Re: Kate-echism I.x.13 (Blore's response to IED)

[seismo!hao!udenva!showard (Steve "Blore" Howard)]

>First of all, IED shares Kate's own opinion (which she has expressed
>in very explicit terms) that her music is not "over-produced" at
>all. In fact, the term "over-produced" is foolish and
>meaningless.

    The term "over-produced," to me, indicates a piece of music which
has had too much production done to it.  In other words, a piece that
has would have sounded better with less production.  Non-Bush examples
include  Yes's 90125, any "light metal" (REO Speedwagon, Night Ranger,
etc.) song that uses multi-tracking to make it sound like the background
vocals are in harmony, Boston (in a big, big way--most of Boston's 
output is nothing BUT production--there's nothing underneath), etc.

>               Beyond that, Hounds of Love is OBVIOUSLY MORE
>painstakingly produced than The Dreaming, NOT LESS SO! IED is
>once again baffled by the inexplicable laxity in Love-Hounds' listening
>habits.

     Well, I'm not really a "Love-Hound," just a concerned, law-abiding
citizen.  At any rate, "Hounds of Love," to me, exhibits not necessarily
less painstaking production but rather a level of production which is
more in line with (what I would consider to be) the optimum amount
for the material involved.  

>        IED is relatively confident that The Ninth Wave is the most
>elaborately processed popular recording ever made.

     I'm afraid I don't share IED's confidence on this matter.  I would
point to Mannheim Steamroller (although I don't enjoy their pretensious
pseudo-classical muzak), early Alan Parsons Project (surely those syn-
thesized human voices took a lot of processing in 1977), or, to really
zero in on the "pop" in "popular," Queen (the multi-tracked vocals on
"Bohemian Rhapsody" and the choir effects on "Somebody to Love" stand
out as examples of an optimum level of production). 

>                                                    The pedestrian notion
>that complexity is mere "over-embellishment" stems solely from
>the listener's intellectual, emotional and -- above all --
>aesthetic impoverishment, as evidenced by Blore's spectacularly
>mindless likening of the production on Lionheart and Never For Ever
>to that on The Dreaming.

     First of all, I never said that complexity is the same thing as
over-embellishment.  Over-embellishment, much like over-production, 
is a result of not knowing when a song is done and continuing to add
things to it.  Take a listen to "And Dream of Sheep"--one of the
best cuts on the album.  No balalaikas, no pan-flute, no digerido,
in short (and to avoid any further misspellings of words not found
in "spell") a nice little un-embellished song.  

    But now I'm intellectually, emotionally and aesthetically impoverished?
My observations are spectacularly mindless and my notions pedestrian?
Hey, I never asked for ad hominem attacks, but I'm willing to defend
myself.  On what basis have you decided all these things about me?
What, if any, evidence would be necessary to convince you that I'm
on _at_least_ equal ground with you intellectually, emotionally and
aesthetically? 
-- 
     
"The laws of nature don't work if there's nobody looking"

Steve "Blore" Howard, Empiricist with his Head in the Clouds
                      {hplabs, seismo}!hao!udenva!showard
or {boulder, cires, ucbvax!nbires, cisden}!udenva!showard