Jobriath : Lonely Planet Boy
American Bowie. Well, not exactly. His music is not identical to Bowie's, but he hit the scene in 1973 and he was also very much in the glam-rock vein, with a similar vocal range, theatrics and range of music styles (rock, cabaret, pop, blues). He was promoted to unbelievable extents in the US and his album was released in a flurry of publicity...and then he bombed. Utterly. It's really quite hard to understand why, listening to the music. Perhaps if he had been released in London rather than in the US, he'd have met with much more success. Hearing this compilation of his very short musical career, it's a bit like uncovering a lost Bowie classic from the 1970s, it's that high quality, in my opinion.
Morrissey was a big fan on his. In the early 1990s, Morrissey inquired into Jobriath being an opening act for him, only to discover that Jobriath had died in the early 1980s. Somehow, that seems to sum up the sad story of completely unfulfilled potential in a nutshell.
This compilation (
Lonely Planet Boy) was a compilation that Morrissey put together and released in 2003 or so. It's great music.