Updated 3:44 AM ET, Mon May 24, 2021
Bob Dylan, one of the most influential singers and songwriters of his generation, celebrates his 80th birthday on Monday, May 24.
Dylan has sold more than 125 million records during his career, which has lasted nearly 60 years, and he’s still performing today. Some of his most famous songs include “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Like a Rolling Stone” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
In 2008, Dylan won a Pulitzer Prize special citation for “his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power.” In 2016, Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for “having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.”
In December, Dylan sold his entire catalog of songs — more than 600 — to the Universal Music Publishing Group. The New York Times estimated the deal to be worth more than $300 million.
“It’s no secret that the art of songwriting is the fundamental key to all great music, nor is it a secret that Bob is one of the very greatest practitioners of that art,” said Sir Lucian Grainge, the CEO of Universal Music Group. “Brilliant and moving, inspiring and beautiful, insightful and provocative, his songs are timeless — whether they were written more than half a century ago or yesterday.”