America I can go along with, but anywhere? Then you get into John Lennon, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Pete Townshend – all of whom wrote more popular and successful music than Bob Dylan – and that’s just England. Yoshiki Hayashi of X Japan also runs intellectual and musical circles around Dylan.
Bob Dylan was good, but not the best.
Seeing that the african population was fully or mostly responsible for just about every popular music that came from the Americas - rock included - it’s hard to think of Bob Dylan in the center of American greats, when there are people like Duke Ellington or Charles Mingus, who preceded him with much more amazing things musical; or songwriters like Greg Graffin and Brett Gurewitz, who just plain rock more and write lyrics more profound than “EVERYBODY must get stoned!” Let’s not even go OUTSIDE of the narrow scope of just the U.S.A. Greater things than Bob Dylan have been realized in other parts of the Americas, let alone the fucking world.
I’m just sayin’. Besides, If Bob Dylan never existed, The Wallflowers probably wouldn’t have existed.
McCartney is not that good of a songwriter.
He has a few gems, and bowie has a few amazing albums. Townshend was and still is a crazy motherfucker.
I can’t argue with lennon though. The man was awesome.
All along the watchtower, Blowing in the wind, Mister Tamborine Man, Everyone knows these are Bob Dylan songs. But what most people don’t know is that Bob Dylan is responsible for every popular song in the last 30 years, every single one.
Oh, Arac, I love your wordplays.
Why not say he’s responsible for the popular songs before his time too? Like Shakespeare 
By the way I can’t understand all the love for X Japan. And that’s after I listened to all of their discography. I liked about an album’s worth of songs.
Lenin? Wasn’t that some Communist dictator?
Oh wait, wrong Lennon. <.< Love the Beatles. Beach Boys were too much pop for my tastes.
The “they founded->they best” argument has never worked for me. By the mid to late 1960s, mainstream rock was quite different from the coarse, melancholy stuff that inspired it.
For instance, thanks to George Martin, the Beatles developed a much cleaner and friendlier sound than old rock and roll was known for. That geniality was a big part of their success. Within a few years, moreover, they had drawn on so many musical traditions that calling their work “African” is silly reductionism. Songs like Come Together, both Revolutions, and While My Guitar Gently Weeps have little in common, formally or sentimentally, with old rock and roll.
Or take the Who. In 1972 they released Tommy, a rock opera about a boy whose traumatic experiences turned him blind, deaf and dumb, and who underwent a journey to social and spiritual enlightenment. Where exactly do you find <i>that</i> story in African-American rock and roll? Sure, you can see the African influence in songs like Pinball Wizard and We’re Not Gonna Take It, both great songs, but other greats like Go to the Mirror and See Me Feel Me work in radically different ways.
I don’t think any of the best mainstream rock, post-1965, has descended purely from African-American rock and roll. Around that point, rock became more formally sophisticated, more diverse in its sentiments, and cleaner in its expression. In my opinion, it simply became better.
Well, he said “who preceded him with much more amazing things musical” and that’s where preference kicks in.
You’re abolutely right; however, I’m not really making that point, so much as I’m saying that there were greater American musicians before and after. I’m not even necesarily talking about rock, or even the ridiculous subgenre of folk rock - which there are definitely even STILL better musicians than Bob Dylan - but just ANY American music. The first two musicians I mentioned were jazz composers, after all. The point of bringing up the origin is meant to be an absurd counter to Sil’s absurd claim of Bob Dylan ruling my balls - which he doesn’t - being the first rule of rock and roll.
Honestly, Bob Dylan’s lyrics are shallow, awkward rhymes for every time they’re profound or clever. There is the fact that he was just a Woodie Guthrie without “This Machine Kills Fascists,” on his guitar, which makes him much less cool. There is also the degree to which he has become a shill as time travelled on. I like Dylan, but I can’t come close to placing him in the Canon or rock greats. He’s outdone by simply too many lyricists to earn it for his words, and his music is essentially equalled by Anyone Who Knows Three Open Position Chords. I exaggerate, but still. In America, Leonard Cohen essentially does everything Bob Dylan does (including sing poorly in a lovable way), but better. Andrew eldrich, Nick Cave, Shane McGowan, and, outside of “how I feel” songs, Joe Strummer all outdid him lyrically as well as musically in England, in my opinion.
This was about only American music at the start. I don’t even know what the point of arguing about the best British band. There was, beyond any doubt, no rock and roll before the Beatles. Every rock and roll band since the Beatles has defined themselves either in alignment with them or against them. (As writers have with Shakespeare and Whitman, for instance.) Dylan, the Beach Boys, and the Velvet Underground are their only possible (and well-documented) rivals. Americans seem to be the best interpreters and misinterpreters of the Beatles, perhaps because of the ocean. The VU seem to have been the best at refuting the Beatles, although Dylan’s relationship with them seems to shift in his later still-classic period (if Dylan was ever really influenced by them at all.) The Beatles were Brian Wilson’s white whale of course, and probably the biggest influence on McCartney. I don’t think anyone ever influenced Lennon to any great degree.
The Rolling Stones couldn’t handle the Beatles and so retreated from the sound of their best period in the 60s (Aftermath and Between the Buttons) and marked out their considerably lesser territory. Not to say they aren’t one of the best bands ever. The Who attempted a strange combination of the Stones and the Beatles which worked well for them, better than the Stones in my book.
Also, there has been no rock and roll since the Pixies. And Mick was way more important to the Clash, which is another of the best rock and roll bands ever.
FYI, pal, I’m listening to Joe Strummer sing “The Man in Me” by Dylan right now. So put that in your pipe and smoke it.
The majority of this thread was about Bob Dylan, who preceded The Beatles by about 5-10 years. Then, think about people like Elvis Presley or Chuck Berry…yeah, in the most literal sense, that’s a very false statement.
Care to explain this one in detail?
Do you really think that the Beatles had that kind of influence on the bands around them? Sure, the Beatles influenced a lot of stuff; but, I really doubt they influenced bands in such a way to make a band ‘retreat’ from their own sound. Bands evolve. Hell, even the Beatles did, and thank fucking GOD - The Beatles were such a STUPID band until Sgt. Pepper came out. Even then, they were okay, but I’m glad about the directions that rock has taken since then.
Bob Dylan was born in 1941. That’s the year between the births of Lennon and McCartney, in case you were wondering. The Beatles actually got their professional start a couple years before Dylan went to New York at age 20. Elvis and Chuck Berry were great, but they’re better understood as proto-rock and roll, although the term got started before even their day. Like X-wing has pointed out, early “rock and roll” bears little resemblance to the post-Beatle era.
Care to explain this one in detail?
This is so universally apparent, it needs no justification.
Do you really think that the Beatles had that kind of influence on the bands around them? Sure, the Beatles influenced a lot of stuff; but, I really doubt they influenced bands in such a way to make a band ‘retreat’ from their own sound. Bands evolve.
Yes, bands evolve, that’s my point. And they do so in relation to their peers and precursors. If you don’t think the Rolling Stones especially were influenced by the Beatles, you have a poor grasp of rock and roll history. I urge you to do some research on “Her Satanic Majesty’s Revue”, their torturous and absurd answer to Sgt Pepper before Beggar’s Banquet.
Hell, even the Beatles did, and thank fucking GOD - The Beatles were such a STUPID band until Sgt. Pepper came out. Even then, they were okay, but I’m glad about the directions that rock has taken since then.
This is a popular and malicious untruth these days, perpetuated by those who have not seen A Hard Day’s Night (probably for fear of losing their girlfriends).
Yeah, the early stuff really isn’t that bad. It’s very well done musically. And A Hard Day’s Night is pretty entertaining at that, but maybe it’s an aquired taste, atleast to contemporary music fans.
Because one is rock n roll and the other rock. When I ask for r’n’r’ people don’t usually put the beatles. The first Beatles stuff is great btw.
Er, no? From the top of my mind The Hellacopters, The Screaming Stukas.
Fair enough, you’re right about Bob Dylan - not really sure why I thought his shit was from the 50’s. Oh well.
Anyways, ‘proto rock-and-roll’? I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it known as that, let alone ‘BETTER KNOWN’, and believe me, I know some of the snootiest, most elitist of music nerds ever…the kind that listen to Steve Reich in the car. My point being, Rock and Roll started before The Beatles did.
This is so universally apparent, it needs no justification.
Okay, then I’m gonna take it how I want, because since it’s so universally appearant, I couldn’t possibly be wrong.
No one ever fucking aligns themself with or against The damn Beatles. For starters, The Beatles have so many popular songs (particularly, anything from their beginnings up to the album, Magical Mystery Tour) that just doesn’t sound like anything you hear in Rock and Roll these days, and not because it’s super original, but because rock doesn’t SOUND like that anymore. Granted, lots of stuff that came after that point influenced bands for the next decade or so…but it’s hard to say that bands after that are “aligning themselves against The Beatles.” They sound DIFFERENT from that era of rock, but not in a “Gee, I need to sound different from The Beatles” sort of way; rather, they sound different in a “I’m gonna try something new, especially with new musical technology that allows me to do so” sort of way. If anyone foresaw THAT happening, it wasn’t The Beatles, but rather, John Cage, of all people. Post 70’s rock has aligned itself as much against The Beatles as The Beatles had aligned themselves against pre 60’s rock…In other words, The Beatles had original ideas (whether or not I like them is irrelevant), and so did other bands after The Beatles. The Beatles are not the reason for the originality, musical direction or success of every rock band following them. That’s a completely ridiculous statement.
I mostly concede this point; however, bands also evolve in relation to their original sound. Bad Religion, for example, were a pretty innovative punk rock band (and still are, really)…and while their songwriting has borrowed a lot from ideas found in folk songs, they still have that clear, distinct sound they started with. This is more in line with what I’m talking about, and believe me, as a musician - it’s the damn truth.
Are you fucking kidding me? Do you think I’m saying that Pre Sgt. Pepper sucks because my dad told me or something? Seriously! Tell me ONE fucking song besides Eleanor Rigby before Sgt Pepper that’s good, epecially a good ROCK song, because Eleanor Rigby definitely does not ‘rock.’ Really. I’m waiting. Because, “Love Me Do”, or “A Hard Day’s Night,” or “Can’t Buy Me Love” will really not cut it. Sure, even then, they were original for their time, but original doesn’t instantly mean GOOD (Otherwise, Sigur Ros might be unnecesarily popular these days)…and The Beatles, as far as I’m concerned, have contributed some of the most boring, ramalamadingdong songs I’ve ever heard into the pool of popular music. So yeah. Suggest something that could possibly change my mind. I’ll be right here.
This is simply untrue; every member of the Clash (save Topper, who was just kinda there) was of essentially equal importance. The band would not have worked without any of them; it did not work before Joe arrived, did not work after Mick left, and would not have worked (in my belief, as well as those of the band) without Paul, as he was the one who contributed sheer energy, enthusiasm, and charge to the band. The reason I brought up Joe, rather than Mick, is because of his larger lyrical role, when I was speaking of lyrics.
He also sang “Louie Louie,” but that does not make Louie Louie a lyrical masterpiece superior to his music. It makes it song he likes and thought was fun to sing.
“Mr. Spock, what does the translator read.”
“It says, sir, ‘I am full of horse-shit, and cannot defend my statements.’ What an illogical comment to make.”
Additionally, you leave out the number of bands who are unconsciously similar or different to the Beatles (who didn’t “align” themselves either way, simply happened to sound like them or not do so), or bands who took it at both ends and aligned themselves both with and against the beatles (see: The Clash), whether consciously or unconsciously.
I do not like the Beatles prior to Sgt. Pepper very much. This is not an untruth, it’s my opinion, and made of real. Also, I have seen A Hard Day’s Night, and would really not be opposed to losing my girlfriend. Bitch won’t lick my eye.
When comparing the Beatles and Rolling Stones, I find it important to remember which band’s lead singer has had sex with David Bowie, and which band’s has not.
This isn’t even a truism. It’s more a definition of the word “evolve”.
Tell me ONE fucking song besides Eleanor Rigby before Sgt Pepper that’s good, epecially a good ROCK song, because Eleanor Rigby definitely does not ‘rock.’
This is an incomplete list. Songs that officially rock are bold.
“A Hard Day’s Night”
“I Should Have Known Better”
“If I Fell”
“I’m Happy Just to Dance with You”
“And I Love Her”
“Tell Me Why”
“Can’t Buy Me Love”
“Any Time at All”
“I’ll Cry Instead”
“Things We Said Today”
“When I Get Home”
“You Can’t Do That”
“I’ll Be Back”
“No Reply”
“I’ll Follow the Sun”
“Help!”
“Ticket to Ride”
“Drive My Car”
“You Won’t See Me”
“Nowhere Man”
“Think for Yourself”
“Michelle”
“What Goes On”
“Girl”
“I’m Looking Through You”
“In My Life”
“Wait”
“If I Needed Someone”
“Taxman”
“I’m Only Sleeping”
“Here, There and Everywhere”
“Yellow Submarine”
“She Said She Said”
“Good Day Sunshine”
“And Your Bird Can Sing”
“I’ll Cry Instead”
“Things We Said Today”
“Yes It Is”
[u]“She Loves You”[/u]
Oh no wait I meant to say GWAR.
Sorry.