IED DIED, I SURVIVES! IS IT TRUE? Well, for now, anyway...

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

Wow! IED is (I am -- happier, "g rady"?) impressed.
All this offended feedback!

It's easiest to answer all of the responses by responding to
the best of the responses, so the following is in reference to
Doug's posting.

>Now, Andy, don't you think it a little silly to ask for "concrete
>evidence" on issues such as artistic quality?

A big question. As an art historian, I have to deal with this
riddle all the time. Perhaps the term "evidence" was misused here.
I intended to invite just what you did give, i.e. a system for
forming personal preferences. Perhaps there is no absolute means
of judging quality in art, but even if not, this is no justification
for simply saying, "I like it better, therefore it is better".
Whether they be invincible to refutation or not, reasons for
such a judgment ought to be presented -- as you have done.

>Have you provided any such "concrete
>evidence" for your notion that *Hounds of Love* is better than *The
>Dreaming*?

Perhaps the concrete is a little crumbly, but I certainly
have offered reasons for my judgment of Hounds of Love in
Love-Hounds before now. Since they differ from yours in one or two
crucial ways, I'll restate them below in responding to
your comments.

>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.

This is interesting, and the first part is general enough
so that I can agree with it. The problem is that I can see
someone saying, for example, that music which only makes one want
to dance is highly beneficial. I gather that you saw that coming in the
first part of your sentence, and therefore added the second
part "on me and other INTELLIGENT people". This I have difficulty
with. Intelligence is a very sketchy word, since it can be used
to imply superior reasoning power and computational ability, and
also to refer to something as vague as an open mind, or a nobility
of the soul, or any term that connotes artistic sensibilities.
Your statement, seen as a whole, comes off as a bit elitist and dogmatic.

>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 enlighten 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.

This is a mouthful. Pervading every phrase is what I consider to be
your one overriding bias -- the assumption from the outset that
the value of art is directly proportional to its "newness".
My own bias, however, is quite different: Since most of the music
and art which is hailed as "new" -- and most which actually IS
"new" -- is also, in my own experience, unfulfilling for a wide
variety of other reasons, I have long ago come to the conclusion
that being "new" -- or even the nobler term "enlightening" -- cannot be
the primary requirement of a superior work of art. It must
be secondary to something else.

>If you don't find something unusual, then
>how can you say that it is really new to you?

O.K. But this becomes a significant statement only
if one agrees beforehand that it is important that
art be new in order to be good -- an arbitrary
presumption which I reject.

>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 enlightening 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.

This is very interesting. I can concede the value of this qualifier.
Under these circumstances, then, you are able to reject all of the
"new" art which you don't like, with the simple explanation that
you don't relate to it, or its mode of presentation. O.K., I can
agree with this myself, but I would change the hierarchy of your
standards:

The work must first be something to which I can "relate",
by which I mean that its formal qualities must be such that I can
accept the message that they contain; if, additionally, the work
strikes me as new or "weird", that certainly amplifies its value to me.

>*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.

Since I've said that I can adapt to your criteria of judging,
I will, and answer in kind:

The Dreaming is an album that is presented to me in sufficiently
masterful fashion for me to be moved from the outset; this masterly
presentation is so great that it makes clear to me the presence of
an artistic foundation for its innovations -- innovations born
of the artist's talents of presentation. Also, I respond personally
to the artistic and temperamental qualities of The Ninth Wave more
fully than to any other music by Kate Bush: I "relate" to it more closely
than to anything else by her; perhaps it is less "weird", but this
is a small price to pay for greater profundity and a closer
approximation to perfect expression of artistic ideas.

>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
>enlightened 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.

Please, then, allow me to identify myself as an
exception to your generality, since I do consider
myself to have been enlightened by her music, yet do not prefer The
Dreaming. I am interested first and foremost in the MUSIC of
Kate Bush; second, in the ancillary means of artistic
expression which she uses to amplify that music;
and third, in the great mystery which I see in the fact
that a living human being is actually responsible
for this art. In self-defense, I'd like to testify that the first
two weeks of my obsession for Kate Bush were based entirely on the
sound of "Wuthering Heights" on Italian radio -- I had no idea
what she herself looked like, nor anything else about her --
not even that her name was Kate Bush or that she spoke English!
During that period, the only thing that mattered to me in life
was the art in that recording.

>Now, I mentioned before about how the quality of art is directly
>related to its 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*.

All but the end of this passage is enlightening and admirable.
But just look how your subjective explanation of your personal
preference for The Dreaming is twisted in the last two lines:
Suddenly it's not you, but everybody else, too!
Your concluding comment here is awfully presumptious, I'd say.
I am not incapable of feeling empathy with the way you were affected
by The Dreaming. Perhaps Hounds of Love could not have affected you
as strongly, as you avow. I want to assure you that when The
Dreaming came out, I saw it as a huge step forward for Kate and
for music, and from 1982 to 1985 it was, in my estimation, the
greatest piece of popular music ever made. The Dreaming was
masterfully presented, filled with her best musical ideas, AND
fundamentally innovative in comparison with all studio albums
that preceded it. Hounds of Love lacks -- cannot help but lack --
that fundamental innovative quality, since it succeeds The Dreaming.
But since -- as I have made clear -- in my opinion this is not
the most important aspect of The Dreaming, but a secondary
contributor to its quality, I reject the contention that Hounds of Love
suffers irredeemably from this shortcoming. Even if I couldn't (and I
can) imagine myself being affected by either Hounds of Love
or The Dreaming in just the same way that I was by "Wuthering Heights",
I certainly wouldn't allow myself to presume than no-one else could be
so affected by Hounds of Love.

I personally, have found in Hounds of Love a greater complexity of
musical information, a higher refinement of Kate's artistic vision,
and an overall sense of direction which combine to produce a work
of art to which I can "relate to" even more closely than I do to The
Dreaming. I try to refrain from extending this conclusion to others.
I resent the elitism of the idea that anyone who prefers Hounds of Love
to The Dreaming must not fully appreciate the revolutionary qualities
of the earlier record. I did and do. Such an elitist assumption is
as unfair as that which I have sometimes -- in my weaker moments --
been tempted to make, that those who place such a high premium on
the innovations of The Dreaming are probably not appreciative enough
of the advances that Hounds of Love has made upon its predecessor
in other areas. It is unfair, and I do not make it!

>I also tend to think that the best art is that which is daring.  The
>reasons for this follow from the above discussion about enlightenment.
>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.

Here, you have indicated again your bias in favor of
newness, and it is highly significant, I think, that you make the
conclusion you do. By placing such a high value on innovation
for its own sake, you seem to be falling into a trap of your own
making: you actually worry lest Kate Bush's art follow the path
of other artists who were once responsible for ground-breaking
work. All of this is the result of your excessive emphasis
on the innovative qualities of her art. Certainly these exist,
and most sensationally in The Dreaming. But since the most important
aspect of Kate's art is NOT its NOVELTY but its musical depth and
complexity, it does not risk the same jeopardy of dilution
that the music of Bowie, McCartney and Gabriel share. I see your
comparison of them (or the first two of them) with Kate as clear
evidence of the dangers that arise from
a prejudice in favor of innovation. Let me explain. Bowie,
McCartney and Gabriel are artists whose merit HAS lain primarily in
the innovations they made, rather than in any great musical depth
or refinement. Looking at their work dispassionately, one can see how
impoverished most of it would seem, were it stripped of the
technical and formal innovations for which it is justly respected.

Although the breakthroughs of The Dreaming are directly comparable
in importance to any of the innovations which Bowie, McCartney
and Gabriel ever brought to popular music, it is NOT the most
important foundation of Kate Bush's art. Depth and complexity, and
the epic, holistic attitude with which ALL of her work (even
the relatively inferior work of the Lionheart period) must
be credited -- these ARE the foundation of her art.
And Hounds of Love is, I believe, the most successful of her
records in these respects. Therefore the future productivity
of Kate Bush is something to have CONFIDENCE in, Doug, not
mistrust of.

>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.

There are myriad unfounded assumptions in this line of thought, all
directly attributable to the basic misplacement of priority on
innovation in art. First, it is silly to say that the money Kate
receives from Hounds of Love will affect her musical production
in the future. Although the total income generated by Hounds of Love
may be greater than that earned by The Kick Inside (and taking into
consideration the total European sales of the former, even this is
not a certainty), the financial pressure which the earlier LP's success
put on Kate was unquestionably as great as or greater than that which
Hounds of Love puts on her now. Yet what happened after The Kick
Inside? True, the immediate result was a hurried release of the
follow-up. But by 1980, when she had got a chance to reflect, her
reaction was to fly in prosperity's face (relatively speaking!).
And this was, in fact, the first completely independent decision
Kate made concerning her career. So I really can't see where you
developed this particular fear.

More mysterious still is your apparent belief that the success
of Hounds of Love could make Kate "get the idea that people
don't want her to be too weird". I agree that most people
like Hounds of Love because it is, superficially, at least,
more agreeable, more accessible. (In my opinion, this is a
delusion created by the more traditional elements of its mode
of presentation, and is simply a result of insufficient attention
paid to its subtleties.) What strikes me as silly in your apprehension
is the idea that Kate is some kind of naive, ego-centric bimbo. For
God's sake, Doug, this is Kate Bush we're talking about, not "Stevie
Nicks" or "Whitney Houston"! One thing I am quite certain of is that Kate
has considered this issue as thoroughly as or more thoroughly than
you or I. She has said -- many times now -- that she made Hounds
of Love for herself, listening to "the little voice inside" to
decide how it should sound. She maintains that "RUTH" sounds
danceable as it does because she became interested in a
"constancy of rhythm", not because she wanted to sell more records.
My feeling is that her remarks are somewhat defensive, but there
is no doubt that her decisions were made consciously, privately and
wisely, and certainly not through the influence of an ignorant public.

>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 apologizing 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.

But the fact is that she HASN'T apologized, only ACKNOWLEDGED the fact
that it IS too painful for most people. This is no apology! When
someone makes a disparaging remark to get the response they're
looking for, her reaction is usually very accomodating, and always
polite. But when asked for her own opinion, she has always said
that she considers The Dreaming AND Hounds of Love to be her two
definitive records. In the Night Flight interview she specifically
says that "certainly with the last two albums" she was
entirely in control. The one thing she has said on this subject
which I have found highly edifying (can't remember which interview),
is that The Dreaming sounds as it does partly because it was done
in outside studios on a time schedule and because much of the
technology was still new to her. This is no self-criticism. It does,
however, indicate that she felt more completely in control
of Hounds of Love than of The Dreaming, and perhaps, therefore,
that as proud as she has a right to be of the INNOVATION of 1981-82,
so can she be as proud -- or prouder -- of the CONSUMMATION of 1984-85,
which stands as the truest reflection of that inner voice.

-- Andrew Marvick