Who is the Bob Dylan of the Electronic Music world?

The Lounge General Discussion
#42

So your bar is how good of a sales-/showman someone was instead of their contribution to music theory and development?

#43

This is an interesting notion, because you have to quantify Dylan and that’s good exercise for the brain. I can see the appeal of Aphex, mainly as a melodic / ambient parallel to Dylan as a lyricist. A mad method of comparison, but that’s where we find ourselves.

In terms of genre impact / disturbance, I might go with the early founders of jungle / d&b, and put the sampler in dance alongside the electric guitar in folk. Again, it doesn’t really work, because the original question doesn’t really work. But that doesn’t stop it being interesting.

I can’t fathom not respecting Dylan, even if you don’t particularly like listening to him. If he’d written A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall and then jumped in front of a bus, he’d still be a legend in my book.

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#44

Surprised Radiohead and Boney M have been overlooked so far

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#45

Supergroup of dreams.

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#46

As I said, Dylan was one of the people most responsible for what the modern song is.

This is your hot-take. Not mine.

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#47

All of them were very successful and popular (even little kids loved them) and influential for decades. The closest i can think of in the em world are Westbam and Marusha!

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#48

modern beatles for me, but I wouldn’t really see them as electronic. only partially

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#49

What fish is the broccoli of the vegetable world? There must be one.

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#50

Gonna have to say chicken

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#51

There were reasons why Johnson’s music wasn’t widely available in America for a long time.
It was the same reasons that made his massive influence over American music so easy to dismiss.

Listen to one of Johnson’s tracks, any of them, then listen to Dylan, Guthrie, Elvis etc. and then tell me who the real daddy is.

Don’t get me wrong, Dylan was good at what he did and a great lyricist, but he’s just another in a line of innovators. If you dismiss the Prodigy for not being Dylan, then you must dismiss Dylan for not being Johnson.

Dylan himself spoke many times of how large an influence Johnson was on his music.

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#52

In one way - approaching the ABABCB form with high aesthetic ideas and using modern technology - I agree.

In another - a group of incredibly skilled artists that rewrote modern music for decades to come after - NWA.

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#53

Beatles: Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five.

(only half serious. I just wanted to get some early hiphop into the conversation)

#54

Beastie Boys did it first :rofl:

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#55

Never, 2 live crew.

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#56

Let me add this quote to your post:

Delta blues artist Robert Johnson, whose “words made my nerves quiver like piano wires. They were so elemental in meaning and feeling and gave you so much of the inside picture. It’s not that you could sort out every moment carefully, because you can’t. There are too many missing terms and too much dual existence… There’s no guarantee that any of his lines… happened, were said, or even imagined… You have to wonder if Johnson was playing for an audience that only he could see, one off in the future.”

Bob Dylan: “Chronicles, vol 1”

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#57

I don’t dismiss Prodigy for not being Dylan. I mentioned: maybe one day they will prove to have the same influence as Dylan (I doubt it). My point was that Prodigy doesn’t (yet) have the same scope of influence. I personally don’t see them nearly as innovative as Dylan, but that’s subjective.

I know Dylan was influenced by him - everyone was - but my point was I’m not sure Dylan was formed by Johnson.

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#58

The ignorance… Yeah, you summed up Bob Dylan there.

#59

Bro that is flag material right there.

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#60

ok buddy

#61

New order. Went from defining Post punk to electronic when it was far from trendy, were highly influential and are still popular doing the same thing over and over again

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