Bob Dylan Brands Music Industry "Hypocritical Rubbish"

Legendary rocker Bob Dylan has launched a scathing attack on the music industry, calling it "hypocritical rubbish."

The 'Like a Rolling Stone' hitmaker, 67, said he preferred the art and book industries, which he described as more "dignified."

He told Britain's The Times newspaper, "The music world's a made-up bunch of hypocritical rubbish. I know that the book people are a whole lot saner.

"And the art world? From the small steps I've taken in it, I'd say, yeah, the people are honest, upfront and deliver what they say.

"Basically, they are who they say they are. They don't pretend. And having been in the music world most of my life I can tell you it's not that way.

"Let's just say it's less dignified."

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BEA Dispatch: Art Spiegelman Calls Out Contemporary Comics

Spiegelman and City Lights Bookstore's Paul Yamazaki Friday nightPhoto: Boris Kachka
Sure, Barbara Walters and Arianna Huffington were in attendance at Knopf's big Book Expo dinner Friday night in L.A., but our big score was sitting next to Art Spiegelman, who'd requested a seat at the end of the table so he could easily run out for smoke breaks. "They told me I would live longer if I quit," he said, "and it's true, the year and a half I didn't smoke was the longest part of my life." What concerns him most these days is his son, a junior at St. Anns, who joined Spiegelman and his wife to visit colleges on the West Coast. With admission rates at a record low, "I feel for him," he said. "He's anxious, and I don't make him feel any better by saying, 'I was a college dropout, it all works out.'"

Soon enough, the conversation moved outside, where, as cars whizzed by on Melrose, Spiegelman expressed his puzzlement with L.A. and waxed nostalgic for the old Soho (where he still lives), but copped to abetting its gentrification with a secretly ad-driven map of the neighborhood he'd started with his wife, thereby financing Raw. So modern Soho dismays him. What about modern comics, a.k.a. graphic novels?



"I wanted this Faustian deal to get struck," he said. "I thought, 'This would be good if comics were in bookstores and you could find them without blushing,' but like with most publishing, it moves in waves and fads. Every publisher wants to have one, but they haven't a clue as to what a good one or a bad one might be." He's reading a lot of manga, he says, but FSG's new graphic versions of historical events — the 9/11 Report, the life of Muhammad Ali — "are not very good. They remind me of certain comics I had in a separate corner of my comic library, which were like My Friend Wheat. You're supposed to learn something. They have pictures, they have text, but they don't have that beat." —Boris Kachka

Leona Lewis receives 55 million hits on YouTube

London (ANI): British singer Leona Lewis has made an amazing comeback by making her mark on YouTube - with more than 55 million hits. Lewis was one of the X Factor winners and she has conquered the music scene on the video site with millions of hits. Her promo for her hit single Bleeding Love entered the site"s top ten most viewed videos of all time. The singer is said to be the only British artist to make it anywhere near the top ten, and at the last count, the No1 single has been watched by more than 55 million people, reports The Sun. She is at the moment in the sixth place, but she is fast catching up to Timbaland, who is featuring One Republic's Apologise video, which has been eyeballed by 56 million.