It’s started. Well, I guess it started some time ago, but now it’s not just anonymous message-board scribblers but people who write on at least a semi-professional basis who are finding ways to put down Bob Dylan and his forthcoming album, Christmas In The Heart. This guy reacts to the news of the Citibank promotional tie-in by saying:

That’s right, the singer who once waged poetical war on a generation through political protest songs (and hawked lingerie for Victoria Secret) is teaming up with Citibank for the release and promotion of Christmas in the Heart.

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Part of me is appalled at the corporate tie-in, but seeing as Christmas has become a completely corporate holiday, I guess this all makes sense. I suspect we’ll see the record on billboards and in our local Starbucks in due time. Ultimately, even though it’s been ages since I’ve enjoyed a latter-day Dylan album, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed in the singer, and dirty overall, despite Dylan’s intent to donate proceeds to hunger relief charities. The jury’s still out, but I have an inkling that Christmas in the Heart will be the most epic trainwreck of 2009.

Dylan “waged war on a generation through political protest songs”? Well, I already addressed that kind of lazy thinking and sloppy writing in the post previous to this one. And how exactly would Christmas In The Heart be a “trainwreck” anyway? It’s not a film that cost 200 million dollars to make. It’s just an album: it will sell or it won’t — big deal. (Myself, I think it will sell quite well.)

The money quote here is how the writer feels “disappointed” in Dylan and also feels “dirty overall.” Now, one may not like Christmas songs, or the concept of Bob Dylan singing them, but it’s worth pausing to reflect for a moment on how and why it would make someone feel dirty, and the ease with which such a statement is made.

But at least the reference to feeling dirty provides a neat segue to the next Dylan-basher: Perez Hilton, the gossip writer and self-proclaimed “Queen of All Media.” Also inspired by the Christmas in the Heart tie-in with Citigroup, Hilton says:

He’s certainly more corporate than the olden days!

Bob Dylan made a surprise announcement that he would be releasing a Christmas album next month called Christmas In The Heart.

What’s even more unbelievable is that there is a major corporate tie in to the album … from a bank!

He scrawls “I love $$” on a photo of Bob. Perez makes himself all too easy to squash, of-course, since he’s missing the glaring fact that Bob Dylan is donating his royalties on this to charity.

But one is reminded that one of the charges leveled at Dylan after Slow Train Coming was (absurdly) that he was just pursuing record sales.

It’s funny, huh? Singing about his faith thirty years ago, singing about Christmas now; some of those who don’t dig it are unable to just let it go by. Some — and I mean in particular some in the media — feel the need to meanly denigrate it or to ascribe ulterior motives to Dylan. It would be disturbing to think he’s doing it from his heart. It’s comforting instead to believe he’s just pursuing lucre.

Mighty interesting.

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