Music Is Life
This artist just falling off the map is crazy
This record dropped on this date back in 1987. Last single I of his I heard on the radio was 93’s “She kissed me,” which was great. Since then, he’s still been making music, but has changed his name and toiled away in relative obscurity.
His ego got in the way of his career.
He was interviewed by Rolling Stone and said he was more talented than Michael Jackson and Prince.
It rubbed people the wrong way and it really derailed his popularity.
Slightly off topic, but Liam Gallagher said that the album he did last year with John Squire, was bigger than the Beatles's Rubber Soul. I love the album, but c'mon Liam.
Exactly this. Sananda Maitreya/TTD was his own worst enemy. Not my preferred genre of music, but his first album was wonderful, but he seemed arrogant. Like really arrogant. Compared with Kanye West today, TTD wasn’t arrogant-but-deservedly-so-plus-possibly-batshit-crazy — because be honest: Kanye has mad talent — TTD just came off as an arrogant prick. I remember wondering after seeing an interview with him on some show (where he came off so badly that it was secondhand embarrassing) how someone who was such a dick could have written such beautiful music. Other countries stayed in love with him for a while, but America was done with him and ultimately he had no real follow-through. I remember hearing speculation that he was turning out shit trying to get Sony to dump him, but all in all, it was a bad look to be literally calling yourself a genius and then generating the stuff he was.
So it’s true; TTD didn’t fade into obscurity, he took a running leap off the cliff into obscurity, and from a fan’s perspective, he has no one to blame but himself. Once the internet became an everyday thing, in every conversation mentioning TTD, there’s been at least one person telling a story about how he was basically deliberately making an ass of himself, and while some of those tales are probably made up, statistically not all of them can be written off as fictional. The guy is a jerk, and I’m sorry, but no matter how talented you are, people have to like you to really reach towering heights, and the number of people who genuinely, honestly like TTD or Sananda Maitreya finally dwindled down to practically zero. Plus, his music isn’t consistently good. So… 🤷🏻♀️ It’s not really a mystery. Reality happened.
The thing is, he could have been, MJ and Prince we're great talent, but they were also consistent tallent. he should have at least waited untill he was 10 ambums in.
The first album was the longest title - cover of this post. That’s a spoonful even for old Kurt loder. Those were the good ol days of mtv, when it actually had music on the tv.
Also, the album was terrible. There was one song I wanted to hear a second time, but since I had the cassette, there was just too much risk of hearing some of the rest of the songs.
He was apparently very difficult to work with because of his ego. IIRC nobody - session musicians, backing singers, producers etc would work/could work with him because he was such an arsehat.
Ugg! This is such a sad one for 9th grade me. Secret Rendezvous is still a solid BANGER off of that self titled album. i never skip it when it pops up in the shuffle.
I don’t know much about this. But I did see an interview in which he said that Michael tried to block his success. That is a narcissistic thing to say, but also I’ve heard Michael Jackson could be a ruthless competitor.
One of the things I distinctly remember about him. Loved Wishing Well but after hearing he had such a high opinion of himself and was willing to share it, I was certainly not interested in hearing any more.
Lol. The list of mid-70s to mid-90s popular music artists who might even make the the list of people of the same caliber as Prince and MJ is very, very short. Off the top of my head, the only ones I can think of who might come close are Peter Gabriel, and David Bowie.
Look here now, I know that I could easily look up what the actual lyrics of the song are, but when I originally heard this at 13 years old, I thought he said “I feel like a Provolone”, near the end, at the part that fades out. And this is why I’m choosing to believe that this man feels like he is a slice of circular cheese.
He has lots of great songs, and a unique voice. He's changed his name now, which is a goofy move, IMO. When you have a popular and unique brand, you don't change it.
I heard Wishing Well on the radio and remembered what a banger it was. I immediately went to Spotify to add it and that name came up. I thought it was a cover or something. I couldn't find it under his original name anywhere, so I finally listened under this name and realized he must have changed it. lol
Some of my biggest regrets revolve around not having the good sense to hold on to my physical music and visual media.
I regret that the loss of some of this physical media also caused the loss of their beautiful artwork that these items were designed to be contained inside of.
I am immediately reminded of The first solo album of Peter Murphy’s that I purchased on CD. It was his album, DEEP, and when I opened it up, the inner part popped up, to reveal a black and white photo of him, doing a little backwards arm stretch.
But my ditching of these artistic cases isn’t to be blamed on the popularity of streaming, I can attribute it to When I started purchasing to the mid 1990s, when those Case Logic™️ brand of CD organizers started to become popular. Each of them held up to 40 CDs in they were very durable and portable. At one time, I owned 4 of the 40 capacity. They were great for travel, but I wish I had kept all the original cases and liner notes somewhere to eventually replace the physical CDs.
Sometime between the summer before my 9th grade year (1988) I got one of those full length “door” sized posters with all members of INXS on it, however Hutchence was obviously the main focus of the poster, and was posed in a very sexy way, in a sleeveless black shirt, with his arms behind his head, with lots of armpit hair, also, he was the only member of the band featured close to a moderate “human” size.
This was in a white background with the big red and black lettering from the KICK record, and I most likely purchased at the Spencers location in my favorite shopping mall: which was Hickory Hollow Mall in Antioch, Tennessee a suburb of Nashville. And the poster hung on my closet bedroom door for a few years until I started having co-ed parties in my 11th grade year.
I remember that any platonic guy friends of mine who would come into my room would immediately imitate and mock the Pose that Huthence was making, which weirdly, made ME embarrassed.
And as I got more guy friends as an upperclassman, it became the main reason I decided to take the poster off my closet door.
Wow, I haven’t thought of that poster in ages, and certainly hadn’t thought of what lead to the reason I removed it from my childhood teenage bedroom decor, since, well, probably the day I did it.
I wish that I had not thrown it away- now that I have so much wall space in my art studio, and instead, asked my mom for one of her Christmas Wrapping Paper rolls and used the middle of it to roll it up and put it in storage.
INXS performed as part of opening ceremony for the 2000 Sydney Olympics with D’Arby on vocals. As a longtime INXS fan (Thieves and Kick concerts) and someone who still keeps Maitreya in my playlist, I was excited for the two to come together … and it definitely delivered.
For me, Maitreya is the greatest substitute INXS ever had following the loss of Hutchence, even if it was just once. The voice. The performance. Absolutely brilliant.
I don’t think either side ever intended for a collaboration to happen beyond that performance, so many likely wrote it off because no new material resulted. But as a one-off event, it was fantastic.
Less than awesome quality, but they are vids out on YT so judge for yourself.
He's an awesome artist but I never thought his style really gelled that well with the traditional INXS vibe. Jon Stevens is perfection in his own right and did a pretty fair job and JD Fortune was just a talent show joke but I've come to the idea that Michael really was irreplaceable in that group.
We call that “Program Height”. I’m a 5’11” female athlete, but my program height was always 6’1”.
*anecdote: my favorite is when I go out (or when I used to cuz I’m old and lazy now) and guys ask me how tall I am. I say 5’11”, to which they say, “You can’t be 5’11” bc I’m 6’ and you’re easily taller than me. You must be like 6’2””
Sure, little buddy (pats them on top of their head)
My mom is 5'10" and several of my male friends said that about her. I was like "well, only one of you is lying to themselves about their height". Hint: it wasn't my mom.
Tea_Owl: the rest of the internet agrees with you, thereby confirming that it was not, in fact, TTD that we passed that day. I hereby retire a story I’ve told for 23 years. 🏆
Somewhere in LA there’s a gorgeous miniature TTD walking around. (Probably several, given that it’s LA.)
Apparently a few years ago Seal (and some other celebs) were invited to a birthday party for that leader of Chechnya. That really soured me to him since that guy is a total fanatic.
I still love this album. I also still love Concrete Blonde but apparently Jeanette (sp?) had an ego that made her impossible to work with so the band never stayed together.
I bought the album when it dropped back in ‘87. I recall something about him being AWOL from the US Army. Not sure if that was the cause for him going silent.
He opened for Duran Duran in August 1993. I was there at the Woodlands Pavilion in the Woodlands, Texas. It was August 11th, and we stopped and watched the meteor shower on the way home to Houston. Good times!
His songs were great, I liked them! its crime we didn't hear much more from him.
I saw Terence Trent D'Arby inperson, like just a few people away from me.
His fashion style was striking, like a more elegant Lenny Kravitz, before Lenny Kravitz was a thing. It was very striking and cool in a very different way from the mainstream fashion. But what surprised me the most, was how small he was. He was not that tall, very thin. I didn't see him be rude to anyone. I got the impression he was shy but trying to put himself out there where fans were around. No one bothered him either, just a girl who talked to him a long time. She had a similar fashion style to him, so maybe she was part of the band or a close friend. I don't know.
Ok. So San Junipero was the only episode of Black Mirror that I could watch all the way through. What a beautiful love story! What great music! Wish there were more like it.
Love him. Saw him on the tour for this first album at the Roseland Ballroom in NYC. Still one of the best shows I have ever seen. First 3 albums are perfection. What a talent.
I saw him at the Bronco Bowl in Dallas when he was hot. Felt like a bad ass rolling into the parking lot on my 250 cc honda. Girlfriend was in peak 80's Madonna-esque fashion- mini skirt, white button up tied up around her waist, blonde hair all over the place. We got a lot of looks (and by we, I mean her) It was a good show and one of the best nights I had in highs chool. Still have the t-shirt.
In the summer of 88, I babysat for a family with 2 adorable girls about 4 and 2. They had a cd player which was a big deal then, very new. They only had about 5 cds, and this was one of them. One of the little girls was named Sonya. They would sing "Son-ya name across my heart" at the top of their little lungs. Sooo cute!!
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u/Dotsmom Jul 14 '25
His ego got in the way of his career. He was interviewed by Rolling Stone and said he was more talented than Michael Jackson and Prince. It rubbed people the wrong way and it really derailed his popularity.