News Flash: Kate is still God

[jsd%UMASS.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU (Jonathan S. Drukman)]

IED writes:

> And IED has it from Andrew Marvick that he was not _too_ annoyed to
> find his article on bootlegs butchered and abridged to ribbons, with
> at least one new factual error and one grammatical error thrown in
> for good measure.

I wonder if IED could ask Andrew if he'd mind posting the unbutchered
and unabridged article?  I saw a plethora of bootlegs in Boston last
week and I'd love to read up on them before plunking down the $$$.

> (Sorry, just finished watching another episode of _Rumpole_, and
> it's catching.)

Never apologize for sounding like everyone's favorite barrister!  I
think this world needs a few more people to talk like him.  Too bad
when I sat down to watch last weeks episode the power in our fair city
went out for an hour and a half just as the exposition was starting...

> To begin, two comments regarding specific points in the above:
> first, due to a mistake by a member of a test-screening audience
> member in Texas, "This Woman's Work" was first reported in
> Love-Hounds as bearing the title "Make It Go Away".

I concede this one.  I didn't know.  I don't know if it makes much
difference.  I'm not too keen on the title anyway.

> It is very wrong to assume that production is measured by the
> thickness of the sound or the number of identifiable tracks, or by
> any such similar quantifying standard.

I don't know about this one.  Your example of classical piano is very
good, but that's mainly mic placement and room acoustics.  Kate has
got a very good piano sound, I admit, but I don't hear anything that
makes it particularly that much better than any other recorded piano.
On the other hand, I like the vocal production a lot - the "layering"
trick of the backing vox which precedes the chorus is really nice.
Full marks.  The Fairlight sounds are fairly standard synth sounds.
The reverb after the "ahh oh oh"s at the beginning is interesting, but
if I had 48 tracks, a Quantec room simulator and lots of reverb
devices (as Kate has) I don't think I'd find it that hard to do.  On
the other hand, the scatter voices in "Waking The Witch" are utterly
brilliant and I think I would indeed find doing that quite difficult!
It's all a matter of perspective, you see.  Certainly "This Woman's
Work" stands head and shoulders above all the tracks on the soundtrack
album, but the competition isn't all that stiff (excepting XTC, of
course).  When ranked with the corpus of all Katedom, it's up there,
but it's kind of maddening to hear Kate doing something less than the
ultimate unbelievability of which we know she is capable.

      [	No, it isn't maddening!  B-sides, and movie songs are chances
	for use to hear a song that Kate does hasn't worked on long
	enough for her to want to put on an album.  Sure, they may not
	always be as mind-blowingly awesome as her albums, but
	consider that if she didn't release these songs as B-sides or
	movie songs, you'd get nothing in its place. -- |>oug ]

Regarding the final eight bars, you write:

> IED would bet anyone that that section involved a hell of a lot of
> painstaking production work, involving many more distinct tracks
> than might be immediately audible.

I think it's actually not so much the production, but rather the
performance.  The voice, the piano, the fairlight bass blasts are all
terribly powerful, but I don't see much indication of complex
production here.  It's clear, it's wonderful, etc, but I think it's
more the power of Kate's musical technique rather than any involved
production work.

The people staring over my shoulder seem to think that this is all
incredibly juvenile behavior for grown adults, dissecting songs in
this detail.  It's so much fun, though!

-----------
Jon Drukman                        BITNET: jsd@umass
209-C2 McNamara                   ARPANET: jsd%umass.bitnet@cunyvm.cuny.edu
University Of Massachusetts           (or) jsd%umass.bitnet@mitvma.mit.edu
Amherst, MA  01003                  PHONE: 413-546-4262