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14/06/2006
Dylan - Best Living Songwriter
Readers of The Dylan Daily knew it years ago, but the Mighty Zim has just been acclaimed Best Living Songwriter - by Paste, the American Dadrock magazine.
The beautiful Blonde On Blonde-era Dylan cover portrait makes the June/July 2006 issue (no. 22) of Paste a must-have for Dylan collectors.
The magazine asked fifty journalists/musos/"experts" to name the top living songwriters, and aggregated the results into a top 100, placing Dylan at the top of the heap. Dylan contemporaries also making the cut include Neil Young (2), Leonard Cohen (6), Joni Mitchell (9), Jagger/Richards (12) and Van Morrison (20).
Most of the other 90-odd songwriters are instantly forgettable, though, underlining the unpalatable truth that, post-Dylan, the armies of semi-literates who picked up a guitar are demonstrably inferior to the generation of writers they supplanted, those who supplied Sinatra and Ella with their vast, rich catalogues.
The laughably low ranking of Morrissey (57!) gives the game away – this is a survey of middle-aged adolescents, rockist white boys, whose listening habits favour ever-so-gentle, inoffensive troubadours strumming acoustic guitars - aka Ye Olde Farte Tasteful Heritage Rocke. (From which, Oh Lord, please preserve us.)
The beautifully designed Paste, published every two months from Georgia, USA, is available in the UK from Borders - the best retailer for music mags, by a country mile.
www.pastemagazine.com
Gerry Smith
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