the music of kate bush is the sound of the light of perfeKTion

[IED0DXM@UCLAMVS]

>Bullpucky!  Beethoven was undeniably a great composer.  I don't even
>like him that much, but his music contained a level of innovation and
>power such that it had a great affect on a wide spectrum of musicians,
>critics, and normal people.  This *makes* Beethoven a great composer.
>Likewise, Kate Bush's music has had a profound effect on a vast number
>of people and has gathered an intensely dedicated following among a
>wide spectrum of musicians, critics, and normal people.  This makes
>Kate a great musician.
>
>            "They look down at the ground, missing"
>
>             |>oug
 
Wow! Doug really got mad! He's getting almost as
excitable and mean as IED himself! This makes IED
feel good.
 
N.B. IED's co-incidental remarks re Beethoven. IED
doesn't agree that mere consensus "*makes* Beethoven
a great composer," but he is willing to accept the idea
as a workable theory, pending some more absolute form of proof.
 
IED would just like to say that the innovations Beethoven brought
to composition do NOT, in themselves, qualify him as the giant he
probably is. What matters in Beethoven more than any of the technical
excellence and daring, is the gorgeousness of his MUSIC, the actual
sounds that came into his head -- for the communication of which he
developed a new vocabulary. The same is true of Kate Bush: despite the
undeniable importance of her innovations, it is the TIMELESS qualities
of her music -- the magic of her muse, so to speak -- which give her
art depth and lasting beauty. The innovations arise out of the needs
of the muse, but they are not the muse herself.
 
>BTW, what's the status on the Kate Bush covers conspiracy?
>
>-- Robert Stanzel
 
Good question -- where are all your tapes, folks? IED would like
to compile them and send them to Kate or John as a gift from across
the ocean. He is confident that such a token of Americans'
"appreciation" would elicit a response.
 
Speaking of big ideas, where's the t-shirt project gone to?
 
>That's exactly the point I'm trying to make. Emerson is trying to write a
>"real" piano concerto. Hence his piece should be judged by the standards
>of its genre. It fails because he clings to a traditional form without
>saying anything new, the same reason why late Bruch is not performed much
>anymore (he was very conservative and repeated himself after a few
>youthful "hits") and late neo-classical Stravinsky is not considered to
>be as interesting as early, young-turk Stravinsky.
 
This makes sense in theory, but in fact the existence of much
good unoriginal music and bad original music puts such theories
in jeopardy. For there can be no doubt that a lot of good
-- i.e. emotionally honest, affecting and musically sound -- music
is, from a technical standpoint, entirely uninnovative; and that
an equal amount of "avant garde" music is hopelessly marred by its
own emotional dishonesty and artistic vacuity. For this reason
revisionist historians may be counted on to find qood qualities in
art which had hitherto been considered unimportant because it seemed
less novel -- such as later Stravinski, to use your example; as well as
to point out the serious flaws that tend to detract, in the long run,
from the innovative content of much avant-garde art which may initially
have been judged to be "great". IED, obviously, is one of these
revisionists. And, looking at our subject with a view unclouded by this
acursed century's bizarre obsession with The New, he is able to see the
superiority of Kate Bush to Eno, because he has been able to
appreciate the paucity of the AN-INNOVATIVE elements of Eno's undoubtedly
INNOVATIVE, but relatively shallow and frequently sloppy work; and,
conversely, the profundity, thoroughness and integrity of Kate's every idea,
whether it should happen to seem "progressive" or not.
 
>OK, I've said this many times, and I'll say it one last time.
>1) I have nothing against musical quotations, found sounds, etc. If you
>   know my musical tastes, you'll know that I enjoy sound collage things.
>   I think it's fine that Sting stole a Prokofiev theme. It's also
>   fine that the Beasty Boys stole tons of Led Zep riffs. (This is not
>   to imply I like Sting's song, but for the record I do enjoy BBs.)
>   They took the musical quotation *out of context* and did something
>   interesting with it. If the BBs had made a Led Zep-clone song, I
>   doubt that I'd like their recent record as much.
 
This is a good example of a self-limiting theory. The mere fact
that an artist quotes "out of context" and "does something
interesting with it" is by no means reason for according the
"new" work high status as art. In IED's view, technique may be
"interesting" -- ART must be something quite different. Art attains
value and lasting status not by its intrinsic "interest", its intellectual
cleverness, its wit or its technique. No. The deepest value of art is
its extra-temporal, supernatural essence: in other words, the idea which
inspired the new form of expression must be deeply and truly felt; if
it is, then the new form of expression will be much more likely to
have integrity itself. Conversely, no amount of novelty in a work of art
can make the work GOOD, if its creator's work is not born of honest
emotional need.
 
>2) I have nothing against building on old ideas. I feel that there
>   are two ways of making that interesting. You can make a recreation
>   of the original that's so perfect that it's scary. This is what
>   Plan 9 does with psychedelia in their best stuff. Or you can
>   totally pervert it, mangle it, take it out of context, and build
>   something new from it. Emerson does neither in his piano concerto;
>   he tried to write a piece in a traditional and possibly outmoded
>   medium, without revitalizing it with new ideas.
 
Again, the predisposition to prefer the novel over the sincere
threatens to limit your view of the artistic stage. Else why would
you think that the MEDIUM might be "outmoded"? This is nonsense.
Media may go out of fashion, but this has nothing to do with their
usefulness -- it all depends on the artist. It is the twentieth
century's obsession with the "language of the medium" that has
produced some of our emptiest art. The medium is nothing, just as
the subject is nothing: both are just parts of the artistic language,
dependent upon the talent, skill, intelligence and sincerity of the
artist to give them purpose. Mind you, IED doesn't much like Emerson's
concerto either -- anyway, not as much as Mark does. But the medium that
Emerson chose to adopt for the expression of the ideas which appear
in his concerto is quite unaffected by and irrelevant to the competency
with which those ideas are expressed IN the medium.
 
>3) Emerson's piano concerto is difficult. I would not dream of learning
>   it, even back when I used to play outside the piano and not stick
>   things inside the strings :-). However, there are many other
>   extremely difficult piano pieces written decades before Emerson's,
>   which are more innovative in terms of texture, technique,
>   figurations, tone color etc. Technique is only one small component
>   of the traditional classical musician's tools. Emerson's music
>   does not speak with his own voice, in the way that Sorabji, Scriabin,
>   and Crumb's piano music does.
 
The general point you make here, Bill, may be true. Your choice of
examples does Scriabin no credit, however. IED (who spends a great deal
of his spare time with Scriabin) can hear Alexandr Nikolaievitch
rolling over in his grave.
 
By the way, this funeral business of Traynor's is kooky and dumb.
The joke has already worn very thin.
 
>From: sdcrdcf!stephen@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
>Date: 28 Jan 87 10:49 PST (Wednesday)
>Subject: say what?
 
Again, this contributor's identity is vague. Who is this
"(apparently)" person? This should be the last time IED
has to hear L-Hs criticizing him for his pseudonymous
self-id -- at least he can be identified! In the absence of
any clarification, IED will refer to this person as "Mr. Head".
 
>I (apparently) write:
>>Subject: gauntlet
>>IED: Look, flash, you said it yourself but you still haven't caught
>>on. Eno's lyrics "were devised almost exclusively for their
>>phonetic/rhythmic qualities, and ... he never put any serious effort
>>into them..." AND they are still more interesting than Kate's.
>>
>>-- sr (apparently Stephen R.)
 
>IED (apparently) responds:
>>Now, for those who still don't see the pattern, each of the
>>above postings assumes that IED was challenging L-Hs to name
>>LPs that were as GOOD as or BETTER than The Dreaming and Hounds of Love.
 
>>In fact, however, IED was simply challenging you to name LPs
>>that possessed the same degree of SUBTLETY, SOPHISTICATION,
>>COMPLEXITY, REFINEMENT, not only in one or two areas, but in terms of
>>LYRICS, THEME, MUSICAL STRUCTURE and SOUND.
 
>I (definitely) respond:
>I WAS talking about LYRICS, and I didn't say Eno's were as GOOD or
>BETTER than Kate's, I said they were more INTERESTING.
 
You STILL don't seem to understand the distinction between
judgments of overall artistic QUALITY -- inevitably SUBJECTIVE, and
distinguished by such words as "good", "bad"; "interesting",
"uninteresting"; "inspiring", "uninspiring"; "valuable", "worthless"
-- and analyses of qualifiable and quantifiable elements
of artistic language -- analyses which can frequently be OBJECTIVE,
and which are distinguished by considerations of such things as the relative
complexity of two works of art; the relative sophistication of their
content, vocabulary and language; the coherence of their organization;
the number of issues or themes which each may be seen to address; and
the relevance which those issues has to the art's modes of expression.
 
>Actually, I don't consider SOPHISTICATION or REFINEMENT to be positive
>traits.
 
ONCE AGAIN, let IED point out that he NEVER SAID whether "sophistication"
or "refinement" were "positive" or "negative" traits!! YOU ARE SO THICK.
The challenge -- which you willingly accepted -- was to demonstrate
the existence of any other album made since the early 70s which
possessed the same level of sophistication as either The Dreaming
or HoL.
 
WHETHER YOU THINK THAT MAKES THE ALBUM GOOD OR BAD, BETTER OR WORSE, IS
B E S I D E   T H E  P O I N T !
Mr. Head, if you can't stand the heat,
GET THE FUCK OUT OF THE WATER.
 
>REFINEMENT is what gave us white bread.
 
This is the kind of facile and stunted thinking that leads nowhere.
"Refinement" didn't give us white bread; the decline of western
culture and the simultaneous advance of technology gave us white bread.
 
"Refinement" DID give us Bronzino, Pontormo, late Michelangelo,
late Rembrandt, Titian, Khnopff, Moreau and Whistler, to name just
a very few visual artists; Bach, Mozart, Chopin, Rachmaninoff, Scriabin,
Wolf, Webern, Barber, late Beatles, middle-period Pink Floyd,
and Kate Bush, to name a few musicians.
 
The fact that YOU don't consider "refinement" and
"sophistication" to be positive traits does
little damage to the above artists' reputations.
 
>>Bullpucky!  Beethoven was undeniably a great composer.  I don't even
>>like him that much, but his music contained a level of innovation and
>>power such that it had a great affect on a wide spectrum of musicians,
>>critics, and normal people.  This *makes* Beethoven a great composer.
>>Likewise, Kate Bush's music has had a profound effect on a vast number
>>of people and has gathered an intensely dedicated following among a
>>wide spectrum of musicians, critics, and normal people.  This makes
>>Kate a great musician.
 
>I hate to even say it, but that criterion makes Madonna a great musician
>too.  Well, perhaps she is.  (Of course we can disqualify ANYONE
>from this criterion by redefining the fans as ABnormal people.)
 
It's true that contemporary musical taste has been pretty
broadly affected by stuff like Madonna. This is why IED
keeps amending Doug's definition by adding phrases like "over
a long period of time." Not that this brings proof, but one
does eliminate some of the problem's variables.
 
>Now to get serious, that is, to praise Kate.  I've now had the
>chance to listen to _The Kick Inside_ about as many times as _Hounds_
>and _The Dreaming_ (and _Never for Ever_ almost as often.  How come
>my album, with a special sticker that says "Includes 'Never for Ever,'"
>doesn't have any songs called 'Never for Ever' on it?).
 
That's just another of the many dumb blunders EMI-America's
marginally competent promotional department has committed since
they took upon themselves the reponsibility of promoting Kate in
the U.S. There IS no track called "Never for Ever".
 
>I get the impression that _The Kick Inside_ came after _Never for Ever_.
>Is this true?
 
No. The first LP is The Kick Inside. It was released in 1978,
and two of the tracks on it -- "The Saxaphone Song" and "The Man
With the Child in His Eyes" -- were actually recorded two years
earlier than the rest of the LP, when Kate was only sixteen.
 
The second LP is Lionheart. It was something of a rush job, released
before 1978 was out, in the wake of the huge success of The Kick Inside.
Despite this, it has some of Kate's best early work in it.
 
The third LP is Never For Ever. It came out after a long delay
(now a short delay by contemporary Kate Bush standards!), in 1980.
Kate finally "co-produced" with Jon Kelly, who was an engineer on
The Kick Inside and who produced Lionheart. As a result of Kate's
increasing control over the sound, Never For Ever is noticeably
more "cinematic" (to use her term) than either of the first two LPs;
but it's still very much of a compromise, in terms of production.
 
>I enjoy this
>album at least as much as the later ones, perhaps because it's simpler.
>I played _The Dreaming_ for a friend, whose comment was "Sounds like
>someone trying to be artsy-fartsy."  This could be considered a fault.
 
Yes, a fault in your friend's thinking.
 
>I would suspect that _Kick Inside_ is more accessible, since it follows
>"the rules" more of the time.
 
This is probably true, although Lionheart is even more "accessible",
since it follows the rules even more closely than The Kick Inside,
mainly because of the difference in producers.
 
Don't forget, though, that Kate had other ideas for those first two
LPs than what actually got released. The first LP she really had
control over was The Dreaming. More and more, IED sees the first three
LPs as juvenilia, a kind of preamble to the REAL Kate Bush.
 
>As long as I'm here, I would like to cast my votes for albums as complex
>and interesting as _The Dreaming_.
>
>    Talking Heads, _Remain in Light_
>    Pink Floyd, _Dark Side of the Moon_
>    The Beatles, _Abbey Road_
>    The Roches, _Keep On Doing_ (for somewhat different reasons)
>    Scott Johnson, _John Somebody_ (for COMPLETELY different reasons)
 
IED agrees with you about Abbey Road, nearly agrees with you about The
Dark Side of the Moon, and sees what you mean (without agreeing with
you) about Talking Heads. The others are way off the mark, and even you
seem to see that they don't quite meet the conditions set by IED's
challenge.
 
But remember, both Abbey Road and The Dark Side of the Moon are
not from AFTER the early 70s, as stipulated in the "gauntlet".
 
-- Andrew Marvick (angry, but not as steamed as Doug, apparently!)