Hi-NRG

["ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA>]

I thank Peter Alfke for describing the essentials of Hi-NRG music.  I am
surprised, that TRANS-X's 'Living on Video' is a good example of it, however.
Frankly, I'm surprised that Living on Video is a good example of anything.
Alfke is right, however, it is 'shit' but only 'nearly complete shit'.
It is only roughly approximate to the rest of the stuff on the album (same
name) although the production standards suck, overall.  There are reasons
for this suck-out trash, though.  First, when Pascal was working in a French
medium, he remained largely unsold.  Not only was the language barrier a
problem mut the cosmic-mind-expanding-space-out nature of the music he was
doing was not so popular either.  So, what's a young drummer turned guitarist
turned synthesist to do ? SELL OUT, of course.  Unfortunately, Pascal did not
know how to sell out correctly.  His first move was buying a lot of MIDI
synths and some new effect boxes.  Next he needed a medium.  Since the
sequencer cliches of Georgeo and Gary Numan are easy enough to duplicate,
they made a nice backdrop for the rest of the stuff.  His next step was in
finding other musicians that would contribute to the material (i.e., play
that stuff without getting sick).  He failed to be successfull in that area.
Thus, as he had in the past, he did a pretty much solo (except for the vocals)
album.  So what resulted was, correctly identified as disco, and what's worse,
lo quality disco.
What I find really funny about this, is, that Pascal hates disco.  Back during
the first disco revolution in the mid-70's (Bee Gees, AWB, etc), when we
were exploring mind-ZAP music, Pascal and I actually penned a song parody
entitled Disco on the Moon.  It seemed as though the whole progressive Montreal
music scene was telling disco jokes (I think disco was taken much more seriouslythere then here).  Ten years later, Pascal has a disco album which is pretty
bad on most levels, not hyped to any great extent (as a matter of fact, LOV is
almost unknown on the East coast), but manages to go gold in Mexico and Germany despite its hopless inadequacies.  This is, in effect, an example of how
people will buy trash, if it is packaged well.  Also, it is a sad commentary
on how and why musicians sell out.
Pascal maintained a low profile for about 8 years as a starving progressive
musician.  His three previous albums (all French) were dedicated to the beliefe
that there can be mind/music meld, and were reasonably good tries at that
end.  Now, in one swoop, he becomes popular (at least in Mexico and Germany),
and starts to see a payoff.  Reinforcement works in strange and mystical
ways.
Now to sadly tie this in with the proposed topic of conversation, Kate Bush.
I predict that we have seen the near end of her non-commercial efforts.  Hell,
Fairlights are expensive, as are home studios (especially ones that enable
production of a product that is up to the technical standards of the industry).
I will be very much surprised if the next LP release is not more commercially
oriented than HoL.  Also, I expect that the first single from the next release
will make Sledgehammer sound like The Dreaming, so as to make the name Kate
Bush a household word among the high school set.  I could be wrong, I don't
know Kate personally.  I would also like to see her not sell out, we all need
our heroes.  Unfortunately, I do know Pascal Languirand quite well, and in the
long run, money talks (money is of course not the only reinforcer here, 
popularity and fame are also important iongredients in a mass sell out).  I 
hope all of the high school fans of the sell out album will be ready for the
mental explosion eminent when they rush out and buy The Dreaming.  I hope I'm
wrong, but I've given up believing in 'the perfect dedication to musicianship'
in artists who depend on their product as a livelyhood.  The trend Kate has
exhibited from Lionheart to The Dreaming falling back to HoL, is sufficient
to warrant my speculation.  This disease, called success, is catchy, indeed.

'Impaled on nails, of ice'

John
------