Re: Are temperatures finally descending? Not so fast...

[Jon Drukman <jsd@GAFFA.MIT.EDU>]

In article <8912090145.AA11956@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> IED0DXM@OAC.UCLA.EDU writes:
> >   *ANY* judgment of anyone's work is solely a result of one's own tatse,
> >and can have no "concrete support" -- including judgment of the music
> >of Madonna and Lionel Ritchie.  Is this going to stop me from saying
> >that Lionel Ritchie's music sucks.  No way!
>     This isn't true, and is, furtherfore, a cop-out. Not all judgement
>is based entirely on personal "taste", :>oug. There are, as IED's
>brief consideration of some aspects of _Reaching_Out_ showed, a great
>many things to be considered in judging the effectiveness of a piece
>of music. Now, perhaps in some ultimate sense all of these things
>can be traced back to subjective values, but that's hardly relevant
>for practical purposes.

This is true, and it is the very heart of the matter that has been
wasting so much space on Love-Hounds of late.  It is IED's considered
OPINION that Kate's music is so perfect that the flaws become part of
the perfection (if there are any flaws to begin with, and given such a
circular definition, it seems patently unreasonable to even use the
term.) This is part of the religious outlook that I find so offensive.
IED came up with a great analogy when he mentioned how relgious
zealots rationalize the presence of evil in the world.  It's just part
of the divine mystery that we cannot fathom.  This whole concept is so
inherently loathesome to myself, that words utterly fail me when I try
to express my hatred of that view.  |>oug and I are philosophers,
dreamers, dilettantes perhaps, but we are at least actively seeking a
world that makes some sort of sense to us, not predicated on the whims
of an incomprehensible "higher power."

>By saying that all judgements are equally
>subjective, you are not being "objective"--you are just giving yourself
>an excuse for failing to offer any intelligent _reasons_ for your _own_
>judgement.

This is a lie.  We are trying to say that there is no such thing as
an intelligent reason.  Indeed, we are trying to say that seeking
an intelligent reason is a futile gesture.  Why don't you try to
extract sunbeams from cucumbers instead, IED?

> Drukman recently wrote the following:
>
> >discussion of the classical roots of "Reaching Out" left me in the
> >dark.  It still has no bearing on my opinions.
>
>     Evidently, therefore, Drukman's _reasons_ for disliking _Reaching_
>_Out_ are unrelated to and impervious to IED's highly specific reasons
>for considering it a success.

Your so-called "reasons" are no more valid than my "opinions." It is
not laziness, it is not stupidity.  I'm quite capable of articulating
what I don't like about "Reaching Out" but what's the point?  Do you
care that I find the kick drum's timbre to be gutless?  Do you care
that I think the string arrangement is MOR-ish and smacks of
histrionics best left to the arrangers of Barbara Streisand songs?
I'm sure you do not.  Neither do I care about the classical ballad
roots of the compositional technique, nor am I interested in the "pre
choral refrain" (which in my day we used to call a "lead-in" or a
"bridge" and we never credited Kate with having "invented" it.) The
style in which the song is performed might best be described as
"anthemic" and the anthem form just causes certain neurotransmitters
in my cranium responsible for nausea and loathing to be triggered in
prodigious quantities. 

>We are all, nevertheless (if
>we are to accept Doug's or Drukman's lazy attitude), supposed to
>give the same attention, respect and credit to their judgements--unex-
>plained or supported by reasons as they were--as we do to IED's. Does
>that make sense?

Yes it makes perfect sense.  You cannot talk about music, which I
maintain steadfastly to be an abstract, non-representational art
form in concrete terms.

> >   Of course I'm detached.  It's only music, after all.
>
>     IED mind reels to find that anyone who professes to understand and
>respond to the music of Kate Bush can say something as baldly Philistine
>and meaningless as the above. (And any comparison of Drukman's
>statement with similar recent remarks by Kate to the effect that
>_TSW_ is "just an album" is inapplicable in IED's opinion, not
>only because Kate is clearly trying for therapeutic purposes of
>her own to convince _herself_ that such is the case, but also
>because Kate's view of her own work is just not something which
>we are any of us in a position to understand.)

Let's take this in reverse order.  First of all, you are being
terribly unfair to Kate in judging what she may or may not have been
thinking when she made those comments.  Second, my original comment
was meant as tongue-in-cheek, due to the incredible significance of
music in my life.  Constant record shopping, a weekly column about
music, my own musical efforts, not mentioning countless hours spent
poring over love-hounds and other musical related writings.  Clearly I
should've stuck a smiley face on the comment. 

>     So let's see you try, Jon: apply Julian's standards to
>_Reaching_Out_, and tell us all what you would change, add
>or subtract from its components in order to bring it up to _your_
>high standards--different though they must be from IED's, whose
>remarks about the song simply left you in the dark--?

Why bother?  You're not going to trap me that easily.  If I were
to have my wicked way with "Reaching Out" and attempt to stick
some claws on it, it wouldn't be the same song, so it's hardly a
topic fit for discussion.

I was "in the dark" about your comments because they involved
attempting to graft a noble heritage onto a song that is, to my ears,
marred by a rather different parentage.  I do not know enough about
the history of music to hear the allusions you mention.  I've told you
what lineage I can trace in it, and you've told me what you hear, so
who's right?  Are you right because your remarks have a more scholarly
tone to them?  All the research in the world isn't gonna tell you what
was in Kate's head when she sat down at the piano and plunked out the
chord changes.  She's admitted that all it took was "a walk in the
park." What happened to her during that walk?  Did she spot an
arrangement of leaves on the ground that reminded her of Barbara
Streisand or classical ballads?  And lastly, who cares?

+---------------------- Is there any ESCAPE from NOISE? ----------------------+
|  |   |\       | jsd@gaffa.mit.edu |      "Suck on this,                     |
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