I think it was less about his music on its own and more about the type of artist he is. I agree that he has a lot of songs that are just not listenable but he does have some really cool ones in there. According to a doc I watched about him, when he was giving out “Hi How Are You” on cassette, people LOVED it. Could’ve been something about the times that was happening in too, because I don’t know who hears that tape on it’s own and thinks “this man needs to open up at our next show”, but people did and he was successful.