As you are probably aware, world domination in rock ‘n’ roll is no easy gig in this current cutthroat climate. Many of today’s more talented artists seem to spend their entire careers trying to stay afloat, whilst hordes of hapless half-wits achieve great success by simply appealing to the lowest common denominator.
Nowadays, even more than musical ability or song craft, the ultimate no no within the music industry appears to be artistic integrity. Unfortunately for that dying breed who persist in creating their music for all the right reasons - regardless of reward - integrity is usually an essential element in their work.
Although there is no denying that this current situation is extremely frustrating for anyone with genuine artistic integrity - all is not totally lost. As history has demonstrated on countless occasions, there is still one tried and tested way of combining genuine artistic integrity with commercial success. Die young and undiscovered.
That said, it is imperative for anyone considering this route to stardom to pay particular attention to the pecking order involved when popping one’s clogs. If someone was to believe say, that a fatal reaction to an anaesthetic during surgery to remove an in-growing toenail, is as glamorous a death as taking a drug overdose, committing suicide or dying in a ‘plane crash, they’d be sadly mistaken. However, assuming that the death is suitably rock’n’roll there is a good chance that, even though the artist won’t actually be around to enjoy the earthly pleasures that new-found fame brings, they will at least, at some stage in the future, be able to have an ironic chuckle from beyond their trinket-laden, graffiti-adorned graves at some of the lies people - whom they never met - are telling about them in various unauthorised biographies.
Once the industry has a pretty corpse, their back catalogue, outtakes and the film rights, and, more importantly, is safe in the knowledge that the deceased don’t ask difficult questions, answer back, get old and fat or send their fans mixed messages by mingling with Monarchs, the myth making can commence.
Within a matter of months anyone who once had a reputation in the business as a bit of an awkward customer can now be re-packaged as a misunderstood master of vision, just as any artist, once deemed a miserable bastard, will suddenly turn out to have been a tortured genius all along. And every song that was once considered too impenetrable to be unleashed on the pliant public will now be marketed as a complex piece of music that benefits from repeated listens, which, I’m sure you won’t be too dumbfounded to discover, will be dug out decade after decade and used time and time again as an extra track to bulk up a bevy of B sides, best of’s, and box sets.
Let me give you an example, involving two great white soul singers, which illustrates perfectly how lingering around too long can be lethal for that legendary status later on. Tim Buckley, one of the greatest recording artists ever, who, (whilst living and breathing and all that other boring stuff), had to spend his final days playing America’s chicken in a basket circuit in order to make ends meet, is nowadays recognised as a great white soul singer, whose legend will continue to flourish, thanks to him dying tragically young from an accidental heroin overdose. On the other hand poor old Rod Stewart, who, had he experienced an equally as glamorous death a few months after recording Every Picture Tells a Story, would now also be considered a great white soul singer, but due to out staying his welcome, will be committed to memory for eternity as the bloke who once used the world’s stage to enquire if people found him sexy or not, whilst prancing around like a tit, decked out in leopard skin.
Also spare a thought for all the great artists who although managed to refrain from any similar tawdry tactics throughout their careers, still never got to enjoy the recognition they deserved whilst living and even now don’t get the deification they deserve in death.
One such example is the mighty Gene Clark. After a thirty-year career creating achingly beautiful, groundbreaking work, Gene finally gave up the ghost, with very little fanfare, in May 1991. Whereas fellow cosmic cowboy and ex-Byrd, Gram Parsons, whose body of work, though mightily impressive, but as anyone in the know will tell you, not as impressive as Gene’s, is now a bone fide legend with a capital L. Whilst the tribute album to Gram, for example, had celebrities such as Sheryl Crow, the Pretenders and Elvis Costello queuing round the block to croon his tunes, Gene’s tribute album had to make do with contributions from the dulcet tones of ‘household names’ such as Jim Basnight, Chris Von Sneidern and the Grip Weeds. (All of whom you may hear a lot more of in future should they meet a suitably sticky end.)
Do you think it’s possible that because Gram’s story involved dying the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll death, aged just twenty-six and having his pretty corpse kidnapped so that it could be honoured with the ultimate rock ‘n’ roll cremation out in the Joshua Tree desert, compared to Gene’s story, which involved dying from plain old natural causes at the ripe old age of forty-six could, perhaps, go some way to explain their ever-expanding gap in god-like stature?
The irony that, while Gram was alive, his albums (although just as glorious then as they are now) were as popular as the pox amongst the pop pickers of the day, still seems lost on the ever-increasing crop of Johnny Come Latelys currently riding the ‘Gram is God’ band wagon.
Having said that, when it comes to really disastrous record sales during an artist’s lifetime, I guess it’s hard to beat those of Nick Drake. The total worldwide sales of all three of his albums between 1969 until his tragic death in 1974 were under fifteen thousand – that’s less than three thousand sales per year. However, after a thirteen-year period of steady myth making, when Heaven In A Wild Flower (the first Nick Drake compilation album) was finally released in 1987 it sold twenty thousand copies within weeks in the UK alone!
It is, perhaps, worth mentioning at this point, for the benefit of anyone so insecure about their musical taste that they wait until the media say it’s OK to enjoy a particular artist’s music before they will buy their records, that, just as the Mona Lisa was a masterpiece the moment Leonardo’s brush graced the canvas for the last time, (not hundreds of years later when deemed valuable enough to reside behind bullet-proof glass), Nick Drake’s ‘Pink Moon’ was a masterpiece the moment he finished writing it, (not thirty years later when Volkswagen decided to use the song for a TV campaign to flog their latest Golf Cabriolet).
If you yourself, due, perhaps, to peer pressure, have ever been tempted to buy an ‘industry approved’ album by a dead legend in preference to one of equal or superior merit by someone still alive, and after reading this are now feeling so ashamed of yourself that you wish to make amends, you can take your first step on the road to rehabilitation right now by simply answering YES or NO to each of the five questions listed below.
1) With the cause of death of so many dead legends being suicide, (often brought on by severe depression), do you think it’s possible that some of these, often fragile, sensitive souls may have still been making marvellous music today, had they been given a fraction of the recognition they deserved when they were still alive that they now ‘enjoy’ in death?
2) Do you think that Eva Cassidy, who had to suffer a slow painful death from bone cancer before eventually being ‘discovered’ some years later, might have found her passing a little easier to accept, if she had known on her death bed that, even though her own time on earth was almost through, at least her music would live on?
3) Do you ever feel when you’re listening to these previously unreleased songs that turn up with alarming regularity as ‘bonus tracks’ on various re-packaged, re-released, re-mastered dead legends’ discs, that they may have been unreleased previously for a good reason?
4) Do you agree that there have been considerably more column inches written about Townes Van Zandt over the last ten years since his death, than during the final ten years of his life, when press coverage was essential for his survival due to performing in small clubs to small audiences (twenty eight last time he played my home town) to promote albums he was making for small labels at the time?
5) Do you agree that it would be more difficult for a music mogul to ‘cajole’ an artist with integrity in to doing things their way while that artist were still alive and kicking (like allowing a song to be used to sell cars for example) than to ‘cajole’ a grieving, vulnerable and often financially destitute next of kin at some later date?
If you answered YES to all five questions above – Halle-fucking-lujah! CONGRATULATIONS! At least now you can see that by paying more attention to the myth than the actual music you have been seriously stunting the growth of musical evolution.
Now you’ve come this far why not continue your rehabilitation by making some further attempts to discover tomorrow’s dead legends today. All you need do is stray off the beaten track every once in a while and scratch around beneath the surface a little bit. I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the wealth of great artists out there making magnificent music who unfortunately, due to a lack of people like yourself searching their music out and supporting them, could at any stage, through sheer desperation, decide to go over to the other side and start appealing to the lowest common denominator in order to earn a decent crust or, even worse, for both themselves and their loved ones (although potentially great for their posthumous career) plump for the other more drastic option.
If, on the other hand, even after reading this, you still had the bare faced cheek to answer NO to any of these questions: may the Lord pull the plug on your purchasing power immeadietly and the Devil deliberate the details of your demise.
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