Images of Kate and Her Fans

[bloch%mandrill@ucsd.edu (Steve Bloch)]

I just got a letter from my brother (who lives in WHFS-land, by the
way) lamenting his "Kate Bush crisis".  For starters, his girlfriend
loathes and detests Kate's music, with reason: she used to have a
roommate who played nothing but Kate, 6 hours a day, so she's
developed an allergic reaction or something.  But he also just read a
review of TSW in _SPIN_ (I've been off the Net for a week or two; I
expect at least part of the review has been posted) that boils down to
"anyone who likes Kate is some sort of sex-starved adolescent".  To
quote my brother: "I'm not out there trying to proselytize anyone to
the Kate Kult, but don't I deserve to be able to listen to her music
without feelling like I must be a case of arrested development?"  He
doesn't have Net access, so he asks me for "some better explication of
one of the most hated women in music today."

Have other people had many of these experiences?  From the little of
the SPIN review I read, it sounds like yet another reviewer out to
show how clever and sophisticated he is rather than say anything about
the album itself; how widespread is this (as I read approximately one
record review a month)?

"Writers are a funny breed -- I should know." -- Jane Siberry

bloch%cs@ucsd.edu