There are no secrets anymore, but I'm sure Bill Fay won't mind too much. Back in the early 1970s, Fay released a couple of albums of sweet, soft, swirling English folk psychedelia. These records didn't necessarily trouble the mainstream back then and, somewhat inevitably, Fay slowly dipped beneath the radar, writes Jim Carroll

But a good record is still a good record, which is why you still see mentions of Bill Fay and his music in different places. Jim O'Rourke namechecked him a couple of times and tipped Fay's self-titled 1971 album to Jeff Tweedy when he was working on Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. The Wilco singer became enamoured with Be Not So Fearful from Fay's self-titled 1970 debut. Indeed, if you've seen the Wilco film I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, you'll have seen Tweedy performing the song.

The thing is, Fay's records were impossible to find despite this micro-buzz. Shop assistants would shrug when you mentioned his name (yes, even in so-called specialist stores who claim to be fountains of all knowledge) and online searches yielded nothing. Well, OK, there were copies of the album available through Gemm, but the vendors were demanding quite ridiculous prices for their wares.

But, like we said earlier, there are no secrets anymore, and all those Bill Fay records have been finally reissued in the last few months. The reissues received rave reviews, which means that there are now stickers on the front of each proclaiming Fay to be "the missing link between Nick Drake, Ray Davies and Bob Dylan". It probably means a few more record sales. Fay still won't bother the mainstream, but at least you can buy his records again.

Terry Callier, the crown prince of Chicago soul, was another beneficiary of an unexpected boon. He spent much of the 1990s sitting in the computer department at the University of Chicago, happily coding his days away and thinking wistfully about his old albums changing hands for large amounts of money which he would never see. Next thing he knows, there were phone calls from British geezers and he was on a plane to London, playing gigs, recording new albums and enjoying some long overdue time in the sun.

The list goes on. While neither Nick Drake nor Tim Buckley were best-selling artists while on this mortal coil, both are now regarded as icons and influences on a host of performers, and their records continue to be spun and explored. Not much consolation to either, of course, but proof that good records always find an audience in the end.

That said, Buckley's best work remains 1970's Starsailor and it's one of those hard-to-find gems which commands silly prices. It's an album which deserves a re-issue, if only to show the world at large that those insipid wimps trading under that moniker sound absolutely nothing like the album from which they nicked their name.

Pop's always had a fascination with the new. It's a healthy one because music needs a constant influx of new blood and fresh ideas. Yet, in the rush to eulogise new acts and transform them into something they most clearly are not, there are too many triumphs of mediocrity. And we're not just talking about the new Coldplay album.

A couple of years ago, next big thing tags were applied to such acts as The Unbelievable Truth, Cleopatra, The Young Offenders, Hepburn and Witness. Today, if you can name the lead singer in each one without resorting to Google, you deserve a prize or a place on The Ticket's pop quiz team.

There may well be a clamour in the future for these acts and a re-evaluation every bit as comprehensive as the one Bill Fay is now receiving. Chances are, though, that they'll be nothing more than footnotes, another handful of acts who ever so briefly flickered before fading away.

For the real deal, you have to look beyond marketing campaigns and promotional pushes. Right now, you may well find it in what Bill Fay has to offer.