TIME magazine on Dylan

Thanks to Lawrence Kirsch in Montreal for a link to a substantial appraisal of Dylan from the TIME magazine Free Archive.

Originally posted on Dylan’s 65th birthday, the feature by Richard Corliss re-states the case that Dylan re-made nearly every aspect of popular music – with his innovations in subject matter, singing style, song titles, song length, physical appearance and his example to singers writing their own material.

So far, so good. Corliss then tracks the morphing of the folk/protest singer into pop’s first writer of grown-up lyrics, written and delivered with bite (occasionally, bile, too).

Corliss is less convincing in his attempt to diminish Dylan’s post-1966 catalogue, implicitly dismissing, inter alia, masterpieces like John Wesley Harding, Planet Waves, Blood On The Tracks… all the way through to Modern Times.

Tendentious, then, but thought-provoking and nicely written; well worth a look:

http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1197784,00.html


Lawrence Kirsch’s compelling archive of rock photography, also well worth a look, is at:

www.musicfoto.com



Gerry Smith