Dan Bern: Classic or Dud

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Bob Dylan wannabee or folk music's new hope?

― rat, Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

dud...deadly annoying.

― mike (ro)bott, Thursday, 18 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

He does kind've mug for attention, doesn't he? The clever songs get old fast, too.

― Dan I., Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"He's the new Bob Dylan." --an executive at Bern's label's parent company, with a straight face, during a conversation in 1996, after I asked him whether the Dan Bern album wasn't, you know, kinda blah

― John Darnielle, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No no, John, you misheard, he must've said "He's the new Dylans!"

― Sean Carruthers, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

John's story pleases my heart. Bern is crapulous.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Though that song about grunge was kinda clever, at the time, at least...

― Prude, Friday, 19 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

six months pass...

Dan is one of the most clever writers today. He is the best there is.

― Bluejay, Sunday, 2 February 2003 21:06 (twenty-three years ago)

That'd be great if "clever" meant "good". More often than not it means the exact opposite.

In college I knew a lot of people who owned Dan Bern's Fifty Eggs, so I was subjected to it a lot. It had a pushy, stand-up-comedy-style sense of humor that seemed at odds with its earnest coffeehouse-folk feel. Take a look at Fifty Eggs' track listing: "Tiger Woods" , "Chick Singers", "Cure For AIDS", "Monica" (which is about Monica Seles getting stabbed by her stalker). Sounds like a track listing from a standup comedy album, doesn't it?

― Nick Mirov (nick), Sunday, 2 February 2003 23:52 (twenty-three years ago)

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