5. The 1980s: Thinking Outside the Box

Outsider Music

I. Introduction: A Brief History

Where to even begin with this one? Outsider music is a bit of a tricky genre—if you can even really call it that—of music. Broadly speaking, outsider music is any kind of music that is clumsy and weird but sincere and serious in the eye of the artist. Often the outsider musician lacks a level of self-consciousness about their art that the average artist would have^[1]. This creates an interesting off-shoot of music where the artist is not necessarily making a conscious effort to be experimental for the sake of creating something wildly unique, but rather they often think what they are doing is just normal when to most listeners, it is anything but “normal”.

Of course, it is safe to assume that, by this definition, outsider musicians have been creating music ever since music itself was invented—certainly the term itself^[2]— however once home recording equipment became more accessible, the scales began to tip so that even he most amateur of musicians could record and distribute their music without access to a professional studio^[3]. The rise of the amateur musician saw a particular boom in the 1980s^[4]. Of course, the ever-increasing accessibility of audio recording has brought many previously unknown artists into the mainstream in the 2010s and the 2020s^[5], but in the 1980s, this was truly a realm of untapped potential finally being unlocked for the world.

“But there are countless “unintentional renegades,” performers who lack Cage’s overt self-consciousness about their art. As far as they’re concerned, what they’re doing is “normal.” And despite paltry incomes and dismal record sales, they’re happy to be in the same line of work as Celine Dion and Andrew Lloyd Webber.”
Irwin Chusid, Songs in the Key of Z (2000)^[1]

II. Notable Artists

Some notable musicians who contributed to outsider music are outlined in the following section. As in the previous entries, my goal is to focus primarily on underrepresented, diverse musicians who were largely overlooked—or are still largely overlooked in western culture for one reason or another.

Daniel Johnston (1961 – 2019)

Daniel Johnston truly was something special. He grew up in Cumberland, West Virginia and began writing and recording music on a relatively cheap boombox playing piano and chord organ^[6]. He started recording his music around the time he went to college in the early 1980s; he first spent a couple weeks at Abilene Christian University in West Texas, but dropped out due to intense mental struggles after living away from home for the first time. Shortly thereafter, he attended Kent State University at East Liverpool, Ohio where he recorded his first album as a cassette tape: ‘Songs of Pain‘ (1981)^[6]. In 1984, Johnston started working at McDonalds where he would physically hand out his tapes to people in the store^[7]. This continued as he moved to Austin, Texas. As he continued handing out his music, word began to spread of a weird kid who made weird music tapes. Eventually, he’d become enough of a local celebrity that he was featured on the the MTV program, The Cutting Edge which showcased up-and-coming artists from Austin’s New Sincerity scene in 1985^[8]. Despite Johnston’s local success, his lasting impact on lo-fi and alternative music scenes, and direct endorsement by big names like Kurt Cobain in the early 1990s^[8], Johnston’s music continues to exist in relative obscurity. Johnston’s music is known for its childlike innocence and its detailed descriptions of his struggles with bipolar disorder, which he was diagnosed with^[9]. One quintessential song from his early career that captures the sound of Johnston’s innocence, the lo-fi nature of his music, his struggles with mental health, and the lack of acceptance from his family he experienced early in his career is 1982’s ‘The Story of an Artist‘ (see video below)^[10]. Johnston’s mental health would deteriorate by the late 1980s and through much of the 1990s including a manic psychotic episode in 1990^[11]. While Johnston’s mental and physical health would slowly bounce back through years of medical and psychiatric intervention, he sadly passed away in 2019 due to a suspected heart attack^[6].

Reflection on ‘The Story of an Artist’ (1982) by Daniel Johnston:

I admit, I knew I had to talk about Daniel Johnston when I started writing this week’s post. He’s one of my all-time favourite artists and a personal source of inspiration. This particular song of his is such a beautiful song that I can relate to as someone who has faced a lack of support from family in my creative endeavors over the years. Of course I can’t claim to have suffered like Daniel, but still, I feel a connection to him when I listen to this song. Honestly, I’m just so sad I’ll never get the chance to meet Daniel. I just want to give him a big hug. I know we both could’ve used one. Any way, what really strikes me about this song musically, is the main piano melody. It’s simplistic yet endlessly mournful. It perfectly compliments Daniel’s childlike voice, his heartfelt lyrics, and the overall lo-fi quality of the recording. I also love how the song starts with a super lo-fi recording of some sort of conversation, as many of his early recordings did. I think this song sums up what it means to be an outsider music perfectly with its main refrain. Just a heartbreakingly beautiful song by an artist we never really deserved.

Divine (1945 – 1988)

Divine was the stage name of Harris Glenn Milstead, an American actor, singer, and drag queen, who was known for his legendary but trashy performances in drag, theatre, filmography, and music^[12]. Milstead was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland to a conservative, middle-class family and developed an interest in drag while working as a women’s hairdresser. By the mid 1960s, he had become involved in Baltimore’s counterculture scene^[13]. It was there that he met and befriended filmmaker John Waters. Waters gave Milstead the stage name Divine and even a tagline: “The most beautiful woman in the world …almost”^[14]. Divine would become somewhat of a cult superstar member of Waters’ acting group the Dreamlanders^[13]. Divine really rose to fame with the release of the infamous 1972 black comedy film, ‘Pink Flamingos‘, which Water directed and wrote^[13]. As a musician, however, Divine had had several years of experience working in gay bars and clubs as a performer, but in the early 1980s, he partnered with composer, Bobby Orlando, who would go on to write a number of Hi-NRG (a sub-genre of disco music) tracks for him to record^[15]. These early singles ended up being a success in discos around the world. To help market his music, Divine would go on various television shows, such as Good Morning America, where he would perform various outlandish comedy acts where he would play up the “trashy” stereotype^[16]. One of the most successful of these early singles was his 1983 song ‘Love Reaction” (see video below). Divine would go on to work in music and film throughout the 1980s until her untimely death by heart failure in 1988^[12]. Divine’s brand of trashy and crass makes for some of the more unique outsider music of the 1980s.

Reflection on ‘Love Reaction’ by Divine (1983):

This song is immediately so different from Daniel Johnston’s ‘The Story of an Artist’ but that’s just the beauty of the broadness of sounds that come out of the outsider music world. This one is a bit more “dated”, I suppose, as it’s essentially an 80’s new wave-sounding disco track. Still, I think it’s really charming with its airy synths, the reverb-laden drum machine, and Divine’s almost hypnotic vocals. I do think the intro for this one is a little long as it takes up nearly half the run-time of the song, but it’s still a good enough instrumental. I think Divine’s vocals really steal the show overall though. I love how his vocals are gravelly, brash, and almost a little clumsy. It’s just so charming. In some parts of the song, the vocals are almost yelled, which created a bit of an interesting contrast between the robotic nature of the 80s electronic instrumentation and Divine’s raw energy. I could totally see myself having the time of my life to this in a disco in the 80s, but I imagine those kinds of experiences would be few and far between to come by in the 2020s to say the least.

Frances Cannon – Frances Cannon and the Extraterrestrials (1944 – 2009)

If you thought Daniel Johnston was quirky or Divine was a bit off the beaten path, then oh boy have I got a treat for you. Frances Baskerville, better known by her moniker Frances Cannon, is hard to find much information on. She might be the first artist covered here that doesn’t have at least a Wikipedia page of some sort. There is virtually none of her music available on YouTube, even less so on streaming services, and a few sparse blog posts here and there that talk about her. Well strap in, cause this is a wild one. I was only made aware of her by an outsider musician “iceberg“^[18] which lists her as one of the more obscure outsider musicians known. But based on this little information, Baskerville was from Dallas, Texas and was in a severe accident where an eighteen-wheeler logging truck backed into her vehicle nearly killing her. She had an out-of-body experience as a result and claimed to have psychic abilities^[19]. Apparently she made a prediction on The Howard Stern Show in 1997 that the body of Patrick McNeil, a university student who had gone missing in February the same year, would be found 100 yards from his home in Port Chester, New York—miraculously, his body was found floating off a pier in Brookyn, New York (only around 20 km away from his home) a few months later^[19,20]. Baskerville used these supposed psychic abilities to work as a licensed private investigator who would specialize in finding lost children; she called herself “Frances Baskerville: The World’s Only Singing Psychic” and headed the the Baskerville Foundation for Psychical Research (also sometimes called the Baskerville Sherlock Holmes Detective Investigation Co.) in Dallas, Texas^[19]. She claimed, at one point, to have found as many as 5,000 missing children^[21]. Going back to her name, for a moment, you’ll notice she was the “singing” psychic. That’s right, instead of merely making predictions, she decided to sing them^[21]. One such prediction can be found in her song ‘Star’s Ghost’ (see video below)^[22] from her second album ‘The Singing Psychic’ (1987) released under the name Frances Cannon and The Extraterrestrials. Actually, the album version of this song is re-titled to ‘Heaven’s Highway’ for whatever reason^[21].

Reflection on ‘Star’s Ghost’ by Frances Cannon and The Extraterrestrials (1987):

This song sounds so much older to me than the others on this list. Daniel Johnston sounds timeless, and Divine sounds of his time, but somehow this track sounds like a 1960s karaoke track. Not only that but, despite having a pretty decent voice, Frances’ vocals have waaaay too much reverb and echo on them making her sound muddy and washed-out. But hey, it still comes across as charming enough and that’s the nature of super obscure, amateur music from the 80s. I want to focus in on the lyrics here though: I think this is another one of Frances’ supposed psychic predictions. Here she seems to be predicting that the late, great Marvin Gaye will come back from the dead to forgive his father for shooting him? I dunno man, it’s a little wack and probably in poor taste… but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t at least captivating as a song concept. Also, I think she’s predicting that Gaye will bring Martin Luther King with him?? I also heard something about Louie Armstrong? I don’t really know what this song is even about anymore. This is just so weird and clumsy but I can’t help but like it for how bafflingly enigmatic it is. The slightly concerning part of this whole thing is Frances was fully convinced of her powers and therefore had full confidence in her predictions, so this music is 100% authentic in her eyes. I don’t know what it’s about and I can barely find any info on Frances Cannon or her other music but I just needed to share this with the world. Frances Cannon is the definition of outsider music.