It's one thing to be a lowly indie musician who never had an international hit still plugging away into your AARP years, but imagine actually having one brief shining moment in the sun (or darkness, as the goths prefer) and to still be chasing that high thirty years later.
For the lowly indie rocker, an appreciative room of 40 people is our crack cocaine and one less box of t-shirts to haul around (because people bought them!) is a headier buzz than your finest hipster wine.
For Murphy, though, it takes a fuck-ton more just to feel normal. The motherfucker was in Bauhaus, after all, thereby defining an entire genre that has since gone on to be the butt of many a joke on South Park after being "Hot Topic"-ed to the verge of utter meaninglessness, like a Las Vegas casino rolling out their own CBGB's.
That's a hard pill to swallow if you're not reaping any of the rewards and something tells me Murphy isn't seeing many rewards these days. Either that or maybe he just hides it well by turning on his meager audience.
As far as Murphy's solo career goes, since 1989's Deep, which spawned the semi-hit "Cuts You Up", his career has been on a steady commercial decline.
Even his ex-bandmates in Love And Rockets felt that sea change after their 1989 hit "So Alive" became a Billboard Top 20 smash. Suddenly, you're on American Bandstand, and headlining Taste Of Chicago (there was no Lollapalooza yet). The rare air of hitdom, or even semi-hitdom, makes you believe you've got this whole "hit thing" figured out and that the next one will be even bigger.
When the next single drops like an ACME brand anvil with coyote shrapnel, both Murphy and his ex-bandmates in Love & Rockets must have felt it like a gut punch. Neither Murphy nor the Rockets stopped making hit-worthy product, it was just a case of the window slamming shut. Radio moved on, MTV relegated their videos to "120 Minutes" - a show that aired Sundays midnight to 2AM - and the big audiences just stopped showing up.
Murphy's next album, Holy Smoke, didn't come out for three years...1992. By then, Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" had upended the alt. rock monopoly board, leaving Murphy to survive on a smattering of brief but kind reviews in the back pages of Musician and Spin magazines.
Not the kind of coverage you want after you've been on the cover.
Once your lungs have inhaled that rare air, though, no other high will do. Why else do you think Sting got The Police back together?? Does Debbie Harry need the money that bad to be touring so hard?
Fame is a hard drug to kick and even harder to kick if all you got was a taste, like Murphy.
To this lowly rocker, it sounds like Murphy had finally had it with the "diminishing returns" aspect of his career and spitefully took it out on those who are still showing up.
If given five minutes in a holding cell with this guy, I'd ask him "Have you actually heard your solo records? They're not bad by any stretch, but I'd ever expect my teenage daughter to come home whistling one of these songs. Hell, Bowie couldn't buy a hit after 'Never Let Me Down' either, so you're in great company.
Like you, Mr. Murphy, Bowie never stopped being ambitious and breaking new artistic ground. Even so, Black Tie White Noise, Outside, Earthling, and Heathen fell on deaf ears, by and large. We're led to believe by their commercial failure that they were bad albums, but you and I know better.
If 50 people show up to see you play on a school night, you should be kissing each of their asses, not chucking water bottles at them.
In a day and age where everybody calls driving a taxi their side hustle, your side hustle is Bauhaus you ungrateful prick."
Tags:
GOTH PIONEER GETS TOSSED