Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/17/86)
Really-From: Nancy Everson <everson@spca.bbn.com> Hi everyone. I'm looking for some advice. I was telling a friend of mine about Love-Hounds, and he made some comment to the effect that it seemed to be "too much, even for Kate." He then went on to add, "What I want to know is, how does one get past her voice?" He called that wonderful voice "screechy", "shrill", "like a little girl", and "hard to listen to". I spoke to him later, and he stressed that while he greatly admires her composition and arrangements, he feels that another voice would be "more effective" in some places. What can I say to him? Her voice isn't something that one needs to "get past", I think it's wonderful. And just who could have a more effective voice than Kate for her songs? He's left me speechless; I didn't know what to say. So I am posing a question to Love-Hounds: What does one say to a would-be Kate fan with reservations about her voice? - nancy P.S. I'll pass any flames along to him. nancy everson (everson@spca.bbn.com) bbn software products corporation, cambridge mass
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/18/86)
Really-From: Vulture of Light <trainor@CS.UCLA.EDU>
What does one say to a would-be Kate fan with reservations about her voice?
You tell them that they are entirely correct. That, perhaps, Kate Bush
should stick to being a songwriter, writing songs for other people to perform.
You should confirm their worst suspicions about Kate Bush--the conspiracy, etc.
- douglasLove-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (12/18/86)
Really-From: nessus (Doug Alan) > What does one say to a would-be Kate fan with reservations about her > voice? Hi Nancy! One says: (1) "Get new ears, buster!" (2) "Let me show you my collection of Nina Hagen / Lene Lovich / Throwing Muses / Diamanda Galas records." (3) "You cannot fully accept Kate because you have let Madonna into your soul. Accept Kate now and reject Madonna or you will not obtain eternal life and are doomed to be lost forever in a top-40 discoteque. Kate suffers for your sins." But seriously, I found Kate's voice awfully disturbing and grating the first dozen times I listened to *The Dreaming*. Then when I finally got used to her voice and bought *The Kick Inside*, I was again totally shocked by her voice and again found it grating for a while. But you all know what I think of her voice now. It's the most beautiful sound I know of. Beauty is a type of pain, and those things which affect us the most deeply and are the most beautiful will be those which unsettle, disturb, and perhaps hurt, the most. Tell your friend that it's precisely because her voice is unusual that many people like Kate's voice, and for a large fraction of these, it took them a long time to get used to it. But it was always worth it for them. If he never gets to like her voice, well then, he will be missing out on the best music in existence. I guess he can always listen to Pat Benetar doing "Wuthering Heights" instead (glrblurch..), or the Love-Hounds tape, when it comes out. |>oug "Western wind, when will thou blow, The small rains down can rain? Christ! if my love were in my arms, And I in my bed again!"
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU (12/18/86)
Really-From: hogge@p.cs.uiuc.edu (John Hogge) >Really-From: Nancy Everson <everson@spca.bbn.com> >What does one say to a would-be Kate fan with reservations about her voice? > > - nancy Point out to him that even *dumb* sounding voices can be fun to listen to occasionally. --John
Love-Hounds-request@EDDIE.MIT.EDU.UUCP (12/19/86)
Really-From: William LeFebvre <phil@rice.edu> Well, it seems this friend of yours has already started coming around, but I'll put in my 2 cents worth anyway. I too found Kate's voice grating at first. "Screechy" and "shrill" are very accurate descriptions of how I felt about her voice (note the wording here---that is not how I would describe her voice NOW, but there was a time when...). But those were the days when I never really listened to the songs. I just overheard other people around me playing her stuff and I never really sat down to listen to it myself. Then I borrowed a friend's copy of _The_Kick_Inside_ and listened to it. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" quite simply blew me away! I wanted to listen to that song over and over again. I thought it was one of the most beautiful and artistic songs ever written and performed. At that point I knew what potential Kate has as a singer and composer. Then I let the disc continue on into "Wuthering Heights". And I stopped to listen to the technique, the mechanics of the song as well as the other things. And I was blown away again. What a magnificent voice range! Now as I think about it and as I listen to more of her work, I begin to realize what it was that initially made me dislike her voice. It's her falsetto "child-like" voice that she occasionally shifts in to. She does it well, but I guess it sounds too much like a child singing. I know it's supposed to sound that way, and as I said, she does it well. And it's not just the falsetto that bothered me, it was the changing from normal to the upper range: the inevitable "whooping" up the octaves that sounded so much like wailing and screeching. She doesn't do that at all in "...Child in His Eyes", and although she uses the falsetto in "Wuthering Heights", she doesn't "whoop" much. If this is the same thing that bothers your friend, then I bet he would not be bothered (and might even like) _Hounds_of_Love_. That is certainly a wonderfully artistic disc that does an excellent job of showing off Kate's talent. And of course there are the two songs I have already mentioned. It's to the point now that I don't even know, from an aethetic standpoint, why her voice bothered me before. Maybe I got used to it. Maybe I was so overwhelmed by her talent that I was able to ignore that facet of Kate. Or maybe I began to see the artistic reasons that she used that quality of her voice. It is, after all, one of the things that makes her KaTe. One thing is certain: she is a far better composer, musician, and performer than any of the stuff that gets played on your standard American pop-top 40 station! And she is certainly one of the best all-time musicians. Isn't it funny how all of today's really excellent musicians and composers never get air time? Peter Gabriel had to resort to something as low as "Sledgehammer" to get his stuff on the air, and really all they ever play is that one tune. What a shame. The only stations that will play the really good stuff are non-commercial stations---college and the like---because they don't have to answer to anyone but themselves. But then I guess that through the years none of the good musicians were ever appreciated until they were dead. William LeFebvre Department of Computer Science Rice University <phil@Rice.edu>