Why Are Some Artists (and Some Songs) "Criminally Ignored"?

If you think Nick Drake's music is monotonously dreary and depressing then that suggests you haven't heard much of it. Anyway that never stopped Leonard Cohen selling a lot of records!

(By the way, I don't think Leonard Cohen's music is monotonously dreary and depressing either but it's a hell of a lot more monotonously dreary and depressing than Nick Drake's!)

 

Sometimes, really interesting artists are strangely out of step with the trends of their day and are only recognized more fully after the fact. When you look at the circumstances surrounding their respective careers, as Vangro succinctly summed up above, it's not too hard to see why Nick Drake and the ironically named Big Star didn't connect with a broader audience at the time. I could point to plenty of other cult favorites that I wish had broken through more, but most of the time, when I take a step back, I can discern why it didn't come to pass.

 

No you were right the first time.

 

If you read my whole post, you should know that I pointed out Drake refused to play live, be interviewed or do any other promotion of his work, which might have advanced his career resulting in more sales (in his lifetime). Cohen did the exact opposite. He toured extensively through-out the world, and probably never turned down a print interview or invitation to appear on television or radio. Also, Cohen's records were covered by other contemporary artists, whom enthused with praise over him.

The original post asked why some artists are "criminally ignored" and specifically cited Nick Drake as one example. Drake purposely produced very personal and non-commercial music, both in substance and presentation, which was unappealing to a mass audience. Amongst the constant themes running through-out his three albums are loneliness, despair, death, impending doom, and emotional and spiritual frustration searching for answers in his life. Challenging, but troubling subject matter (which echoed his distressed mental state). (His low key and limited - and yes, monotonous - vocal delivery perfectly complements the lyrical content.) The ever present melancholy through-out his canon is relentlessly unending. Not massively popular with most of the general public.

BTW - I've been familiar with Drake's music since the '70s and have Drake's three albums and a couple of comps, ’Way To Blue’ and ‘Treasury’. (At one time I also had ‘Time of No Reply’.)

 

I don't think it's fair to say he was "trying" to do anything other than making the best songs and playing them flawlessly. The fact that it has not proved to be as commercial as other things? So what. His personality wasn't suited to live shows. I get the sense that you are saying his music was intended to keep people away. How does that even happen?

 

I think he was trying to write the best songs he could and record them as he felt they should be, too.

That's the point of the thread. The original post asks why some artists, like Drake, were "criminally ignored". A major reason was that his work lacked appeal to a mass audience.

I think his personal circumstances impeded his career from advancing to a more commercially, successful level; and that his music happens not to appeal to a mass audience.

His mental health issues explain much.

 

Sorry. I disagree with this very strongly when applied to music.

 

I think unfortunately an artist’s success back in the early 70’s rested on their label and what kind of promotion they got. If radio didn’t play them and their label didn’t push it properly, then they were doomed. Back then there was limited radio and just a few magazines dedicated to music. If those same artists came out today say Nick Drake, Big Star, and Velvet Underground they would have followings, and tons of articles online, and fan sites and they would of found their audience. Maybe they wouldn’t of been huge but they would of found a crowd and had a longer career. It’s true Nick Drake didn’t help himself by having terrible stage fright and not touring but if he existed today his music would be on soundtracks and Pitchfork would give his records high grades and there would be more clubs to play in and his music with streaming would be easily accessible. By the time Pink Moon came along he most likely would be one of the Coachella headliners.

 

A tautology. Also there have been many lesser, and more unlikely performers that have been big. I don't think the last word on the appeal of his music has been written.

 

I just discovered Nick Drake a few years ago.Ive been listening to music since the mid 70s.Glad it took me so long because if not I probably would have burnt out on him years ago.

 

Why?

Listener archetype
Cultural differences
Musical background
Stubbornness
Age

 

Yes! Do that! Good recommendation Wild Cat. Their Spirit of '76, while different than 12 Dreams is pretty cool too

 

Exactly. There's only so many records a normal person can buy. When you look up what Nick Drake and Big Star albums were competing with when they came out, well... there you go.

 

Not to take anything away from either, and I really do like both of them, but Big Star was a throwback to 60s pop... like a few years later. The "market" had moved on, while "paisley underground" hadn't started yet, not that that was some hugely commercial movement. Axe Victim was just too much like a Bowie record (again, I love it, but if you're too close to a contemporary- so much that it impresses onto an average listener that you're an also-ran- you're in trouble).

 

A lot of things can factor in. Marketing/branding, not stylistically what the mainstream music listeners jam out to, great but different sounding music that just is more of a niche naturally.

A would say it is highly a case-by-case issue

 

There seems to be a lot of retrospectively searching for evidence of misery and despair on Nick Drake records, as if searching for some clues to his tragic end, it's what people do, I suppose. In fact there's nothing much on those albums that would have seemed unusually morbid or gloomy let alone musically indicative of mental torment and despair at the time of their release. If you listen to, for instance, Nick Drake's "Bryter Later" and find it 'monotonously dreary and depressing' then that's entirely down to you, the listener, personally I don't hear any of that on an album which is actually quite upbeat and eclectic. This might be down to his most listened to album being "Pink Moon", which most closely fits the tortured artist template.

There are very good reasons why he didn't succeed at the time that have been set out by various posters but trying to pin it on him being some sort of cross between Nico and Syd Barrett is retrospective myth-making. One of the reasons people describe Nick Drake as 'criminally ignored' is precisely because his music is not difficult or intimidating or uncommercial. You don't even have to bring Leonard Cohen into the equation, this the heyday of the singer songwriter, try finding an artist at the time who wasn't prone to a bit of gloomy introspection, go and listen to a James Taylor album for example.

 

Why? Because taste in music is not universal. Which is different from an interest generated by trends and peer pressure. Once young people get off the trendy/peer pressure train and find their own music interests, they will find that many of their new interests are not as universally popular and ask why, not realizing that their tastes no longer follow the popular trends of their past.

 

It still baffles me that this album--which is widely and rightly regarded as their masterpiece--completely stiffed on the charts, selling worse than it predecessors. Perhaps a more enthusiastic response would have encouraged Spirit to keep trying rather than splintering like they did.

 

"A tautology" ? - No, go back and read my posts - I give clear reasons why I think his work did/ does not appeal to a mass audience and also why his personal circumstances contributed to a lack of success with his music career. I'm not simply stating that, "he wasn't popular because he wasn't popular".

His music certainly sold in greater numbers and he received more and better wide spread critical response after his death, starting with the box set released circa 1979/ 1980 and I suppose culminating in one of his songs being licenced for a television commercial circa 1993/95. So far, that appears to have been the peak of his popularity. He's become one of those artists whose critical stature hasn't translated into great commercial success or wide popular appeal.

And I agree with the opinion that there has been many lesser and more unlikely performers who 'hit it big' - then, now, and in-between. But you haven't offered any suggestions as to why his work was "criminally ignored" and why the lack of success, especially in his own lifetime.

 

I would never have encountered Nick Drake if not for "radio".

Three weeks into my first radio gig, I discovered the back room where the Music Director stashed all the albums the labels sent our Adult Contemporary station - apparently just to throw anything up against the wall to see if it stuck. My station didn't care about anything except whatever was getting buzz, and was appropriate. The rest...down the hall, last stop before the dunpster (yes, the dunpster!): hold onto them a few months just in case...whatever. I was just out of college, and not even a "radio guy", just a part-time guy, waiting for his television career opening. Saturday nights into Sunday morning, we stopped the music for hours of public service programs and religious paid segments, and that's when I went exploring the building.

A whole pile of records, time on my hands (just check back every fifteen minutes to make sure nothing was wrong with the programming), and production studios I could audition every single record in that cabinet, before returning them, hopefully in the same order, so nobody would notice (as if).

The moment I dropped a needle onto that Antilles record label sampler (I was so excited - I'd finally found a Porsmouth Sinfonia recording!) and got to the final cut on Side One, Nick Drake changed my life with "Northern Sky".

I honestly went on a quest after that: I got a gig in Idaho at my first (and turns out, my final) TV station, and driving across the country, I literally stopped in every major town that I could visit a record store, one of the main reasons being, locating anything by Nick Drake. And, years after that went south, I kept up my radio career...and, once I got my first solo morning show gig in Bakersfield, again I stopped in every major town to visit a record store, one of the main reasons being, what I'd learned in that first cross-country trip, locating anything by Nick Drake.

Record-hounding became my primary reason for keeping tabs on the fringe of music through my 35+year radio career (which was as close to mainstream as you could get on the face of it). And a chance encounter with Nick Drake at my first radio gig, was the catalyst.

And my final professional radio gig before retiring, was starting my own online station designed to "de-program" mainstream adult listeners - who had never been "taught" to look for beauty in the fringes - by undercutting their diet of familiarity and repetition, presenting them with a buffet of accessible, unfamiliar, adult-relatable artists and selections (with just the barest hint of familiar, un-burned-out titles, sort of as "lily pads to run on")...all based on the idea that, if you don't learn to keep your ears open, you're never going to uncover those "hidden secrets" like Nick Drake.