Bob Dylan

If Blonde on Blonde and All Along the Watchtower mean something to you, you've heard of Bob Dylan. Without Dylan, popular music might lack the heart seen and heard today. Treating songwriting like a church confessional, he was the first singer and songwriter to utilise songwriting as a means to bring thoughts to light in a stream-of-consciousness format. Additionally, Bob Dylan's success introduced the idea that a singer's voice does not necessarily need to be in tune, pleasant, or even melodious. Born Robert Zimmerman, he changed his name to Dylan to pay homage to the famed poet, Dylan Thomas. His early musical was rock-n-roll based, but when he moved to New York City's Greenwich Village, Dylan fell in with the folk music movement and mellowed out his tunes. His first record was mostly covers of other successful songs, but his second album, ‘The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan’, was entirely original, and marked the beginning of a prolific songwriting career. His songs were covered by many established artists including Peter, Paul, and Mary. It was his professional following that catapulted him into mainstream radio and media. He inspired artists like ‘The Beatles’, who credited Dylan with their songwriting style shift during the mid-1960s. While Dylan's career has ebbed and flowed throughout the years, he remains an ever-present fixture in households the world over. One can find a Bob Dylan poster in the flats of university students and those who lived through the folk movements themselves. His songs are timeless: protest songs written for Woodstock in the 1960s still ring true for subsequent generations struggling with political and social conflict in their own time. Bob Dylan stamps can also be purchased from several countries, which shows the impact he has made on the world at large.