Oh, come on now, that’s a bit hostile, don’t you think, and for no discernible reason other than that I don’t admire the same singer you do.
“Exudes smarmy willingness” doesn’t lend itself to factual enumeration - it’s purely impressionistic. That’s how he strikes me, and it is probably due to his vocalizations, subtle body language, and/or facial tics that aren’t easily identified on a conscious level.
I’m sorry if my lack of interest in rebutting other people’s fondness for Dylan bothers you. Go enjoy his music and chill out!
Okay, then I shall state my opinion differently: To me, Bob Dylan exudes an air of inauthenticity. Everything about the way he sings makes me feel that he is interested in being famous.
I don’t get your tone, though. You are accusing me of deliberating misunderstanding you and Ike, which is a fairly nasty accusation.
C’mon, man. It’s music, something that should all make us happier, not angry. If you were to tell me that Javanese gamelan (the music I care about most) sounds to you like cows vomiting, I might disagree with you, but I would not press you for factual evidence to support that, nor would I impugn your posting strategy.
As I said at the outset, you are free to have whatever opinions you like. Don’t pretend I’ve ever said otherwise.
But if you don’t want to be challenged on factual matters, don’t say factual things. What you said originally made no sense, factually. This is the SDMB: apparently counterfactual assertions get challenged. Don’t act all butthurt about it, you know the culture here.
And you can say I’m making nasty accusations but it was pretty damn obvious what Ike and I were saying. If you genuinely didn’t understand what we were saying then so be it. But I have trouble believing that, frankly. Being insincere is a fairly nasty also. Don’t be insincere then act all butthurt when you get called on it.
“inauthenticity”? Most commercial musicians are interested in success. By “commercial” I mean anyone not recorded by ethnomusicologists.
The Carter Family learned from Ralph Peer how to copyright songs (many of which they “found” rather than wrote) so they could sell records–and get paid by those who covered their tunes. And they were definitely mountain folk from Virginia.
I love gamelan music–which gamelans are performing currently? Most of the recordings (from Nonesuch, etc.) were done many years ago, by “authentic” performers who probably earned nada from their work. My own city’s Space City Gamelan hasn’t done much recently. And what’s wrong with Balinese gamelan?
Nothing wrong with Balinese gamelan - musically, it’s quite different from Javanese. Those of us who study one or both sometimes say “Balinese gamelan is hard to start studying, but gets easier. Javanese gamelan is easy to start, but gets harder.”
Space City Gamelan veers toward more experimental/modern use of gamelan instruments, if I’m not mistaken. Certainly the videos I’ve seen of their stuff (which for all I know is not a representative subset) didn’t resemble what more traditional ensembles perform. Nothing wrong with that, of course - it’s just that if you’ve seen a Space City performance, you may not have seen classical Javanese gamelan.
A few years back when I was visiting Houston I talked to them about coming for a visit - they were super-nice and welcoming and even suggested I consider giving them some kendhang (drum) lessons, since I am studying some of the more difficult parts that are played. However, Houston is a huge city and I was staying over on the other side, without a car - so I never did go there. My sense is that they are really nice people, though, and eager to learn. I was bummed that I couldn’t go visit them.
(As to who is performing in the US, I don’t really know, since I’m in Indonesia - but there are dozens of active gamelan groups around the country, especially in NYC, Boston, and several places in California. There is a list on Wikipedia of groups. I wasn’t involved in the fight myself, but my recollection from a few years ago was that they had to fight to keep the entry; some of the Wikipedia editors didn’t feel it met the criteria for being included. It’s really helpful if you are looking for a place to play/study/listen to gamelan in the US, though, so I’m glad it’s there.)
The hostility is your perception. Ike and I simply stated you were in error, which is pretty darn normal around here.
And your current “hey let’s all just enjoy our own music” thing is more than a little ironic when you consider that this line of discussion started with you saying you didn’t like certain music based on a factually incorrect premise. Maybe don’t criticise what you don’t understand, and then you can be left to enjoy your own music?
I get the same feeling from him. Not that he’s inauthentic per se, more that he has this arrogance and an air of “I’m so much better than you” that really irks my nerves.
Now if he could actually sing I might be more forgiving. I love Paul Simon and he’s got that same air about him. Dylan cannot cannot can. not. sing. He sounds like out-of-tune bagpipes to me.
Inauthentic? Well, maybe. He was authentically a Jewish kid from Minnesota who wanted to be like his heroes, and his first interviews contained fantasies of his hard life on the road.
But wanting to be famous? Sure - he is all over the talk shows and tweets like crazy and sends out videos all the time. Not. Hell, his second marriage was a big secret.
He is authentic in following where his art takes him, even if it means throwing over his position as top folk singer and going back to his rock and roll roots. Even in the released 1964 concert he was making fun of his protest song reputation.
Sorry if I’m opening wounds, but the first sentence is the most absurd thing I have ever seen on here. Wrong in every possible way. It sounds like someone just hating and projecting onto famous people.
It’s so specific and yet apparently just an impressionistic thing in the end?
I also felt very giddy when I heard the Nobel news … and am surprised to see I’ve not yet posted in this thread. (Probably related to the fact that the death of King Bhumipol was announced at the same time as the Nobel Prize announcement, almost to the minute.)
I was pleased to see the comments comparing Dylan with Leonard Cohen. These are the two whose songs I often sang to myself when alone. I was somewhat ashamed of my fondness for Cohen, often called the singer who can’t sing! :rolleyes:
Anyway, congratulations to Bob Dylan … and to all of us who have admired him for more than a half-century.
Man, I was just thinking the other day that it was so classic Dylan to reject a plaudit from just about as Establishment Elite an institution as they come, by confusing the hell out of them. “And you know something is happening here, but you don’t know what it is… Do you, Swedish Academy?”
If you know you need to venture into the darkest parts of your soul in order to save it, and you’re bracing yourself for the journey, I’m not sure there’s anyone but Leonard Cohen you’d want to be listening to. He’s not going to bullshit you about how dark it can get in there, but at the same time his songs will help you through.
Charles P. Pierce: “Once, when he accepted an honorary degree, we got a great song out of it. We can only hope.”
CPP was referring to “Day of the Locusts,” which is a longtime favorite of mine. I went to bobdylan.com/songs to see how many times Dylan had played “Day of the Locusts” in concert - that page keeps that count for all Dylan’s songs, and he’s sung some of them literally thousands of times.
How many times has Dylan performed “Locusts”? Zero.
