IED0DXM@UCLAMVS.BITNET (10/30/86)
> Wheee! New Kate! Now let's just hope it doesn't get blocked from >US release by some nasty record company... > -Peter To answer this question, IED has been assured by a rep for EMI-America that The Whole Story is slated for domestic release November 14. No word on the single, though my source thought it would likely be released about the same time here. No clear plans in the US, if any, to release The Single File in NTSC. If such plans still exist, they will likely be long in coming to fruition now, since Kate will still be editing the film for "Experiment IV" on November 9, according to Pete Morris. Kate WILL appear in Peter Gabriel's video for "Don't Give Up". After considerable time wasted with the UC library computers, IED has given up searching for possible sources for Kate's latest subject, the use of sound as a weapon. If there was a real "Experiment IV", she'll have to give us more of a clue than the name. The Experiment that IED was associating with the Nazis was "Experiment E", altogether different. Somehow it seems unlikely that MM is accurately identifying the source as a futuristic idea of Kate's. IED still thinks the source is probably some movie or TV show in which the Experiment was carried out. Anybody got an idea? The Whole Story will be a gatefold LP, with a black and white photo of Kate on the front cover, and color photos on the inside. The singles NOT included are: Hammer Horror, December Will Be Magic Again, There Goes a Tenner, Suspended in Gaffa (not a UK release to begin with), and the Big Sky (too recently released, IED supposes). All other UK single a-sides are included. No clue what NME had in mind when referring to "hits and bits". Now to return our Guy's latest thrown gauntlet, as politely as possible. >Why shouldn't I be able to make a judgment after hearing it once, >or twice, or (in Doug's case) half a dozen times? I make decisions >about music, books, movies, etc. all the time, usually based on only >one listening/reading/viewing/whatever. Do I have to own a videocassette >of "Runaway Train" and have watched it every day for the past three >months before I can voice my opinion? No, I don't think so, and I >also don't think you can show that a record album is any >different from a movie in this regard. > This, by the way, is exactly the reaction I expected. >How about responding to the meat of my argument? >Steve "Blore" Howard, Average Guy The fact that you make judgments based on insufficient understanding "all the time" does not constitute a justification for doing so, Average. Whether "Runaway Train" can be fairly judged after one viewing or not depends upon both the knowledge and experience of the viewer, and the nature of the film. The same is true in judging anything, whether it be a film, a record, or a building. First you have to know what you're talking about, second you have to apply standards of judgment that are appropriate for the subject in question. Example: A new skyscraper is completed downtown. The building is generally liked by the public. A successful architect points out that the vaulting on the ground floor is inelegant and possibly unsafe, and judges the building harshly as a result. Clearly the architect is right, and the fact that the lay public disagree is irrelevant. Why? Because the public's experience of skyscrapers, although possibly considerable, is for the most part superficial and untrained, whereas the architect's experience of skyscrapers is technically and aesthetically informed. The notion that "anybody can judge art", and that anyone's judgment is as valid as anyone else's, is entirely invalid. Now, before you take all this personally, let it be said that IED does not doubt that Blore has listened to a great deal of what he is so fond of labeling "conventional pop music". In the present case, however, Guy, you have chosen a revolutionary record -- a record unlike virtually any other recorded piece of music in history, one which defies all previous standards of judging "popular music" -- and you have passed an uninformed judgment on it without having listened to it long enough even to BEGIN to hear the subtleties involved. NATURALLY you find it wanting! YOU HAVEN'T LISTENED TO IT YET! But since you insist, let's look (BRIEFLY) at the "meat" (mostly fat and gristle, Blore) of your argument. >But if it's indistinguishable from the original (or at least >indistinguishable >without electronic testing), why bother? Why not lift the dialogue >from the film soundtrack? There're other "borrowed" sounds on the record >-- the helicopter from Pink Floyd, for one. That's a valid point. IED supposes the explanation of this particular puzzle has to do with copyrights. The reason the example was given was to show how much more sophisticated are Kate's production techniques than those of "Alan Parsons" or "Queen". In this respect, the example serves perfectly. A similar example would be the men's choral passage in "Hello Earth". In this case Kate contracted the choral director of the London Symphony Orchestra and a successful contemporary British composer of conventional orchestral music to help re-create a piece heard in the film "Nosferatu" note for note, retaining every vocal texture and nuance of phrasing heard in the original -- but adapted, in the most understated ways imaginable, to the context of the song "Hello Earth". The changes are far subtler than anything ever heard on a popular record before, and in this case the motivation both for the fidelity to the model and the alterations made are clearly aesthetic in nature, and deeply personal to Kate. >What's the point? If the alteration is so subtle that the listener >can't tell the difference, why make the alteration at all? It depends on the listener, doesn't it? As for the reasons, as admitted above, these are not always clear. Perhaps sometimes the reasons are prosaic (copyright problems, etc.), and in other cases -- as with the chorus in "Hello Earth" -- Kate's own technical and artistic standards simply demand that the reproduction of the experience which originally moved her be as faithful as possible, while at the same time adapting to its new musical surroundings. >But a complex song that doesn't sound good is not better than a >simple song that does. Obviously this is true. The mistake is in implying that Kate's "complex songs" don't "sound good". They do! >There are songs--virtually all of The Dreaming-- >probably which would sound better if they were less complex. "Better"? Is this an objective judgment? If they were "less complex", they would certainly sound different. They would sound -- simpler! Easier. Perhaps this is what you'd like. IED disagrees with Doug about this, since Doug feels that without their production they would be too simple to hold interest, and IED thinks their essential value IS in their basic melodic, harmonic and structural beauty. But one thing is clear -- the qualities of The Dreaming which make it the subject of such heated controversy are qualities of production, not of the conventional musical elements. Those who would PREFER the conventional musical bases of the pieces on The Dreaming to the finished, highly produced recordings that Kate finally released -- they are the listeners who prefer just that: CONVENTIONAL music. >See, this is why nobody on net.music likes you guys. Hey, that's not fair to the other L-Hs -- or to the rest of the net. music-ers, either, for that matter. IED is sure they can speak for themselves, and they almost certainly don't like being bunched with IED! Speaking entirely for himself, then, IED will say that as far as he can tell, Blore doesn't like IED's opinions because they differ from his own, and because he's having trouble finding a rational means of contesting them. >Of course I can >consider Kate Bush in the same context as conventional popular music, >because her music _is_ conventional popular music. You keep trying to call an apple an orange. Your argument is not substantially strengthened by simply affirming its validity. If you're so confident that Kate's music IS conventional, demonstrate how. >And even if it's not --- Ahh! So you're NOT really so confident, eh? >--- it still has to meet the same criteria for popular (and even >Doug Alan admits it's pop) music: it has to sound good. But if you just got through admitting the possibility that it might NOT be conventional, then why should it still have to be judged by conventional means? This is completely unreasonable. And then once again we come back to the term "sounds good". The Dreaming DOES "sound good"! A meaningless term. And whether Doug Alan admits this or not, it simply doesn't follow that all "popular music" HAS to "sound good" to BE good. The point is, "sounding good" is a relative term: Beethoven didn't, as a rule, "sound good" to the Vienna public of ca. 1810. Nowadays, a larger number of people feel that Beethoven does "sound good". If it DOESN'T sound good to YOU, does that mean you are correct in saying that it's not good music? The same goes for "popular" music. If the primary basis for according value to a piece of popular music were every average listener's feeling that it "sounded good", what would we be left with? That can be answered easily: since that is the method by which records reach the top forty charts, take a look at what your standard of judgment would leave us with: Whitney Houston, Phil Collins, Lionel Ritchie, and that's about it. I assume that these are not your ideals of popular music, and IED ventures to suggest that they are not those of the Love-Hounds in general. Therefore, even you, Blore, must be applying some other criterion besides "it sounds good", or "it's entertaining" -- which brings us to your next winning line: >Pop music is, after all, entertainment. If the listener is not >entertained, or emotionally moved in some way to enjoy the song >then the song has failed to achieve its purpose: entertainment. But you're contradicting yourself in the same sentence. Since when has the verb "to entertain" become synonymous with being "emotionally moved in some way"? The latter criterion implies pretty much the opposite of what you've been trying to say: bland terms like "sounds good" and "entertainment" are a far cry from the entire range of human emotion. Besides, all you can fairly say is that The Dreaming fails to entertain or "emotionally move" YOU. >And why not look at it as a collection of songs? That's what it is. My point all along has been not to deny that Kate writes songs, but to remind you that her RECORDS are not SIMPLY "collections of songs". There are frequently (although not always) songs at the root of Kate's music, but on top of that root she grows a massive redwood tree of PRODUCTION -- production which is indispensible to the general effect, appearance and success of her art. And thank God it doesn't all "sound good"!
janm@runx.OZ.AU (Jan Mikkelsen) (11/14/86)
Re: Kate's new releases Right ... so now we know she is releasing a new album and single, and when it is due in the US and the UK. But when is it due here is Australia??? Jan Mikkelsen. "I KNOW I've forgotten something ...."