{"id":8982,"date":"2011-09-03T14:52:38","date_gmt":"2011-09-03T18:52:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8982"},"modified":"2011-09-03T19:00:36","modified_gmt":"2011-09-03T23:00:36","slug":"clearly-the-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/clearly-the-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Clearly The Best"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Clearly The Greatest, but "The Best?"<\/p><\/div>\n

(This was drafted before Mr. Mod\u2019s recent <\/a>Scarface<\/a><\/em> thread<\/a>. I didn\u2019t send it since I was concerned that it might be less than well defined. I doubt it could be as misinterpreted as Scarface<\/em>, but who knows. An RTHer grasp should exceed his reach\u2026)<\/p>\n[audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/2-01-Tell-Me-Momma.mp3|titles=Bob Dylan & The Hawks, “Tell Me Momma” – Manchester Trade Hall – May 1966]\n

I was thinking about and discussing with Townsman geo<\/strong> the topic of 1966 & prior Dylan<\/strong> and post-1966 Dylan<\/strong>. Now, there are varying opinions of how great post-1966 Dylan is (and that will be the gist of a future thread), but I think it\u2019s generally agreed that 1966 & prior Dylan is clearly the Best Dylan<\/strong>. Or if someone wants to disagree about \u201cclearly the best\u201d than perhaps we should say the \u201cconsensus best.\u201d<\/p>\n

This got me to thinking about other artists. Do any other artists have such a \u201cclearly the best\u201d portion of their career?<\/em> The clearest other example I can think of comes from outside rock. There\u2019s Columbia-era Sinatra, there\u2019s Capitol-era Sinatra, and there\u2019s Reprise-era Sinatra\u2014and you\u2019ll find little disagreement that Capitol-era Sinatra is the best.<\/p>\n

The Beatles are often broken down into Revolver<\/em> & prior and Sgt. Pepper<\/em> & after, but is there a consensus on which era is greater? Others?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s narrow things down a little though. An artist’s non\u2013 \u201cconsensus best\u201d period has to still be noteworthy (so if you want to opine on Brian Jones Stones vs. Mick Taylor Stones, that\u2019s fine but not pre- and post- Tattoo You<\/em>). And death can\u2019t be a demarcation (eg, pre- and post- death of Jimi Hendrix).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(This was drafted before Mr. Mod\u2019s recent Scarface thread. I didn\u2019t send it since I was concerned that it might be less than well defined. I doubt it could be as misinterpreted as Scarface, but who knows. An RTHer grasp should exceed his reach\u2026) [audio:http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/2-01-Tell-Me-Momma.mp3|titles=Bob Dylan & The Hawks, “Tell Me Momma” – Manchester Trade […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[54,510],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8982"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8982\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}