"Bob is God", or so the faithful say. Ask anyone – any critic, any fan, anyone with ears alive in the past fifty years. Even ask Christopher Ricks, Professor of Poetry at Oxford, who misguidedly devoted a whole book-length study to Dylan's lyrics. But you know what? They're all wrong. Caught in the wake of outdated 60s counter-culturalism, they believe the delirious hype – the tortured religiosity, the faux-grandiloquent lyricism, the preening pagan stylings, the voice, the hair, the harmonica, that whole "Judas!" debacle – and they miss what's actually right there in front of them: the fact that he's overwhelmingly average.
For every half-decent half-tune he's ever produced, he's released at least three albums of bilge, for every gig worth seeing, at least a decade best spent away. Any other artist with that sort of hit-rate would have been crucified long ago, instead, we somehow allow him to keep preaching on and on. Well, enough I say. If religion is the opiate of the masses, then it's time we gave Bob the boot. Off to rehab with the lot of you, and don't show your faces 'til your clean.
Posted In I Just Don't Get, Oct 06 2009.
Words - Josh