utterly forgotten but NOT OBSCURE

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

by terming david byrne "obscure", alexmacpherson touches the exact, interesting nerve i think -- maybe even more than with his legendary "why SHOULD i have heard of john wayne?" argument

which is that in every generation (wait, that's how BUFFY starts!! -- er er focus) in every generation there are figures very well-known to all who have just VANISHED from mainstream radar by the next cycle

it's not that they're still popular but currently unfashionable; it's more that "what they meant" is no longer part of the pop discussion -- is that right?

so why has byrne vanished this way? or is it just not making "the right kinds of records" any more?

(disclaimer: i LOVED LOVE LOVED early TH and have i think every record they made --- BUT i went off them INCREDIBLY fast, round abt "true stories", and it took me years to rediscover any fondness)

Comments

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

He's not made an essential record (or even a record called "essential" by Mojo say) for a while, but he has kind of been in the spotlight as a curator.

One mistake he made - even if only in terms of being Known By The Lex - is backing the wrong Brazilian horse: he went for quirky post-Tropicalia stuff instead of (say) baile funk or even drum n bass - entirely reasonable given that what he likes is quite Heads-ish but he missed a niche to carve himself.

Yr story about liking TH reminds me of the very rapid fall-off in my liking REM (I have not yet got back to 'fondness') and that makes me realise that STIPE will surely be one of these suddenly forgotten figures.

Who were they for me I wonder? We'd be looking at contemporaries of Bowie who fell off the radar, I guess. Alex Harvey maybe? FRAMPTON? I remember being quite surprised to find that Stevie Wonder had ever been an official genius but I don't think he ever became obscure in this way.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes i would quite a like (personalised) list of them:
"people whose now-forgotten importance you were surprised to discover"

or some such

i am trying to come up with some for ME but i think i am so old that i predate the dawn of art or something

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Jefferson Airplane possibly.

I think PAUL SIMON might finally have joined these ranks.

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

Isn't there a difference, though, Tom? Byrne and TH basically vanished immediately. The shadow of Jefferson Airplane continued to loom over music for decades after they ceased to be a creative force. Partially through "classics" like Somebody to Love or White Rabbit, and partially because the boomers controlled music criticism for years and years.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

hmm the best I can come up with (like mark, I'm too old I think) is DELANEY AND BONNIE AND FRIENDS

(...who I'm sure weren't really important, but critics such as Cohn and Xgau seem to have rated them v. highly at the time and I'd never heard of 'em until quite recently)

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Michael Stipe was on Placebo's last album, you ignoramuses!

I think the sun has set on Alex Chilton, though I don't know how famous he was.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i refuse to accept the sun ever rose on chilton!

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Bbbut the Box Tops!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The other thing to remember in all this is that Lex DID know who Talking Heads were.

A reasonably informed music fan will have heard of The Smiths, and of Morrissey, but not of Johnny Marr, say.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

And that the whole hullabaloo started from this point - that Timberland had namechecked David Byrne rather than Talking Heads, and so should get a gold star.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Haha I have heard of The Smiths and Morrissey (UNFORTUNATELY) and have no idea who Johnny Marr is! Erm also in The Smiths I am guessing. Guitarist? Why would anyone pay attention to the guitarist?

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Guitarist, yes but also co-wrote every Smiths song (basically, he did the music, Morrissey did the lyrics). Also, he had a unique guitar style.

But let's not get sidetracked.

By the way, in defence of The Lex I think David Byrne IS AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN 'obscure'. I think mark is overstating in his opening post Byrne's penetration into the mainstream, cover of Time magazine or not. Certainly outside of the US I doubt he has ever been a household name. My parents would not have known who he was at any point. I shall e-mail my sister (age 18 at the time of TH's big hit and very much into music) to ask if she knows who DB is. My guess is she won't.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

but this is about the "disunification of rock discourse" isn't it? in the early 80s -- when "people who wrote about pop" were still all corralled into a smallish mutually self-ware world, he was a NAME

actually the grateful dead probably fits my definition -- i am STILL not sure if i have ever heard anything by them (but i think i knew that they existed, if not why they mattered, back in core punk days) (they existed as the ENEMY) (haha: "the grateful dead streak rock and roll like blood streaks vomit" © p.morley)

marr was very often sold back in the day as the secret hook of importance for the smiths, to folks who might find morrissey too fey and gay and weird

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

but this is about the "disunification of rock discourse" isn't it?

It was on the other threads, yes. You seemed to me to be seeking to widen it to popular culture in general in your opening post of this thread. If not, my mistake.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes it's not very clear bcz i'm not sure that *i'm* very clear about it -- i think that i feel that one of punk's negative triumphs was to pull what i'm calling "rock culture" back from the goal of full participation in -- and even domination of -- full-on mainstream pop culture

ie in order to get its best complexity in it turned towards niche-marketing itself (which gave it better autonomy but less outreach) (and indie-fication plus what koganbot calls pbs-ification)

but byrne was (possibly) at least a figure on the horizon, representing the COMING THING, while "rock discourse" still toyed with this bigger ambition

(hence time cover etc)

so i can only "take it wider" to acknowledge that history refuses to LET it go wider (but this also explains yrs and my difficulty finding similar figures in our past?)

[thomppw.livejournal.com]

is morley's quote there actually anti-grateful dead? it sounds like it ought to be but it is very hard to read it when actually reading it to mean such

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I think one reason that I haven't heard of what'shisname is sheer luck! I mean, I had heard of his band, and in fact had been meaning to Get Around To Them for a while, it's just that I didn't know the lead singer's name and Hackney Library happened to have Nico and Scritti Politti when I looked.

There is not much rhyme or reason to the Old Popstars I have heard of/heard/like.

I have never heard of Alex Harvey or Frampton. I have heard of Stevie Wonder and like what I have heard from him (not a great deal) v much. To date I prefer all Stevie Wonder samples in modern r&b to the originals though.

Do you like the Tori Amos Chas'n'Dave covers?