Re: Don't knock it till spin 500...

[stevev@chemstor.uoregon.edu (Steve VanDevender)]

In article <9007261848.AA02642@chem.nwu.edu> Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU writes:
   Really-From: stern@chem.nwu.edu (Charlotte Stern)

   Simple.  It has nothing to do with the hypothesis.  You just haven't
   listened to it enough to have been revelated yet.
   Although most will agree that TD is KT's best, they will probably also agree
   that it is the one that requires the most patience.  It wasn't until after
   many, many listenings that I decided TD was great.  My first impression
   (for many months) was exactly yours: yucko.
   If you can appreciate TD, I have found, there's a whole gamut of other
   music out there (much of it mentioned in LH) that you are ready to
   explore.  It really does open your mind and let the weirdness in.
   Honest.  Really and truly.

Funny, I remember borrowing a tape of _The Dreaming_ from a
friend, after having only heard _Hounds of Love_ and _The Whole
Story_ before.  I put it on, waiting through "Sat In Your Lap"
(which I'd heard many times on _TWS_, and been fascinated by),
and then . . . Well, I think I just sat there through the rest of
the album going "Wow, wow, wow, unbelievable" (not an exact
quote, but a good representation of my mental state).  Of course,
I'd already read lots of Love-Hounds discussion referring to many
of the songs (to the point where I could correctly attribute
titles to most of them) but there was no adaptation period
involved.  From the first "Okay, remember" of "There Goes a
Tenner" to the closing "Daggim da da" of "Get Out of My House", I
was hooked.  So there goes YOUR generalization :-).

Interestingly enough, it was _Hounds of Love_ that I listened to
for a long time until I really appreciated it.  I never started
out disliking it, but it definitely made more sense the more I
listened.  Especially _The Ninth Wave_, which I never really
understood until I started seeing discussion on it in
Love-Hounds.

Interestingly enough, I spend most of my Kate listening time
lately with _TD_ and _The Sensual World_, partly because I have
them back-to-back on one tape, partly because I've encountered
both much more recently than _HoL_.  Also very conveniently, I
can bounce back and forth between "Suspended in Gaffa" and "Never
Be Mine" by hitting the auto-reverse on my walkman at the end of
each.  While I also would say that I find _TSW_ a little less
personally appealing than _HoL_ or _TD_, I can't criticize it too
much.

_The Dreaming_, though, seems to be an album I just can't get
really tired of.  I might go a day or two without listening to at
least some of it every so often, but it's all continually
fascinating, especially the first side.  A recently posted
interview with some explanation of the background behind
"Houdini" increased my understanding and enjoyment of the song
immensely.

By the way, I was looking through our odd little local
"alternative weekly" paper, and found a personal that was
unusual:

"Young person seeks correspondence concerning Breton, Bunuel,
K. Bush [presumably our beloved KT], Byrne, Chirico, Cocteau,
Dali, Jung, Kafka, Lynch, Magritte . . . "

I wonder if this person knows about Love-Hounds?

--
Steve VanDevender 	stevev@chemstor.uoregon.edu
"Bipedalism--an unrecognized disease affecting over 99% of the population.
Symptoms include lack of traffic sense, slow rate of travel, and the
classic, easily recognized behavior known as walking."