There's something about him that I can't quite pin down that makes Neil decidedly hippie...maybe not so much anymore...but maybe it has to do with the fact that Neil runs his mouth off and lets himself get dated at times. Living With War is a good example of this. As it says in Neil's weirdo subjective biography, Neil did stuff that Dylan wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole...the lyrics to "After The Gold Rush" were cited as an example. Aliens and Mother Earth...

Dylan seems to get dated by his surroundings. He complains about the sound of records, but the people he plays with and the producers that he works with (and the list of both must be quite ridiculous in length)...well, they let his shit get fucked up and dated over the years...I think Dylan counts on people more to capture his performance...once the '80s came around, Dylan was totally fucked in this respect...that old analog/vinyly sound was lost to the ages (not to mention that his voice got shot to shit over this period-present day).

Neil was a lot more hands on with his work, perhaps knew better than Dylan what he wanted from his supporting players (in addition, Neil and Crazy Horse were more of a team...while Neil was demanding and in control, it doesn't seem that he was the dictator that Dylan was [what ringer musician wouldn't do exactly as Bob Fucking Dylan told him/her?]). Neil kept the same guys around (more or less). He had the same producer, David Briggs, for years (until he died!) and they understood each other pretty well (obviously [granted, at times, they had fallings out]). Even the record that Neil cut with Pearl Jam sounds pretty cool, pretty vital, raw, but in control of the way he wants the record to sound. He understood the ramifications of the analog-to-digital transition as it went down. I might be wrong, but I doubt Dylan could have more fully foreseen the consequences of this change (he was probably also wrapped up his Christian thing at the time).

Neil has made dumb decisions throughout the course of his career, but his love of experimenting perhaps demanded that stupid-ass choirs sing on Harvest/that he write songs about stuff he might not have fully grasped/...ummm, that he make Everybody's Rockin and Trans (and a whole host of other stupid shit)...poor Dylan just seemed to run out of ideas when it came to his sound (but not his songwriting), he succumbed to the environment foist upon him (even if he realizes that). If you're not really a guitar guy/sound guy...and more of a performer, that sort of thing is bound to happen over a 40 or so year old career. Neil just seems to be a bit more stubborn, a bit more relentless (the man invented superior sound equipment for Lionel trains in his spare time)!

Dylan hit an incredible peak/had an incredible run in the '60s. He evolved...went through a ridiculous amount of phases/changes/Dylans...even had many great records outside of his uninterrupted jism of genius in the '60s. Not only that, but unlike Young, popular music (as we know it...like post-war stuff to now), had never seen a talent as wildly original and as three-dimensional as Dylan at the time. Neil had a similar run (even in length) in the '70s...but as the rest of his career reflects, his "genius" was a bit more scattershot (there's some clunker decisions in between the Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere/After the Gold Rush period and the Ditch Trilogy...when Dylan was hot, he never really fucked up). His "Ditch Trilogy" period though...Tonight's the Night, On The Beach, Zuma...I feel is pretty comparable to Dylan's downright revolutionary trilogy...(Bringin' It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde on Blonde). The difference is...while I'd never want to listen to virtually anything Dylan did beyond the 1970s (i.e.-why would you when you could listen to any number of great albums from his pre-digital period?), I can still listen to a song like "Fuckin' Up," "I'm The Ocean," or even a couple songs off fucking Prairie Wind and enjoy them almost as well as Neil's late '60s/'70s stuff. With Dylan, it just seems that time/life/drugs ultimately broke him at some point (even if he's still sorta doin' good stuff...it just ceases to be truly apppealing for me...some part of what made Dylan Dylan got lost for me...).

Love them both...I prefer Neil though. I might just as easily prefer Dylan...I just find something about Neil's sound to be so infectious...

Minotaur029 wrote:Neil has made dumb decisions throughout the course of his career, but his love of experimenting perhaps demanded that stupid-ass choirs sing on Harvest/that he write songs about stuff he might not have fully grasped/...ummm, that he make Everybody's Rockin and Trans (and a whole host of other stupid shit)...

Please do not lump Trans in with Everybody's Rockin. Trans was not stupid shit. Trans is beautiful.

only here wrote:if neil's a hippie, he tries hard not to show it.

He didn't try very hard on "Hippie Dream":

Take my advice
Don't listen to me
It ain't paradise
But it used to be
There was a time
When the river was wide
And the water
came running down
To the rising tide
But the wooden ships
Were just a hippie dream
Just a hippie dream.

Don't bat an eye
Don't waste a word
Don't mention nothin'
That could go unheard
'Cause the tie-dye sails
Are the screamin' sheets
And the dusty trail
Leads to blood
in the streets
And the wooden ships
Are a hippie dream
Capsized in excess
If you know what I mean.

Just because
it's over for you
Don't mean
it's over for me
It's a victory
for the heart
Every time
the music starts
So please
don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine
Don't kill the machine.

Another flower child
goes to seed
In an ether-filled
room of meat-hooks
It's so ugly
So ugly.

Hmmm...dissing Trans is a little unfair...just replace Trans with...hell, I dunno, would Are You Passionate? make you happy?

Minotaur029 wrote:Hmmm...dissing Trans is a little unfair...just replace Trans with...hell, I dunno, would Are You Passionate? make you happy?

I dont know Are You Passionate?, but Im perfectly willing to accept your lumping it in with Neil's "stupid shit." There are others that fit that description too.

Just not Trans.

great job, minotaur. you didn't make it any easier to choose, but that's the best separation i've read yet.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:

only here wrote:if neil's a hippie, he tries hard not to show it.

He didn't try very hard on "Hippie Dream"

fine. but that's an older song.
i just appreciate his independence and how he separated himself from the csny2k guys.

Fuckin' aye, you should read my Pearl Jam post! They suck! Everything's comin' up roses on the EA board for little old me today. My sleep schedule is in-tensely stew-pid lately.