Desire Caught by the Wayside

Today marks the 25th anniversary of Adrian Belew's ludicrously innovative album Desire Caught By the Tail.

How innovative, you ask? So much so that Island, Belew's record label, took one listen and promptly dropped him from their roster.


Astounding how routinely originality gets overlooked. You'd think with history at our disposal we'd be better equipped to recognize the telltale signs of something new being cooked up in a basement somewhere. Yet we never fail to expect the next "something new" to bear resemblance to the previous "something new." Even if we don't recognize it head-on, we ought to be able to recognize the patterns of outrage it provokes.

Ask Thelonious Monk, forced to sit out the Bop Generation without a cabaret license while others rose to fame playing his compositions. Or Orson Welles, shooting dismal wine commercials to raise petty cash for his stream of unfinished projects. How about Stravinsky, fleeing from the riot his ballet sparked? Not to mention all the countless others I've never heard of because their concoctions went untasted and untested.

Belew's next venture was to be Mr Music Head, a much more accessible (by his standards) album, featuring the radio-friendly "Oh Daddy" which got him onto MTV. Where, as I understand it, every genuine artist dreams of being.