A Road Less Traveled? It should be.

by Ken Gabütner
(Page 2)

Musical ignorance is not something you admit easily. "Oh, Dylan...He's great! Big fan of Dylan's" That's what I'd say to some true Dylan fan, because I couldn't take the ridicule of "You can't repeat every song he's ever written backwards in French? Whatta you live in a cave?!"

So into my hands slips Highway 61 Interactive. This is my big chance. Get to know the music. The history. See his significance relative to those around him at any time in his career. You know, catch up a little. Become a touch more hip. And I don't have to admit to anyone that I am totally clueless. I can sit there and bask in the afterglow of an interactive jaunt through rock history. I can get a first-hand look and listen to this legend right in the comfort of my under-oxygenated corporate-hell office.

The experience starts off well enough. A collage of items which presumably leads me to the hip-cool promised land. A click here and there reveal some unique navigational tools such as the fret-board scroll bar. Pretty cool.

Once beyond the pretty face though, the soul of Highway 61 is violently severed from its subject matter. What I really want to do is find a list of the songs and hear snippets. After about 20 minutes, I finally stumble upon all of the titles (they are behind the guitar.) I start scrolling down an alphabetical list of rock history and recognize a few titles. (You know, songs like "House of the Rising Sun.") I click on what I assume is an obscure title to see if I've ever heard it...guess what...no sound. Perhaps they couldn't get the rights. BZZZZZ. Wrong Answer. Click after click in the guitar area left me bitter, despite the slick graphics. Actually, that kinda bugs me too. Everything in the disk is so slick. I mean, isn't Dylan this roll-in-the-ashes and barf-on-the-cat sort of rock star? Shouldn't the guitar be full of gashes and slashes? Shouldn't the song titles be written on crumpled napkins?

Whatever. I'll find some better stuff in the "Village." The blurb on the box boasts of the interactive jaunt I can take through Dylan's Greenwich Village. I click on the arch that represents Washington Square Park and am confronted with a beautifully rendered representation of what it must have been like back then, complete with VW bus and texture-mapped New York grime. The street is strangely vacant...perhaps a nuclear bomb was detonated in the area a few days before. I would have thought I'd have been taught that one in U.S. history in the 3rd grade. Wouldn't Dylan have written a touching protest song about such a bombing? Is it me or wouldn't it be a hell of a lot more interesting to see a grainy B&W photo from the REAL Greenwich Village?