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Neil Young or Bob Dylan


Use Your Delusion 1

Who do you prefer?   

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Dylan was a game changer and Neil benefited from it. You can't have one without the other.

This is true.

Dylan is the greater genius of the two. You could argue he is the most influential artist of the '60s, who influenced everyone from John Lennon to Neil Young himself. But I prefer Neil Young. I prefer that blend of, Dylanesque lyricism alongside Hendrixy jam guitar, that Neil achieves in his music.

But they are both incredible at the end of the day. I have seen Dylan three times and Neil Young, once.

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Dylan. They were both amazing artists, they were both hugely influential and groundbreaking, they both had WTF periods with their music, but I'd say Dylan's had more of a renaissance period than Young.

You mean, as in 'comeback period', like Dylan in 1974-5 and again in 1997?

its close for me but this is the reason why Young is ahead

trans, what a disc

Selective. You could just have easily picked Dylan's Self Portrait , probably one of the worst albums from a major recording artist that does not happen to have 'Paul McCartney' on the cover, or even his Christian trilogy. I could not possibly decide which turned fans away greater, Dylan's 'born again' era or Young's electronic era!

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Dylan. They were both amazing artists, they were both hugely influential and groundbreaking, they both had WTF periods with their music, but I'd say Dylan's had more of a renaissance period than Young.

For me, those "WTF" phases of their career served as confirmation of their authenticity.

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They both had drastic changes in belief. Both had a country-playing 'anti-hippy' reactionary period, Dylan during Nasville Skyline (1969), Young during Old Ways (1985); the latter was when Young became a pro-Regan right-winger and made some rather silly comments that have hurt him ever since such as the one about not wanting a ''fag'', this was at the height of the Aids pandemic, ''touching your potatoes''! And everyone well remembers Dylan's late '70s-early '80s 'Born Again' phrase which resulted in two inferior albums of preachy religious propaganda, Mark Knoffler's playing aside. Both guys are therefore similar in the way they were originally leftish 'hippy' icons, case in point 'Masters of War' and 'Alabama', only to have later reactionary phrases.

I have to say though that Dylan has made a career out of pissing off his fan base with sudden changes in musical output. He abandoned political protest for ballads on Another Side; he adopted rock music at Newport festival and subsequently toured Britain as a 'Judas', crowds would be shouting 'where is Ringo?'; then, at the height of hippydom, 1967, Dylan was a virtual recluse; then the country phrase; Born Again phrase et al. Across his whole career he has made a habit of doing this, but then, as the man himself says ''don't follow heroes, watch your parking meter.''

With Young and his 'classic' period (1970s) it is not so much that he switched and pissed off his fanbase, as that he had two completely different musical identities and two different sets of fans. On the one hand you had the Horse-purists, who thought Neil was a pussy 'sell-out' for 'Heart of Gold'; on the other hand you had those fans who came into being with the Harvest period, who did not understand why Neil still insisted on playing with that 'lousy garage band.' Horse purists love EKTIN, Zuma, Rust (as well as the quasi-Horse albums of Neil's 'Ditch' era, Tonights the Night and On the Beach); the latter cite Harvest and Comes A Time and After the Goldrush (although that album is a hybrid album and features the Horse on two-three numbers). There are few artists who have, have had, a career like this.

Of course, as Neil developed into an icon in the early '90s, it became possible to like both styles but I still think people generally either prefer, Neil acoustic, or Neil with the Horse. In the 1980s however, Neil abandoned the acoustic/horse split for genre-hopping: Neil as an electronic artist (Trans), Neil as a country player (Old Ways), Neil as a bluesmith (This Notes For You) etc. It was not until Freedom where normal business was resumed.

He still does those 'odd' records occasionally, such as Are You Passionate?, which has Neil doing soul music, and Greendale. I suppose there are three types of Neil album:

- with the Horse

- acoustic

- an oddity

Edited by DieselDaisy
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Guest Len B'stard

I've heard very very little of Neil Young per se so I guess i'm not qualified to judge but based on the little i have heard, Dylan, no question. From what I have heard of Neil Young I'd say Harry Nilsson was better than him.

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I am surprised you have not heard much of Young considering he was one of the few 'old farts' who were considered, 'alright', by the punk generation (another being The Who). Crazy Horse were even seen as, proto-punk, in their distorted and amaturish garage-rock sensability. You can definitely see something proto-punkish in a song like, 'Barstool Blues'. When punk broke, Young was one of the few of the older generation who championed the movement and injected some of that sound into his Rust Never Sleeps album. You must check out the songs Sedan Delivery and Welfare Mothers. Also, Young was later hailed as the 'godfather of grunge' by the grunge generation of the early '90s and was admired by Corbain, who included his lyrics to Hey Hey My My into his suicide note. Young actually made an album with, and toured with, Pearl Jam.

For me, Young is my favourite rock musician bar none of the 60s-70s generation. I am more a fan of him than Dylan, The Stones, The Who, Lennon and The Beatles. I prefer him to Guns N' Roses even, Appetite Guns that is. I have this big Crazy Horse poster above my bed. I am a full on Horse addict.

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For not being pro-Reagan he sure did a good impression of someone pro-Reagan. Have you got the book Shakey? Read from p.588 onwards.

I am an absolute Neil Young freak. I've read Shakey multiple times, as well as Waging Heavy Peace, Don't Be Denied, Neil & Me, etc, etc. I own every album, the archives, been to many shows, the whole nine. People act like he was campaigning for Reagan when really he was kind of just being a contrarian in one interview to a blindly liberal reporter who was summarily dismissing anything Reagan did or said. More than anything, the comments he made were because the reporter was getting on his nerves... but he also thought that people's thinking (including his own) had become too black and white in regard to politics. Shakey is not necessarily 100% accurate or contextual. Neil originally commissioned the author to write it, but then tried to block its release after it was finished because he thought he'd been misrepresented to a great extent.

That said, he did say that he agreed with some of the sentiments Reagan expressed...and I can understand how that is perceived as somewhat contradictory and controversial when you consider his fan base andprior musings on politics. That's what I've always loved about Neil though- you can't pigeonhole the guy.

Edited by Mr. Dude
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