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

[koganbot]

Dinah Washington. Possibly the most famous r&b singer of the '40s and '50s. I've barely heard her music and so can't tell you of her ongoing impact, but I'm sure that "what she meant" - whatever that was - almost immediately vanished from the cultural "discussion" once the '60s got rolling.

[(Anonymous)]

i'm not ALL the way thru this thread yet but mark and tom seem to be saying byrne IS obscure on the basis that the lex hasn't heard of him!

BIG logic gap.

i'm only about two years older than lex and I KNOW WHO BYRNE IS. and HAVE DONE SINCE I WAS LITTLE.

hkm

[(Anonymous)]

also:

MIKE SKINNER

hkm

[giddyoldgoat.livejournal.com]

Again, Dinah Washington means slightly more in the UK maybe because 'Mad About the Boy' was used on a TV ten years or so ago, and I think even re-charted on the back of that ad. In fact UK ads often represent the last best hope for an act's cultural revival/relevancy - Nina Simone is prob. more popular now in the UK than she ever was whilst alive, thanks to the use of three or four of her songs on ads etc (a remix of Sinnerman also crops up in the opening nightclub sequence of Michael Mann's recent Miami Vice flick).

A better example - in the UK, at least - might be Sarah Vaughan, and 'scat' singing in general - I can't ever see that coming back into style.