TubularBelle
Group: Members
Posts: 1487
Joined: April 2004 |
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Posted: Oct. 10 2006, 19:37 |
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| Quote (familyjules @ Oct. 10 2006, 02:34) | It's partly because he has never been reappraised since the "punk wars".
And it's because he stopped making those kinds of records (TB, HR, O, I etc) and started making commercial pop.
If he'd carried on disregarding the trends of the times, then his time would have come around again and he'd be cool to namedrop again, like Pink Floyd are once again.
But he made too many dodgy pop records in the 80s and 90s, so he kind of tarnished his credentials.
But it's mainly the power of media, I think. If the hipper music rags were to once again profess a liking for Mike's early masterpieces, then everyone would be going "yeah - I always rated him!". It's a hipper-than-thou snobbery thing brought on by the trends of the times. The power lies with the critics.
That's my theory anyway.
Jules |
I have to agree with Jules wholeheartedly.
There are three reasons.
The first is that Mike was persuaded by Branson in the early 80's to switch to childish pop music. Of course some of these pop songs have aspects of Mikes brilliance in them but if I had never heard one of Mikes instrumental peices and was to judge him purely on these other tracks plus the silliness of tracks such as portsmouth, sailors hornpipe, the cukoo song and such, I would think he was crap quite frankly.
The second reason is the Tubular Bells tall poppy thing, where the belief is that is all he did followed by several repeats of the same thing.
And the thrid reason is the medias perception of him arising from the first two reasons which is what influences the general public.
He never had enough confidence in the early years to stick with what he did best and wait for his time to come around again.
But yes, the bottom line, as Jules has said, is the critics. And I think it's too late to change their opinion of him, unless his next return to the 70's style of classical music mixed with rock album turns out to be all that it promises to be, there might be a hint of a chance.
As far as should you go ahead with your thesis, by all means, if YOU believe Mike to be the true artist that he is. I fear that the real question you are asking here is not, 'Should I do my thesis on Mike?' but in fact 'Is Mike as good as we think he is or are all the critics right about him?'. Shame on you for even thinking that.
You are right about Mike, and not only is he musically exceptionally talented and diverse, but his personal life and struggles and how that has affected his professional life would make for fascinating reading, or don't you delve into that side of his work. It all affects his creativity and motivation.
Don't be disillusioned, when they scoff, you scoff right back.
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I hate getting up early. I didn't even realise there were two 6 o'clocks in one day!
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