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[miles]

Oh man. Say what you will about Dylan's output up until 1964 and after 1966, but during the period in between he crafted material--maybe not with the specific purpose of--but that ended up pissing off many more college sophomores than it impressed. I think it's more revolutionary than almost anything ever in rock and more importantly all of it kicks ass. In fact even if I cede his pre-electric output to your point you're still mostly full of shit, because his project ever since his motorcycle accident has basically been to document, brilliantly recreate or ungraciously steal from "the old, weird America," sometimes successfully and sometimes falling flat on his face, but never to impress the group of students he grew from. I'd say a lot or maybe even most of my friends don't care much for him, and almost none of them like him as much as I do, so it doesn't bother me that you don't care for him at all. It's just that you're wrong in your analysis.

[littlefallsmets]

Ah, but that is what makes all the difference.

Axl Rose don't do nothing to impress anyone but the crazies inside his head and they just happen to genuinely channel a nostalgia of adolescent rage.

There's a purity of intention there that speaks to me. A dude awkwardly but genuinely trying to artistically deal with his demons will always entertain me more than a dude crafting out a perfectly positioned piece of schlock, even if said schlock is perfectly positioned for people who smoke clove cigarettes. Anyone can create a personal formula and stick with it even when changing the genres you're applying them to because the cash just rolls in.

It takes a truly interesting crazy person to hole themselves up in a Willy Wonka mansion with people who wear chicken buckets on their heads and just try to beat their adolescent traumas to death with fuck*ng ProTools. I guess that this could be seen as a matter of tastes but... I don't know. It just seems so much more right than the aforementioned alternative.

I am trying to explain something that is difficult to explain, I understand that.

[miles]

It's purely a matter of taste and I make no claim about Axl Rose or your interest in him. But even though some Dylan is schlock (it's probably impossible to be as prolific as Dylan and not have some crap), my point is that the Dylan material I referred to is not schlock, and is the not the output of a hack.

I'm with you on the whole crazy person thing, even though our tastes obviously differ. It's part of what attracts me to The Knife's Karin Dreijer Andersson's solo project Fever Ray, which saw its first and self-titled album released this year. I've always like The Knife well enough, but this album seems like the work of a mad person. Like Bjork at her craziest turned to 11. And not in volume or tempo or anything like that, just craziness. See also Bradford Cox of Atlas Sound and Deerhunter.

[Victoria Waterfield]

sort of the Woody Allen of popular music, going to the local university, perusing the 201 textbooks of the liberal arts department and... poop... out comes "Annie Hall" or whatever.

Dude, are you ragging on one of the greatest musicians of all time for being like one of the greatest filmmakers of all time? Dude.

[pmcd9]

I wasn't trying to put you down for liking Guns and Roses, I like Guns and Roses myself.  The horrible abortion Axl Rose recently released not withstanding.  It's just that your analysis of Bob Dylan was so ridiculous I chose to answer it with a non sequitur about your fanatical love of Axl Rose.

[Doc]

My Leonard Cohen can beat up your Bob Dylan.

On a semi-related note I've been trying to get into Tom Waits lately, I got hooked listening to 'the piano has been drinking' and from there chocolate jesus and innocent when you dream have been looping on youtube for me. Any tips for a good starting point on the fellow? I was thinking I'd try pick up Small Change from somewhere (is there a CD version? I'm fairly sure I saw it on itunes anyway). From what I've heard so far I think I'm more into his bar room bluesy stuff than his more industrial stuff (which I think I'll come around to, just need to ease myself in).

[littlefallsmets]

Small Change is definitely on CD because I own it.

Personally, it's my favourite Waits of all because it kind of distills that bar blues part of his work.

But yeah. Woody Allen, Bob Dylan, all that sort of thing is not my thing.

When a creative work smacks to me as being primarily constructed to get across how smart/deep they are as opposed to trying to express ideas or trying to figure something out, I am actively repelled.

"Look how inscrutable I can be!" "Look how ahead of the curve I can be!" "Look at how many philosophers I can name!"

Feh. Feh and meh. Art as self-eggrandizement is the saddest thing.

[Ben-San]

tl;dr: Smets is a douchebag, things he doesn't like are self-evidently and objectively worse than things he likes, you're all idiots for liking them, film at eleven

[Choop]

i like covers of tom waits songs better than his own performances.

sue me.

[Ruta Bagas]

The real trouble, though, is that Bob Dylan is actually a ***** lizard, and all his songs use secret, advanced neuro-linguistic programming techniques to transform his listeners into a sleeper army who will, when the time is right, rise up and overthrow the governments of the world, ushering in Dylan's thousand-and-one year reign.

Say what you like about Axl Rose, he didn't craft all of his music specifically to establish the dominance of the *****-lizard race over humankind.

Don't even get me started on the shit Woody Allen pulls.

[Doc]

Say what you like about Axl Rose, he didn't craft all of his music specifically to establish the dominance of the #####-lizard race over humankind.

Technically true, but only because they wouldn't sign him so he had to go with the ancient deep ones instead.

[dejavroom]

Axl Rose blahbittyblahblahblorp (...) There's a purity of intention there that speaks to me.

Not tryin' to pick on you but AHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Carlos del Vaca]

I am basically anti Green Day because they started out as a self-consciously simplistic pop-punk band, graduated to the big money by recording a bunch of shitty prom theme-type songs and now that they are older and trying to be Significant, they are attempting to half-heartedly write about Significant Things but... like...

OK, so you didn't like them when they played simple stuff, and now that they're trying to write songs of substance, you don't like that either?

In a modern music landscape where so much popular music sucks, where it's all about who's got the hottest chicks in the craziest outfits, and every other song has auto-tune in it, I respect the fact that Green Day is trying to make records that actually say something.  You can argue about whether they do it well or not, but I can't understand how you won't respect the effort.

[Toaster]

I call tl;dr on the Wikipedia article of the intentional fallacy. It is the first time I have ever done this.

I have a feeling I would disagree with it, though, as I believe the author is king.

[Ben-San]

The intentional fallacy fails to account for readers being omniscient telepaths, as all critics of media who post on the Internet are.