Bob Dylan, have an opinion?

If you rate Dylan by his voice, rather than what he does with it, you can miss the whole point. Sure, Lightfoot or
Don Mcclean or... have 'better' voices, but few if any, singer/songwriters can go straight through to your gut like Dylan. BTW, Nashville Skyline, Blood On The Tracks and Desire show off his voice, versus just his interpretation, a little better, but the Dylan I love best is the
hard-edged Dylan of Blonde on Blonde or Highway Sixty-One Revisited. OK, you got me, I like all of it. Hey there are a lot of Manilow-smooth vocalists out there. Who cares. Give me grit and soul any day. There are more good lyrics in one decent Dylan composition than in any hundred other albums. and that's counting the better albums, IMHO.
His voice these days sounds like they dug him up to record, but his inner voice is undeniably still there. If they are going to give every hack for miles around an award, it was about d*** time they gave an Oscar to America's greatest troubador.

Well I believe you SD but how do they say it when speaking the Queen's English? I agree that there were other great lyricists of the day and the first to come to mind would be Paul Simon. Dylan however spoke to the 60’s youth about a generation’s concerns in one of the most upheaval periods in our history. He was therefore more than just a lyricist. He was the spokesman to the youth opposed to the status quo. I certainly can't think of any other singer, lyricist of that time that connected better to the themes of that era than he. “For what its worth” to paraphrase another poet/lyricist of the same era (Stephen Stills).

Dylan has never been willing to be the spokesperson of the times. I think it is best to seperate the art from the artist. The art will be here in a hundred years. Puff Daddy (unless he's remembered for something other than music, a possibility), Madonna, Britney, ect., will be forgotten like the rest of us. As the song says: "It Aint Me Babe".

I don't think sdcampbell's missing the point. Dylan's peculiar, and it's easy to see why he just might not hit it off with some people. However, I'm a big fan. He introduced a literary quality to the lyrics of popular music that came from the streets and railroad yards. But mainly, the man writes a mean tune... and what a range in songwriting he's got. From great love songs to nasty payback anthems. Also, he's a good interpreter of traditional stuff. And, his going electric -- that's at the top of profiles in courage in popular music. Favorite album? That would change from day to day. Today it would be John Wesley Harding. Hey, on some days it's been Self Portrait; I dare anyone else to say that!