Bob Dylan was a poet, not musician. He wrote great lyrics, but did not have a shred of musical talent to make them into proper songs. That's why all his songs only became hits after someone else covered them.

For reference check this: https://youtu.be/jzgLavD4vD4 vs this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SFDOSIecALU

People at the time disagreed with your assessment.

> September 29, 1961 / 20-Year-Old Singer Is Bright New Face at Gerde’s Club / By ROBERT SHELTON / https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/05/04/r...

> Resembling a cross between a choir boy and a beatnik, Mr. Dylan has a cherubic look and a mop of tousled hair he partly covers with a Huck Finn black corduroy cap. His clothes may need a bit of tailoring, but when he works his guitar, harmonica or piano and composes new songs faster than he can remember them, there is no doubt that he is bursting at the seams with talent.

To be absolutely clear, more people preferred Dylan's songs as a cover because, from that same 1961 review, "Mr. Dylan’s voice is anything but pretty. He is consciously trying to recapture the rude beauty of a Southern field hand musing in melody on his porch. All the “husk and bark” are left on his notes and a searing intensity pervades his songs." Or from his Wikipedia entry: 'Many early songs reached the public through more palatable versions by other performers, such as Joan Baez'

That you don't recognize it as talent seems therefore more a matter of personal taste. That same review ends with "But if not for every taste, his music-making has the mark of originality and inspiration, all the more noteworthy for his youth."

Your reference is to a 2016 recording of 'All Along the Watchtower'?? Surely you should juxtapose Dylan's performance with that of Hendrix, recorded only 6 months later than Dylan's.

But even then, when I think of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "The Times They Are a-Changin'", I think of Dylan, not The Byrds or another cover.

In any case, the comparison seems rather pointless. I like Disturbed's cover of "The Sound of Silence" better than the original. That doesn't mean Simon and Garfunkel didn't have a shred of musical talent.

>> Bob Dylan was a poet, not musician. He wrote great lyrics, but did not have a shred of musical talent to make them into proper songs.

Bob Dylan couldn’t make proper songs. That’s enough HN for me today.

I don’t think it’s a ridiculous point, especially taken with the other elements mentioned. There wouldn’t be that much to the artists you mentioned if their lyrics were also banal, and they were deemed artificial or derivative. It’s a good idea to rely on a constraint of simplicity in some aspects, it’s just a problem when applied to everything at once.