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

[juror8.livejournal.com]

Clap Your Hands say "Hi".

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

Hi!

er

[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]

If yr saying what I think you are (not having heard CYHSY I don't know for sure) - CYHSY are still big fish in a small pond, which wd place their chief influence on the same area of the radar as say Nick Drake - a name to drop but not much else.

This is a major step down in fame for Byrne who was, as Mark suggests, famous and spoken of in the 80s WAY beyond his record sales.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Jefferson Airplane possibly.

I think PAUL SIMON might finally have joined these ranks.

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Dom's talking about current top beat combo Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, who do indeed sound a lot like TH (crossed with the occasional bit of the Velvets).

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

oh! *makes "don't mind me i'm an OAP" face*

[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!

[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.

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

The Lex did not know what a Playstation was until recently = he is a bad barometer of stuff disappearing intergenerationally.

[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.

[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]

Yeah, but he only howls and wriggles when it's music stuff, he really doesn't give a fvck about his lack of knowledge of eg computer games. Or rather he+his audience (which of course was ILM, biased to the other end of the spectrum).

[whalefish.livejournal.com]

I suppose David Byrne is still pretty well known in ways, but definitely not in the 'household name' way.

I'm finding it interesting to think over who the '90s/'00s equivalents might be - Bjork, Jarvis Cocker maybe? I imagine a lot of people today and in the future would be pretty unaware of them, and yet ten years ago they were household names. Also, they were famous as much for their personalities (okay, for being a bit weird) as they were for their music, bit like Byrne.

[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?

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

Jarvis in 10 years time = Mark E Smith according to the Damascene revelation I had at the dull start of the Fall gig yesterday.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

Well I don't really give a fuck about my lack of Old Popstar knowledge either, though I'm more likely to rectify it. I do give a fuck about people laying into me on the basis of it though especially when they are as awful as Jess/Blount/Jed. Like, yeah Blount, come back and hold a conversation with me about Gabriel Ananda and THEN you can accuse me of ignorance, until then shut the fuck up bitch.

[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?

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

I think Peter Frampton could be the best example of this. I first heard of him in the early 80s because he was in the Guinness Book of Records for having the biggest selling album ever or whatever it was, but at that time – only six or so years later – he had vanished. It was only years later that I heard anything by him, and I still reckon I've encountered Baby I Love Your Way more often as a cover version than the original. But for a moment or two, he must have been huge... I have no idea what kind of recognition factor Frankie Goes To Hollywood, say, have now, although we do now exist in a perpectual present in pop culture.

Mark E Smith in 10 years time

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

But my point remains: saying X is off the radar for the kids when yr sole datapoint member of the kids is the Lex is vvv dubious. I hope he won't mind me saying that he has patchy knowledge of all pop cult including most music in the charts right now.

Not that I disagree that T.Heads are off the Radar for yr average 16 year old now, mind.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

does costello blong here at all?

(not for me obv)

i think anyone i name will likely be a pre-rock figure -- jim reeves for example

one of the interesting dimensions of punk is that it was the last moment that rock culture wasn't niche-divided safely off against itself, so in the year-zero-fication of everything, EVERYTHING came back into play to be rejudged (apparently)

except for a handful of oddball one-hit-wonders maybe (thunderclap newman; python lee jackson; andy fairweather-low) -- who were none of em more than nine-day-wonders in the shadow of something else anyway, i don't think

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

Hehe. But no, I think Mr Fish is more accurate.