Surell

Until Bob Dylan takes up the whole side of a record to complain about shitty MP3 quality Neil will win every time. It is interesting, though, that this is both of their 35th studio albums, if Wikipedia don't lie.

__________________

variationVlad

I don't listen to much Neil Young to be honest, but Dylan is the best songwriter of all time.
His songs are aesthetically brilliant, so that you don't need to dissect them to enjoy them.
His meanings are subtle and don't bash you over the head, like some of the Neil Young songs I've heard. I mean some of his songs are just lyrically incredible. He is a poet who is also a talented musician. Listen to Subterranean homesick blues, Desolation Row, Rollin' Stone, Knockin' on heavens door. All impeccable, flawless songs that are some of the best ever.

And to people saying that Neil Young has more variation, Yes he may do, but it seems like it was him desperately struggling to move with the times and be in with the hip crowd, whereas Dylan made the music he wanted when he wanted, regardless of what other people said. So on strength of Character, you have to go with Dylan. He made the music he wanted, even if it wasn't popular. How many times has Dylan lost 90% of his fan base and then gained it back, as well as new fans? At least 3 times.

His new material is praised almost as much as his classic stuff. He has played in a few different genres and made them his own.

I'll take Dylan everyday of the week and twice on Sunday.

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.

__________________

blastingas10

Well, Dylan was laughed at, heckled and downright hated for going electric and he still made electric albums, so I'm a little confused as to what point you're trying to make. I don't know what you would call it, but he certainly made some soul/gospel albums as well.

As for Neil's "broken arrow", that's a good comparison. It does remind a little of "a day in the life".

Surell

This is what I took that idea from:

Maybe never was the wrong word, but I took Howard's idea not only because it synced with mine but because he was so knowledgeable of/involved with Dylan. But I have heard that Dylan made some dance-ish music in the 80's, was that his electronic phase you refer to? I know Neil was all vocodered down back then (Trans, of course, which i still need to give a listen), so I wouldn't be surprised if his colleagues were also taking advantage of the aesthetic dejour.

And I find "Broken Arrow" similar mostly for its form: the verse, noise, verse, noise, verse, release buildup, though the Beatles were definitely more climatic and showed a little more variation in having Paul's contrasting second verse. But while Neil's is less dramatic, it still strings together this really bizarre narrative, and practically feels like it's floating in the sense of a dream in how soft/detached his voice and the accompaniment are (especially the old R&B/Soul strings at the end), as well as having such a stagnant pitch dynamic throughout. The song trips me out, especially for when it was made and who it was coming from.

And while we're on "A Day in the Life," has anyone heard his way excellent cover that does the original Batman-level justice? I can't imagine a guy who's so caught up with keeping up with the trends would use his encore on the Beatles, my grandparents' band. Neil's latest album has been constantly noted for its "bitter nostalgia" of the era he grew up in; really, Neil himself has been known as one of the last hippies still waving the flag. But damn do i digress.

PS (wherein i'm allowed to digress): I forgot to mention that my dad has mentioned several times how when Neil went all metallic post-Weld/Ragged Glory/Freedom (perhaps earlier, I haven't listened to his eighties material as much, though Re-ac-tor etc. etc.) he recalled radio stations being blown up with angry phone calls on how he wouldn't play his oldies (but goldies!), ie. Harvest, and how these people would never go see his show or buy his new album ever again. Just saying.

__________________

j.w.

Dylan is a historian. Tempest is filled with sounds & styles that shouldn't be popular in 2012/2013, but Dylan is keeping that stuff alive. His throwaway early '90s stuff, the traditionals, are half-assed contractual obligation albums, but are brilliant at the same time. I love his take on Sittin' On Top of the World, & bringing You Belong To Me back into the vogue on the Natural Born Killers soundtrack was a brilliant move. He was essentially retreading what he started out doing in '63, & still had an impact 30 years later. (The Flat Duo Jets recorded You Belong To Me & Frog Went A Courtin', which Dylan did on Good As I Been To You, on Go Go Harlem Baby a short while after, & that record was a huge influence on Jack White early on. Jack got the rights to reissue it on vinyl last year.) And you can't beat his Theme Time Hour radio shows.

I love Neil Young for being a crotchety old bastard, & for putting out some damn good tunes, & I think his later stuff is more vital than Dylan's (which comes across as fragile at times), but I'm a Dylan guy through & through. I think Dylan's excavation of roots music is tantamount to Neil's fidelity crusade, for sure. The parallels of their careers are pretty insane to think about, it really comes down to personal preference, I think.

For the record, I don't think who was more experimental or who pissed off their audience more should really play into the argument. But it doesn't get any more contentious than Dylan turning around & saying "Play it ****ing loud!" after the bro calls him Judas at Royal Albert Hall. Levon Helm quit the band because the tension was too much. It was shortly after JFK's death & they literally feared getting shot on that tour. Watch any of those documentaries... the Pennebaker doc covers the whole tour, I don't think Neil ever alienated his fans like that.

__________________
[links removed by mod, no advertising]

Cinnamonics

Nice post, j.w.. I'm a gigantic Bob Dylan fan, so I'll have to side with him. I must admit I've somewhat burnt out on the majority of his 60s material, I listened to it non-stop for several years, though I can still appreciate it. But in any case Dylan has released so much good material, probably more than The Beatles even, and that's not an easy feat.

Still, Neil Young is one hell of an artist. Or I should say was, as the only material by him I really connect to was released between 69-79. But damn, some of his songs are almost transcendental.

So, big thumbs up for both artists, even if Dylan is my favourite.

TboneFrank

Not sure how something that is 'throwaway and half-assed' can be brilliant at the same time. But I do agree that those two 'Americana' albums are brilliant. They even woke up the "National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences" to how brilliant Dylan is as a singer and musician that they nominated Good As I Been To You and awarded World Gone Wrong. They've been watching him closely since. But they sadly missed the boat on Tempest (no pun intended). Nothing more IN-YOUR-FACE than Dylan performing at the Grammys. I think Dylan scares them.

The reason for those two albums in my opinion was that Dylan was having writers block which could be seen suffering in Under The Red Sky. That album was considered a throwaway or half-ass in many circles and definitely was far from brilliant. In the bottom 5 for me as Dylan material goes. But being on the bottom doesn't mean I didn't find some redeeming value in that album.

To understand where Dylan has been musically since '97's Time Out of Mind you really have to listen to those two traditional folk/blues albums. I'm grateful he decided to release them instead of just tossing them in a closet. I really enjoyed the solo Dylan aspect of those recordings. Brought me back to the acoustic intimacy he had on the John Wesley Harding album. You can feel he was seriously exploring his muse at that time and it sparked another great run of creativity that has now lasted over 15 years.

As songwriters I would say Bob is a par up from Neil just in the greater wealth of influences that he taps into. Dylan's venture into being radio host of his own roots music Theme Time Radio Hour does demonstrate how much of an historian he is and how serious he is about our American musical heritage. Neil has done a lot as well in preserving that heritage through the years.

As performers they are both on similar planes as singers and musicians and in having such incredible careers. In my opinion they are the most legendary live music performers in the world. I've seen them a crazy amount of times since '78 and I can be witness that they can both be bad-ass MFs when they jam on stage but Neil is one par up from him in that department. Just see how he steals the spot light during My Back Pages at Bobfest.

I listen to Dylan songs a lot more than Neil Young's and Dylan would take most of the spots in my top 100 songs because I'm such a Dylan fanatic. It takes something monumental to steal spots on that list and Neil does it a number of times. Powderfinger from Rust never Sleeps has got to be one of the greatest storytelling joyride songs ever put on record.

This thread got me listening to Neil today. Just got thru Time Fades Away and now leading into For The Turnstiles from On The Beach.

Great thread.

j.w.

I'm with you on pretty much all accounts.

What I suspect, & I don't really have anything to base this on but my own intuition, but I think that the Wilburys records kind of skewed Dylan's ability to criticize himself, & I think he tried to record Under the Red Sky as casually as they did Vol 1 & 3, only he didn't have the other guys chipping in. Because none of those songs are as good as, say, If You Belonged To Me (which I think is Dylan's best original from those years, personally).

And so I think that, like you said, Good As I Been & World Gone Wrong sort of realigned things for him, & gave him a much different way of approaching music, as the traditionalist rather than the "anything I put down on paper is gold" elite songwriter. But, to that end, I think the recordings were intended more as therapy than song recordings, & they were all done in a day or so at Dylan's house on one set of strings. That's why I say they were half-assed. If he were to record those songs today, they would be tour de force arrangements, like the songs on Tempest. But he just didn't choose to put that effort into them. Which is fine, they're still brilliant albums for what they are & for what they represent & for what they accomplished.

__________________
[links removed by mod, no advertising]

zEPfAN

Bob Dylan is so much better