Oh Mercy! Did I just see Bob Dylan selling cars in a Super Bowl commercial?

I think the whole concept of a musician "selling out" is absurd. It's a business. Dylan's still the best for me, always has been and always will be.

 

I think the advert is appalling, and Dylan is an embarrassment. Worst thing he's ever done.

 

"Judas!!!"

 

I said it on Twitter and I'll say it here.....no matter how you feel about the Dylan ad he's given us more than many people will in two lifetimes.
Dylan owes us nothing! If he wants to shill for a car company, fine. I saw the ad as a comment for the way America used to be when we had manufacturing and pride in this Country. I, for one, am grateful he's still here.

 

Well said.

 

Greatest audience response ever!!

 

Hey, I didn't say that!

 

This comes at a funny time, a week or so after reading that article somebody posted about Dylan's mystique and how hard it is to get to interview him, etc. The thing that struck me was, here's a guy who barely talks to his audience when they come to see him at a show, who is famously elusive to interviewers. There's a twisted duality going on there and that's the main reason I found the ad very offensive to me personally. A guy so choosy about when he talks decides he wants to talk about this ?!?

 

I don't care what Bob Dylan does although seeing him become a car salesman did nothing to increase his credibility with me. More than that though, I am getting worn out with all the "message" commercials and this one was just another in a bunch of heavy-handed emo-messages designed to appear more important than they really are. The exploitation of our military personnel, for example, was more appalling than anything during yesterday's broadcast. This batch of super bowl commercials was so depressing I actually watched "New Girl" after the game just to clear my head of four hours of generally unpleasant TV viewing which, to circle back, included Dylan's Chrysler commercial. For me, the one bright spot in yesterday's telecast was Bruno Mars' performance.

 

Or just a ploy for getting out from under pensions. That's all I'm saying.

 

Yes he did but it was Chevy and Bob Seger took the mega bucks instead.

 

I think it was great. But I value each little snippet of Dylan we get to see. I don't really buy into the selling out thing. As soon as you decide you want to sell a record, and then do, you're a sell-out, by the standards some people seem to hold.

I saw it as a bit of a call for a certain type of American exceptionalist thinking. Harking back to another era, pertinent because he's from the midwest anyway. As for how he looked...does anyone really know what he looks like now, outside of people on here and fans? He played Newport in 2002 in a long-haired wig, and at least in Britain he made headlines for the gig (anniversary of going electric blah-blah-blah) but no one mentioned that he didn't usually have perfectly straight, long hair. I don't think the public knows. And I for one am all up for Dylan ****ing with us as much as he can. I think his sense of humour is great (Victoria's Secret ad 40 years after saying he'd advertise for ladies under-garments one day - I laughed so hard when I heard about the appearance, having heard the interview some time ago).

 

God bless Bob Dylan.............

 

I seem to recall you posting a whole bunch of times about your contempt for Dylan in another recent thread related to the man (Edit: the one about the article you cite, iirc). I bet he'd be very upset to know he's let you down.

 

Mahershalalhashbaz!!!

 

Allow me to throw a hypothetical curveball: remember how Michael Jackson always wore a mask or covered his face and we didn't know exactly why? Now I haven't read the recent thread about Dylan keeping an enforced distance from people, whether fans or interviewers, but it all adds up that he underwent face work with attendant hair coloring to change his appearance, not for a commercial, for himself, certainly for his public self. And what better way to reveal one's new self than a commercial during the biggest national TV event of each year? Already, less than a full day later, the image has been accepted. It's no longer being discussed in this very thread.

 

I don't have contempt for Dylan. I'd put him in my 35 or so greatest artists of all time. but posts like yours do seem to verify this idea I have that for some of his diehard fans, he can literally do nothing that could come into question.

 

A defense of Dylan: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-03/bob-dylan-didn-t-sell-out-to-sell-chryslers.html

 

I know it's hypothetical...but are you suggesting, hypothetically, that this has happened in the last couple of months since the end of the Euro tour in November? Because he looked like usual then. He always gets photoshopped to oblivion in Rolling Stone magazine etc. I think it's just effects to capitalise on making him look like Bob of old, that was present in the tiny archival snippets, in case inattentive viewers (of which, given the size of the audience, there must have been many) could not work out that he was in fact the same man as in those clips. I bet there are still people trying to work out who it was, telling them to buy a car from America.

 

I was happy not to see "Low T" and endless lawyer commercials. I'll take cars any day.

 

I can name a half-dozen or so albums of his that I don't think are so hot, but you are correct that I don't question his choice (or that of any other artist) to take a commercial job, or give as much of himself to the public as posts like yours seem to suggest he owes.

 

No, he wanted to be sure he wasn't seen as overrated.

 

There's a lot of guys who still seem to believe that you have to be starving and living off ex-girlfriends and free buffets at happy hour in order to be considered a real "artist"....

 

none of which describes 2014 bob dylan.

 

Which is why the disgruntled are upset that he dared appear in a commercial.