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

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

I only caught on to TH near the end, so I don't know how correct this is, but it seems to be the answer is that TH/Byrne were basically a musical dead end -- they tried a lot of interesting stuff and were loved for that, but they didn't spawn a legion of (successful, anyway) imitators and like-sounding bands. Because they were unique, once they were over, they were gone.