Not so much like a rolling stone on his own and a complete unknown, Bob Dylan has gathered some online moss at MySpace, with a complete user profile inviting fans and visitors to join his mailing list, listen to a few classic clips, and pre-order his new album. Dylan is one of many artists — or books, movies, TV shows — to start up a MySpace page, though query whether he has any actual involvement given that the content is completely corporate (see above - it's kind of hilarious that the first real quote on the site is from a suit). Dylan's new album drops on Aug. 29th, with ten new songs, and, as Columbia Records Chairman Steve Barnett points out on the MySpace page, "A new Bob Dylan record is an event." (No Luddite he, Dylan has also teamed up with iTunes for the album presale.)
Unlike some scary people on MySpace, Dylan doesn't claim to be some 16-year-old, but cops to being 66 and from Hibbing, Minnesota, so he hasn't forgotten his roots, man (weirdly, the WTC movie self-IDs as a 19-year-old male). The page, which dates to November 2005, loads to the strains of "Mr. Tambourine Man" which is kind of ironic since it was actually popularized (and more popular in its time) by The Byrds. To everything, turn, turn, turn.
Notwithstanding the foregoing, Dylan's MySpace tagline is "Like a rolling stone...." which presumably means that he can still answer the question "how does it feel?" He can at least answer the question "How does it feel to be friends with Journey, Simon & Garfunkel and Jefferson Airplane?" who are all featured in his network. Creepily, he's also "friends" with John Denver and Stevie Ray Vaughn
(and it's really kind of unseemly that the pages offer a link to their "latest blog entry"). Coincidentally, Dylan's "friends" all link back to an outfit by the name of Legacy Recordings. Probably less coincidentally, Journey's tagline is "Don't stop believin'". Oh, Legacy Recordings, we never will.
Not at all ironically, Dylan's new album is called "Modern Times."
Hat tip: Best Week Ever.
