Musical tastes and tasteless arguments

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

Vickie wrote:
> She's NOT just another good singer. She's got the
> same sort of magic and spirit that Kate has (though Kate *IS* God and always
> will be!) and since Katefans do generally have open ears, minds and hearts,
> many will feel that magic. It's only right that she be recommended to other
> Kate Bush fans and it's only right that we be the ones to discover and
> appreciate her before everyone else catches on.

Richard Caldwell wrote directly underneath:
>That's a very clever way to put it.  You assert that the magic _is_ there 
>and that if we don't feel it it's our own fault.  I'd say that's a matter
>of opinion and from what I've seen not everyone agrees.

>Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe Happy Rhodes isn't a Kate-wanna-be, maybe she's
>a Kate-you-want-her-to-be.  You would probably be doing her a favor not to 
>saddle her with such high expectations.

What I can't figure out, Richard, is why you think that Vickie
doesn't consider it a matter of opinion, that Vickie is not
allowing others room for disagreement, or that any other
reasonable reader is not going to consider musical taste and
music recommendations as matters of opinion no matter how the
author might word their posts.

I think you're being extremely unfair to Vickie and undermining
your own argument by taking what must be reasonably interpreted
as statements of subjective opinion and saying that Vickie is
trying to claim them as facts.  Vickie feels that there is magic
in the music of Happy Rhodes, and says so without adding the
always implied "but that's just my opinion."  Even if you insist
that we read the quote literally and then try to pick it apart as
a failed statement of fact, she hedges sufficiently--"Katefans do
_generally_ have open ears, minds, and hearts," "_many_ will feel
that magic."  She's not expecting everyone to agree, and
indicates that people should be allowed to form their own
opinions--she said "recommended to", not "forced upon".  Where I
see a strong opinion, you see an attempt to force you to think a
certain way.  Who says you have to take her statement that
seriously, besides you?

I also see a seeming failure to understand the way that people
normally plug their favorite artists.  Which is the more
realistic album recommendation:

a) "I just got the new album by the Outrageous Examples and my
subjective experience was that I really enjoyed it.  There is
some possibility that others might enjoy it too and so I thought
I might mention it, but of course you are free to ignore me."

b) "The new album by the Outrageous Examples is _really
*awesome*_.  Go buy it now.  I can't stop listening to this album
and I bet you can't either.  This is one of the best albums I've
ever heard, almost as good as _The Dreaming_."

I dunno about you, but I see more raves like b) than a), and they
don't automatically turn me off.  I have come to consider it
conventional that people who really like something don't bother
to say "well, that's just how I feel, you could feel
differently"; in fact I consider saying so redundant.  Perhaps
some people leave it out because they actually don't bother to
consider the difference between their opinions and objective
reality, but I always look at a rave like b) as an enthusiastic
statement of opinion, not an attempt to force an opinion down my
throat or a dictate of musical correctness.  We read a lot of
other things without necessarily taking them literally, "Kate
Bush is God" being a prime example.  As I recall, this is called
"hyperbole" and is apparently as dangerous to use around some
people as another form of speech called "sarcasm".

Richard also wrote:
>Interestingly enough, one lurking reviewer dropped me a line 
>declaring my remark about synths to be "dead on".

I'd love to see this lurking reviewer post his opinion, because I
appreciate honest opinions.  However, I consider citing one's
private supporters a poor way to buttress an argument--at worst,
an attempt to sway opinions by peer pressure ("all these people
agree with me, so I must be right"); at best, a way to avoid
finding any better way to explain oneself.

I'd really like to see Happy Rhodes become more successful so she
can get better synthesizers and instruments.  I'm listening to
_Rearmament_ right now and I have to admit that it, like all her
other albums I've heard, has synthesizer sounds that have come to
be considered primitive, even cheesy.  However, I am really quite
impressed by her ability to wring what she can out of those
sounds.  "The Perfect Irony" has that Casiotone sound others have
spoken of, but it was also the most striking song I heard the
first time I listened through _Rearmament_ and _Ecto_.  The
sounds are recognizably synthesized, which seems to have become
taboo when everyone is striving to use synthesizers to sample and
emulate real instruments, but she picks sounds that are
appropriate and which carry her melodies, much as Wendy Carlos's
synthesizer sounds in _Switched-On Bach_ work.  Happy's best
instrument is her voice, with her acoustic guitar runner-up.
Given that it should hardly seem surprising that some of my
favorite Happy songs are just guitar and voice--"Would That I
Could", "Moonbeam Friends", "The Revelation".  One wonders how
Kate Bush's songs would sound if she had to play all the
instruments herself.  It is no surprise that Happy must settle
for sparse instrumentation and simple melodies when she cannot
afford to hire many outside musicians and must arrange everything
for only those instruments she can play herself.  

Ah well, I probably nauseate those of you insular types who only
want to hear of Kate.  So for some Kate news, I will also throw
in that I may have hooked another person on Kate; he's got my CDs
and seems very enthusiastic.  Given that he has all of _Never For
Ever_, _The Dreaming_, _Hounds of Love_, and _The Sensual World_,
it seems unimaginable that he won't get infatuated by at least
one of them.  By the way, that last statement was
_hyperbole_--it's entirely possible that this guy may not like
any of them and I certainly won't claim that I was speaking
absolute truth that you all must agree with.  But then again, no
one gets flamed for using hyperbole about Kate.

Steve VanDevender 	stevev@greylady.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."