I think the claim that Buckley's version of Hallelujah is better than Cohen's (even the initial 1984 version) is controversial, at minimum :-)
The observations about obscurity are good ones, however -- A Confederacy of Dunces is a fantastic book, and it's hard to say how many other fantastic works of music, literature, &c. are lost in closets and old laptop hard drives. But I think it's not as much about genius as the author seems to think: given that we don't actually know the denominator under "known great works to unknown great ones," it seems equally plausible to me that "genius" is not the rare or distinguishing thing we always treat it as.
The observations about obscurity are good ones, however -- A Confederacy of Dunces is a fantastic book, and it's hard to say how many other fantastic works of music, literature, &c. are lost in closets and old laptop hard drives. But I think it's not as much about genius as the author seems to think: given that we don't actually know the denominator under "known great works to unknown great ones," it seems equally plausible to me that "genius" is not the rare or distinguishing thing we always treat it as.