For a record board that drops so much knowledge on 60s & 70s music & apparently has people who are "music fans" I am astounded that people here are maybe shortsighted enough to not want to explore western popular music enough to even dig back & get familiar with what people listened to in the 1920s through. In all seriousness, there is a lineage you can trace & the way things are all entwined together is fascinating (for me at least & I hope I'm not alone). Some of you guys I think need to get familiar with some music history, it can be interesting & expand your horizons. I'm not saying it's wrong to be ignorant of some of the things mentioned in this thread but you are really doing yourself a disservice if you are pleading ignorance to some of the "big bang artists" of 20th century pop music. Again, you don't have to like them, but it will be more persuasive if you have a watertight argument as to why.
I agree with you, but at the same time I don't. I think that music appreciation doesn't necessarily come with tracing straight lineages, not to say that it doesn't. I for one, was never interested in learning everything I could about any one kind music, and insetad opted to pick up anything I could find and put it down as soon as I lost interest. To quote Kitchenknight's (I think it was kitchenknight) quotation of a quotation there is not enough time in a life for music. I just want a smattering of anything I come into contact with, and when osmething really grabs me I sit with it for a while and take it apart. I'm far more interested in what is disparate than what is similar. So, when I hear something that sounds like something else that I'm already familiar with I rarely remain engaged (unless I can dance to it).
I got into Leonard Cohen before I really listened to Dylan, so Dylan always sounded like a pale comparison to me. I'm not gonna knock the dude, because I have no reason to. I'm not saying that if you know one artist from a genre you know them all, but I do think that an intimate knowledge of one artist from a genre can suffice in the synthesis of knowledge of a genre.
I'm with you on the idea that its fascinating to trace the connectedness of music, I simply prefer to do it by locating similarities in odd places (like ancient gu-qin music of China and Storm and Stress).
I think maybe this is what I was trying to get at but a bit clearer. Thanks. I think some wires have got crossed in this thread about ignorance of music in general Vs. ignorance of an artist or genre.
No pun intended, but some folks in here really to stop being so self-sufficiant. Talking about all that "western music" this, "southern pop corn" music and shit. To me, Dylan is just a mofocker playing guitar. Do NOT get on peopel's back for not KNOWING Dylan. This is so white, so dumb and and so elitist. Do you all realize how "bourgeois" this atitude is? Would you still talk like that in front of millions of Africans (or choose your fav third-world continent) who don't have any interest in Bob Dylan? Or are they all worthless for that matter? Am i worthless or are my music skills so lame because of my lack of knowledge regardless to Dylan? HELL NO. To each his own. I can talk music with Dylan and non-Dylan fans. But it seems like Dylan-hard-fans are having a problem to relativize the influence of their favorite dude. I prefer Bill Whiters over Dylan. There it is. I said it. And I surely guarantee y'all that you can live a wonderful and lovely life without knowing Dylan's repertoire. And so it is for many other artists...Get out of here with that stupid Dylan cult.
How I yearn for the days when dudes would embarass themselves over a Layers pull.
Glorifying Layers for it's "breaks" alone I can see as being NAGL, but come on - Les McCann is no tepid funkster, I think he deserves a little more respect than that.
Layers gets a pass from me for the Boston connection, anyway.
Haha... I like Les McCann, but I can do without his seventies material.
Do you all realize how "bourgeois" this atitude is? Would you still talk like that in front of millions of Africans (or choose your fav third-world continent) who don't have any interest in Bob Dylan? Or are they all worthless for that matter?
No offense but this is just a ridiculous point to make. Patronizing to boot.
If you like any American popular music style of the last 40 years, it would be good to try to listen to some Dylan. And Beatles. And Rolling Stones. And James Brown. And Sam Cooke. And Parliament. And [keep filling stuff in].
You don't have to like them. I don't listen to Dylan on the regular either. I just think if you're genuinely interested in American pop music, it helps to know these (and many, many more) artists. In many cases, I would think your appreciation for music would be improved but if that's not a big deal to you, hey, c'est la vie.
Do you all realize how "bourgeois" this atitude is? Would you still talk like that in front of millions of Africans (or choose your fav third-world continent) who don't have any interest in Bob Dylan? Or are they all worthless for that matter?
No pun intended, but some folks in here really to stop being so self-sufficiant. Talking about all that "western music" this, "southern pop corn" music and shit. To me, Dylan is just a mofocker playing guitar. Do NOT get on peopel's back for not KNOWING Dylan. This is so white, so dumb and and so elitist. Do you all realize how "bourgeois" this atitude is? Would you still talk like that in front of millions of Africans (or choose your fav third-world continent) who don't have any interest in Bob Dylan? Or are they all worthless for that matter? Am i worthless or are my music skills so lame because of my lack of knowledge regardless to Dylan? HELL NO. To each his own. I can talk music with Dylan and non-Dylan fans. But it seems like Dylan-hard-fans are having a problem to relativize the influence of their favorite dude. I prefer Bill Whiters over Dylan. There it is. I said it. And I surely guarantee y'all that you can live a wonderful and lovely life without knowing Dylan's repertoire. And so it is for many other artists...Get out of here with that stupid Dylan cult.
Hall of Fame.
This, from a young man whose apparent age is exceeded by the number of logical fallacies in the above paragraph.
Oh. It's spelled W-I-T-H-E-R-S. Still Bill, though.
I love it when SoulStrut's rockism gleeful ignorance surfaces.
I was at a taco place last month when I shit you not I hear a SPANISH ACE OF BASE COVER. But I was immediately more disturbed that I actually knew that.
I think it can be agreed upon that the concept of the "canon" with respect to just about anything can be pretty problematic.
What gets included and what gets left out is decided on some pretty arbitrary and dubious criteria. Record sales? Respect from "critics"? Being popular today?
Just cuz someone says "this is part of the canon [/b]" doesn't mean anything to me.
Dylan could've disappeared into obscurity as far as I'm concerned, and Relatively Clean Rivers could be considered part on the "canon".
I like what I like. I don't like what I don't like. I don't have to waste my time listening to something I don't like just cuz someone says it's of the canon.
I don't like Dylan. Would have to think hard to name a song.
I don't like the Stones or Tupac either.
(See Elaine Pagels "Gnostic Gospels" - just cause it's in the bible, doesn't mean it's the word of god, it just means it served some powerful person's interests at the time to include it)
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Here's my thoughts, quick to be disregarded.
The thing about art is there is a 'canon'. You know, a generally agreed upon collection of artists and artworks that are vital and definitive examples of an art form.
You don't have to like what is in the canon; but, you SHOULD make an effort to learn it. If you don't learn the canon, you are only playin' yourself.
Now, the canon is a vast, ever changing, amorphous thing- there is no canonical mountain, where folks on high decide what is in or out of favor. It is not written- just generally agreed upon. And, to be very fair, it is impossible to have read/listened to/watched/or looked at all that is in the literary, musical, cinematic, or artistic canon. There will always be holes in peoples knowledge; if there weren't we wouldn't spend our lives seeking out new art work.
Ok. That said...
Bob Dylan, the Beatles, and the Rolling Stones are three of the fucking pillars of the colliseum of Rock and Roll/Pop/60s music. And, not having a basic familiarity with their works does ONLY the ignorant a disservice.
You don't have to like them. You can hate them. But, you should KNOW them. Jesus, even if you only like soul and hip hop, you might want to learn a thing or two about them, for all the cover versions and samples they leant us.
You can hate who you want; but, some of this willfull ignorance shit gets tiresome.
rant over. feel free to disregard. burn notice is starting.
bob dylan once played a show in a small town near here. for 80% of the people it was like god was finally about to visit earth, for me it was he might have been very influental, his lyrics may be very nice, but i simply cant stand his music.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
How many of you 60's rock guys know the "canon" of 30's and 40's music???
I would assume some, but certainly not all.
So why is it strange that a 20 year old kid today doesn't know, or care, about 60's and 70's music??
You need to step back and stop believeing that "your" genre or era was as important as you think it was.
Well, I can tell you that I know a bit about the 'canon' of 30s and 40s music. Thanks to my pops, I was checking Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt and Kid Ory before I bought my first Miles Davis album, and it's through this that the 14-y-o me could have proper raised-voices arguments with my old man about whether "Inner Mounting Flame" was actually jazz or not.
This probably belongs in the Elvis thread, but it's kinda on-topic so fuck it. In quite a few of the UK papers yesterday, there were Elvis features. Some of them had little vox-pop sidebars where people were asked what they thought of Elvis' music, and surprise surprise, many of the responses were of the "he's not really relevant now" nature. I can't and won't clon somebody just because they don't care for Elvis' music - or Dylan's, for that matter - as that can simply be a matter of taste. But for chrissakes, whatever you think of cats like them, they're amongst the absolute fundamentals of post-war popular music, and there's a wealth of shit around now that simply would not exist if not for them. And when someone (usually much younger) takes a "whatever" attitude to shit like Elvis/Dylan (usually for the sake of being contrary), only to sing the praises of some tired, derivative shit that's been done and done and done, except they just haven't heard it done and done and done, then I have to call their judgement into question. Nobody can be expected to know everything about everything, but this insistence that shit has to be "relevant" to a younger audience for it to have value is ridiculous. Y'know, maybe the fault is with you, and you really should get familiar - did you ever think about that? Some people are happy to spout dumb, contrarian shit for days, and the internerd grants them something of a license to do this, but step to them on it, and they get all bitch-made, crying about how they're entitled to their opinion. Well, try making it an informed opinion, motherfucker.
And I'm sorry, Rock, but as far as modern popular music goes, then the 60's were important. If somebody's gonna try and tell me that the White Stripes are doing something new and groundbreaking with the blues, I'm gonna ask them if they've heard the first two Led Zeppelin albums. If they haven't, then they need to come back and talk to me when they have, because otherwise I am not trying to hear that shit. Likewise, the kind of people who, in all seriousness, declare a posturing waster like Pete Doherty to be "a poet", when they've never heard "Blood On The Tracks". I mean, we're not talking about marginal shit here. If music means something to you, then you've less of an excuse to be unaware of this shit than ever - you can hit up some of the thousands of blogs that catalogue this shit and check it without even leaving the house, yet motherfuckers are still too lazy to do the knowledge. I'm not just talking about Dylan or Elvis or Zeppelin, either. Krautrock, free jazz, Indian classical, Italian movie scores, 80's new wave, roots reggae - it's all out there. Take a little time out to broaden your horizons.
I'm all for The Kids having something they can call their own, whether it's System of a Down or Young Joc, and I do genuinely enjoy quite a lot of new shit of all varieties. But what I can't get with is when some of those kids will insist that Their Thing is better than My Thing because it's the New Thing, when 99 times out of 100, it's My Thing in all but name. Not only that, but I can usually point out to them exactly where Their Thing has straight bitten My Thing, so what now? I realise this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, and guilty as charged. But "you just don't get it, grandpa" (or words to that effect) is something I hear a lot nowadays, as though the much-vaunted new shit is incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 25. Because we're not talking about a vast cultural and artistic gulf like the one between, say, Guy Lombardo and Ornette Coleman. Rock and pop music has remained essentially the same since the 60s/70s (hey, how about that?), so it ain't like there's a great sea change comes along with every summer any more.
Please understand that nothing in this rant is directed at specific people on here; when it comes to music, the sheer breadth and depth of the Strut's collective knowledge base never ceases to amaze me. It's just that this kind of thing is a serious peeve of mine. I can't be doing with this tendency to write off huge swathes of shit because "it's not relevant" or some equally flimsy reason. Most of the time, that just seems like an excuse to avoid figuring out why such shit is so highly regarded, or looking at whatever it was that made it significant, or any one of a half-dozen other things. To me, a deeper understanding of this, while maybe not life-or-death essential, makes for a far richer enjoyment of music as a whole.
Look, the canon isn't something that is hard and fast, and it is always changing. For years, Hemingway was 'out of canonical favor,' as literature wonks put it; then, everyone rediscovered 'The Sun Also Rises,' and he is more read and influential than ever.
Was Hemingway ever booted out of the canon? no. But, was there a time when his influence was less recognized? Yes.
It is an amorphous, ever-changing body. And, like it or not (because personal taste has little to do with it) someone who has made the contributions of Bob Dylan is in the canon, alongside many others.
And, how is that decided? Not just sales and critics, though they may be a part- but by the sheer breadth and impact of his influence on modern music. His imprint is felt EVERYWHERE. Rock, folk, soul, commercial appeal...He is part of the canon because his accomplishments are so large and great that he can't help NOT to be at this point.
I heard this put really well recently in an NPR piece on the concerts where Beethoven first played his 5th symphony. Until that point, the world did not know the opening phrase to that piece, possibly the most famous phrase in all of music, and the world did not need it. Now? We can't picture life without it, as it's influence has been felt far and wide.
Well, it is same for some of the pillars of the popular music canon. Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield (who I honestly think should come up in the conversation of greatest 20th Century composers/arrangers), Beach Boys, and in the past to Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, etc.
Then, you can move into more fringe territories- the Relatively Clean Rivers, Loves, et al. Are they in the canon? Yes, but their relative influence will be viewed diffently at different periods, making for great debate on message boards worldwide by folks who take this shit too seriously. (selfson)
But for the big dudes- the Dylans, Wonders, et al: We cannot picture a world before their influence, as their impact and contributions to the art of music are so strong. And, nor should we want to- we should learn their music, its strengths and weaknesses, and use it to break new ground.
I'm all for The Kids having something they can call their own, whether it's System of a Down or Young Joc, and I do genuinely enjoy quite a lot of new shit of all varieties. But what I can't get with is when some of those kids will insist that Their Thing is better than My Thing because it's the New Thing, when 99 times out of 100, it's My Thing in all but name.
I guess I have the perspective I do because I have kids that are 18 & 21 and both are big music fans. While they have been exposed to(and even like) a lot of different music styles by virtue of having to listen to me play music in the house, most of their friends are pretty clueless about popular music history.
Let's face it, very little Bob Dylan gets played on the radio. He just never made the typical "Oldies" playlist(cept for maybe "Lay Lady Lay" or "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"). So unless your parents, or god forbid we show our age, your grandparents turned you on to the music of Dylan, it's something you'd have to search out. And I think those who do, are the exception and not the rule in today's musical environment
As far as claiming which musical era is better than another, Dylan was no "better" than Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams or Leadbelly. And I'm willing to bet that most Dylan fans couldn't name two Leadbelly songs. That doesn't make them less of a music fan.
The fact that Brian, or other young people who are in to current popular music aren't hip to Dylan doesn't surprise me one bit. Nor does it diminish their knowledge or love of Hip-Hop, Reggae, etc. etc.
On one hand it seems that folks here want to downplay current music that is highly influenced by the 60's & 70's artists and at the same time downplay someone's breadth of knowledge if they AREN'T hip to these same artists.
Seems a little pompous and a little weird.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
Do you all realize how "bourgeois" this atitude is? Would you still talk like that in front of millions of Africans (or choose your fav third-world continent) who don't have any interest in Bob Dylan? Or are they all worthless for that matter?
No offense but this is just a ridiculous point to make. Patronizing to boot.
If you like any American popular music style of the last 40 years, it would be good to try to listen to some Dylan. And Beatles. And Rolling Stones. And James Brown. And Sam Cooke. And Parliament. And [keep filling stuff in].
You don't have to like them. I don't listen to Dylan on the regular either. I just think if you're genuinely interested in American pop music, it helps to know these (and many, many more) artists. In many cases, I would think your appreciation for music would be improved but if that's not a big deal to you, hey, c'est la vie.
Telling someone that they're cheating themselves by ignoring Dylan--which seems to be what you're doing now--is very different from suggesting that their opinions on music cannot be taken seriously if they don't know Dylan, which is really where the controversy started.
For the record, I've been a Dylan fan for more than twenty years--he, along with the Beatles--was one of the very first artists whose music I felt a deep personal identification with. Nonetheless, I can't get with this idea that you absolutely must be conversant with his music if you're "genuinely interested in American pop music". If you're going to present yourself as a person with a real interest in the streams of musical expression that Dylan's career intersected with then, yeah, he's a dominant figure and you really should know him. But as far as I can tell the one Brian pretty much only listens to rap, which has absolutely nothing to do with Dylan (a preemptive note to SoulStrut's old men: please don't embarass yourselves by trying to claim that it does). I don't see why we should write off everything Brian says about rap until he notifies us that he's spent some quality time with the Dylan catalog.
Some of ya'll really are some rockists and seem to view everything else as just sort of a tributary to the primary stream that rock represents. You should remember that there are a lot of people out there with little interest in that particular aesthetic stream.
Someone please check the temperature in hell....faux and I agree on something.
Although I thought I was the sole representitive of "old men" here on SS.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
I'm all for The Kids having something they can call their own, whether it's System of a Down or Young Joc, and I do genuinely enjoy quite a lot of new shit of all varieties. But what I can't get with is when some of those kids will insist that Their Thing is better than My Thing because it's the New Thing, when 99 times out of 100, it's My Thing in all but name.
I guess I have the perspective I do because I have kids that are 18 & 21 and both are big music fans. While they have been exposed to(and even like) a lot of different music styles by virtue of having to listen to me play music in the house, most of their friends are pretty clueless about popular music history.
Let's face it, very little Bob Dylan gets played on the radio. He just never made the typical "Oldies" playlist(cept for maybe "Lay Lady Lay" or "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"). So unless your parents, or god forbid we show our age, your grandparents turned you on to the music of Dylan, it's something you'd have to search out. And I think those who do, are the exception and not the rule in today's musical environment
As far as claiming which musical era is better than another, Dylan was no "better" than Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams or Leadbelly. And I'm willing to bet that most Dylan fans couldn't name two Leadbelly songs. That doesn't make them less of a music fan.
The fact that Brian, or other young people who are in to current popular music aren't hip to Dylan doesn't surprise me one bit. Nor does it diminish their knowledge or love of Hip-Hop, Reggae, etc. etc.
On one hand it seems that folks here want to downplay current music that is highly influenced by the 60's & 70's artists and at the same time downplay someone's breadth of knowledge if they AREN'T hip to these same artists.
Seems a little pompous and a little weird.
I know what you're saying here, and yes, I guess I do sound a little pompous. But what I'm trying to say is, it's the out-of-hand dismissal of everything before a certain point, or after it for that matter (shout out to Wynton Marsalis), that's baffling to me. It's not quite what's under discussion, and I went off at something of a tangent, admittedly, but that's another of my character flaws for which I make no excuse.
I can listen to current shit and usually enjoy it for what it is or appears to be, even when I don't share the same degree of enthusiasm for it as the people it's arguably aimed at. But sometimes if you say, well, the Raconteurs aren't really a whole lot different from Foghat or Montrose a lot of the time, young'uns will look at you like you're trying to spoil their fun. If someone goes off and dowloads that first Montrose album then comes back to me and says, "Hey, you don't know what you're talking about! Montrose fucking sucks, and the Raconteurs are way better"? Now, that's what I'm talking about. That's different from "I don't like [artist] even though I've never really heard their shit" - that's like talking because you like the sound of your own voice. I'm not trying to say that it was all so much better when I was a kid (even if I do sometimes think it was). I'm not really any sort of champion of the whole "this era was better than that" anyway, as this presupposes that there's no more good music to be made, and I am absolutely not about "older = better by default".
Dylan is/was different because he was clearly much, much more than the sum of his influences, whatever they were. In relation to hip-hop, it does surprise me a little that someone into hip-hop, though not necessarily Brian, wouldn't want to check out an artist whose appeal and significance largely rests on his lyrical skills, if only for curiosity's sake. After all, hip-hop has always drawn on other, disparate forms of music to some extent or other, so it isn't like there's no precedent for a hip-hop fan to check out something outside their immediate area of interest.
Now I've calmed down a little, maybe I just relate it all back to when I was a kid and I had the enthusiasm and the desire to actively seek out new music wherever I could. There was only one network radio station in the UK that played pop, and that was strictly Top 40 until late at night, and only a handful of commercial stations. I guess people have more pressing things to concern themselves with than whether or not they've heard enough Bob Dylan.
I can't get with this idea that you absolutely must be conversant with his music if you're "genuinely interested in American pop music". If you're going to present yourself as a person with a real interest in the streams of musical expression that Dylan's career intersected with then, yeah, he's a dominant figure and you really should know him. But as far as I can tell the one Brian pretty much only listens to rap, which has absolutely nothing to do with Dylan
I don't consider someone whose musical world view ONLY consists of rap as qualifying as a "genuine interest in American pop music."
I also think this conversation would work better outside of accusations of rockism (however tongue-in-cheek) since rockism (as I'm sure Faux knows) has a very specific narrative and canon associated with it. Rather, it seems like this is a larger (though similar) argument over whether ANY musical genre has a canon of "important figures" within it that one should be conversant with in order to (notice the scare quotes) "fully appreciate" the genre.
DocMcCoy"Go and laugh in your own country!" 5,917 Posts
In relation to hip-hop, it does surprise me a little that someone into hip-hop, though not necessarily Brian, wouldn't want to check out an artist whose appeal and significance largely rests on his lyrical skills, if only for curiosity's sake.
a preemptive note to SoulStrut's old men: please don't embarass yourselves by trying to claim that it does
I can't get with this idea that you absolutely must be conversant with his music if you're "genuinely interested in American pop music". If you're going to present yourself as a person with a real interest in the streams of musical expression that Dylan's career intersected with then, yeah, he's a dominant figure and you really should know him. But as far as I can tell the one Brian pretty much only listens to rap, which has absolutely nothing to do with Dylan
I don't consider someone whose musical world view ONLY consists of rap as qualifying as a "genuine interest in American pop music."
Well, it depends what you mean by "genuine interest in American pop music"--I take it to mean a genuine interest in some streams of American popular music; most people do not have an over-arching interest in all of them. I'm not even sure "American popular music" is a meaningful phrase at this point when used that way.
I also think this conversation would work better outside of accusations of rockism (however tongue-in-cheek) since rockism (as I'm sure Faux knows) has a very specific narrative and canon associated with it. Rather, it seems like this is a larger (though similar) argument over whether ANY musical genre has a canon of "important figures" within it that one should be conversant with in order to (notice the scare quotes) "fully appreciate" the genre.
See, I don't really think that's what the debate is about. I think what you're articulating is, in fact, a pretty uncontroversial point. I think the argument is over whether any musical genre has a canon of "important figures" within it that people with little to no interest in the genre should nonetheless be conversant with in order to "fully appreciate" popular music.
I don't think that arguing for Bob Dylan's place in the canon is necessarily rockist; it is a discussion that will tilt towards rock, but if someone were saying they hadn't heard Curtis Mayfield, we could just as easily be having this discussion about him. I think it is a broader view of 20th Century American Popular Music, which includes Stevie Wonder and Ella Fitzgerald and Bob Dylan and LL Cool J, and Public Enemy, and Jay Z.
This isn't necessarily a Rockist argument, for his inclusion; it just so happens to be about a rock artist, so the argument has steered that way.
Comments
Haha... I like Les McCann, but I can do without his seventies material.
No offense but this is just a ridiculous point to make. Patronizing to boot.
If you like any American popular music style of the last 40 years, it would be good to try to listen to some Dylan. And Beatles. And Rolling Stones. And James Brown. And Sam Cooke. And Parliament. And [keep filling stuff in].
You don't have to like them. I don't listen to Dylan on the regular either. I just think if you're genuinely interested in American pop music, it helps to know these (and many, many more) artists. In many cases, I would think your appreciation for music would be improved but if that's not a big deal to you, hey, c'est la vie.
Wow.
Hall of Fame.
This, from a young man whose apparent age is exceeded by the number of logical fallacies in the above paragraph.
Oh. It's spelled W-I-T-H-E-R-S. Still Bill, though.
I am stripping the solar panels off my roof as I type.
oh jesus, wait...I can.
I was at a taco place last month when I shit you not I hear a SPANISH ACE OF BASE COVER. But I was immediately more disturbed that I actually knew that.
C'mon Crink...Back ON the Grid with you.
I think it can be agreed upon that the concept of the "canon" with respect to just about anything can be pretty problematic.
What gets included and what gets left out is decided on some pretty arbitrary and dubious criteria. Record sales? Respect from "critics"? Being popular today?
Just cuz someone says "this is part of the canon [/b]" doesn't mean anything to me.
Dylan could've disappeared into obscurity as far as I'm concerned, and Relatively Clean Rivers could be considered part on the "canon".
I like what I like. I don't like what I don't like. I don't have to waste my time listening to something I don't like just cuz someone says it's of the canon.
I don't like Dylan. Would have to think hard to name a song.
I don't like the Stones or Tupac either.
(See Elaine Pagels "Gnostic Gospels" - just cause it's in the bible, doesn't mean it's the word of god, it just means it served some powerful person's interests at the time to include it)
he might have been very influental, his lyrics may be very nice, but i simply cant stand his music.
Well, I can tell you that I know a bit about the 'canon' of 30s and 40s music. Thanks to my pops, I was checking Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhardt and Kid Ory before I bought my first Miles Davis album, and it's through this that the 14-y-o me could have proper raised-voices arguments with my old man about whether "Inner Mounting Flame" was actually jazz or not.
This probably belongs in the Elvis thread, but it's kinda on-topic so fuck it. In quite a few of the UK papers yesterday, there were Elvis features. Some of them had little vox-pop sidebars where people were asked what they thought of Elvis' music, and surprise surprise, many of the responses were of the "he's not really relevant now" nature. I can't and won't clon somebody just because they don't care for Elvis' music - or Dylan's, for that matter - as that can simply be a matter of taste. But for chrissakes, whatever you think of cats like them, they're amongst the absolute fundamentals of post-war popular music, and there's a wealth of shit around now that simply would not exist if not for them. And when someone (usually much younger) takes a "whatever" attitude to shit like Elvis/Dylan (usually for the sake of being contrary), only to sing the praises of some tired, derivative shit that's been done and done and done, except they just haven't heard it done and done and done, then I have to call their judgement into question. Nobody can be expected to know everything about everything, but this insistence that shit has to be "relevant" to a younger audience for it to have value is ridiculous. Y'know, maybe the fault is with you, and you really should get familiar - did you ever think about that? Some people are happy to spout dumb, contrarian shit for days, and the internerd grants them something of a license to do this, but step to them on it, and they get all bitch-made, crying about how they're entitled to their opinion. Well, try making it an informed opinion, motherfucker.
And I'm sorry, Rock, but as far as modern popular music goes, then the 60's were important. If somebody's gonna try and tell me that the White Stripes are doing something new and groundbreaking with the blues, I'm gonna ask them if they've heard the first two Led Zeppelin albums. If they haven't, then they need to come back and talk to me when they have, because otherwise I am not trying to hear that shit. Likewise, the kind of people who, in all seriousness, declare a posturing waster like Pete Doherty to be "a poet", when they've never heard "Blood On The Tracks". I mean, we're not talking about marginal shit here. If music means something to you, then you've less of an excuse to be unaware of this shit than ever - you can hit up some of the thousands of blogs that catalogue this shit and check it without even leaving the house, yet motherfuckers are still too lazy to do the knowledge. I'm not just talking about Dylan or Elvis or Zeppelin, either. Krautrock, free jazz, Indian classical, Italian movie scores, 80's new wave, roots reggae - it's all out there. Take a little time out to broaden your horizons.
I'm all for The Kids having something they can call their own, whether it's System of a Down or Young Joc, and I do genuinely enjoy quite a lot of new shit of all varieties. But what I can't get with is when some of those kids will insist that Their Thing is better than My Thing because it's the New Thing, when 99 times out of 100, it's My Thing in all but name. Not only that, but I can usually point out to them exactly where Their Thing has straight bitten My Thing, so what now? I realise this makes me sound like a curmudgeon, and guilty as charged. But "you just don't get it, grandpa" (or words to that effect) is something I hear a lot nowadays, as though the much-vaunted new shit is incomprehensible to anyone over the age of 25. Because we're not talking about a vast cultural and artistic gulf like the one between, say, Guy Lombardo and Ornette Coleman. Rock and pop music has remained essentially the same since the 60s/70s (hey, how about that?), so it ain't like there's a great sea change comes along with every summer any more.
Please understand that nothing in this rant is directed at specific people on here; when it comes to music, the sheer breadth and depth of the Strut's collective knowledge base never ceases to amaze me. It's just that this kind of thing is a serious peeve of mine. I can't be doing with this tendency to write off huge swathes of shit because "it's not relevant" or some equally flimsy reason. Most of the time, that just seems like an excuse to avoid figuring out why such shit is so highly regarded, or looking at whatever it was that made it significant, or any one of a half-dozen other things. To me, a deeper understanding of this, while maybe not life-or-death essential, makes for a far richer enjoyment of music as a whole.
Rant over
Was Hemingway ever booted out of the canon? no. But, was there a time when his influence was less recognized? Yes.
It is an amorphous, ever-changing body. And, like it or not (because personal taste has little to do with it) someone who has made the contributions of Bob Dylan is in the canon, alongside many others.
And, how is that decided? Not just sales and critics, though they may be a part- but by the sheer breadth and impact of his influence on modern music. His imprint is felt EVERYWHERE. Rock, folk, soul, commercial appeal...He is part of the canon because his accomplishments are so large and great that he can't help NOT to be at this point.
I heard this put really well recently in an NPR piece on the concerts where Beethoven first played his 5th symphony. Until that point, the world did not know the opening phrase to that piece, possibly the most famous phrase in all of music, and the world did not need it. Now? We can't picture life without it, as it's influence has been felt far and wide.
Well, it is same for some of the pillars of the popular music canon. Dylan, the Beatles, the Stones, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield (who I honestly think should come up in the conversation of greatest 20th Century composers/arrangers), Beach Boys, and in the past to Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, Woody Guthrie, etc.
Then, you can move into more fringe territories- the Relatively Clean Rivers, Loves, et al. Are they in the canon? Yes, but their relative influence will be viewed diffently at different periods, making for great debate on message boards worldwide by folks who take this shit too seriously. (selfson)
But for the big dudes- the Dylans, Wonders, et al: We cannot picture a world before their influence, as their impact and contributions to the art of music are so strong. And, nor should we want to- we should learn their music, its strengths and weaknesses, and use it to break new ground.
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I guess I have the perspective I do because I have kids that are 18 & 21 and both are big music fans. While they have been exposed to(and even like) a lot of different music styles by virtue of having to listen to me play music in the house, most of their friends are pretty clueless about popular music history.
Let's face it, very little Bob Dylan gets played on the radio. He just never made the typical "Oldies" playlist(cept for maybe "Lay Lady Lay" or "Knockin' On Heaven's Door"). So unless your parents, or god forbid we show our age, your grandparents turned you on to the music of Dylan, it's something you'd have to search out. And I think those who do, are the exception and not the rule in today's musical environment
As far as claiming which musical era is better than another, Dylan was no "better" than Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams or Leadbelly. And I'm willing to bet that most Dylan fans couldn't name two Leadbelly songs. That doesn't make them less of a music fan.
The fact that Brian, or other young people who are in to current popular music aren't hip to Dylan doesn't surprise me one bit. Nor does it diminish their knowledge or love of Hip-Hop, Reggae, etc. etc.
On one hand it seems that folks here want to downplay current music that is highly influenced by the 60's & 70's artists and at the same time downplay someone's breadth of knowledge if they AREN'T hip to these same artists.
Seems a little pompous and a little weird.
Unrelated, but I was driving with my lady recently and she said "that banjo noise" was giving her a headache. It was Van Morrison on the harmonica.
Telling someone that they're cheating themselves by ignoring Dylan--which seems to be what you're doing now--is very different from suggesting that their opinions on music cannot be taken seriously if they don't know Dylan, which is really where the controversy started.
For the record, I've been a Dylan fan for more than twenty years--he, along with the Beatles--was one of the very first artists whose music I felt a deep personal identification with. Nonetheless, I can't get with this idea that you absolutely must be conversant with his music if you're "genuinely interested in American pop music". If you're going to present yourself as a person with a real interest in the streams of musical expression that Dylan's career intersected with then, yeah, he's a dominant figure and you really should know him. But as far as I can tell the one Brian pretty much only listens to rap, which has absolutely nothing to do with Dylan (a preemptive note to SoulStrut's old men: please don't embarass yourselves by trying to claim that it does). I don't see why we should write off everything Brian says about rap until he notifies us that he's spent some quality time with the Dylan catalog.
Some of ya'll really are some rockists and seem to view everything else as just sort of a tributary to the primary stream that rock represents. You should remember that there are a lot of people out there with little interest in that particular aesthetic stream.
Although I thought I was the sole representitive of "old men" here on SS.
I know what you're saying here, and yes, I guess I do sound a little pompous. But what I'm trying to say is, it's the out-of-hand dismissal of everything before a certain point, or after it for that matter (shout out to Wynton Marsalis), that's baffling to me. It's not quite what's under discussion, and I went off at something of a tangent, admittedly, but that's another of my character flaws for which I make no excuse.
I can listen to current shit and usually enjoy it for what it is or appears to be, even when I don't share the same degree of enthusiasm for it as the people it's arguably aimed at. But sometimes if you say, well, the Raconteurs aren't really a whole lot different from Foghat or Montrose a lot of the time, young'uns will look at you like you're trying to spoil their fun. If someone goes off and dowloads that first Montrose album then comes back to me and says, "Hey, you don't know what you're talking about! Montrose fucking sucks, and the Raconteurs are way better"? Now, that's what I'm talking about. That's different from "I don't like [artist] even though I've never really heard their shit" - that's like talking because you like the sound of your own voice. I'm not trying to say that it was all so much better when I was a kid (even if I do sometimes think it was). I'm not really any sort of champion of the whole "this era was better than that" anyway, as this presupposes that there's no more good music to be made, and I am absolutely not about "older = better by default".
Dylan is/was different because he was clearly much, much more than the sum of his influences, whatever they were. In relation to hip-hop, it does surprise me a little that someone into hip-hop, though not necessarily Brian, wouldn't want to check out an artist whose appeal and significance largely rests on his lyrical skills, if only for curiosity's sake. After all, hip-hop has always drawn on other, disparate forms of music to some extent or other, so it isn't like there's no precedent for a hip-hop fan to check out something outside their immediate area of interest.
Now I've calmed down a little, maybe I just relate it all back to when I was a kid and I had the enthusiasm and the desire to actively seek out new music wherever I could. There was only one network radio station in the UK that played pop, and that was strictly Top 40 until late at night, and only a handful of commercial stations. I guess people have more pressing things to concern themselves with than whether or not they've heard enough Bob Dylan.
These boys really aren't ready for the new SoulStrut tag team....
I don't consider someone whose musical world view ONLY consists of rap as qualifying as a "genuine interest in American pop music."
I also think this conversation would work better outside of accusations of rockism (however tongue-in-cheek) since rockism (as I'm sure Faux knows) has a very specific narrative and canon associated with it. Rather, it seems like this is a larger (though similar) argument over whether ANY musical genre has a canon of "important figures" within it that one should be conversant with in order to (notice the scare quotes) "fully appreciate" the genre.
Too late...
Well, it depends what you mean by "genuine interest in American pop music"--I take it to mean a genuine interest in some streams of American popular music; most people do not have an over-arching interest in all of them. I'm not even sure "American popular music" is a meaningful phrase at this point when used that way.
See, I don't really think that's what the debate is about. I think what you're articulating is, in fact, a pretty uncontroversial point. I think the argument is over whether any musical genre has a canon of "important figures" within it that people with little to no interest in the genre should nonetheless be conversant with in order to "fully appreciate" popular music.
Truth
This isn't necessarily a Rockist argument, for his inclusion; it just so happens to be about a rock artist, so the argument has steered that way.