Re: An enumeration of the errors in _Kate_Bush:_A_Visual_Documentary_

[greg@beach.cis.ufl.edu (Greg O'Rear)]

In article <9005152033.AA19107@EDDIE.MIT.EDU> Love-Hounds@gaffa.MIT.EDU writes:
>Really-From: IED0DXM%OAC.UCLA.EDU@mitvma.mit.edu
>
>
> To: Love-Hounds
> From: Andrew Marvick (IED)
> Subject: An enumeration of the errors in _Kate_Bush:_A_Visual_Documentary_
>
>...IED will overlook the stunningly
>false assertions about Bowie's development as a songwriter, and will
>merely comment that Kate's slowness to "realise the potential of video"
>is a matter for extended debate; and is anyway quite unfair, since Kate
>was virtually the _first_ artist to make promotional videos to accompany
>singles' releases _at_all_! The truth is that by the time the rest of
>the industry had begun making videos at all (early 1980) Kate had already
>been making highly original and enormously expressive videos for well over
>a year.

Well, now, maybe you're a little too concerned with Kate to have noticed,
but promotional videos and films have been around quite a bit longer than
Kate has been making them.  The earliest deliberate use of them I can think
of was by the Beatles, certainly by 1966, if not earlier (and I may be too
concerned with the Beatles to think of any even earlier).

Concrete example: the Beatles made color videos of "Paperback Writer" and
"Rain" and sent them to the Ed Sullivan show instead of appearing live.
Closer to 1970, when Bowie emerged, he immediately began using the medium,
and has done so consistently since then.  Kate was just another musician
in a long line who made promo clips for her songs.
--

Greg O'Rear
Industrial and Systems Engineering Department, University of Florida
Address: greg@beach.cis.ufl.edu