@Misty I'm not sure Michael Jackson beats out Bowie and Prince in terms of musical influence. That's debatable at best. I genuinely don't think Bob Dylan is a cut above those two at all, and his way after the fact Nobel Prize doesn't change that. If you want to talk about 60s important musicians then Dylan pales in comparison to Paul McCartney who in 5 short years changed music forever. If you want to say Dylan was more of a political influence than the other ones then that's certainly true but musically, no.
I think it's a bit much to call Bob Dylan the voice of a generation. When I think of voice of a generation I think of Martin Luther King, not Bob Dylan.
I was speaking culturally. Bob Dylan is an expression of the age he came up in and ended up articulating the zeitgeist of that time and place. Paul McCartney is certainly musically more...well not accomplished but I think you know what I mean. However, I would not say he's...substantive really in terms of articulating the spirit of an age. Bowie and Prince are in the same boat as him. Musical influence is not what is being evaluated particularly. Bringing up Michael Jackson is to say there are even larger and brighter stars who are not in the sky dubbed "voice of a generation". Bowie and Prince are huge, but they have nowhere near the widespread influence on culture as Michael Jackson if only because they're far more on the alternative side of the rainbow.
Perhaps we simply define voice of a generation differently, but I would agree Martin Luther King is in the same department as him. Like I said, it's a short list.