Kate and the commercial

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In response to John's ominous predictions
of Kate "selling out", let's set aside for
the moment the fact that nobody can reasonably
predict what Kate's next album will
sound like before it is heard; and come instead to
the question of what defines "selling out".
The big mistake being made in Love-Hounds
(and everywhere else, for that matter) is
the confusion of "innovation" with "quality".
The words are not synonymous. I am willing to concede that
Hounds of Love was probably not as "daring" or "challenging",
from a musical standpoint, as The Dreaming. This does not,
however, by any means indicate that Hounds of Love is
a "worse" album, even in reference to its musical content alone.
The Dreaming is raw where Hounds of Love is polished. Kate may
hone the jagged edge of her creative development to an even
smoother finish in the future, or she may react against her
recent tendency to perfect a fully developed style. This
is a relatively insignificant matter, when one realizes that,
whether partially accessible to a large and unconsidering
public or not, whether rough or smooth in texture and effect,
whether related to recognizably "commercial" musical
idioms or not, it still cannot fail to be the best music of its
time, because it will evolve out of the mind of Kate Bush.
                   There are different ways of defining
the nature of "progressive" music. Is Thursday Afternoon,
Brian Eno's nth edition of non-commercial and highly sophisticated
ambient music, really deserving of greater respect than Gabriel's
unabashedly commercial new record, simply because Eno's work still
bears hallmarks of an avant-garde sensibility, despite the
inescapable fact of its similarity to Discreet Music, a recording
of nearly ten years earlier? I don't particularly like Gabriel's
venture into the musical idiom of Otis Redding, but I see no
reason why his deliberate change of direction should be deplored,
simply because the result is more palatable to the public. Should
not the stagnant productions of a self-conscious avant-garde
be deplored equally? For the same reason, I will argue,
Ferry's latest -- and admittedly highly commercial, even
cloyingly commercial -- record, is not to be regretted more than the
recent work of his renegade colleague; there is, after all, in
the tameness of "Is Your Love Strong Enough?", at least a sign of
movement, evidence of a kind of creative development which
Thursday Afternoon's rolling fields of arcane sound lack.
Commerciality is not in itself proof of poor quality
or low artistic value; conversely, an unswerving devotion to
pre-conceived ideas of the "new" does not in itself gain admission
into the neverland of the "good". So, as we recognize the audible signs
of commercial finish in Hounds of Love, we should appreciate, as well,
the novelty that such a finish can acquire, when born of a
union of the commercial and -- Kate Bush.