Resuming shortly

Mehcommendations will resume shortly, probably by September 2nd. I didn't get the job in Berkeley, so my planned relocation won't happen until after the new year. The good news is that the next four months will be relatively uninterrupted, leaving me time to recommend as much of 2008's best music as possible.

In the meantime, I'd like to stimulate some discussion here. I just read the latest edition of Popless at The A.V. Club website. Noel Murray discusses, among other things, his difficulty in convincing others of Prefab Sprout's excellence.

I've had many similar experiences. I've been a Peter Gabriel since I was fifteen years old - more than half my life. But persuading my peers to acknowledge his genius has always been a challenge. My friends and I were listening to Siouxsie & The Banshees, Bauhaus, The Cure, Christian Death, Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode, Dead Can Dance and the like. In comparison, Peter Gabriel appeared mainstream, at least superficially. But having fallen in love with Security, I knew that Gabriel was the true oddball out of the bands I enjoyed. From 1980's Peter Gabriel 3 to 1992's Us, he adeptly married pop, prog, industrial and so-called "world music" in often startling ways.

I managed to win over a couple of friends who had previously refused to believe Gabriel was anything more than an uninspired major label pop artist. How did I do it? My weapon of choice was (and still is) the mixtape. Selecting a few choice tracks from almost every album released up to that point, I carefully built an iron-clad case. My more reasonably minded friends were forced to capitulate.

So here's where the discussion comes in. I'd like to hear about artists you adore, but whom your friends (or others in general) have been reluctant to embrace. How would you make your case? What evidence of their greatness can you present? I'm opening up unmoderated comments, so please keep it civil

Hiatus

You may have noticed that I have gotten a bit behind of writing recommendations and have deleted the dates from the Coming Mehcommendations sidebar. This is because I am preparing to relocate to California in about a month. I hope to start blogging again very quickly after the move is finished. There's still a lot of music to recommend so I'll try to make this break as brief as possible.