Wasted Talent

Bob Stinson of the Replacements.

Tricky owns this topic. "Maxinquaye": masterpiece, "Pre-millenium Tension": patchy but good, after that it goes downhill very fast. If the guy had showed any consistency we nowadays would listen to nothing but Tricky records. But no, he had to piss it all away.

I thought that the fight question was perfectly sensible!

Seriously, it would depend on which sense you mean wasted...do you mean someone who has a great deal of talent but hasn't utilised it in a way that "works" musically or do you mean someone who has squandered their talent due to substance abuse, mental illness, etc.?

Would it be too cliched to suggest Kevin Shields?

Is it Shields' talent that's wasted or Shields himself? ;-)

Arthur Brown ended up becoming a house painter in Texas. Instead of building on the talent level that bled through his first record like a scene from The Shining, he fell into obscurity, releasing piles of iff. How does an English musician end up painting bungalows in Austin? They could really use the Lord of Hell Fire on Changing Rooms, if you ask me. I wonder what shades he prefers. He'd be the perfect foil for LL Bowen. [Anyone with a spare copy of Chisholm in My Bosom should contact the above address.]

Or below address, which is now above, too.

Sensible question: who would win in a fight, me or Britney Spears?

Anyhow, listen. It all depends on what you mean by wasted talent. There are some stars who made several really good things with no noticeable decline, or declines and then upswings back up, but then disappeared from making records, or died, or had something else happen and they were never heard of again - that's wasted talent. Or there's really talented singers or what have you who do god awful music (ie Christina Aguilera) - that's wasted talent. Or there's the more garden variety kind that you're probably referring to, and I think Tricky was a pretty good answer to that question - what the hell HAPPENED to him?

Q: Can I answer any question without reference to the Velvets?

A: Not Really.

So, clearly, the answer is Sterling Frikin' Morrison on whose magnificent chops alone the whole of Loaded rests, who famously said that he didn't want to be in any band except the Velvets (sweet and sad, yes) and thus went on from what could have been a brilliant career to instead become an english professor, appearing only briefly on a Luna album, and on some of Moe Tucker's stuff. Then the guy goes and dies, not of any drug overdose or anything, but simple degenerative disease. Sigh.

Also, S-Club 7, whose trajectory towards adult contempo-pop will surely lead them the route of the latter day Spice Girls.

Also, Ricky Martin, not because I think so, but because I have a friend who owns (and loves!) many Menudo albums, and he tells me that it was all downhill for Ricky after that.

Also, Muddy Waters, who went downhill in his later years, moving to "novelty" material from his own originals and eventually producing an album of psychadelic crud before throwing in the towel.

Also, Tom Waits, who has been pure self-parody from Bone Machine 'till now.

Also, Sebastian Bach, who finally found that he had talent that he could put to good use as an opratic musical star, but squandered his early years with Skid Row.

Sterl!

What about Chilton? What all did he do after Big Star? Not much.

some of the stuff on mr. chilton's first few solo albums is quite good...he just spends far too much time doing horribly picked covers.

wasted talent: roky erickson.

Lee Mavers - anyone who is mad enough to not release a record until the guitar sound attains the same mass as the dark-star Sirius deserves proliferation.

Mark E Smith - As his talents blatantly lie elsewhere to the field of music, the fact he has wasted his talent for something else making music surely affords him consideration?

Chilton went on to great things post Big Star -- check out the Feudalist Tarts and No Sex EPs. Further, the covers on Set (which has the alternate, and better title "Loose Shoes and Tight Pussy", although the two are stupidly listed seperately on the Pazz and Jop poll) are actually quite well chosen. Chris Bell is a much better wasted talent choice, as he didn't go anywhere at all.

Of course, one might argue that the whole point of being a Chilton fan, from Sister Lovers on, is to revel in the waste of talent.

peter gutteridge from snapper.

I 'spose you're right about Chilton -- don't forget the aborted '1970' and its raunched-up cover of The Archies. But it ust always seemed that he should have been as consistently good as The Box Tops and the Big Star catalogues led me to believe he could be.

John Williams -- he could have been the next great composer; lost street cred amongst the tongue-cluckers with Star Wars.

My favorite Muddy Waters album is the one of psychedelic crud!

I really like the Chris Bell album!

Wasted talent: Stefan Jaworzyn (nobody records him, let alone listens to him), Ice Cube (should've spent his career remaking "Straight Outta Compton" and "Natural Born Killaz").

Tom Verlaine - after two great Television albums and one very good solo debut, everything else (6 or 7 duff solo albums in the 1980s) was such a let down. The Television re-union album in the early 90's was solid enough, but overall, a waste.

I also have to go with Muddy Waters here. Around the time he turned 70, he seemed poised to change music forever. But then he had to try and stay "relevant."

No, I'm joking. I just thought it was funny to see Muddy Waters mentioned in this thread. That struck me as funny in a sort of absurd way, not sure why, exactly. It's kind of an odd question, though. Kevin Shields came to mind for me, obviously, but if he put his talent to work to make _Loveless_ I can't feel right calling it a waste. Even though he'll never do anything again. Something about the idea of wasted talent rubs me the wrong way. It seems like it's only up to the person with the talent to decide what they have to do with it. But this attitude doesn't make for a fun discussion, so...

I can see what you're saying, Mark, but really it's just another form of criticism. I don't see it's worse to say that someone's wasted their talents than it is to say that theyve made a bad album - more infuriating for the someone in question, sure.

Mind you I've not answered the question. So perhaps I do agree.

The Primitives knew something or other. Didn't they have a publishing company, or similar, by this name?

I think the geezer Casper really had something - two things, in fact, a little thing with Mavers, a better and very amusingly expressed thing with Smith.

Morrison? Maybe. There does seem to be a dilemma here, which Ally brought out: is wasted talent that of someone you admire, who could have done more (but then it can't have been totally wasted, or you wouldn't admire them); or is it that of someone you can't stand, cos you think they could have done something quite different and not spoiled the world?

I'm not sure about the latter category - it's so capacious. But in the former category I am seriously inclined to mention the name that's gone surprisingly unmentioned on this thread:

JOHNNY MARR.

the primitives, or some other band called the primitives, have a new record out soon called 'maladjusted'. i wonder if paul sampson will return and save them?

That was the title of Morrissey's last album, of course. Has there ever been a wider open goal?

I cannot believe that the Primitives are coming back. AGAIN! That beggars belief. One of my first vivid pop memories was their first* comeback, in July 1989. And then there was their *second* comeback, in September 1991. But February 2001?