I agree with all that Ralph. Another thing I'd throw into the Earthquake Weather mix is that when it was released I think a lot of people listened to it with a Clash mindset and were inevitably disappointed with the end product. Over the years I've seen lots of people list their favourite song on the album as Shouting Street and i think that's telling because it's the most Clash-like song on the album and, if i'm not mistaken, was written around that time. I think there were expectations on Joe that didn't apply to Mick who could go off and do his thing, take it in any direction he wanted, while Joe was left to grapple with the legacy of the Clash. I suppose you could argue on a certain level that there's a neat sense of karma at work there, given how things unspooled with the band. But it does partially explain - at least to me anyway - how Mick was able to hit the ground running while Joe was left stuck in neutral for the guts of a decade or more.Chairman Ralph wrote: ↑31 Aug 2017, 5:49pmAs I recall, most of the BAD vs. Clash stuff seemed to come from the reviewers -- I don't remember anybody in my immediate circle making them. But I still feel they were overblown and not terribly insightful.I agree that the comparisons aren't very useful. Like, you could also state that, had he been spared, Joe would, I'm fully certain, be making interesting and compelling music to this day while Mick, for unknown reasons, is in a hiatus or simply gone into early retirement. I have huge respect for Mick, both as a musician and a human being, but I guess I always found Joe the more fascinating figure, even during the creative wasteland of his fallow years, in fact all the more so during that period because he was working up to something that would turn out to be pretty special. That's just my opinion obviously.
I too followed Joe throughout his so-called "wilderness years," though for a man laboring in the wilderness, as he often presented himself, he seemed to keep busy enough, didn't he?
I, too, kept hoping that he could pull off the home run -- though I also think one reason that he struggled so much during the '80s was that the "lo-fi Luddite" vision that he pursued so doggedly simply didn't fit into the glossy, airbrushed pop landscape in which he was expected to operate (with nary a complaint).
When you read the stuff in Redemption Song about the "suits" demanding demos from him, like any other up-and-comer, during the EW era, for instance -- I can imagine how frustrated he got. I do think some sharper writing -- and better production -- would have made those issues moot, though I also tend to think that the presence of a sympathetic and less intrusive label (in Hellcat) played a big part in making his return more positive, and more successful. Funny how that works, isn't it?
I suspect that Mick may well re-emerge, either when the time seems right, or he finds something that he thinks is worth doing. Obviously, there's no statute of limitations on when (or if) that might occur, so we'll just have to wait and see, I suppose.
Anyway, I too hope that Mick finds the creative impulse again and, as you say, its never too late.