Listening to Paintings

I'm reading Bob Dylan's autobiography. It's great. Here's a quote from a part where he's describing different performers.

"Most of the other performers tried to put themselves across, rather than the song, but I didn't care about doing that. With me it was about putting the song across."

I think that attitude is ideal. It's the polar opposite of the American Idol image that most performers go for in a lot of popular music. I hate American Idol, but I think the show is well named. Why is it that people generally laugh at karaoke, but take American Idol seriously? Because the American Idol contestants have cooler clothes.

What is the place for ego in art? A bass player once told me that if a frontman in a band has no ego, he's boring to watch. That might be true. That doesn't mean he's boring to listen to. A lot of people say that Dylan is boring to watch. Music is for listening, not for watching. Even MTV seemed to learn that, because MTV doesn't play music videos any more.