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Post by Kensterberg on Apr 26, 2006 16:41:45 GMT -5
Bob Dylan's Qualifications as America's Greatest Rocker: 1. Bringing It All Back Home; Highway 61 Revisited; Blonde on Blonde. Any one of these three would make Dylan an essential figure in American rock and roll music, taken together they make a mighty compelling argument for him. 2. Don't Look Back. Watch that film and tell me that Bobby D wasn't the epitome of a rock and roll star ... all cigarette haze and Ray-Ban cool. 3. Live 1966 and Live 1975. Rock and roll shows just don't get much better than these two. 4. Discs two and three of the Bootleg Box. When the Night Comes Falling From the Sky, Series of Dreams, Sitting on a Barbwire Fence ... these were his cast-offs, the stuff he didn't think was good enough to fit on an album or single. BLIND WILLIE MCTELL! 5. The fact that more than forty years after his debut, any young man with a guitar and a way for words gets labeled "the next Dylan." 6. "His Bobness." 7. "Play fuckin' loud" It just doesn't get any more rock and roll than that. 8. Time Out of Mind and Love & Theft. Yeah, the slow numbers are incredibly powerful, but there's plenty that just rocks as well. 9. Where would the Byrds or The Band have been without Dylan? 10. HE'S BOB FRIGGIN' DYLAN! I rest my case.  |
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Post by Ayinger on Apr 26, 2006 19:22:25 GMT -5
NEIL.
Springsteen, Zappa, SRV (for at least bringin' da blooze back in fashion), Mellencamp (after he dropped the "JackNDiane" bullshit), LOU,,,,,fuck, I'm too tired to think more.....
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Post by rockysigman on Apr 26, 2006 19:24:31 GMT -5
Neil is Canadian.
Or did you mean Neil Sedaka?
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Post by Galactus on Apr 26, 2006 20:10:39 GMT -5
Neil is North American.
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Post by Galactus on Apr 26, 2006 20:11:19 GMT -5
....and quite likely #2 on my list.
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Post by riley on Apr 26, 2006 20:59:17 GMT -5
He's Canadian. Plus we're leaving North America and starting our own continent anyway, at which point Neil will move back home.  |
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Post by frag on Apr 26, 2006 21:02:46 GMT -5
The whole land mass is moving? Or you're all just packing up your shit and going?
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Post by Galactus on Apr 26, 2006 21:09:50 GMT -5
Leave the land...anyway, if Canada wasn't included in North America you guys would never get on any lists.
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Post by riley on Apr 26, 2006 21:10:49 GMT -5
Just packing up our shit. You guys are boring. We're moving on. I mean for fuck's sake, you haven't fucking bombed any defenceless countries in ages for our general entertainment. Our bands are better right now, and you can't even figure out that Neil Young is actually Chinese. Yup we're out.
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Post by riley on Apr 26, 2006 21:12:00 GMT -5
Leave the land...anyway, if Canada wasn't included in North America you guys would never get on any lists. True. Except for the list of "Countries with Better Bands Than America". |
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Post by Galactus on Apr 26, 2006 21:17:45 GMT -5
Yeah, but it's all one band. That doesn't really count...and doesn't make up for the fact that previously you only had two good bands in the last fifty years....one of which moved to and still lives in California, and is probably #2 on my list.
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Post by frag on Apr 26, 2006 21:53:46 GMT -5
Well I never.
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Post by frag on Apr 26, 2006 21:55:13 GMT -5
Seriously, though, how are we ranking this? Frontmen? Just all-over rock stars?
Or is this completely subjective?
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Post by limitdeditionlayla on Apr 26, 2006 22:03:22 GMT -5
Skvor & Luke asked me to vote on their behalf for Ryan Adams.
Wow...I like the guy's music, but I certainly wouldn't vote him as America's Greatest Rocker. I guess it because I'm not gay? We'll never know.
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Post by Kensterberg on Apr 26, 2006 22:07:44 GMT -5
Frag -- part of the appeal to this list making stuff (for me at least) is that every poster has to figure out their own criteria for the category. I can tell you what I was thinking of when I tossed this one out there ...
Bands have a legacy which the individual members share. No matter what you think of Ringo Star, he's one quarter of the Beatles, and when you say great things about the Fab Four, Ringo basks in that glory. Larry Mullen, Jr., may not be the greatest rock and roll drummer, but he's in the Hall of Fame as a part of U2. This list isn't really about shared accomplishments, it's about pulling out individuals and rewarding their contribution. Now some of these individuals may have been in bands, but it should be obvious what they bring to the group. For example, we could argue all day about whether Springsteen and Petty are members of bands or solo performers, but we can't argue about who has the songwriting credit on all those great tracks, who sang 'em, etc. Someone who didn't really have a great "solo" career on his/her own, but who was in several noteworthy bands could well wind up on this list. The perfect example from the US would be David Crosby. What has he done on his own? Who cares. If the Byrds and CSN(&Y) are in your pantheon of great American bands, then Crosby may well make your list of greatest American rockers. Similarly, John Fogerty was the driving force behind CCR: add that to his credible solo career, and you've got one of my top picks. Lou Reed gets credit both for what he did in the VU and for his solo career. At least that's how I see it. But you're free to define the category as you see fit.
And if you somehow manage to define Huey Lewis or Miles Davis as America's Greatest Rockers, well, I think that'll be balanced out by the concensus of better informed listeners. (FTR, I love Miles, but he was a jazz artist. It's an insult to call him anything but a jazz man).
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