Daniel Johnston is a strange phenomonem in the musicscene. Not known by the big public (even as obscure as say Bleach I guess) but he has a fanbase that consists of the greatest artists ever : David Bowie, Kurt Cobain (he wore several times a Daniel Johnston T-shirt on promopics) or Tom Waits are only three examples from people who are going wild about Daniel's music.
Daniel Johnston is the living example that it pays being a casette-artist as most of his releases were DIY-tapes (imagine how much they're worth now on the collector's market).
Some people even state that Johnston formed the base of the lo-fi scene.
He is the sort of bedroomartist who is most known for his relativization from himself. If you see pics from Daniel, you tend to pity him, someone for whom life has no more surprises, someone who seen it all...
Everyone who saw the documentary 'The devil and Daniel Johnston' knows he saw it all as not only he suffers from diabetes, he's also mentally ill as well.
If you're listening to Daniel's music, it got even worse as all the songs are drifting in the sort of sadness that would bring labile people to suicide, but Daniel transforms it in heavenly music.
I choose "Fear yourself" because it was the album that got me into his musical world and it's also an album that mixes lo-fi with orchestration and that gives this music a very apart feeling, a feeling I only heard on "Yerself is steam" by Mercury Rev.
"Fear yourself" was released in 2003, and apart from the typical Johnston comic-art, the record was produced by Mark Linkous from Sparklehorse.
A very wide range that goes from pure lo-fi (listen to "Living it for the moment" and it'll change your life) till orchestrated songs (listen to "You hurt me" and you'll burst into tears).
An artist everybody should listen to, not only Bowie.
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