In a rare interveiw for the Wall Street Journal, Bob Dylan shares his thoughts on how technology might represent the end of civilization, the music he likes, as well as creativity - "When we’re inventing something, we’re more vulnerable than we’ll ever be. Eating and sleeping mean nothing. We’re in 'Splendid Isolation', like in the Warren Zevon song; the world of self, Georgia O’Keeffe alone in the desert. To be creative you’ve got to be unsociable and tight-assed. Not necessarily violent and ugly, just unfriendly and distracted. You’re self-sufficient and you stay focused".

Bob Dylan has sold the master rights to his entire recorded music catalog to Sony Music Entertainment, in a deal worth over $200 million, by Billboard estimate. In 2020, Dylan sold the publishing rights of his entire catalog to Universal Music Publishing in a deal that’s estimated to be worth over $300 million. Songs have two copyrights: recorded rights (which include master tracks) and publishing rights (which pertain to composition—i.e., music and lyrics). Rolling Stone puts it simply: “Recorded rights are tied more directly to streaming and sales royalties while publishing rights pertain more to performances and use in film and television”.

Boomer rock acts such as Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac and Paul Simon have made the biggest splash selling their music catalogs for 9-figure sums. Synchtank explores the possibility of catalogs of hip-hop artists reaching those levels. Trapital's Dan Runcie believes hip-hop catalogs are indeed undervalued and that the "music that came out from the mid-90s to mid-2010s will be especially popular with the Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z. Some investors may undervalue hip-hop because they identify more with Paul Simon than Paul Wall. Another group of investors will recognize the opportunity".

"There’s a vast array of different kinds of Dylan covers: R&B singers love relaxing into the contours of 'Lay Lady Lay'; country singers like his rootsy stuff; indie-rockers key into his sad side; heroic rock singers love scaling the peaks of open-ended classics - like 'It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue' or 'Like a Rolling Stone' - finding their own way to make new meanings amidst the intersecting, and often contradictory, emotions and ideas that can roil around within one Dylan song" - Rolling Stone writes introducing their selection of 80 best Bob Dylan covers, from Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez, and the Byrds to William Shatner, Adele, and the Roots.

The New Yorker is highlighting a selection of their pieces celebrating Bob Dylan's big birthday. "In 'The Crackin’, Shakin’, Breakin’ Sounds', from 1964, Nat Hentoff visits Dylan in the studio and catches the artist in the first stages of his meteoric recording career. ('Wiry, tense, and boyish, Dylan looks and acts like a fusion of Huck Finn and a young Woody Guthrie. Both onstage and off, he appears to be just barely able to contain his prodigious energy'). In 'The Wanderer', Alex Ross follows Dylan on the road during his Never Ending Tour, which has defined the most recent decades of his seminal performances ('It’s hard to pin down what he does: he is a composer and a performer at once, and his shows cause his songs to mutate, so that no definitive or ideal version exists. Dylan’s legacy will be the sum of thousands of performances, over many decades')".

Fiona Apple covers Sharon Van Etten’s 'Love More' for Van Etten's 'Ten' anniversary reissue, adding heartbeat drums and subtle piano to the song; Low cover Bob Dylan’s 'Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door' for the Uncut compilation 'Dylan Revisited'; The Black Keys share their version of 'Crawling Kingsnake' by Big Joe Williams, from their album of Mississippi hill country blues standards 'Delta Kream', out May 14.

The wife and the publishing company of Jacques Levy, who co-wrote 7 of 9 songs from Bob Dylan’s 1976 album 'Desire', are suing the songwriter for $7.25m, the New York Post reports. Levy estate's lawsuit claims that Dylan owes Levy’s family 35% of income from the songs he co-wrote for 'Desire' – 'Hurricane', 'Isis', 'Mozambique', 'Oh, Sister', 'Joey', 'Romance in Durango' and 'Black Diamond Bay'. Dylan’s has recently sold his songwriting catalogue to Universal Music for a reported $300m.

The big news about Bob Dylan selling his entire songwriting catalog to Universal (for somewhere in between $300 and $400 million), got a fresh perspective in the Rolling Stone - why did Universal buy it? It seems the major music companies feel they need to take a stand against upstarts like Hipgnosis Songs and Primary Wave, which have been spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying songwriters' catalogs. This big spending spree is likely to continue as "music rights become one of the most reliable growth assets of the pandemic era".

Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks sold 80% of her songwriting catalog for an estimated $80 million, Wall Street Journal reported. Ms. Nicks’ sale coincides with the recent buzz around 'Dreams' fueled by a viral TikTok video. To put this in perspective, pop-rock band Imagine Dragons sold their catalog for more than $100 million, while Bob Dylan sold his entire catalog for $300 million.

Bob Dylan has sold his entire songwriting catalogue to Universal Music for $300 million, according to the New York Times. The deal gives Universal the ownership of over 600 Dylan's songs spanning a period of almost six decades, starting with early classics such as ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, ‘The Times They Are A-Changing’ and ‘Like A Rolling Stone’, all the way through to 2020’s ‘Rough and Rowdy Ways’. The deal means that Universal now controls one of the most celebrated back catalogues in history, and does not have to share future revenues with any other songwriters.Let's hope

A long-lost trove of Bob Dylan papers - privately held by the late American blues artist and a longtime Dylan friend and confidante Tony Glover - has sold at auction for a total of $495,000. Majority of the key pieces went to a bidder whose identity was not made public, Boston.com reports. The collection included transcripts of Glover’s 1971 interviews with Dylan and letters the pair exchanged. The interviews reveal that Dylan had anti-Semitism on his mind when he changed his name from Robert Zimmerman, and that he wrote 'Lay Lady Lay' for Barbra Streisand.

Lil Baby's 'My Turn' sits in the top spot of the Billboard 200 for the fourth week of 2020, with 70,000 in sales, Billboard reports. In the runner-up spot is Bob Dylan's 'Rough and Rowdy Ways', which scored him the highest spot that he's gotten to in more than a decade; it sold in 53,000 equivalent albums, most of which came from traditional album sales. Dylan has now become the first artist with a US Top 40 album in every decade since the 1960s. Teyana Taylor achieves her first top 10 album, as 'The Album' bows at No. 8 with 32,000 equivalent album units earned.

"An artist who’s quite literally said nothing new for the last eight years, he suddenly turned very loquacious indeed, unleashing a series of dense, allusive tracks packed with thorny references to art, literature and pop culture" - Guardian's Alexis Petridis wrote in a review of folk great's new album. "'Rough and Rowdy Ways' might well be Bob Dylan’s most consistently brilliant set of songs in years: the die-hards can spend months unravelling the knottier lyrics, but you don’t need a PhD in Dylanology to appreciate its singular quality and power". NME's Mark Beaumont is equally impressed: "Arguably his grandest poetic statement yet, a sweeping panorama of culture, history and philosophy peering back through assassinations, world wars, the births of nations, crusades and Biblical myths in order to plot his place in the great eternal scheme". In a rare recent interview in the New York Times Dylan said his songs "seem to know themselves and they know that I can sing them, vocally and rhythmically. They kind of write themselves and count on me to sing them".

Bob Dylan at midnight released his new track 'False Prophet' and announced a new album 'Rough And Rowdy Ways', due out next month. The song itself is a slow blues number which explores the dark side, with lyrics such as: “I’m no false prophet, I just said what I said/ I’m just here to bring vengeance on somebody’s head”. The two songs Dylan released this spring - 'Murder Most Foul' about the J.F.K. assassination, and 'I Contain Multitudes' will also be on the forthcoming album.

Bob Dylan's original manuscripts for 'The Times They Are A-Changin', 'Lay Lady Lay' and 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' are currently in the hands of a memorabilia company, and fans are now being offered the chance to bid for the handwritten lyrics, Rolling Stone reports. 'The Times They Are A-Changin' is listed for a record high asking price of $2.2 million, 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' is listed for $1.2 million, and 'Lay Lady Lay' is the least expensive of the three items, as it's listed for $650,000. The auction also includes photos of the handwritten pages, which show where Dylan made amendments to his original song lyrics.

"Perhaps there is some wisdom in treating all songs, or for that matter, all experiences, with a certain care and reverence, as if encountering these things for the last time" - Nick Cave told his fans on his Red Hand Files blog. Specifically, he was answering fans' questions about the newest Bob Dylan song 'Murder Most Foul' - "I say this not just in the light of the novel coronavirus, rather that it is an eloquent way to lead one’s life and to appreciate the here and now, by savouring it as if it were for the last time. To have a drink with a friend as if it were the last time, to eat with your family as it were the last time, to read to your child as if it were the last time, or indeed, to sit in the kitchen listening to a new Bob Dylan song as if it were the last time. It permeates all that we do with greater meaning, placing us within the present, our uncertain future, temporarily arrested".

"This is an unreleased song we recorded a while back that you might find interesting. Stay safe, stay observant and may God be with you" - Bob Dylan said on his YouTube channel presenting 'Murder Most Foul', a song about J.F. Kennedy's murder. Watch below.

Timothée Chalamet will play Bob Dylan in a new music biopic 'Going Electric', directed by James Mangold ('Ford v. Ferrari' is now in cinemas), about Dylan's controversial 1965 performance at the Newport Music Festival where he went from acoustic to electric. Hollywood Reporter writes that Dylan is working closely with Mangold on the docu-movie, singer-songwriter's […]

Bob Dylan wrote 'Wanted Man' for Johnny Cash to sing, in 1969 the two sang it together, and later it became a hit for the country star. The 1969 unreleased demo version is coming out November 1 on the 15th installment of Dylan's 'Bootleg Series', Stereogum reports. Listen to that demo below; June Carter Cash […]

A session Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash recorded in Nashville in 1969 is set for release in the 15th installment of Dylan’s Bootleg Series, Rolling Stone reports. The 3xCD set 'Travelin’ Thru, 1967 – 1969: The Bootleg Series Vol. 15' compiles their session where they laid down 'Girl From the North Country', jammed with Carl […]

PopMatters has an interesting article where they compare albums 'Blood on the Tracks' by Bob Dylan and 'IGOR' by Tyler the Creator, as the tipping points in each of artist's careers. As PM says: "Breakup albums have a rare power; they mark the moment when an image-conscious artist is suddenly compelled to let his guard […]

"This is all so gripping, both as a time capsule and as a showcase for Dylan’s unique presence and glorious performances from Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell and also from Patti Smith" - the Guardian reviews new Martin Scorsese's documentary about Bob Dylan 'Rolling Thunder Revue' (5 of 5 stars). "This is an immersive experience, like […]

“Part documentary, part concert film, part fever dream” - Netflix describes their new Bob Dylan documentary 'Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story', coming to the service June 12. It's directed by Martin Scorsese, his second Dylan documentary, following the 2005 'No Direction Home'. Dylan gave a rare interview for 'Rolling Thunder Revue', and the doc […]

Filmmaker and photographer Jerry Schatzberg published a handsome new photography book, 'Dylan By Schatzberg', which inspired Stereogum to reach out to a number of photographers who have worked with Dylan over the years to ask for the stories behind the images, from the iconic blurry one, to the unusual one where Dylan is - a-smiling...