in R&R music.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Whether you like Dylan or not is neither here nor there. That does not change the fact that he is the most profilic and talented song writer of the Twentieth century. I don't particularly care for opera but I understand that Pavarotti is a great singer. I don't care for Hitchcock movies much but cannot deny he is one of the greatest directors ever.

[Borges]

Sinatra virtually invented modern pop singing!

And Lennon had fantastic range. It's hard to be belive that 'Twist and Shout' and Imagine is the same vocalist.

[Borges]

About 95% of Dylan's lyrics are apolitical.

[Borges]

Joel is the closest we have to Irving Berlin.

[stainlessbanner]

That's a classic folks!

[grellis]

I do not dispute that Dylan is prolific, nor do I dispute that he has been influential. Talent, however, is subjectively assessed. There are opera lovers who do not particularly care for Pavarotti, and there are cinemaphiles who think Hitchcock is overrated. That's what I tend to like about the arts--how they reach one in the gut.

Just out of curiosity--what do you make of Dylan's comments? In general, I mean, not in the particular. The way I see it, what he has stated more or less goes along with what I am saying. We all have our opinions.

[justshutupandtakeit]

My view of aesthetics is that it is subject to more objective standards than you appear to accept. To me Truth is Beauty and Beauty Truth.

In answer to your question I have only listened to Rap as the most recent music genre and had not noticed any reduction in production values or the sound per se. Most of the music I buy is older than that and I know that most is of terrific sound quality. Re-issues sound better than when they were first releashed. For example, the recordings of Sinatra with Dorsey are fantastic as are those of Jimmy Reed, the delta bluesman whose sound Dylan imitated in Highway 61 Revisited.

However, as to artistic creativity in general it appears to have vanished in the West generally replaced by a cynical contempt for traditional standards and an attempt to outrage. New Music is generally derivative and unimpressive when compared to periods of tremendous vitality. New Latin music has much greater appeal to me than new Rock or Jazz though Blues still retains some vitality. Visual art appears to be more fraud than inspiration as it has turned to open worship of Evil and ugliness. Movies are particularly perverse as they pursue the spread of depravity and anti-Americanism or attempt to dazzle with frensies special effects. Literature is characterized by such frauds as Gunther Grass with few glimmers of spiritual insight.

When Nietzsche declared God to be Dead he was speaking of for the the European Man. That spiritual death has unleashed the demons of nihilism into the Political World (another of Bob's fine songs) as well as the Cultural. You know something is happening but you don't know what it is.

[La Enchiladita]

Hi. Thanks. I "discovered" Dylan when I was in high school, maybe sweet sixteen...? Wore out The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and became familiar with many, many subsequent tunes though I do not own any of his music at present.

I must check out that Love and Theft CD...

;^)

[kjam22]

I just bought the new Dylan CD.... "Modern Times". Listened to it in it's entirity at lunch. It has some very good moments on it. And, really, only one song that didn't do much for me. If you like Dylan, I think you'll like this. (Understanding that it doesn't sound like his music of the 60's).

But it does sound like old music played very well. I liked it better than his past two.

[freedomlover]

Monty Python's Flying Circus -
"Four Yorkshiremen"
[ from the album Live At Drury Lane, 1974 ]

The Players:
Michael Palin - First Yorkshireman;
Graham Chapman - Second Yorkshireman;
Terry Jones - Third Yorkshireman;
Eric Idle - Fourth Yorkshireman;

The Scene:
Four well-dressed men are sitting together at a vacation resort.
'Farewell to Thee' is played in the background on Hawaiian guitar.

---

FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, very passable, that, very passable bit of risotto.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Nothing like a good glass of Château de Chasselas, eh, Josiah?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You're right there, Obadiah.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Who'd have thought thirty year ago we'd all be sittin' here drinking Château de Chasselas, eh?
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In them days we was glad to have the price of a cup o' tea.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
A cup o' cold tea.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Without milk or sugar.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Or tea.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
In a cracked cup, an' all.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we never had a cup. We used to have to drink out of a rolled up newspaper.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
The best we could manage was to suck on a piece of damp cloth.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
But you know, we were happy in those days, though we were poor.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Because we were poor. My old Dad used to say to me, "Money doesn't buy you happiness, son".
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was right.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye, 'e was.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
I was happier then and I had nothin'. We used to live in this tiny old house with great big holes in the roof.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
House! You were lucky to live in a house! We used to live in one room, all twenty-six of us, no furniture, 'alf the floor was missing, and we were all 'uddled together in one corner for fear of falling.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Eh, you were lucky to have a room! We used to have to live in t' corridor!
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Oh, we used to dream of livin' in a corridor! Would ha' been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank on a rubbish tip. We got woke up every morning by having a load of rotting fish dumped all over us! House? Huh.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, when I say 'house' it was only a hole in the ground covered by a sheet of tarpaulin, but it was a house to us.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
We were evicted from our 'ole in the ground; we 'ad to go and live in a lake.
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky to have a lake! There were a hundred and fifty of us living in t' shoebox in t' middle o' road.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
Cardboard box?
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Aye.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
You were lucky. We lived for three months in a paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six in the morning, clean the paper bag, eat a crust of stale bread, go to work down t' mill, fourteen hours a day, week-in week-out, for sixpence a week, and when we got home our Dad would thrash us to sleep wi' his belt.
SECOND YORKSHIREMAN:
Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at six o'clock in the morning, clean the lake, eat a handful of 'ot gravel, work twenty hour day at mill for tuppence a month, come home, and Dad would thrash us to sleep with a broken bottle, if we were lucky!
THIRD YORKSHIREMAN:
Well, of course, we had it tough. We used to 'ave to get up out of shoebox at twelve o'clock at night and lick road clean wit' tongue. We had two bits of cold gravel, worked twenty-four hours a day at mill for sixpence every four years, and when we got home our Dad would slice us in two wit' bread knife.
FOURTH YORKSHIREMAN:
Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night half an hour before I went to bed, drink a cup of sulphuric acid, work twenty-nine hours a day down mill, and pay mill owner for permission to come to work, and when we got home, our Dad and our mother would kill us and dance about on our graves singing Hallelujah.
FIRST YORKSHIREMAN:
And you try and tell the young people of today that ..... they won't believe you.
ALL:
They won't!

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

ROFL! That's gonna be Bob Dylan and his buddies in the Old Folks Home talking about the old days!

[sushiman]

Dylan was more of a poet than a singer ; a disciple of jack Kerouac who loved America , as did Jack .

[sushiman]

Van Morrison - another Kerouac fan .

[sushiman]

" Dylan's got a voice that sounds likes fingernails on a chalkboard.
"

Maybe you can SING like Bob , but can you WRITE like Bob ?