Bloody Good News: Bob Dylan Sells (Out?)

Not long ago, we got word of a massive, and massively unexpected, development in the world of classic music. While a major trend in the last couple of years has been investors buying up the rights to music catalogs, it was nonetheless shocking to hear that Bob Dylan had agreed to sell his life's work. It was not surprising the number he was able to receive, reportedly between $200-400 million, but Dylan seemed like one of the last people who would ever succumb to the urge to commercialize his music.

Dylan's history has always been that of someone doing his own thing, regardless of the impact it would have on his career. He went electric when it was still a radical thing for a folk player. He went born-again Christian when that was certainly not a 'cool' thing to do. He recorded albums of himself singing classic standards when his voice was beyond shot, and the results are only viewed more favorably than "Danzig Sings Elvis" because he's not as much of an unpersonable grouch.

The deal means two things to me. 1)Someone thinks there's a lot more commercial use for Dylan's music than I do, and 2)This could mean the end of Bob Dylan.

Let me start with that first point. Bob Dylan's music has always had its uses in tv, film, and commercials, but we're about to be inundated by it. You don't buy the rights to music without exploiting them for every penny you can generate. Dylan's music isn't going to be selling or streaming enough to justify the hundreds of millions spent on them, which means licensing is where they think the real money is going to be made. So the rest of us are going to be faced with a wave of Dylan soundtracked pleas for our money, whether that's a Levi's commercial telling us we're "Tangled Up In Blue (Jeans)" or something else equally face-palm inducing.

Bob Dylan is not cool, and is especially uncool to the demographic advertisers are aiming at. Most don't know who Dylan is, let alone know his songs without being prompted, so I'm not sure where these people think his songs are going to help sell products. The best commercial uses of music marry a product to an anthem, where you can't separate the selling from the song. I don't see how you can do that with Dylan's music, which doesn't feature those kinds of earworms or massive anthems.

The other thing that I immediately thought was that this could be the end of Bob Dylan's career. I heard someone else speculating that the sale of these songs could signal Dylan preparing his estate for his eventual death, and that only makes sense if this is the end. From both sides, the deal makes the most sense if Dylan's catalog is now complete. If there are more songs to come, either this deal is projecting the future, or it doesn't include any music that has to be written. If it's the former, it's too much money to be throwing around on a guess as to Dylan's future productivity, and if it's the latter, Dylan isn't making anything easier on himself.

But what interests me most might be this; what does it mean to sell your life's work? Mine is worth precisely nothing, so it's not a question I will ever have to face, but I do find it fascinating for someone who has poured so much of themselves into their music to turn it into money and lose control over how it is used. In both a literal and figurative sense, the music no longer belongs to an artist when they take this step, and I'm not sure I understand how you come to that decision. There are people who make art because they are artists, and people who make art to make a living. There is overlap, but the process tends to lean one direction or the other. Dylan always struck me as an artist's artist, and now to give up that identity for a payday is quite the riddle. I won't be able to answer it here, but it's something we will have to think about moving forward, because the echoes of this deal will reverberate for years.