Elvis, the Beatles, and Dylan Allison Veire
The music of Bob Dylan as compared to Elvis and the Beatles is vastly different. And these differences are not only present in the musical content but also in the way the musician is viewed by their fans. Listening to Bob Dylan you hear more that just music, its poetry, and that is exactly how his fans react to him. He is speaking to their intellectual soul. Whereas the music played by the Beatles and Elvis speaks of love and casual relations. It predominantly speaks to the sexual desires of their young fan base. But no matter what aspect of the soul the music targets it is all about individuality.
Bob Dylan’s songs inspired a generation to think individually. He took this genre of music and turned it into something that spoke to people’s conscious minds. It seemed to stir many new views on life. The article by Bloom has a passage that says, “music is the medium of the human soul in it’s most ecstatic condition of wonder and terror.� This idea of wonder and terror that was instilled in Bob Dylan’s music is what made it so great. It’s the type of music that makes you think and puts everything in a new perspective.
The music of the Beatles and Elvis seemed to spark a revolution of rebellion upon the pure ways of the past. It played on the sexual desires of the young that had never been unleashed. That idea I think is what made it so revolutionary, the fact that something like this had never been experienced with such a force before in that generation. Bloom says, “rock music has one appeal only, a barbaric appeal, to sexual desire.�
So how do these two completely different genres co-exist together? Altogether I think it created a whole new way of thinking not only out of desire but out of wonder.