Herald article on Dylan

[Guest tv tanned]

Ordinarily I'd not have bothered with this, but the recent revelation that Dylan is giving exclusive selling rights to Starbucks for his new albums makes this article a bit more palatable. Still not sure about some of it though.

The answer, my friend, is that its a load of old hype

Melanie Reid September 27 2005

Which of the following statements do you agree with:

1) Bob Dylan is as iconic as Jesus and more influential than Shakespeare. I am lucky to have lived on the same planet as him.

2) Bob Dylan is a self-regarding old money-machine who has been successfully taking the mick for at least three decades. I think he should retire and give us all peace.

If you answered 1), read no further. As you are in all probability a professional, white male aged over 45, and possibly in possession of several woolly jumpers, you will be susceptible to the increased risk of high blood pressure.

If you answered 2), you are probably young, or female, or both. Welcome to one small refuge against Dylan hagiography, that irradicable disease, resistant to all known anti-viral drugs, which is at present recording a serious outbreak in Britain and America.

Last night and tonight, BBC2 is host to Martin Scorsese's three-and-a-half-hour documentary about Dylan, an event described portentously as "the first simultaneous broadcast between the globe's foremost public broadcasters": in other words, it's being broadcast on PBS the same day.

Regardless of the merits of the programme, reviewed by my colleage Ian Bell on page 15, these details alone tell you what you need to know about the vast, inflated Dylan industry, all of it based on the uncontested premise that the man is a genius.

The involvement of Scorsese, another monstrously over-celebrated talent who did his best work 30 years ago has anyone got to the end of Gangs of New York without being paid to do so? is symbolism enough. But the hyperbole involved in this transatlantic, public-spirited, nearer-my-God-to-thee Dylanfest, as if venerating some living western saint, marks a high-watermark of pretention. The whole concept is flabby with self-congratulation.

At the heart of the Dylan affliction, of course, is the sly old fox himself, he who has been playing games with his adoring public ever since he first picked up a guitar.

His skills as a wordsmith, good as they once were, have long ago been subsumed beneath his marketing skills. At the age of 64, Dylan has become an intriguing parody; he is either a giant ego rendered genuinely incapable of giving up the stage, or a man so amused by the fact that he can still con people into paying to see him, that he can't stop. Or maybe he's a toxic mixture of both.

And so the older he gets, the more productive he becomes. Last year he published an autobiography, so oblique it failed to reveal anything as mundane as facts, and played more than 100 live gigs. This year, he's still on the road. His tour, he has vowed, is never-ending: a sensation sadly familiar to anyone who has actually been to one of his concerts in the past 20 years.

The audience of loyal middle-aged fans go to hear their favourite songs; the tragedy is they won't be able to tell whether he's played them or not. Today's Dylan concerts are existentialist things, but in the wrong way: a parallel universe where the Great Man starts a song well, you assume it's a song, because he's making a droning noise and the band are playing and everyone starts cheering. This wall of indecipherable sound goes on for about five minutes, during which time you try very hard to recognise the tune, if only to avoid embarrassing yourself in front of all the aficionados around you.

This is impossible, because a bored, impassive-looking Dylan is just going "Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaa" and the band, apparently as confused as the audience, are hedging their bets. Eventually, after about 10 minutes, you can just make out the chorus of Mr Tambourine Man, or some such, by which time the song is over. This procedure is repeated several times and then it's time to go home.

So, is it all a game, the tired mischief of a man with a healthy sense of the ridiculous? Or is it the most terrible option the product of a man who takes himself so seriously, who is so devoid of a sense of the ridiculous, that he believes he has semi-divine status?

I fear the latter. And for this, we must blame the fans, awash in nostalgia, who keep consuming no matter how bad he is.

For many people in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, Dylan wrote the soundtrack for their first love affairs, their birth of political awareness, their first revolutionary stirrings. His lyrical genius was to create pop poetry that caught the glory of being young and preserved it in amber.

Hence the notion that Dylan is heroic. Or that he is intellectual. Hence the cringesome sight of fogies in suits eager to tell us what their favourite Dylan song was. When we get to the point where politicians are lining up Rosie Kane, Maggie's Farm: "it's about slavery, working for the bosses, being under the cosh"; George Galloway, Tangled Up in Blue: "he's the greatest writer since Shakespeare" it really is time to strap on the parachute and bail out.

The reality is, yes, that Dylan was a great balladeer of his time, but one who proceeded to become the most over-rated global act of the past 50 years. He is the pop equivalent of trainspotting; he has fostered a particularly acute type of nerdy, intense, sensitive fan: men of arrested emotional development who can quote the lyrics of his songs verbatim and have mythologised him into some kind of Arthur Rimbaud.

There has been more pseudo-cultural dross written about Dylan than about almost anyone else on this planet, with the possible exception of Diana, Princess of Wales. In response to demand, Dylan created a brand which he has been flogging, in a surly way, ever since.

So if we are kind, we read irony into his motives; if we are not, we anticipate he will end up like Frank Sinatra, a dismal icon touring unto death.

Artists are always best separated from their art. To confuse creator and creation is to invite crashing disappointment. A fan may love the work; they should, in my experience, stay well away from the creator, for they are likely to be let down. J D Salinger was right: give the fans nothing, and threaten them with a shotgun if they bother you.

For artists, in real life, have a tendency to be grumpy, ordinary, arrogant. They have weak voices and unkind eyes. They like money too much. They are rarely sensitive or special enough to deserve the undying love their fans wish to give them. Those who adulate Bob Dylan, the pop musician who wrote some wonderful songs but then forgot to retire, would do well to remember that.

[french_disko]

Christ, what a pile of shite - she's just reacting to the increased Dylan exposure at the moment by trying to be controversial and making statements that aren't backed up with fact.

And as for her comment on Scorsese - "another monstrously over-celebrated talent who did his best work 30 years ago". Is she really saying he hasn't produced anything of merit since 1975? Raging Bull? Goodfellas? Casino?

A pointless article - controversy for the sake of controversy.

[Guest tv tanned]

letters@theherald.co.uk

Feel free to shoot her down, chances are it'll get published.

[Guest tv tanned]

then e-mail her directly

[Marn]

The Herald is dead to me now.

[Guest Gasss]

It doesn't seem to attack Dylan or his early work like I thought it would. It just says he's crap live these days and is cashing in.

edit: for all the pompous intro, it doesn't really say much at all

[Stripey]

She doesn't name any examples of modern-day figure who could be regarded as geniuses' date=' probably because she knows the Dylan fans would have a field day with them. [/quote']

Sorry to interrupt, but I don't understand this idea that if someone wants to express a negative opinion about something, they must provide a list of things which are "better" than the thing they are criticising. It is the material itself (in this case Bob Dylan) that is up for inspection, not the person writing the article. The only obligation of a critic is to provide some degree of reasoning to substantiate their opinion, and ultimately, if you disagree with them, it doesn't affect your own enjoyment of the thing they have been writing about.

Just had to get that off my chest

I absolutely agree with her statement "Artists are always best separated from their art. To confuse creator and creation is to invite crashing disappointment", and I pretty much agree with the rest of what she wrote, a lot of it could probably be applied equally well to the Rolling Stones, in light of their new tour.

[french_disko]

Todays Herald Letters

Bob Dylan and lazy feminist clichs

Your Letters September 28 2005

Melanie Reid flatters herself: few professional men over 45 are likely to be put at any risk at all of increased blood pressure from reading her article on Bob Dylan (September 27). Irritation, yes; irritation at the poor quality of journalism and the lack of intellectual coherence.

The lazy quality of thinking is perfectly illustrated by her inclusion of the word "white" in "a professional white male over 45". Is it her suggestion that brown or yellow or black male professionals over 45 would be exempt for the danger of high blood pressure? Or that they are likely to agree with her opinion of Bob Dylan? Or that they are less likely to be in possession of woolly jumpers? She hasn't actually thought of the possible meanings at all; it is simply a lazy feminist clich.

Melanie Reid is rather addicted to the simple-minded notion that it is enough for good journalism to be controversial, to "take on" the establishment view. Alas for her, while that is a sufficient start for a fifth-year debate, it is insufficient for good journalism, which is why her articles tend to be so formulaic. As she prissily puts it in her envoi, she "would do well to remember that".

J W Morrison, 9 Bryce Road, Currie.

Bob Dylan is overrated he is also underrated. Everybody is a critic nowadays and it seems we all have an opinion on the subject of Mr Zimmerman. Melanie Reid seems to suggest that Dylan is an ageing, manipulative charlatan dependent on the unswerving loyalty of an equally ageing (mainly male) fan base. There may be more than a hint of truth in this belief. Leaving aside Ms Reid's barely concealed ageism and sexism, my own opinion is that, first and foremost, Dylan is a great artist. He was, along with the Beatles, largely responsible for the arcane notion that "pop music" could be considered a serious art form.

As for Chronicles, Vol 1, Dylan's recent "autobiography" this is, in fact, a beautiful, evocative and (dare I say it?) poetic work, as I'm sure a journalist of Melanie Reid's experience and standing should appreciate.

Edward McKnight, 467 Caledonian Road, Wishaw.

ON June 24, 2004, at Barrowland, Glasgow, I attended one of the best live gigs I've ever been to. A late convert to Bob Dylan, and having seen him in dire form at the awful SECC some years earlier, I was mightily impressed and moved by this particular performance as the songs were delivered with enthusiasm and verve, passion and care. The memory of the crowd's reaction and participation and Dylan's involvement still make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

It's a pity Melanie Reid missed out on that show as it might have tempered her furious put-down of this musical legend.

Mike Ritchie, 21 Fotheringay Road, Glasgow.

Something is happening here but you don't know what it is, do you, Melanie Reid?

John Archer, hopscotch films, Caledonian Arthouse, 752-756 Argyle Street, Glasgow.

[Guest bluesxman]

Her points about his live stage show are valid in my experience, after going to see him at the AECC a few years back, I can vouch for the fact that only recognising snippets of lyrics allowed you to realise which songs he was playing for the most part. 20-odd quid a ticket, no support, show start at 19:45 and finish by 21:45 - couldn't help feeling short changed somehow, but was still a thrill to see a legend in the flesh. And the audience consisted of young teenagers upwards so her crowd description is rather clouded by her own prejudice towards the man.

Time Out Of Mind was a fantastic album so to say he no longer has any relevance is very lazy.

[Spoonie]

i'd agree with bluesman and i was at the same gig. it's true about the songe being barely recognisable but i still thoroughly enjoyed the show and seeing him there before you is something special. time out of mind is a class album - especially 'not dark yet'

people are free to criticise musicians and their output all they like, but when you start to single out the fans and explain why you have a problem with them in particular, people will generally switch off!

/X

[Guest ()Papaspyrou()]

20-odd quid a ticket' date=' no support, show start at 19:45 and finish by 21:45 - couldn't help feeling short changed somehow[/quote']

Thats pretty harsh - and I even attended the recent Dresden Doll(s) gig!

[Guest DustyDeviada]

Well I like the fact that he constantly reinvents his back catalogue, it's made for some great live versions of classic Dylan tracks.

Maggie's Farm from the hard Rain album is a brilliant version.

If you want to hear songs as they sound on the record, um, listen to the record.

[french_disko]

Today's Herald Letters........

September 29 2005

THE letters page on Wednesday made me go back and read Melanie Reid's opinions of Bob Dylan. She is right that much of the attraction of the Scorsese film, which ended in 1966, is nostalgia for the over-45s. It is probably that which keeps Dylan successfully on the road. But it is no less true of the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney, Elton John, The Who, etc, who are still popular but whose best years were decades ago.

I admit I watched the Scorsese film for a nostalgic look. I haven't listened to my Dylan records (re-bought on CD) for some time. What I had forgotten was the impact that the material had on me and my contemporaries at the time. The Cuban missile crisis and the fear of the nuclear weapons involved, civil rights and the beginnings of Vietnam. Masters of War, A Hard Rain's a Gonna Fall, The Chimes of Freedom and With God on our Side are masterpieces that made a massive impact and stand the test of time. Where are the protest songs today? Apply the words of the last of these to Yugoslavia or Iraq and see.

One thing the film did illustrate was that journalism would appear to have improved, if the filmed press conferences are anything to go by.

Bob Major, 40 Liggars Place, Dunfermline.

Ian Bell's assertion that "a person's opinions about Dylan tend to be a handy guide to whether they should live or die very slowly in miserable, pathetic ignorance", with regard to Melanie Reid is totally uncalled for.

Despite her coquettish photo, Melanie has a very important job, and takes it very seriously. She alone had the courage to speak up for "the young and the female" readers, whose opinions she reveres. Her statement that "Dylan concerts are existentialist things, but in the wrong way" cut to the heart of the matter. She was also correct to suggest that much dross has been written about Dylan, and she managed it in only five columns! Mr Bell's suggestion that Melanie deserves to die in ignorance is wide of the mark she's brain dead already.

John Morgan, 27 Dewar Street, Dollar.

Having watched both programmes about Bob Dylan and then read Ian Bell's hagiographic reviews, what I want to know is this. What is Ian Bell on? Can I have some too? I promise to share it with Melanie Reid.

V Connolly, 34 Brackenbrae Road, Bishopbriggs.

As a 52-year-old, occasionally lazy, feminist I'm in Ian Bell's camp, not Melanie Reid's, on the Bob Dylan question. The Martin Scorsese documentary is a work of art, both his and Dylan's. And I challenge anyone who thinks Dylan's songs aren't relevant to the 21st century to try listening to Masters of War without thinking about Blair and Bush.

Nancy Somerville, 12 Murieston Road, Edinburgh.

Melanie reid is a white, middle-class, third-rate, tabloid-friendly "journalist". Bob Dylan is a genius. Jealousy, anyone?

Kevin Orr, Wheatley Loan, Bishopbriggs.

Melanie Reid . . . I don't believe you! You're a liar!

Graham Lumb, 10 Tweed Avenue, Peebles.