Rough and Rowdy Ways

[dustyvalentino]

What about these legendary artists with "first album of original material" in 10, 20 years? I usually listen to them once and say "meh". Mark, on the other hand, will always produce a song that you will love, doesn't matter if it's about goulash, a quality shoe or a crime, and it will be original.

Yes, but you, like the rest of us here, are one of an ever dwindling band of MK superfans. For whatever reason, MK‘s music has touched us in a profound way.

People who feel the same way about The Who or whatever will find stuff on their new albums that does the same. The rest of us will just shrug our shoulders. Just as 99% of the population would if you played them Mr Solomon Said.

[dustyvalentino]

"...Love and Theft, with no famous producer on board. It's a mistery to me ...

Producer: Jack Frost. Dylan's pseudonym:)

I know, of course. But Dylan himself has no idea about how to make an album sound good. He must have genius engineers on board.

That seems like an odd assumption to make. He's been making very good sounding albums for a long time now.

I don't want to be unfair (and I admire Bob Dylan), but I think it's fair to say that he's made quite a number of sub-standard records in terms of sound. My assumption is that he just can't be bothered with the technical aspects of production. That used to be a problem occasionally, when he worked with the wrong people or followed the wrong trends. (Under the Red Sky, for instance, is such a disappointment after the brilliant Oh Mercy). But he seems to have found a team, certainly from Time out of Mind onwards, that has a knack for making his unique voice and the low-tech music sound gorgeous.

Oh, and while I often agree with you, Dusty, I SO disagree about Mark's songwriting skills that I won't even begin to argue. The people you mention are (or were, in cases like McCartney) great, of course, but Mark's mix of talents (as listed by Quizzy) and what results from it is almost peerless, in my opinion.

The fact that Dylan has produced good sounding records for the last 25 years would suggest at some point he was indeed bothered.

[quizzaciously]

What about these legendary artists with "first album of original material" in 10, 20 years? I usually listen to them once and say "meh". Mark, on the other hand, will always produce a song that you will love, doesn't matter if it's about goulash, a quality shoe or a crime, and it will be original.

Yes, but you, like the rest of us here, are one of an ever dwindling band of MK superfans. For whatever reason, MK‘s music has touched us in a profound way.

People who feel the same way about The Who or whatever will find stuff on their new albums that does the same. The rest of us will just shrug our shoulders. Just as 99% of the population would if you played them Mr Solomon Said.

Yeah, I would agree should I only listen to Mark's music and nothing else. But I listen to and learn thousands of songs in different languages and still, if say, "Scaffolder's Wife" would appear in my Spotify Weekly playlist and I had no idea it's a song by the guy from Dire Straits, I would add it to my collection instantly. I'm not talking about how enjoyable it is to play and to sing! It's a good song. If people can't find the beauty in this music, it's their problem, not mine.

[Robson]

And I miss the flute a bit on the last albums. It sounds great in Scaffolders Wife.

[Rail King]

People will disagree and fight endlessly over what's good and what's not. I think this is the reason:

What we commonly call "quality" is the product of two factors: Mastery x Appeal.

By "mastery" I mean how hard it is to create something similar without just copying it. Like: How hard is it to write a song like Brothers in Arms or Old Pigweed (one of my favorites). How hard is it to come up with such an idea, the chord sequence, the lyrics, the melody, and to play it that way? How many people would be capable of creating something similar? If the answer is: very hard/not many, then you're dealing with a high level of mastery.

By "appeal" I mean whether people will actually want to consume a work of art. Something can be created with a level of mastery, but most people still don't dig it. Arnold Schönberg's twelve-tone music would be an example. Terribly hard to compose, for sure, but not many will want to listen to it.

The problem of individuals discussing "quality" is that mastery is a rather hard factor (we'll all agree that creating Telegraph Road is harder than creating All My Little Ducklings) – but appeal is not. What appeals to you may not appeal to me, and vice-versa. What appeals to a few die-hard fans may not appeal to the masses, and vice-versa. As soon as you include the appeal factor in your formula, you'll automatically have people disagreeing.

At the same time, you can't just disregard the appeal factor. No one will call Arnold Schönberg the greatest composer of all time. He's just not appealing enough. Nor can you disregard the mastery factor and go by appeal (popularity) alone. If you would, Taylor Swift would be the greatest songwriter.

Most artists we will call "great" score high on both mastery and appeal. If you ask the whole world who the greatest songwriters in pop are, the answer will be Lennon/McCartney. That's the logical result if you combine both their outstanding mastery and outstanding appeal. Taylor Swift will score lower (not enough mastery), Mark Knopfler will score lower, too (not enough appeal). That DOESN'T automatically mean, however, that Knopfler is less of a master. Whether he is depends on his mastery score alone. And that is, in my humble opinion, just as high as Lennon's or McCartney's. I don't think it's easier to come up with a song like Sultans of Swing than it is to come up with She Loves You.

*End of Essay* 

[Robson]

Very nice essay I agree with your opinion.

[stratmad]

Brilliant! Agree all the way.

There is maybe a third factor, and that is "fame or enigma". It's the result of the media/the press or other influential institutions "endorsing" the artist, which can happen during his or her lifetime, or sometimes a century later, so that people will want to consume their works of art. There are many examples of great artists who died forgotten and in abject poverty (like Mozart), until suddenly someone rediscovers them and starts a big hype around them. Then the appeal factor sets in, and mastery is the basis for it all, of course.

Many rock stars, like Dylan, Elvis and the Beatles, have cultivated this fame/ enigma factor, while MK deliberately chose to step away from it, and just what he's best at. Good on him!

[Robson]

I think Robert Plant is in the same category as Mark.

[Love Expresso]

Wonderful. So now you have yourself defined an official theory why MK is relevant and everybody's happy 

I doubt that Dylan has cultivated anything in terms of fame deliberately, I think it's more the opposite.

And MK just chose to stop rehearse and play guitar as serious as he did the first 25 years of his career somewhere around 2005,  so he had to find another "label" instead of guitar hero and he chose the category "songwriter".

LE

[Robson]

Wonderful. So now you have yourself defined an official theory why MK is relevant and everybody's happy 

I doubt that Dylan has cultivated anything in terms of fame deliberately, I think it's more the opposite.

And MK just chose to stop rehearse and play guitar as serious as he did the first 25 years of his career somewhere around 2005,  so he had to find another "label" instead of guitar hero and he chose the category "songwriter".

LE

I don't know if your comment is a response to mine:) I was thinking about something else. Robert Plant also disbanded the band and big money did not change that. He "ran away" withdrew to record other music.

[stratmad]

Wonderful. So now you have yourself defined an official theory why MK is relevant and everybody's happy 

I doubt that Dylan has cultivated anything in terms of fame deliberately, I think it's more the opposite.

And MK just chose to stop rehearse and play guitar as serious as he did the first 25 years of his career somewhere around 2005,  so he had to find another "label" instead of guitar hero and he chose the category "songwriter".

LE

Actually I think it explains why he seems less relevant than others of the same format (mastery+appeal).

Dylan, on the other hand, is and will remain relevant mostly because of his early work. Those early songs are set in stone, and they influenced a generation or two.
What you say is right: Dylan does not cultivate fame, but has always tried to escape it. And by doing that, at the height of his success, he created a persona, an enigmatic character that people find fascinating. So, in a way, trying not to be famous made him even more famous.
I'm not sure how many people will actually listen to a new Dylan record - I suspect it's also a tight community of die-hard fans, and some more casual listeners who simply like good rock music. Sure, the Dylan community is rather large, but if you ask a kid if they know Bob Dylan, they'll say: "Bob Who?"

About MK: I meant the end of DS, the megastar-turned-singer/songwriter change that happened in the mid-90s.

[JF]

I don't think it's easier to come up with a song like Sultans of Swing than it is to come up with She Loves You.

yes because you chose these particular examples.

but if you choose Walk of life and a A day in the life....
or who's your baby now and Penny Lane...
etc....

And I think that there are more "complex" examples of songs in Beatles 'catalog than in Mark's one... 

[Chris W]

The whole debate is more subjective than anything else.
In the end, there is room in culture for multiple 'masters' of popular music.
The acid test is the 'test of time'.
How many of Mark's records will be listened to in 50 years time? In the case of The Beatles, we know it's A LOT.

[dustyvalentino]

The whole debate is more subjective than anything else.
In the end, there is room in culture for multiple 'masters' of popular music.
The acid test is the 'test of time'.
How many of Mark's records will be listened to in 50 years time? In the case of The Beatles, we know it's A LOT.

Absolutely, it’s all subjective but at the end of the day all any of us can do is express our opinion so it’s fun to discuss.

Sultans of Swing is coming up for 50 years and it still gets played a LOT.

[quizzaciously]

The whole debate is more subjective than anything else.
In the end, there is room in culture for multiple 'masters' of popular music.
The acid test is the 'test of time'.
How many of Mark's records will be listened to in 50 years time? In the case of The Beatles, we know it's A LOT.

Absolutely, it’s all subjective but at the end of the day all any of us can do is express our opinion so it’s fun to discuss.

Sultans of Swing is coming up for 50 years and it still gets played a LOT.

The test of time is the ultimate gauge of everything, yes. I'm very positive about my predictions on that as Mark has something I call the "Wait a minute!" factor. It happens when you watch a film, read a book, look at a painting, play a game, whatever it is, and go "Wait a minute!". As in it's so amazing you can't understand how it was made and stop to appreciate the beauty. Not every musician, poet, painter or filmmaker has this quality, but Mark certainly has it in spades. That's the definition of talent to me.

Sultans of Swing regularly (for this kind of song) appear in movies, covers, viral videos, guitar hero games, etc, but that's probably the only Mark's song to receive such acclaim. Mark sometimes genuinely seems like a one-hit wonder as Sultans trumps anything he ever produced or will produce. If I were him, I'd hate this song. You work all your life to never achieve anything bigger than your very first single, it sucks. And Money For Nothing is technically not Mark's song but is "co-written" by Gordon Sumner which is ridiculous.

I liked how it was stated in this thread Bob Dylan is mostly famous for his groundbreaking first efforts too. That's so true. Take this away, and poor Bob would be less famous than even Knopfler.