Surell

If it doesn't need to be dissected, they're probably not deep, ie. surface level, or not subtle, if you want to dissect your assertion.

Yeah, Positively Fourth Street and Like a Rolling Stone are reallll subtle. At least Neil gives you something to guess at. You can say "Don't Cry No Tears" is blatant, but do you know who exactly he's talking to? Why his woman is being held tight by other men? Why his mood shifts from verse to chorus? There are at least many possibilities to combinations of these answers.

You don't listen to Neil but you know immediately that he's so desperate to fit in, even though any asshole on the planet will identify him as an iconoclast. Howard, may he rest in peace (and I hope he doesn't/wouldn't mind my citing him), was a huge Dylan fan, and two pages back he informed me that Dylan was laughed at in his attempts to go "reggae, soul, and electronica" on stage, so he never replicated those sounds on his albums. People may not have said anything, but he duly noted the results his fan base gave him. Neil has been down at least three times himself: In Tonight's the Night years (if you look in Robert Christgau's review, he claims the title track of that album received angry calls when played in Boulder), during the eighties (before Weld and Arc, when he had electronic "Trans", noisy Re-ac-tor, rockabilly Everybody's Rockin, etc. (this was probably his strangest era)), and post Weld/Arc metal sound, which has been somewhat of a staple to this day. But take a look as well at something like Le Noise, comprised entirely of guitar, vocals, and effects, from U2's producer. That's hardly hip or cool in any circle of music, but he tried it, because he was still smokin dope and he didn't give a shit. Or if you want to get to back before he even had his own career, check out "Broken Arrow," which sounds almost entirely out of place in almost any musical context; a more found-sound, fully surreal revision of "A Day in the Life," if you really get down to the meat of it (with me anyway). It really doesn't fit anywhere, except for with more experimental music, especially of today's sort.

I imagine his new stuff is so praised because it sounds so much like what he's already done. Or lamer Tom Waits, probably.

Neil does not live on our plane of time- there are 9 days in a week where he is, which is why he and his guitar are so tortured and impassioned and sagely.

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