Re: Kate-echism I.x.4, Revelations, and Apologia

[nessus (Doug Alan)]

> [IED:] Frankly, this kind of flippant, ill-considered denigration of
> Kate's recent work on the dubious grounds that it is somehow
> "easier" or less avant-garde is getting harder to take.  If those
> who insist that this is so could just ONCE produce some concrete
> evidence for the notion, perhaps it might gain some respect as an
> idea.

Now, Andy, don't you think it a little silly to ask for "concrete
evidence" on issues such as artistic quality?  What would such
"concrete evidence" look like?  Have you provided any such "concrete
evidence" for your notion that *Hounds of Love* is better than *The
Dreaming*?

I can provide my reasoning, though.  In my opinion, artistic quality
is directly related to the beneficial power it has on me and other
intelligent people.  To answer your question about whether or not the
purpose of music is to enlighten or entertain: for me, enlightenment
is the highest form of entertainment, so that music which will
entertain me the most, will also enligten me the most.  Now things
that are enlightening, I usually also tend to find "weird" or unusual,
because that's how one perceives really new things.  If you don't find
something unusual, then how can you say that it is really new to you.

Now, there are some things that I find weird but which I never seem to
really absorb.  These things present new ideas to me, but perhaps I
can't relate to the ideas, or perhaps they are presented in a way that
I can't relate to.  The most enligtening art will be that which I find
very weird, but also that which I can eventually relate to very
strongly.  In this case, I have absorbed the unusual ideas; I have
received the most enlightenment.

*The Dreaming* is an album which I found *very* weird, but which I am
able to relate to immensely.  I find *Hounds of Love* not nearly so
weird, nor can I relate to it as much either, so it loses on both
counts in the enlightenment department.

Now to expand this notion to other people, I have found that among
Kate Bush fans, most of the ones that seem to me to be highly
enligtened by her music, prefer *The Dreaming* to any of her other
albums.  Furthermore, most of the Kate Bush fanatics I know that prefer
albums other than *The Dreaming* seem to be more obsessed with Kate
Bush as a woman, than with Kate Bush as a musician, which to me
indicates less enlightenment.

Now, I mentioned before about how the quality of art is directly
related to it's power to affect people beneficially.  I think *The
Dreaming* is a more powerful album.  I know that it changed my life.
It changed me from being interested mostly in science to being
interested mostly in art.  I don't think that *Hounds of Love* could
have affected me this strongly.  Surely, if it were the first KB album
I heard, I would have thought it were a great album and KB quite an
artist, but it would not have changed my entire outlook on life.  I
just can't see HoL affecting anyone like this, and most of the people
who seem as affected by Kate's music as I am, also seem to prefer *The
Dreaming*.

I also tend to think that the best art is that which is daring.  The
reasons for this follow from the above discussion about enligtenment.
Art that is not as daring, that carefully intertwines interesting
stuff into a commercially acceptable form, might require more talent
to pull off well and might also be quite lovely, but I think that this
always results in the concentration of enlightenment being dilluted.

I also worry a lot about artists like Kate Bush becoming complacent as
they get older.  I mean look at David Bowie or Paul McCartney, etc.  A
lot of times, they work really hard to make really bizarre and
interesting things when they are young, and then find when they get
older that they can spend much less effort doing boring drivel and
they'll sell even more records.  I don't want this to happen to Kate,
and the fact that money speaks and *Hounds of Love* has already
outsold *The Dreaming* by an order of magnitude, means that Kate may
get the idea that people don't really want her to be too weird.  Well,
I want to do my bit to try to make it clear to such artists that the
reason many people listen to them is for the weirdness, and that Kate
should be extremely proud of *The Dreaming* even though it only sold
one tenth as many copies as *Hounds of Love*.  It really pisses me off
when in interviews she starts apologizing for *The Dreaming* being
too intense or too painful for most people.  Why the fuck should she
be appologizing for making the greatest fucking album that's ever been
recorded?  Who gives a shit about those other 90% who wouldn't buy
*The Dreaming*, anyway?  They probably also like Madonna.

>>1.) What does the aborigine say?

> Doug, what DOES the aborigine say? "Or-eh-mee-kah-ee-nah" or
> something like that. What's it mean?

I dunno what it means.  (I asked JCB but he couldn't remember.  He
said that Paddy would probably know, but I couldn't find him at the
time.)  I do know that they are lyrics from an Aboriginal song
entitled "Airplane, Airplane" which supposedly is one of the very
first Aboriginal songs about airplanes.  This is pretty cute, because
along with the airplane-like noises of the digerdoo, it makes the
prefect segue from "The Dreaming" into "Night of the Swallow".

>> 2.) Exactly where does "The Dreaming" end and "Night of the
>> Swallow" begin?

Where does Night end and Dreams begin?

			>oug