The moment Bob Dylan stopped caring about music: “Seemed to take a different turn”
There was no reason to think that Bob Dylan was going to be on top of the charts forever.
Despite being one of the stoic badasses of the rock and roll world throughout most of the 1960s, any chance of him trying to fit in with the times was going to either be a bold new direction or one of the most unintentionally hilarious works ever produced had he decided to adapt to MTV or start cosigning grunge bands. But there’s a good chance that Dylan also didn’t want to bother following along with the trends of the time.
If you really think about it, when’s the last time that Dylan willingly tried to make himself seem for the youth market. Sure, he embraced rock and roll, but that was only going to upset his fanbase, and when he eventually started to leave folk rock behind, it’s not like everyone was in love with the idea of him becoming a gospel artist when making albums like Slow Train Coming and Saved.
But that doesn’t mean that every one of the records since his prime were poor, either. Blood on the Tracks may be considered one of the final classic albums he released from that period, but if you cut him off right there, you’re missing out on some of the greatest gems of his catalogue, whether that’s working with the Traveling Wilburys on a few projects or his own solo works like on Time Out of Mind or Modern Times.
Then again, it’s not like everyone was expecting Dylan to hang out alongside the flavours of the day in the 1990s when he released his next record. He was clearly making the music he felt needed to be heard, and while not every one of the tunes was the most radio-friendly, it’s easy to get captivated in every single verse of ‘Highlands’ or hear him wear his heart on his sleeve on ‘Make You Feel My Love’.
If anything, what made Dylan so fresh at the time was how little he cared about the mainstream. The biggest names in rock at the time were the various strands of nu-metal, but even if there were people willing to follow in Dylan’s footsteps like Jack White, the songwriting icon hadn’t bothered listening to what most people had to say since he last started making chart hits.
As far as he was concerned, the last decade that had any real impact for him was before MTV even started. When asked about when he stopped listening to music, Dylan replied, “There was a cut-off point sometime. [The early ’70s] maybe? When the machines got into making music, you could turn it off more. It seemed to take a different turn at that point and the purpose got kind of lost.”
It’s one thing for Dylan to be concerned with the human element of music, but it’s not like he was completely afraid of new technology either. The Wilburys’ albums had their fair share of synths in the mix, but even when Dylan’s scratch voice was put on the track, it took on a much different tone than what you would have heard when his musical buddies like Tom Petty would use the same effect.
Because even if Dylan liked the idea of working with different technology when he plugged in his electric guitar, there wasn’t any reason for him to follow along when people tried to let computers do the work for them. If that was the truth, that meant anyone could be an artist, but what Dylan was doing went far beyond making the occasional catchy tune. It was about relating to people on a deeper level, and that only comes from someone that has done their fair share of living behind the microphone.
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