Re: The Sensual World: maturing or icing?

[Dances With Voles <jondr@sco.COM>]

No one yet knows why whitcomb@aurxc3.UUCP (Jonathan Whitcomb) said:
>Then came Hounds of Love.  The first track has Kate purring
>"Come on baby, Come on, come on darlin'" over a thumping dance
>beat.  And of course the single featured a dance mix.  The rest 
>of the album left little first impression on me.  But I hated The 
>Dreaming on first listen (before it became my favorite album), 
>so I tried to give it a chance.  I think five years is a good 
>enough chance.  There are some good tracks here, but the album 
>bogs down, especially on the second side.  The production was 
>excellent, but there didn't seem to be much substance behind 
>all the effects.  Where were the compositions that fueled her
>first four albums?

I'm really amazed to hear you say this.  Why I like Kate songs so much:
they are ABOUT SOMETHING.  Or they tell stories.  At least, the good ones
do.  This is why, to me, "Between A Man And A Woman" is not a good Kate song.
It's not about anything that anyone over the age of 16 hasn't dealt with a
million times.  On the other hand, Wilhelm Reich is very much unexplored
territory for lots of people.  Glow in the dark yo-yos?  Orgone energy?
Whoa...

Anyway, almost everything on HoL is about *something* particular, and the
songs that aren't (like the title track which can be summed up in three
words: "fear of love") are at least musically interesting enough to merit
repeated listening.  The fact that the sound effects on The Ninth Wave are
not only sonically interesting but actually crucial to the story helps push
this album into the realm of genius.  Ditto stuff like the policeman
whispering and the aircraft sweeps on The Dreaming.

>The Sensual World continued in this vein.  Bush had become 
>very proficient in the studio, and the sound quality was great.

I think the sound quality is actually really bad.  For such an expensive and
meticulously produced record, it sounds like crap.  Hiss out the wazoo.
Digital tearing noises.  Flabby EQ.  "Rocket's Tail" is a song that SCREAMS
to be played at the loudest possible volume but if you attempt to do that,
you'll be sorely disappointed.  It sounds like it was recorded on a cassette.

>I just missed what used to be underneath.  I have tried, really
>tried, to like this album, but I felt like I was eating
>cotten candy... a sweet, sticky taste was left in my mouth, but
>I still felt empty afterwards.  I think much of this is due to the 
>difference in how Bush used to compose, and how she composes now.  

I disagree.  Not that I think it's a good album, but that it's a bad album
for different reasons.  The songs aren't about anything in particular.  The
title track is at least based in literature, and combined with the beautiful
music it is a winner.  But "Love and Anger"?  Feh.  It's not about anything,
and it doesn't do anything musically interesting.  "The Fog" is a winner:
good sounds, good story, good song.  "Reaching Out"?  Feh again.  Musically
and lyrically trite - who would've thought Kate could've succumbed to so
many cliches in only 4 minutes... "Heads We're Dancing" is at least
interesting lyrically, and the sounds are nice, but it doesn't gel for me.
I'm not willing to pronounce it a bad song, just one that doesn't click for
me.  Fair enough.  "Deeper Understanding" is thumbs up - good sounds and
story again.  "Between A Man And A Woman" is again shockingly trite.  "Never
Be Mine" is a tired old lyrical theme (probably the oldest in the history of
the world - I love you, so why don't you love me), but the tune is OK.
Unfortunately, it loses because the sounds are total synth/sample cliches.
Tablas and pennywhistles; somebody give me a Skinny Puppy record before I
expire!!  "Rocket's Tail" I've already covered - it almost makes up for the
fact that it isn't about anything by being a total piece of energy, but the
sound quality knocks it down.  Compare to "Sat In Your Lap" which *easily*
survives being blasted at supersonic levels.  "This Woman's Work" is
superbly effective, despite (or maybe because of) the sparse arrangement.
"Walk Straight Down The Middle" wins because it sounds nice, but not because
the lyrics are anything to write home about.

>When writing on a piano or guitar, a song has to stand up on its
>own merit.  When you take that song and then bring it to the
>studio, then new dimensions can be added to it.  However, when
>you start writing a song with all the studio effects and
>gadgets, a fundimentally weak composition can be sonically
>pleasing... but leaves you unsatisfied.  

I don't see any correlation between the songs I like and the relative ease
which they may be turned into simple voice-and-piano tracks.  Besides, I'm
not one of these "you've got to be able to hum the tune" purists.  If Kate
just sang scat noises over a Muslimgauze track I'm sure it would be totally
orgasmic.  (Muslimgauze is all percussion)

>There's been lots of discussion about whether this represents
>a "maturing" process for Bush.  I think rather it represents what
>happens when a very talented songwriter gets so caught up in
>the new music technology that she loses track of her fundimental
>talents as a songwriter.

But you're absolutely wrong about this!  Particularly on TSW.  Think of that
weird sampled melody noise at the beginning of Running Up That Hill.  Now
that's cool, in my book.  Unfortunately, inbetween HoL and TSW, Kate traded
her Fairlight IIx for a Fairlight III and apparently never learned how to
program it, so what we get on TSW are the same old tired cliche library
sounds.  The whistles, the tablas, the boring drum sounds...  Ick.  Kate
even admitted that she didn't bother to learn how to use the Series III
properly.  I remember the first time I heard Never Be Mine and nearly barfed
up a lung when that dreadful andes flute or whatever it's called kicked in.
(that same damn flute from the Emulator libraries, bane of a million bad
movie soundtracks, tangerine dream albums and the opening noise on peter
gabriel's "sledgehammer")

>Of course I expect an artist change
>as she progresses through her career.  I welcome that change,
>but I feel that Bush's fascination with studio tricks has become
>less of a tool and more of a crutch.  Less emphasis on songs
>and more on production.  To me it shows that Bush has progressed
>as a producer, but regressed as a songwriter.

I wish she'd put MORE emphasis on production, specifically: not relying on
preset sounds and getting some more attention to sound quality.  I think the
songs *are* weaker, in general, on TSW, as well.  So clearly work is needed
in both areas.  But if you took the TSW tracks and redid them with good
arrangements and engineering, you'd have an amazingly great record instead
of just a pretty good one.

>There seems to be lots of attention paid to the literary and
>film references Bush makes in her songs.  While much of this is
>interesting, I think Bush has been overreaching a bit in this
>area recently.  While I enjoy lyrics that challenge me, I get
>frustrated by obscure references that seem to be left as Easter
>eggs for die-hard fans to ponder.

This one I completely disagree with.  Admittedly, I never listened to HoL
much until I started reading love-hounds and hearing that the songs were
actually ABOUT things, but one can live and learn...  The obscure references
are occasionally painful, but if you read love-hounds you can figure them
out with a minimum of fuss.  The thing that first stunned me about
Kate was, in fact, the level of detail in the lyrics and how EVERYTHING
meant something.  My favorite example of this is the glow in the dark yoyo
on Cloudbusting.  "What made it special made it dangerous."  Now this means
nothing unless you know about Peter Reich and the supposedly toxic paint
they used to make those yoyos glow, but once you know, it makes the song
resonate in an amazing way.

>What this all boils down to for me, is a wish that Bush would lose
>all the electronic gadgets, lock the door to the library, and
>just write from the heart again.

Please, god, NO!  I can't think of a more surefire route to total boredom.
If this sort of brainless emotionalism turns you on, listen to Happy Rhodes,
but leave the rest of us poor love-hounds alone with our film and literary
references.  If only people would stop "writing from the heart"... oh, what
a great world it would be!

-- 
Jon Drukman (love pantry)                       uunet!sco!jondr   jondr@sco.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Always note the sequencer - this will never let us down.