Bob Dylan’s voice – the debate
Written by admin on July 9, 2010 – 6:19 am -| Reading highly contradictory reviews of Bob Dylan’s performance at last weekend’s Hop Farm Festival left me wondering if there is anything more polarizing in popular music than Dylan’s voice.
It’s fair to say – and I think even the most faithful Dylan fan would agree – Dylan’s voice has much less range now than in his early years as a performer. The mysterious thing is that, while some listeners clearly believe that he still adds gravitas to the material and sings with authority, others hear nothing more than a tuneless noise. |
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Reviewing Saturday’s gig for Mojo, Ross Bennett was highly impressed with Dylan’s performance. Bennett noted:
| “His voice is that of a 69-year old man who has spent the majority of his life on the road. Unsurprisingly razored, ravaged and cracked it still holds the power to move and mesmerise.” |
“Sublime” and “glorious” were two adjectives used by Bennett to describe Dylan’s performance.
Now let’s move on to Ian Gilton’s review in the Guardian, which is radically different. Gilton said:
| “Bob Dylan has been on his so-called Never Ending Tour since 1988, playing about 100 gigs a year. At this one, he might have been advised to issue the audience with earplugs. Dylan has never exactly been a conventional vocalist but nowadays the husky, broken rasp he emits scarcely counts as singing at all.” |
| “Just Like A Woman appeared to be the work of a particularly untalented Dylan spoof act, while his grotesque vocal mugging of Simple Twist of Fate almost qualified as a situationist prank.” |
Gilton was no kinder about Dylan’s performances on other songs. His view of the gig was shared by self-proclaimed Dylan fan, Andrew Almond, of Gigwise.com, who said:
| “I genuinely believe that if Dylan’s performance on Saturday is viewed objectively, disregarding his iconic status, then the abysmal lack of quality is impossible to ignore.” |
Holly Williams of the Independent was a little kinder with her review. The vocal failings were mentioned, but she at least highlighted some positives, including Dylan’s stints on the Hammond organ and harmonica, and the mood-lifting, audience participation on “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Forever Young.”
So what do you think? Why does one reviewer describe a “sublime” version of “Simple Twist of Fate” and another call the same performance a “grotesque vocal mugging”? Is it time for Dylan to quit live performance or are the naysayers missing something? Let us know your views, particularly if you were at the Hop Farm Festival show.
Tags: Bob Dylan, Hop Farm Festival
Posted in Folk, Gigs |
6 Comments to “Bob Dylan’s voice – the debate”
July 10th, 2010 at 2:36 am
Gilton could have been kinder, but wasn’t inaccurate. Dylan has no voice left. To some degree it doesn’t matter because people are paying to be in the presence of a legend.
July 18th, 2010 at 5:38 am
It can be so bad that it seems he might be putting it on sometimes!
December 16th, 2010 at 1:45 am
Tuneless voice ( coming from a hardcore fan)
April 26th, 2011 at 11:33 am
Dylan is my favourite artist, and as such I’ve tried so hard to understand his recent live shows. Over the past few years his vocals have been unintelligible, tuneless and downright sad. He is the ONLY artist in the world who can get away with this level of unprofessionalism, and it baffles me how anyone can appreciate it.
May 23rd, 2011 at 2:15 am
Hey Tony, i’m too a big fan of Bob, and i know what you mean, but sometimes he hits gold with his voice even today, listen to this live version of the timey they are a changing and tell me it’s not uberawesome:
http://video.pbs.org/video/1409848611/
he still can do it, probably he recovered his voice a bit by that time, just like brian wilson of the beach boys has recovered a lot of his old voice by 2011, listen to this version of god only knows, he sounds a lot like his brother the late carl wilson here and he hits notes he hasn#t hit in years:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX7znc-bhDs
probably the new decade is kind to the old giants.
July 24th, 2011 at 2:05 am
Dylan has lost his voice.
His performance of The Times They Are A-Changing at the White House was one of the saddest things I ever heard… although this is even sadder:
http://youtu.be/B7l6sBoPor4
Poor guy, must be hard for him not to be able to sing anymore… 🙁