Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (02/11/87)
Really-From: ed191-bq%violet.Berkeley.EDU@BERKELEY.EDU (Taylor) In response to rajit's posting, I don't think Experiment IV is all THAT bad, especially since my expectations for "extra songs" on greatest hits albums tend to be around the level of a good B-side. On the other hand, I think she's really risking becoming a parody of herself if she keeps insisting on using that same "menacing helicopter passing overhead" sound at the end of her songs too much. She already used it to close out "Pull out the pin" and "Waking the Witch," so couldn't she come up with something a bit more original here? It's beginning to reek of formula. Also, she really goes in for those grand, (overblown? Bombastic?) endings to her "heavy" songs (The big gong at the end of "Hammer Horror", the echoing bass note at the end of "Breathing," etc). They're fine for these songs, but using them over and over can get sort of annoying, since I'm in the mood of the song, but then I hear these things and cringe and think, "oh, there goes the helicopter again" ... makes me wonder if her Kent recording studio doesn't lie directly under the flight path of some nearby army base or something... As far as the "fan" interpretation of Hounds of Love, although Andrew Marvick says that "there isn't a shred of evidence in the song to support" the interpretation that the pursuing hounds are her fans, I think that Doug's interpretation is really accurate. Judging from her behavior in the past, Kate consistently has been very skittish about letting her fans get too close to her, which is totally understandable, since she's a really private person and deserves to be left alone, without thousands of fans from all over the world "hounding" her down with requests for locks of hair, personal advice or what have you. So although she is too polite to come right out and say, "Lay off!" I think the song contains a really strong (even subconscious) message to her fans to give her some room to breathe. Of course, this doens't invalidate the fact that the song can also be applied to a one-on-one relationship type of situation. I think a good example of her fear of fans was seen in last years (first) convention in Romford/London, where she only poked her head 'round the curtain, and several hundred rabid fans rushed to the stage. I wonder what it must have looked like from the stage? Hugh