Metamatic Forums Socialising The Green Room underpass and underated.

does anyone agree with me that john foxx as been vastly underated for to long now? i can hear his influence on the radio e.t.c. everyday. and its frustrating that other artists are getting recognition as unique artists.

I couldn't agree more. What really bugs me is the amount airplay and promotion that's given to music that is basically bad and bland.

I have the misfortune in my place of work to be subjected to Radio 1 on a daily basis, and never have i known so much airplay given to, and fuss made of what is ultimately and musically very little. The same dozen or so songs from very or below average "products" constantly repeated hour after hour, day after day, week in week out, month after month...

There are loads of great musicians, singers and songwriters on the planet who continually push the envelope so to speak, try out new ideas, and create music that moves us, of which of course John is one, yet they're always put on late at night, or appear on obscure radio stations in favour of Cowell's latest one trick pony performing on primetime as always.

Interplay for example is IMHO one of the finest albums I've heard in a number of years. I've lost count of the number of times I've played it. Tracks like Catwalk, Shatterproof and The Running Man easily surpass anything that gets played on the radio and that's not just subjective opinion talking.... It's in a totally different league or maybe universe.

The only compensation I suppose is that people like us here on this forum are lucky enough to be able to see, or indeed listen past all the muzak and hear the quality that's definitely out there...

You may have a point, bulbhead, but then I think the 'cult following' status suits John better anyway. If you think about it, if John were signed to one of the huge major labels he would be forced to put out bland, over-commercialised nonsense just to sell units. At least with his current setup he can release the sort of quality material we're used to here without having to worry too much about chart positions, profit margins and stuff like that. Quality over quantity gets my vote every time.

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yeah your right in a way quality before quantity. but when i try to talk about john foxx projects to friends e.t.c. the normal response is john who? so a little commercial success may open a few ears. thanks for your comments. bulbhead.

Think how I feel then - I live in South Africa and whenever I mention John Foxx in a music shop they say "Don't you mean Jamie Foxx?" Even Ultravox are virtually unheard of over here. But you do have a valid point that John's contribution to and influence on the development of electronic music goes largely unnoticed most of the time.

Graham73 also has a good point about commercial music these days, there's no substance to any of it and it's aimed at people with large ears and small brains. Music for the hard of thinking, you might say. At least back in the late seventies / early eighties when John was doing really great stuff you could still hear stuff on the radio that was a bit different from the mainstream. Admittedly you had to stay up late and listen to John Peel to get anything really good, but you could at least hear the likes of John and OMD and Kraftwerk etc. on daytime radio. Basically, nowadays, commercial music has become predictable, formulaic and unimaginative and the advent of sampling and digital recording technology has made it easier for any talentless bozo to produce something that sounds exactly the same as everything else out there.

This is why sites like Metamatic are so important, to keep music like John's available to people who have enough good taste to like it.

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south africa? how is the live music scene there? is it just main stream artists that tour?

Mainly mainstream crap I'm afraid. We get the likes of Bryan Adams, Celine Dion, Elton John, stuff like that. You never get any decent British / European bands coming over. It seems all those bands that proudly boycotted South Africa during the apartheid era (and rightly so) are still boycotting it now for some as yet unexplained reason. Except Eddie Grant of course.

There are some half decent home-grown talents here but the only one really worth mentioning and that have made any impact outside SA are The Parlotones. Other than that, it's pretty dead. Part of the reason is that the apartheid government was very conservative and immediately banned anything they considered remotely controversial, including The Beatles. And since the advent of the ANC and rule by the black majority population the most popular music here is generally, rap, hip hop, R&B and that kind of thing. To the best of my knowledge there's only one record shop in Johannesburg that sells music imported from the UK and Europe, so even recorded music generally has to be bought online and shipped out here. Thank God for the internet!

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yeah at least you can rely on the internet for decent music. i always thought the beatles refused to go to south africa but was not actually banned i could be wrong tho. as bowie ever played any gigs there?

Not sure if Bowie's ever played here. I've only been here since early 2008 myself so if he came here before that, I wouldn't know. As for The Beatles, my South African fiancée who has lived here her whole life says they were definitely banned by the government, probably for Lennon's 'bigger than Jesus' quote. So even if they did boycott the country, it wouldn't have mattered because they wouldn't have been allowed in anyway. Ironic that a regime that perpetrated so many abuses of human rights could have the audacity to ban agroup for an off the cuff comment made by one of its members.

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Interplay got some excellent publicity, including a good slot on Radio 2. I'll wager that, in commercial terms, this album has been John's biggest success since 1985. I agree John is underrated, but more people are aware of John now than a year ago.

I'm more frustrated that his earlier work with Louis Gordon never got the wider exposure it deserved.