Top five musical crimes perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the '80s and '90s
Nick Tabor
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Arts
"I Just Called to Say I Love You"
"We Are the World"
"These Three Words"
"Land of La La"
"Galaxy Paradise"
Even moderately savvy readers no doubt recognize the reference to the 2000 film "High Fidelity." But every music nerd worth his weight in vinyl knows the following line by heart: "Is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out than to fade away?"
Barry lifted that line from a Neil Young song, as we all know. And Mr. Young answered the question decisively in 1979: "It's better to burn out than it is to rust," he sang. Roughly translated, it means any respectable artist would do better to disappear completely than to tarnish his reputation by releasing terrible music.
But 1994 brought an interesting twist to the song's legacy, when Kurt Cobain quoted the refrain in his suicide note.
As the story goes, he became so afraid Nirvana would embody everything he hated - money and hype, mostly - that he caved under the pressure and took his own life.
I'm no Nirvana expert, but I think it's safe to say that prolific heroin use and Cobain's wife Courtney Love played major roles, too.
Neil never intended to push other artists toward suicide; in fact, he felt so broken up about Cobain's death that he dedicated his next album, "Sleeps with Angels," to Cobain.
The point?
There must be some middle ground between taking one's own life and going the way of Stevie Wonder.
Even accidental death is preferable. Sometimes I think I'd give my right arm to hear what Jimi Hendrix would have done if he'd lived even two or three more years - especially given Miles Davis' overlapping experiments with jazz-rock in the late 1960s. But Hendrix died without ever releasing a mediocre record. It terrifies me to think about him fading away instead.
(Don't tell he committed suicide - that remains debatable. He swallowed too many sleeping pills, then he vomited, then he choked. No gun shots, knife wounds or heroin overdoses.)
"We Are the World"
"These Three Words"
"Land of La La"
"Galaxy Paradise"
Even moderately savvy readers no doubt recognize the reference to the 2000 film "High Fidelity." But every music nerd worth his weight in vinyl knows the following line by heart: "Is it in fact unfair to criticize a formerly great artist for his latter day sins? Is it better to burn out than to fade away?"
Barry lifted that line from a Neil Young song, as we all know. And Mr. Young answered the question decisively in 1979: "It's better to burn out than it is to rust," he sang. Roughly translated, it means any respectable artist would do better to disappear completely than to tarnish his reputation by releasing terrible music.
But 1994 brought an interesting twist to the song's legacy, when Kurt Cobain quoted the refrain in his suicide note.
As the story goes, he became so afraid Nirvana would embody everything he hated - money and hype, mostly - that he caved under the pressure and took his own life.
I'm no Nirvana expert, but I think it's safe to say that prolific heroin use and Cobain's wife Courtney Love played major roles, too.
Neil never intended to push other artists toward suicide; in fact, he felt so broken up about Cobain's death that he dedicated his next album, "Sleeps with Angels," to Cobain.
The point?
There must be some middle ground between taking one's own life and going the way of Stevie Wonder.
Even accidental death is preferable. Sometimes I think I'd give my right arm to hear what Jimi Hendrix would have done if he'd lived even two or three more years - especially given Miles Davis' overlapping experiments with jazz-rock in the late 1960s. But Hendrix died without ever releasing a mediocre record. It terrifies me to think about him fading away instead.
(Don't tell he committed suicide - that remains debatable. He swallowed too many sleeping pills, then he vomited, then he choked. No gun shots, knife wounds or heroin overdoses.)
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