I'd just like to congratulate Justin Timberlake, whose music I really don't like, although he seems a personable enough chap, on winning the Best International Male Solo Artist at last night's Brit Awards Ceremony. As Bob Dylan was also in the category as a nominee, I guess it is official...
Justin Timberlake is better than Bob Dylan.
(cue chorus of Justin Timberlake fans saying "Bob who?)
Tell you what, check these clips out, both artists at, arguably, the peak of their creativity, and choose: Justin or Bob, who gets your vote?
First up, here's Jus, singing 'Cry Me a River' at the Billboard Music Awards...
Me? Well, it's gotta be Bob. Bob Dylan is pretty much God.
ReplyDeletejustin timberlake is like a living flame gas fire; bob dylan is like the surface of the sun.
ReplyDelete...that's as artists...as men, well, cameron diaz seems like a classy chick, surely she wouldn't have hung out with justin for so long if he was a complete nobber. mind you, when i think of some of my exes, LOL!
It can be no coincidence that "Bob" has the same number of syllables as "God" while "Justin" erm, doesn't.
ReplyDeleteDead right Clive. Plus, 'Dylan' is also the name of a legendary guitar playing hippy rabbit, whereas 'Timberlake' makes me think of wet logs.
ReplyDeleteI dunno, global warming, religious wars, erosion of personal freedoms, the return of Graham Norton, and now THIS. Non-Threatening Boy beats The Poet of a generation in the Brits. The world is doomed. I'm gonna get drunk.
I remember many years ago David Hare getting into a post-modern froth about whether or not Dylan was better than Keats (Dylan won the day). Can we track him down and find out his opinion on Justin Timberlake vs. Keats?
ReplyDeleteKeats might well be a white r'n'b artist, were he around today. Witness this, the 'removed' passage from 'Ode on melancholy'...
ReplyDeleteYo, though you should build a bark of dead men's bones,
And rear a phantom gibbet for a mast, y'hear what i'm sayin' now.
Stitch creeds together for a sail, with groans
To fill it out girl, bloodstained and aghast, cos I'm hot for you;
Although your rudder be a Dragon's tail oh yeah yeah,
Long sever'd, yet still hard with agony, ya wanna get it on with me girl?
Your cordage large uprootings from the skull
Of bald Medusa; certes you would fail, babe
To find the Melancholy, whether she
Dreameth oh yeah, in any isle of Lethe dull, woohoo yeah girl.
Shelley would be in Slipknot of course.
Wordsworth would be Jeff Buckley.
As for Coleridge, he'd be Pete Doherty.
pml. fookin brilliant bry.
ReplyDeleteWith Byron playing the Russell Brand role introducing them on The Brittes Poesy Awards Show?
ReplyDeleteYep. Byron's a cert for Russell Brand. Come to think of it, they could do a swap. They'd love Russ back in the 1820s, the SWINE!
ReplyDeleteHas anyone read "The Bob Dylan Delusion".... it's a book by this academic dude who argues that fundamentally belief in "The Bob" is a dangerous system of illogical psychopathy... leading to violence and irresponsible suicide?
ReplyDeleteNow call me silly... (that's not rhetorical... call me silly)... but just how do I email you through this blog?...
Yours sincerely,
Major Raspthigh Silly. DSC, Kt G. and Bar. (Mrs.) - Odorous
Ah right. Glad you asked that, silly. You don't mind if I call you silly, do you? If I thought you minded (mound?), I'd have called you something else. Rear Admiral Fellatio Nelson III, for instance (apologies to anyone of that name who may be reading this).
ReplyDeleteThere's an email contact link on my profile (RH side of blog page.
In vocal ability I'll give it to Justin, Dylan is a better lyricist, easily, but he's a laughable vocalist. If you disagree in that regard you are being foolish. If this guy was a musical god, his range wouldn't be the paltry...1.5-2 octaves it seems he had IN HIS PRIME. I don't doubt how influential he is, but when people try to make him the epitome of a musician, he's FAR FAR from it. Don't get me wrong, I hate Justin Timberlake's music, but Bob Dylan isn't and I will quote what someone has stated in a forum I was looking at "the second coming of Jesus Christ". Overrated? I'd say so.
ReplyDeleteOh and as for Jesus Christ, I bet he was no great shakes. Poor bastard's been hyped to the nth degree since his untimely death. Son of god my arse. Yeah, and I'm the Queen of Sheba.
ReplyDeleteIf Jesus were alive today he'd be really old. D'you reckon him and Mohammed would've got on? I think as long as Jesus overlooked Mohammed's tendency to behead his prisoners of war, they'd have found some common ground. Maybe Jesus would've got Mo into beer? That'd solve a lot of today's problems.
Bob Dylan is pretty much a horrible singer and an above average song writer. Justin Timberlake is indeed more talented, he can do everything Bob Dylan did other than play guitar. Bob Dylan has a problem with MASTERING of the music not so much the music of today.
ReplyDeleteBob Dylan never wrote a song that somebody else didn't play better. He was not very entertaining. If you have seen the movie WALK HARD... there is a song called ROYAL JELLY that pretty much sums up Bob Dylans songwriting... because Bob Dylan was a joke and the song pretty much breaks it down.
Hmmm...well, not sure I agree. No matter how many times I hear it, 'Like a Rollin' Stone' still makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. Nothing I've ever heard Timberlake do has stirred up the slightest emotion.
ReplyDeleteWhat separates the two (for me) is soul. Dylan, at least in his earlier days, poured his feeling and belief and passion out through his music. The technical ability is irrelevant. Conversely, Timberlake seems cold and contrived. His music is 'looks the part' but is a blow-up doll, next to Dylan's raging whore.
What's the best bit of 'Woodstock'? It's where the technically limited and toothless Richie Havens comes onstage and belts out 'Freedom', nothing more than a 5 line busking song. What makes it geat is...he means it.
The Sex Pistols were nothing more than pub rockers, and Rotten was in Dylan's league as a 'singer'. Yet they blew away the technically brilliant bands of the time like Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis et al, because their music spat out real feeling. It inarticulately articulated what was inside them. It was human. Dylan's music was an extension of Dylan the man. Can't say the same about Justin.
Madonna has always seemed passionless in the same way. Contrived. Craft rather than art.