I'll tell you what's full of shit ... this reporter. I watched a good bit of the Dylan special on PBS last night. I don't get how it is any more self congratulatory than any other behind the music type documentary. Sounds like this reporter has got an ax to grind. Ask me if I care about this guy's opinion

Do you care about this guy's opinion?

it should be noted that a woman wrote the article.

he was very savvy back then to fuck with the media and their silly questions. "can you suck on your sunglasses?" "no, why don't YOU suck on my sunglasses."

This has nothing to do with Dylan, but I stayed til the end of Gangs of New York and I loved it. who the hell wrote this shite?

I agree with the first comment (does she have an ax to grind?) I just don't understand what the hell she's all up in arms about. If you don't like Dylan, don't. But don't get pissy because he's rightly recognized as one of the most important/influential artists in modern music. That's not up for debate.

who the hell wrote this? an influential reporter??

If its not British, its shit, I guess. If it was the Beatles or the Stones, I'm sure her opinion would be different. Dylan was actually able to be at least as iconic as his british contemporaries, but the Brits are so hung up on having saved rock n roll with the British Invasion, they can't give props.

Plus--Scorsese scored pretty big just 15 years ago with Goodfella.

And how does being a Dylan fan turn you into a sexist? (Or at least insensitive) Maybe we should all listen to Motley Crue or some other band where the concerts are all about tits and the flashing thereof.

two words about the autor, " The Herald." she's a Bostonian. Need I say more??

premises: haven't seen the documentary, but she's angry for something, no doubt

post title: maybe you should replace "or" with "&", but what Jason said above still remains true

Scorsese: bringing out the dead, 1999: 6 yrs ago, after the previous masterpieces: think he can afford it, so, please, some respect (for the aged, at least!)

Wow, I think the reporter totally missed the point of the documentary. People were always trying to use Dylan as means for their own purposes rather than to see him as a talented songwriter who was really tuned into the zeitgeist. The thing I found most interesting was that he was not a political person at all, although people always regarded him as being that. Also, I really liked how the folk scene got so angry with him when his sound shifted into pop/rock. Rather than applaud him for changing, people looked at it as like Dylan was turning on them. Reminds me of arguments we get into about indie rock today.

this shite article is absolutely agenda-driven, axe-to-grind, sloppy music-journalism of the shabbiest order. I want my music writing to be emotional and personal, but this is just undisciplined vendetta-ism. Dylan isn't above criticism [and his unquestioned hagiography does get a little lame after a while], but this Herald piece strays from what could have been a reasoned critique and careens into pure, ugly, forgettable spleen.

I agree with many of the comments above regarding Dylan and the documentary (which is excellent). I'll add further that if she really thinks that Scorcese's best work was 30 years ago, she should really be locked in a room and forced to watch The King of Comedy and After Hours back to back and after a short break, she should be forced to watch "Bringing Out the Dead" as well (props to the person who cited that one). As for Gangs of New York, I liked it, but Leo DiCaprio is just too boy-ish looking to be convincing as a leading man and Scorcese's over-reliance on him in recent years is frankly a turn-off for me.

the women just don't get me.

the women just don't get me.

she could at least spell "pretension" correctly

or is it pretentious to point that out?

melanie reid is nothing else but a member of the new 'trendy liberal media' which creates an alternative reality in the press to what actually is happening in the world - and rewrites history to fit their agenda. If you are white and male: damn you. If you are a woman or black or poor (but most journalists equate black with poor - ignoring the triumphs and achievements of individuals - for the convenience of grouping a whole race into a category) - you can do no wrong.

Here we have: Bob Dylan. He's white. and male. and rich. damn him. If you're white and a male, don't read the column; if you're a woman - read on sister!

Pathetic. She has no credibility as a journalist.

Of course, neither do I. But I don't hate. And its a better credential upon which to base criticism.

BLUERADIO

What was really lame too was this bogus dichotomy she tried to set up: you either think dylan is an infallible archangel of a genius, a kind of Deity of Song, or you think he's a mercenary, soulless hack. it's ugly, really: at the root of this piece is a kind of intellectual laziness perfect for ad marketing -- and the kind of unsubtle black and white world it tries to create -- but silly when used to treat the complicated world of art, artists, and why people care about them.
what melanie reid, a confirmed total retard, fails to see or accept the possibility of is that dylan doesn't do what he does either because he believes he's a God OR because he's trying to bilk people out of 50 bucks. He just fucking loves performing, he can't do anything else, and it's a fucking living. fuck the fans, fuck the industry, fuck studying his lyrics as poetr, but respect the man for doing his job. ultimately he is just a song and dance man -- the guy just wants to be on stage, singing songs, whether you air indulgent biographies about him or not.
all that doesn't make good copy though. especially not when you're fucking retarded like melanie reid, and you have no recourse to anything but sensationalist either/or set ups and polemics ['Dylan is a Shakespearesque Genius' says rich white man; 'dylan is a crap hack', says young girl] to describe a cultural phenomenon.
the real 'affliction' here isn't some kind of rampant Dylanworshipping Industry -- it's the kind if widespread epidemic idiocy that allows this stupid twat to think she can throw her either/or-myopic-granny-bluehair shit around and have it pass for objective, respectable musical journalism.

PBS is a station who's viewership is comprised mainly of boomers and ex- hippies. Every show on there is a self-congratulatory masterbationfest about how the 60's was the greatest period in our culture's history. The romanticism is off the fucking hook over there.

This dumb bitch has clearly never ever head that hundred-year-old proverb that the people down in the Bayou came up with--"Don't trust no one who don't love love Bob Dylan"

For the record: I am white, a woman, 30, born in an Eastern European country, lived in California all my adult life. I think Bob Dylan is a splendidly accomplished and profound rock artist and poet. And even at 60+ he looks hotter than yo' fat British ass.

wow visions of joanna, seems like you have an anger problem, huh?

"dumb bitch" "yo fat British ass"? classy stuff.

Um, why are we hating on Bostonians? Of course I stumbled upon this a bit late, but still, I ask the question. Nevermind the fact it's the UK Herald.....

I always find it strange when anyone really despises Bob Dylan. His honest, insightful songs were only meant to help people. Who cares why he wrote them. They made people think. People like that hate Dylan because they are just so dependant on "the machine" that they are scared to death of anything that could threaten it. They need some sort of social hierarchy(class) in order to feel better than the next guy. AND BY THE WAY---I LOVE BOB DYLAN AND I AM A WOMAN!! I think getting gender involved in this argument was absolutely ridiculous and it made the guy who started in with it look just as retarded as the woman who wrote the article.

Melanie is 100% correct.

I happen to have known Shabtie Zizal ben-Averam (to give the little piece of filth his real real name) on a very personal level. Obviously none of you have had that miss-for-tune. It's not all it's cracked up to be...but then not again...in another way it is.

By the way, he doesn't write those songs.

"The Waiter" from Boston..."Dylanz" pimp.

tangential to all above, or perhaps central, is it worth noting that at some point old bob seemed to slide into whining about women in his later songs? his songs could be anthems sung by unrecovered male codependents. it's all so anti trusting women at all and actually he seems to go out of his way to goad the female sensibility.

my own reaction to dylan these days? half the time i wanna whack old bob up side the head. this all could have been avoided if he had just spent a little more of his spare time listening to the truly great, compassionate, heart-opening, soul-seering burp of love songs written and sung by his greatest acolyte and competitor, buddy leonard cohen.

or if only by dint of association, dylan had downloaded a little more of broooce's genuine audience loving blue collaritude. i mean, is it written somewhere that dylan can only turn to henry timrodian influences and the like? would it have lowered his own opinion of himself to now and then sit uncritically at the feet of broooce in his mobile temple of rock and roll healing, just like the rest of us?

such an unrepentent snarky fellow, he is. even on his radio show his bobness couldn't seem to resist tossing out sly zingers revealing his not-so-well-buried contempt for women. (the divorce show could have been called themes, schemes, and nightmare marriage scenes.) myself, i would have thought him clever enough to find all the true love money can buy.

i mention this within the context of the discussion above. dylan has slid so far from relevance to women as to be absurd. no wonder the vestigial feminista aka grrrls aka angry ecofeminists aka green nuns can't bow at the majestic dylan altar 4 decades in the making.

his old days were different, of course. altar building would have been appropriate back then. no other songwriter could ever match these lines from idiot wind: 'you'll never know the pain i suffered nor the hurt i rise above. and i'll never know the same about you, your holiness and your kind of love. and it makes me feel so sorry.' oh, garrot me with a guitar string, somebody. these words kill. it may not get better than this. (the words.)

on second thought, dylan was ok. on third thought. he was more than ok. he is ok. sara silverman is on his radio show. great choice, bob. you still do occasionally get things very right.

but yo people. parsing him as a music industry figure doesn't work. when it's all said and done, the bobster is blood now. his face sits right there in each of our family album of the mind. his face is next to nixon's, and christ, they just jerked saddam into that same row. mug shots all. we are family. one family. all family. love 'em. hate 'em. doesn't matter. crazy or not, they are mentally ours now in the mind tattoo.

so never a reason to look to some lame scorcese doc to burnish the dylan hagiography any further. you know what happens if you brush your teeth too much, right? the gums disappear. same with chronicles pt.1. a lot of rubbish, really. and not that artfully written at that.

besides, the only thing dylan got right about choosing scorcese as the director of said project is that scorcese real theme has always been hysterical men. maybe dylan subconsciously was owning up to something.

for all we know if dylan hadn't cranked himself into stardom he might have turned out to be somebody's crazy uncle in the attic. now and then you'd throw him a rotten fish head or two in his direction and he'd howl in delight.

yet even at this moment, even as i continue to clutch bob's wearisome head sentimentally to my own icon-in-my-own-image-making breast, there remains somethin' dreadful about him that i can't quite put my finger on...

just found out that it's ellen barkin's voice on the radio show. mon dieu. and all this time i thought sara silverman was the voice, and that was cool, what with the jimmy kimmel connection and all that.

but to think that it's ellen barkin. totally amazing. totally hip choice on dylan's part. all is forgiven. dylan rules. his hipness is so hip we can't even begin to fathom it, even after all these years.

i loved ellen barkin ever since the day i saw her standing casually on line at some italian take out place wearing an emerald reinstein ross ring. the ring i knew from my own shopping experience. it was stunning. she was stunning. she was cool. he is cool. in fact, ellen barkin might be the coolest not fully commercialized diva of all time, which is ultimately what makes her so special. she is smart, gorgeous, and doesn't really push herself on the world at all. who is cooler than her? few, very very few.

all is forgiven on this end, and hope all forgive me for thinking it was la silverman. ps hope ellen is around for the next round of shows. the intros themselves should be getting attention. they are hilarious and well-crafted, well-executed and little masterpieces of planning all their own.

wait. wasn't i the one chopping away at dylan's hipness factor in my last e? well, i had time to rethink...