page_title: R. Stevie Moore
section_title: Impact and recognition
hierarchical_section_title: R. Stevie Moore / Impact and recognition
caption_attribution_description: ariel pink
context_page_description: Robert Steven Moore, also known as R. Stevie Moore or RSM, is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, and songwriter who pioneered lo-fi/DIY music. Often called the "godfather of home recording", he is one of the most recognized artists of the cassette underground, and his influence is particularly felt in the bedroom and hypnagogic pop artists of the post-millennium. Since 1968, he has self-released approximately 400 albums, while about three dozen "official" albums have been issued on various labels.
  Born the son of Nashville A-Team bassist Bob Moore, Steven grew up in the 1960s listening to the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Mothers of Invention, and Jimi Hendrix. On his 16th birthday, he received a four-track reel-to-reel tape deck and began recording as a one-man band in his parents' basement in suburban Madison, Tennessee. The innovative manipulation of low fidelity recording processes in his early albums defined his general aesthetic. With help from his uncle, he made his official label debut with 1976's Phonography, which was well-received in New York's punk and new wave circles.
context_section_description: AllMusic's Stewart Mason summarized Moore's body of work as a "one of a kind" mixture of "classic pop influences, arty experimentalism, idiosyncratic lyrics, wild stylistic left turns, and homemade rough edges." However, "entire generations of lo-fi enthusiasts and indie trailblazers, from Guided by Voices to the Apples in Stereo, owe much to [his] pioneering in the field." In the liner notes of Me Too, XTC member Dave Gregory stated that Moore was "a seriously underrated maverick talent, the Neil Young of the real underground ...  his lyrics are intelligent and/or downright funny, he knows how to string a sequence of chords together and he has a gift for melody that many a more 'successful' songwriter would envy." He worked with Moore on a remake of Moore's "Dates" in 1999. XTC founder Andy Partridge echoed of Moore's work: "What beauty, what invention."
  A wider recognition of Moore's music came in the late 2000s as a result of newer acts who cited him as an influence. In particular, there was Ariel Pink, who initiated a correspondence with Moore earlier in the decade and recorded some collaborations. Pink's own work shared much of the same musical approaches, although Moore denies that they sound similar.  Moore's exposure grew alongside Pink's solo success as he was repeatedly championed by Pink in various press interviews. In 2005, Pink contributed a song to Moore's Conscientious Objector compilation. He told a journalist around this era that he was "trying to like, reverse time. I'm trying to get Todd Hyman to reissue him on Acute. Then it can get like, the David-Fricke-fuckin'-Rolling Stone treatment. It's about time. It's criminal that he's not well known. Especially in light of the fact that I'm getting attention. ... Mojo has never even printed a word about him. Uncut, never a word." In 2006, Pink curated the Moore retrospective Ariel Pink's Picks Vol. 1, and in 2012, the duo released the collaborative album Ku Klux Glam.
  When a 2006 New York Times article referenced Moore as the progenitor of "bedroom pop", he responded that the notion was "hilarious to me. I guess because of my age, because of my bitter struggle to make a living and get some notoriety, I scoff at it. ... A lot of the music coming out of these bedrooms is not even interesting, not worthy of being heard. But some of it will be." Moore also hesitated to be associated with the "outsider music" tag, explaining that while he "loves" artists like Wesley Willis and Daniel Johnston, "they have no concept as to how to write or arrange a Brian Wilson song." In 2012, The Wire's Matthew Ingram argued that "[h]is echoes can be heard in the music of artists like Pavement, Smog, Guided By Voices and Beck, and through his disciple Ariel Pink, he has unwittingly provided the template for the entire movement currently known as Hypnagogic Pop." Tim Burrows of Dazed Digital similarly noted that "with a little help from James Ferraro and a few others, Moore and Pink can be credited with influencing [the] whole [genre of] hypnagogic pop."
caption: Ariel Pink performing in 2009
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