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

[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)