Why the love?

With the Cars on tour again behind their new album, Bob Seger touring, and Bob Dylan celebrating 70, this seems like a propitious time to admit the following: I don't get any of these folks. It's not that I dismiss them - after all, they all had a lot of hits. It's not like I hate them. I just don't understand how or why they are so popular.

Look, I'm not a Van Halen fan, but I admit I paid attention to them. They were loud, crass, occasionally fun, and good copy, especially with Diamond Dave. They rocked, they had some great riffs ("Jump" jumps readily to mind), Eddie could really play till he became a caricature of himself. Ditto Duran Duran. Rio was the best album Spandau Ballet never made, replete with hooks, sleekness, and pretty boys and girls for the MTV era. Def Leppard was a joke, but "Photograph" still gets it.

But these three artists I just could never embrace, or understand the appeal of. Start with the Cars. They had hits with hooks, but did anybody really miss them while they were gone? Live they sound just like the album. Ric Ocasek could be replaced by a cardboard cutout and no one would know.*

     *I saw the Turtles on one of the very first oldies package tours back in
     the summer of '84, and they had lifesize cardboard cutouts of
     themselves onstage alongside the real thing. It was hysterical, and
     they were great. And big Tigers fans, as Mark Volman noted, saying
     "We put a bunch of money down on the Tigers in Vegas at the
     beginning of the year, and Sparky's making us look pretty good."

With the loss of bassist Ben Orr, their one claim to charisma, the Cars are sputtering, at least according to the majority of reviews. They didn't even replace him, but have Greg Hawkes playing synth bass. A smarter way to go would have been to have someone else step in on bass, maybe Kasim Sulton from the Todd Rundgren-led New Cars. But he oozes charisma, and would certainly have overshadowed Ocasek, so that was a no-go.

Then there's Dylan. The songwriter. Granddaddy of protest songs. The man who plugged in folk.

Who cares. The guy can't sing. Never could. That whiny nasal twang was always enough to send anyone with an ear for tunefulness running for the volume control, if not the power switch. I've always been totally baffled by his deification. Of all the acts bridging folk and rock, he was the least melodic, the least musical, the least. Period. Give me the Everly Brothers or Simon and Garfunkel or Pete Seeger or anybody at all. "Like a Rolling Stone," "The Times, They Are A-Changin'," "Tangled Up in Blue" - I've heard better wheezing.

The All Music Guide says "His best albums became undisputed classics of the rock and roll canon." Not at my house they didn't. I'm proud to say I've never had a Dylan album and I never will.

Then there's Bob Seger, the ramblin' gamblin' man. Hey, I actually liked that song. But that was it. His Americana rock and roll left me cold. If that's your style, then how about a shout-out to Springsteen, or Mellencamp, or Southside. If you want to go to the roots of Detroit rock, then Mitch Ryder. Or if you just want rootsy, the Blasters. Yeah, the Blasters. Now there's a band that rocks, with visual imagery second to none ("Long White Cadillac" or "Trouble Bound" for example), and in Steve Berlin and Lee Allen, two saxists who could both cut Alto Reed.

While I'm at it, take the Grateful Dead. Please. Their legendary open-ended jams were fine for the drug-addled, but those interested in melody, or instrumental proficiency, or tuneful, soulful singing were simply out of luck. Dave Marsh once famously called them the worst band in the world, and he was right.