Nick Drake
One of the more influential folk singer/song writers in recent memory. Nicholas Rodney "Nick" Drake, better known as Nick Drake, was an independent British musician who died young from an apparent suicide. Never achieving popular success, his reputation grew after his death. Some of his best-known songs include "Things Behind the Sun", "Northern Sky" and "Pink Moon" (which was used for a car commercial). His songwriting was of such high quality that everything in his small body of work is worth hearing.
Discography:
- Five Leaves Left (1969)
- Bryter Layter (1970)
- Pink Moon (1972)
Nick Drake provides examples of the following tropes:
- Creator Breakdown: After releasing two albums to a largely indifferent reception, Drake's despair on Pink Moon is particularly striking.
- Dead Artists Are Better: Nick Drake became much better known after his death.
- Doing It for the Art: The almost obsessive practice Drake put into his guitar certainly shows in his effortless playing.
- Missing Episode: Or a variant thereof: While we have three albums, several bootleg albums, pictures and some home footage from his childhood, no moving footage of an adult Nick Drake exists anywhere.
- New Sound Album: Pink Moon featured none of the orchestration on his first two albums, being performed completely on acoustic guitar with the exception of an overdubbed piano on the title track.
- Perishing Alt Rock Voice: The Trope Codifier, if not a Trope Maker.
- Repurposed Pop Song: "Pink Moon" was used in a Volkswagen ad, and AT&T used "From The Morning" in a 2010 commercial.
- Revival by Commercialization: See Repurposed Pop Song above.
- Starving Artist: He saw almost no money from his records while he was alive.
- Three Chords and the Truth: Drake's music is generally quite intricate, with Baroque guitar playing techniques and often similarly competent accompaniment, so he does not really fit this trope for the most part. However, Pink Moon is a lot more stripped-back compared to the previous two albums (cf. New Sound Album above).
- The Something Song: "Cello Song".
- Uncommon Time: "River Man" is in 5/4.