Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (01/24/87)
Really-From: IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU Thanks to Greg Earle (and Peter Alfke?) for the notice about the Lhasa Club's "rare" Kate video show tonight. IED will investigate -- perhaps they'll want to borrow some REAL "rare" Kate video... Doug, IED may be wrong, but he seems to remember that Kate did mention David Byrne at least once, not really as an influence, but as someone who was doing interesting work. Of course Kate was "influenced" by Bowie -- Eno and many, many others. No-one would be silly enough to suggest Kate grew up in a musical vacuum. The point is, she has far outstripped them in the process of learning from them. The mere fact that Kate was influenced by Gabriel doesn't mean that Gabriel has made an album that can compare favourably in every respect with Kate's! In fact, the first point is entirely unrelated to the second. As for Eno's LPs, they are highly innovative, interesting and influential. They do not even begin to approach Kate's post-1981 work in several respects, however. Even Eno has said on several occasions that his lyrics (from the vocal LPs) were devised almost exclusively for their phonetic/rhythmic qualities, and that he had never put any serious effort into them. The technical and abstract methodological innovations of his recordings have always taken precedence in his mind over any of the more traditional values for music which Kate always makes the foundation of her own. So, while Eno's contribution to the music of our time cannot be denied, it is ridiculous to say that it excells in all of the respects which IED's challenge spelled out. In fact, in regard to several of the criteria named, Eno is sorely deficient. Now, about this business of Gabriel "selling out". This is silly. First, Gabriel did not "sell out long before" So. In IED's opinion, he hasn't "sold out" now, either. There seems to be no doubt that he tried to make his music more broadly appealing, but he certainly didn't do this for money! Nevertheless, So is a very minor piece of work, in IED's view -- not, however, because of insincerity on Gabriel's part, but because of essential weaknesses in his artistic make-up -- weaknesses which Kate Bush does not have. The roots of So's worst faults are all quite audible in his earlier work -- even in the best LP, PG III. Despite the many fine qualities of PGs III and IV, the lyrics of both are riddled with embarassing excesses of simplistic pseudo-sociological sentiment, and the actual musical content -- as apart from the music's brilliant presentation and treatment -- is very primitive, even in comparison with Kate's least ambitious structures and melodies. The point is, Gabriel hasn't "sold out" -- it's just that, in shedding his music and words of their spectacular clothing (i.e., the production on PGs III and IV, especially), he has exposed the meagreness of the body underneath. -- Andrew Marvick