Careful, folk/rock singer/songwriters of the world: there is a spectre haunting you. If you're:
- eminent back home;
- or just the first big rock guy in your language;
- vaguely political;
- or lyrically pretentious;
- or mischievous;
- possessed of bad voice;
- or accused of capturing a moment in your people's cultural history
then look out, my foreign friend - for you are sooner or later gonna catch a comparison to Dylan. In recent times the simile has become so wild and virulent that non-musicians must be careful also:Steve Jobs is right up there. He is, in many ways, the Bob Dylan of machines, he's the Elvis of the kind of hardware-software dialectic."
- Bono
1. "the English Bob Dylan"
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
or
Roy Harper
Dylanesque Score: 7/10
or even
Billy Bragg
Dylanesque Score: 5/10
Donovan
Dylanesque Score: 8/10
(though there's plenty of Dylans there already if you ask me)
Meic Stevens
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
Boudewijn de Groot
Dylanesque Score: 7/10
Lucky Fonz III (says me)
Dylanesque Score: 7.5/10
Caetano Veloso
Dylanesque Score: 8/10
(in a Latin way, obv)
Vusi Mahlasela
Dylanesque Score: 5/10
Gert Vlok Nel
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
Dionysis Savvopoulos
Dylanesque Score: 8/10
or George Dalaras (blech)
Dylanesque Score: 3/10
Cui Jian
(sounds more like the Zhongguoren David Byrne/Colin Hay, but never mind)
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
or
Yang Yi
7. "Iran's Bob Dylan" - says New York Times again
Mohsen Namjoo
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
León Gieco
Dylanesque Score: 7/10
Carlos Varela
(a sentimental shill, but so is Dylan)
Dylanesque Score: 6/10
10. "The Czech Bob Dylan" - says Boulder Weekly
Robert Křesťan
Bewildering:
Dylanesque Score: 8/10
also
JaromÃr Nohavica
Dylanesque Score: 7/10
Kev Carmody
or
Archie Roach
12. "The Jamaican Bob Dylan"
Barry Brown
Dylanesque score: 5/10
(tho Jamaica was spilling over with this calibre of talent for a decade and a half; BB's equality among kings.)
13. "The Bob Dylan of Japan"
Yosui Inoue
Dylanesque score: 6/10
13'. "Okinawa's Bob Dylan or David Byrne"
Shoukichi Kina
Dylanesque score: 4/10
Win score: 9/10
15. Like a Chilean Bob Dylan
Victor Jara
Dylanesque score: (Got shot by government: more Dylan than Dylan.)
less epochally,
Chinoy
Dylanesque score: (a remarkably feminine) 8/10
16. "The Bob Dylan of East Germany"
Wolf Biermann
Dylanesque score: 7/10
17. Like an Inuit Bob Dylan
Willie Thrasher
Dylanesque score: 6/10
18. "The Russian Bob Dylan"
Boris Grebenshchikov
Dylanesque score: 7/10
18'. "Like the Bob Dylan of the Soviet Union"
Vladimir Visotsky
Dylanesque score: 5/10
19. "the Bob Dylan of Vietnam" - attrd. Joan Baez
Trịnh Công Sơn
Dylanesque score: 5/10
20. "The Bob Dylan of Rap" / "The Jay-Z of his day"
Jay-Z
Dylanesque score: ?
21. "like Bob Dylan if Bob Dylan could sing"
Dire Straits(!)
Dylanesque score: No.
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Most of the above are too earnest by half - they'd be unable to do, say, this:
But a more glaring revisionist point is that the above are mostly loads more political than he.
Bobby was not really a political person; he was thought of as being a political person, a man of the Left. And in a general way, he was, but not interested in the true nature of the Soviet Union or any of that crap. We thought he was hopelessly politically naïve. In retrospect, I think he may have been more politically sophisticated than we were.
— Dave Van Ronk
Thirty-some years, whenever I go to a march, a sit-in, or a lie-in, or a be-in, or a jail-in, people say, “Is Bob coming?” I say, “He never comes, you moron. You know? When you gonna get it? Never did, probably never will."
— Joan Baez
Caetano Veloso is in a class by himself, not much like Dylan and musically much more interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe music world recently lost a great singer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBY-0n4esNY