you think bob dylan sings bad on purpose to stick it to people?

StuffnJunk

the man is one of my idols.........one of the reasons is that he absolutely does what he wants to do and admits he is not there to please the audience......but his singing voice has gone thru so many changes and there have been periods where the voice is so atrocious that it seems like a put-on voice just to turn people off.........when you here him in interviews he has a regular speaking voice pretty much.......it seems he purposelly puts on the worst singing voice possible just as a big "fuck you" to the audience, like it is a joke he has with himself that he sings like that and people keep coming back for more!

look up his performance of masters of war at the grammys on youtube to see what i mean.......he has got to be able to sing better than that!!!

Zoso

amazingly enough I think that this is his real voice. Its not a put on just has got really bad over the years. Still a big idol of mine though. Can't wait to hear Modern Times.

merkinball

I think these days its his real voice too. In his early days, he was trying to get that Woody Guthrie, nasally sound, but if you listen to Nashville Skyline, it really cleans up when he wanted it too. Bobs getting up there in years too, time and smoking take their toll.

danielson

I think when you've lived for 30 plus years as a universaly recognized genius, it is very possible that he may be doing something like that.

Weird guy to start with, then all his creative ideas were confirmed as great by humanity, its going to change a person.

Either way, Bob Dylan fucking rules.

Pearl Jam and toast

I think Bob Dylan is one of the better signers of our generation....

Not technically.. obviously..

but i LOVE his voice.. there's just something about it.. no matter how he's singing.

And if you've smoked 5 trillion cigarettes you wouldn't sound any better than he does now

FinsburyParkCarrots

Well, technically, some say Celine Dion can sing "good." However, she sticks it to discerning people, in a way that's 100,000% more horrific than anybody else's struggle to record their voice, while having something interesting to say.

CM1847

I think he drank, smoked and sang too much over the past 40 years.

FinsburyParkCarrots

Zoso wrote:

amazingly enough I think that this is his real voice. Its not a put on just has got really bad over the years. Still a big idol of mine though. Can't wait to hear Modern Times.

"I can sing as good as Caruso."
Bob- 1965

sadprofessor

In my opinion Bob's voice was at its strongest in the mid 70's, particularly the Rolling Thunder Revue stuff. Volume 5 of the bootleg series is one of my most listened to albums.

But he really has gone through many different "eras" of vocal style. The early acoustic protest singer stuff, the peak 60's era, the country-ish crooner type stuff (Nashville skyline etc) and then what I would say is arguably the second peak of his career, the 1970s dylan. Currently what you hear is pretty much how he sounds at his best, at some point his voice (and career) just kind of completely went to hell (by normal people standards, see 1980s Dylan) and it really took him awhile to figure out how best to use it. And when he finally did he made the brilliant Time Out of Mind, and thus began yet another renaissance of Dylan and arguably the 3rd peak of his career.

FinsburyParkCarrots

He sings better on Beyond the Horizon, on the new album, than he's done in years.

justam

Your thread title and questions made me laugh!!! Thanks.

Pearl Jam and toast

FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:

He sings better on Beyond the Horizon, on the new album, than he's done in years.

he recorded it basically line by line instead of doing a take.

You gotta do what you gotta do. :cool:

A Surprise Left

great songwriter
shitty singer

StuffnJunk

justam wrote:

Your thread title and questions made me laugh!!! Thanks.

no problem, anytime...........but i wanted to say i love the way he sings on the last 3 studio albums, and that ragged voice is perfect for his lyrics.....also, whenever a "good" singer sings dylan songs, it sounds wrong (except eddie of course)..........but for his lyrics you need a rough edged voice to properly deliver them

i guess i meant mainly the voice he had in the 80s-early 90s which was soooooooooo bad.........but also the last time i saw him in concert (spring 2005) he was doing this thing that drove me nuts.........he would overemphasize the last word of every line, and it was the most annoying thing i ever heard......my cousin is always saying how dylan has this "fuck you" attitude and he kinda has disdain for praise and likes to stick it up peoples ass, and i could see what he meant on that night

FinsburyParkCarrots

Pearl Jam and toast wrote:

he recorded it basically line by line instead of doing a take.

You gotta do what you gotta do. :cool:

Apparently Dusty Springfield would sing note by note. It used to drive engineers mad!

rhinomagic

I think the singing on Modern Times really reflects his age and some of the hard living he's done.

The two albums just before this one were some of his best singing in 20 years. But he's often changed his singing voice (on purpose) to give a different feel to his songs.

I agree with the comment about mid-70s Dylan. Probably my favorite era of his singing, as well.

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