T-Bone wrote:
Bob Dylan... no talent?
I may be a bit jaded but I must say that is a kooky statement.
Don't like his singing? Ok he isn't for everyone. Understood. Don't like his song writing? You
must have a box of crayons in your desk at work in which you sign documents with. If you
can't accept this guy as one of if not the best songwriter of the 20th century you need to
clean your ears out with a power drill.... and get in there deep.
Sure, Dylan would be kicked off
The Voice or
American Idol within seconds of opening his mouth, but there's more to it than that. Bryn Terfel is a "better" singer than Mick Jagger but I don't want to see him fronting the Stones. It's about putting the song across with sincerity and genuineness. That's why there are so few excellent cover versions. The ability to interpret the work of others is a skill in and of itself.
My friend Jean Lyons, a great guitarist and songwriter in many bands no one has heard of, taught me a lesson a long time ago. If you're going to interpret the work of someone else it has to be sincere. Otherwise it just comes off as goofy camp or bad irony. And the real irony is that you played a shitty song shittier than the original artist did. Like Cursive covering "We Built This City" or Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, it's worth a laugh, but ultimately, it sucks. Playing a song with a "wink wink" is stupid. Jean knew that when she was 20 years old. It took me longer to figure it out.
I give Axl Rose credit for finding the one pop gem in the mountain of shit recorded by Charles Manson. And "Look At Your Game, Girl" is a great song. But the way Guns N' Roses did it is lacking. because it wasn't sincere. It was guys recording a song simply because it was written by someone infamous.
Sometimes guys can't even put across their own songs. Take Barry Manilow and John Fogerty for example. They're both great songwriters and I'd say it's fair to put them on the same level, as different as they may be. But as performers, it's a different matter entirely. Fogerty had never set eyes on the Mississippi, but when you hear "Proud Mary", you damn well believe that the guy singing it spent some time on a tugboat pushing freight up the Big Muddy. Barry, on the other hand, writes a song about his own beloved dog dying and I don't believe he cares. I bet I could find several dog owners on the street this afternoon who could sing "Mandy" with more passion and emotion once they knew what it was about.
You can keep Daughtry. I'll pay to hear Dylan sing anytime.
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