willie mctell wrote:
QUOTE:
mightyflynn wrote:
Dylan is an entertainer, artists don't bring out deluxe greatest hits sets every couple of years and artists don't try to squeeze every last penny from the hands of their followers.
Let me rephrase that, Dylan is not an artist, he is a businessman first and foremost.
mightyflynn,
With all due respect, i must disagree with you.
According to Websters dictioany "artist-noun: a person whose creative work shows sensitivity and imagination"
Also from Websters dictionary: "entertainer-noun: a person who tries to please or amuse"
Ergo, your claim that Dylan is not a artist is inaccurate.
At least i have usually found that his "creative work shows sensitivity and imagination".
i am not saying that Dylan is not a businessman but if he is one, that does not disqualify him as a artist. From what you wrote, it sounds to me like you are saying that a real artist must take a vow of poverty.
You are being very selective here I think, here are some more definitions
Definition of entertainer (noun)
form plural: entertainers
host; performer; comedian
Dylan is an entertainer, he may have been an artist at certain moments in his life but so what, a painter is only a painter when he paints, a poet is only a poet when he writes etc etc, on the other hand just because a poet sits down and starts writing doesn't mean that what he is writing is poetry,
A lot of people would say that it is poetry but their judgement would be clouded by the poet's previous work, if Picasso had put down his brushes and started spraypainting his bedroom there are people out there that would have said his spraypainting was art, not true, not true, not true
If anyone comes in and starts mentioning Bob's drawings I may put a metaphoric bullet in my head, ha ha. If some college kid had done those drawings no one would have gave it any notice. According to your definiton of artist the guy down the street penning love songs to his best friend's wife is an artist.
You are only a bricklayer when you're laying bricks.
Terms like artist and poet have grossly been misused over the years, some people call Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears artists but I know you mean artist as William Blake or Michelangelo, Bob is a writer of songs that entertain, they may calm the soul for 5 mins, they may allow you to meditate on an object on your coffee table but so what, some people find listening to The Spice Girls does those same things for them, are The Spice Girls favourably comparable to John Keats or Gerard Manley Hopkins, I also find that Bob's lyrics over the years have been overrated, yes he is a great lyricist but there are also people out there whose lyrics do more than rival his, look at Paul Simon's stuff or Leonard Cohen's stuff, he is not the only one who has written great lyrics. Just because a song has elements of poetry within it don't make it a poem, a lyric is not a poem in the same way a poem is not a lyric, a poem has to fill the spaces that a lyric leaves open for the music, if you put a poem to music, for the most part it would not work, it would be overkill. Bob is a great lyricist but he is not a great poet
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