The Answer, My Friend, Is … 37% Have No Opinion of Bob Dylan
The times indeed are a-changin’. Bob Dylan, the iconic American singer-songwriter of the 1960s, is now virtually unknown to more than one-in-three adults in this country.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 39% of American Adults have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of Dylan who turned 70 last week, while 24% view him at least somewhat unfavorably. This includes 10% with a Very Favorable opinion and seven percent (7%) with a Very Unfavorable one.
But 37% don’t know enough about the author of anthems like “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Like A Rolling Stone” to voice any kind of opinion of him at all. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
By contrast, 64% of adults have a favorable opinion of the legendary ‘60s rock band The Beatles. Only 20% view the British foursome unfavorably. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure about them.
Just 11% of Americans regard Dylan as the most influential U.S. songwriter of the second half of the 20th Century. Fifty-four percent (54%) disagree and say he is not. Thirty-five percent (35%) are not sure.
Still, one-in-five (19%) say they own at least one Dylan album. Seventy-five percent (75%) do not.
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The national survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted on May 26-27, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
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