KaTching up with the pack

[IED0DXM%UCLAMVS.BITNET@WISCVM.WISC.EDU]

Here is my reply to the past week's
L-Hs; first chance I've had to log on.

>We should note, too, that Kate Bush's "Hounds of Love" album which I
>conservatively estimated as selling 400,000 copies, has in fact sold
>over 600,000 copies.

This is good to know. Record Mirror is the only publication that I know
of that publishes the sales status of charted records. Yet ever since
October '85, when Kate's HoL received its first platinum star, no
further sales records have been added to its listing in RM's charts.
Not having seen the June 21 issue yet, I can only assume that this
has now been corrected. (300,000 sales constitutes platinum in the UK,
if I remember right.) It's interesting that the first platinum was
achieved in a matter of about three or four weeks, but that the second
took an additional five or six months -- despite the presence of HoL
in the British top 50 all that time. Isn't the vagueness of these
chartlistings frustrating?

>Foo!

What does this mean?

>Yay! Kate Bush duets with certified desperate-to-be-liked
>anything-for-a-fucking-hit assholes.  Their contribution to rock
>consists solely of figuring out how to make a guitar sound like
>bagpipes.  A band with real balls would get a guy with REAL bagpipes
>up there.

>Of course, all you completist types are going to buy their ALBUM, and
>the SINGLE, and the DANCE REMIX, just so you don't miss out on the
>tinsiest bit of "Our Beloved".  And then every time your friends come
>over to pose for a while you'll have to go through fucking gyrations
>to explain to the partially hip ones why it is that you own a Big
>Useless record (and single, and dance remix), plus the latest issue of
>Tiger Beat, you know, the one with Leif Garretsonwanker on the cover,
>"just for the paragraph on Big Country, they mention Kate!"

>Sad fucks, wake me up when its over.

>valas

Who is this abusive person, and why is he/she so angry?
I cannot say that I have ever considered buying a record
by Big Country before, although I vaguely remember being
mildly impressed by their sound -- at least, I think I thought,
they are distinctive, and immediately recognizable. However,
if Kate Bush has recorded with them, I am far more sanguine
following HER lead than "valas"'s! What on earth has "posing"
got to do with Kate Bush fanaticism, anyway? And by what obscure
biological process is masculinity connected with the choice
of a synthetic over an acoustic bagpipes effect?

>Nah, I just write the paragraph down on the back of my hand while at
>the magazine stand (until the bouncer comes over and says "Hey, this
>ain't no library"), so I'm never faced with *that* particular
>embarassment.  It's difficult enough explaining why I have 10 copies
>of *Hounds of Love*.

When I lived in Cambridge (ca. '75-'79) I always read MM, NME, etc. in
the old Out of Town in H. Square, only buying when KT news appeared.
The proprietor inevitably tried to intimidate with obnoxious "Can I help
you?"s and "Are ya gonna buy that, mister?"s I finally moved back to L.A.

>Well, now, lets not get caried away.  I can hardly see it as being a
>"brick in the great edifice of art".

The above in reference to my defense of hokey sales exploitation
trinket ("Big Sky" picdisc). A dab of hastily mixed mortar, then, maybe?

>The price is 25.00 Pounds (no, Kate doesn't come cheap!) per copy...

And the Sterling draft cost me another $20.00! And two more volumes
in preparation! Ah, but what price Art?

>You don't even need HoL in there.  But we should probably also give a
>nod to Stravinski and The Beatles....

I still cannot accept that HoL is somehow less significant
than The Dreaming, simply because it is more "accessible", or
less "threatening". To risk sounding pretentious, couldn't
The Dreaming be compared to Beethoven's 5th, and HoL to his 6th?
Is one really less "great" than the other, simply because one
is more benign, and less forbidding?

I wasn't in the least surprised at your wise references, Doug. You have
my vote of confidence. And those are very good alternatives for
the dubious and watery title "greatest" of the century.
What about Samuel Barber, though? And I assume you're not allowing
nineteenth century composers who happened to live well into our era,
such as Rachmaninoff or Scriabin?  And what of Shostakovich, Prokoviev,
Schoenberg, etc.?  And some (not I) might argue for Bartok, or Berg,
or Webern, or Ravel, or any of a dozen or so others. I had a friend
in high school who swore that Charles Ives, of all people, was the
only reputable artist, in ANY medium, of our century. But he (my friend)
became a geologist...
This is why I try to confine myself to the subject of KT.
I'm sure no-one will object, after this.