Re: vickie is happy

[Jon Drukman <jondr@sco.COM>]

No one yet knows why shane@shane.UUCP (Shane Bouslough) said:
>>> Happy's music is absolutely nothing like Kate's.
>> 
>> Then I suggest you cease referring to her as "the closest thing we have to
>> an American Kate Bush."
>
>I'm not sure who wrote the first part of the quote, but I beg to differ.

Vickie said "Happy's music is absolutel nothing like Kate's."  I said the
second part.  You said the last part.

>I found the similarity between Happy and Kate striking, indeed, it's the
>reason I bought all Happy's stuff. The epithet "the closest thing we
>have to an American Kate Bush" is pretty good, I wish I'd thought of it :-).

I still don't see more than a passing similarity in Happy's higher voice.

>The similarities that immediately come to mind are the vocal range,
>the use of question/answer techniques where one (musical) phrase is
>high pitched, the other low, the use of uncommon/unusual musical ideas
>(i.e., not just 4/4 thumpa-thumpa music), and poetry based on personal
>experience.

Thank you for actually listing CONCRETE examples.  Now I'm going to take
you to task for them!  (Much as it pains me to disagree with someone with
such a FINE Red Dwarf signature quote, a man's gotta do what a man's gotta
do...)

First, the high/low question/answer technique.  This is called "call and
response" and the earliest example I know of it is in negro spirituals.  It
might possibly go even further back to tribal music, but my ethnomusicology
isn't very good.  Anyway, I can't think of any examples of Kate using this
off the top of my head - what were you thinking of?

The 4/4 thing I can't answer, because Vickie only gave me a narrow sampling
of Happy's stuff, and none of it was in anything other than 4/4.  Actually,
there might have been a 3/4 in there, but that's not exactly groundbreaking
rhythmatic insanity, like Sat In Your Lap (12/8 in the verse, 10/8 in the
chorus).

As for poetry based on personal experience, Kate has said dozens of times
that very little of her music is autobiographical, so again I ask, what in
particular were you thinking of?  The thing I like BEST about Kate is how
she writes stories that, despite their brevity, convey a whole world of
character detail, emotion, place, time, etc.  There Goes A Tenner -
brilliant story, total attention to detail, completely NON
autobiographical.

>Thus, if you like those aspects of KaTe, I can't see how you would fail
>to like Happy as well. Now that I've given some reasons WHY I like it,
>I can say `it's too cool, buy it now.'

Well, I can't say if I like those aspects of KaTe, because you have totally
failed to demonstrate their existence!  Sorry, thanks for playing, try
again soon.

>I'm surprized at the posts here that say "I listened to some Happy stuff
>and I just don't see what the big deal is." I know people who find KaTe
>too "screechy" as in Violin Song. They catch on eventually though. Give
>Happy a chance, she's golden, just as KaTe is.

I've given her a chance.  She's tap water in a Dom Perignon bottle.

"You can't have my shiny thing.  It's mine and I found it.  If you try and
take it from me, I may have to eat you."  -- Cat.

-- 
Jon Drukman (jam the track)                  uunet!sco!jondr      jondr@sco.com
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