nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan) (10/25/85)
A long while ago I bought "Terappin Station". It was only natural that I'd be interested in The Grateful Dead, being a Kate Bush fanatic and all, because the way Seth and others talk about them, you'd think they were Kate Bush or something! :-) Anyway, I like good music, so I thought I'd give ol' Jerry and the gang a listen or 2. And the verdict is: Well, they're ok, but no Kate Bush. Yes, yes, they are talented and sincere, etc., but so what? I didn't find the album particularly challenging to listen to. I didn't hear anything incredibly new or different. Some of the stuff on the album is kind of neat, but as a whole, the album was just sort of pleasant. It didn't have that irritating edge or grate on the nerves the way most *really* interesting music does.... Etc.... > [From Set Jackson] > Her melodies were "complex", but not beautiful. Listen to "Night Of The Swallow" again! Also Eberhard Weber's so beautiful bass playing on "Houdini". Beauty has it's place. And so do all sorts of other different sensations. > Most often, I find, the most beauty is found in simplicity. Elegance > is taking a simple idea and weaving subleties around it. I think there's room in the world for all sorts of approaches. Kate Bush has stuff that's very simple and stuff that's very complex. If you want simplicity check out "Under The Ivy" (just piano and voice -- on the B-side to the "Running Up That Hill" single) or "My Lagan Love" (a solo a cappella on the "Cloudbusting" EP). On "The Dreaming", "All The Love" is a relatively simple and very spaceous and beautifully haunting piece. > Doug loves to talk about how innovative Kate Bush is. Well, perhaps > she is, but not to the level that Doug wants to believe. On much of > the album, she seemed to me a lot like female version of Pink Floyd. > That's certainly not the kind of comparison one would be ashamed of, > but it's been done before. Well if you want to accuse her work on "The Dreaming" of being derivative, saying it is derivative of Peter Gabriel would be much more appropriate. (Though you'd still be completely wrong.) Save the "derivative of Pink Floyd" accusation for "The Ninth Wave" (half of "Hounds of Love").... > I'm also not sure what Doug means when he raves about her musical > importance. Only in her wildest dreams will her influence on the world > of music ever even approach that achieved by the Beatles. I've never claimed that she's as historically important as The Beatles. No one since them is. I just feel that her music is better, and that she's the most important musician to emerge in the eighties. > But if you really want to hear some beautiful, powerful, elegant, > and innovative music that comes from the gut, I'll see you at the > Centrum in Worcester Nov. 4 and 5. Ditto, but I'll see you at the Brattle Street Theatre on the 5th with Roger Miller, Eric Lindgren, and the rest of Birdsongs of the Mesozoic. "Some say that heaven is hell Some say that hell is heaven" Doug Alan nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)