A postscript to the Puff Daddy entry – I’ve always thought it seemed a little dodgy how that record basically launched him in the UK, how he seemed to become famous because one of his friends died and then maintained this fame by being a particularly ostentatious rich dude with a penchant for attempting to pass off leopardskin rugs as coats of some form or other.
Dead people are a fairly proven formula for boosting the flagging record industry, aren’t they? And as annoyed as I might become at that fact, I can’t deny that I’m party to it. F’r instance, I didn’t own any records by Johnny Cash or Ray Charles before they died, and I can’t swear that I would have ever thought to had they not passed away. I might well have gone on thinking of them as That Feller My Mum Likes and That Blind Feller Out of The Blues Brothers. I’d like to think that I’d have chanced upon “I Still Miss Someone” or “The Night Hank Williams Came To Town” or “What’d I Say” or “Am I Blue” and the spark would have lit without the aid of the various retrospective articles, or the video for “Hurt“, but… it just seems hugely depressing that vast chunks of the history of music only come to the surface when people die, that their praises only actually get sung when they ain’t around to hear them. It’s as though death is a more brutal and depressing version of last.fm.
The one that’s really stung lately, though, is the passing of Nick Sanderson, formerly of World of Twist and Earl Brutus. Earl Brutus are a band I remember being mentioned a lot on The Evening Session when I was 15, 16-ish, but not one I ever recall hearing for myself. I saw their singles advertised in the NME sometimes, and remember being particularly taken by the title “The SAS And The Glam That Goes With It”, but I never sought them out. Ten years too damn late, I actually bothered listening to them thanks to Steve Hewitt’s article about Sanderson’s passing on FreakyTrigger:
And I can’t think of a point in my life at which I would not have thought this song (”Come Taste My Mind”) was brilliant. Yet somehow, it’s taken the singer dying for me to actually notice it and them, and as a result my relationship with them feels a bit… off. I begin to wonder to what extent death is colouring my perceptions.
Then the chorus hits and I no longer give a shit. Memories gimme the strength I need to proceed, even if they’re someone else’s.
