Daniel Johnston

Daniel Johnston's songs of love and pain made him one of the most unique figures of the American underground, and his outsider spirit set a template for indie rock on the whole. Though Johnston struggled with mental illness his entire life, his creative world was vivid, and his songwriting struck a moving balance between innocence and emotional devastation that would inspire everyone from Sonic Youth and Kurt Cobain to Yo La Tengo and Wilco's Jeff Tweedy. Rough, home-recorded, self-distributed cassettes in the '80s bloomed into more polished albums as Johnston's acclaim grew t...