New Toy Syndrome (was Re: Ron Hill UPdate)

[larry@cs.com (Larry Spence)]

In article <9210132337.AA13655@pilot.njin.net> vickie@pilot.njin.net (Vickie Mapes) writes:
>rhill@netrun.cts.com (ronald hill) writes:
>
>>        I guess I'm in the minority regarding Peter Gabriel's US album. 
>> IE, I don't like it so much.  People have in the past drawn analogies 
>>between Kate and Peter's albums as in Security and The Dreaming being 
>>simulur and The Hounds of Love and So being simular.  I would tend to 
>>extend this to say US and The Sensual World being simular, in that they 
>>both are somewhat disappointing.
>
>No way do I want to get into a flame war about this, but I will say 
>that I disagree strongly.

Wellll, I don't want to start a flame war, either %), but I tend to 
agree with Ron.  _Us_ is pretty good, but not great IMHO.  A lot of it
seems to be reworkings of previous Gabriel styles.  Shortly after it 
came out, I even got a couple pieces of email from friends who warned 
that it was going to be another instance of New Toy Syndrome (my termi-
nology).

New Toy Syndrome often occurs on the net when a highly-regarded artist
(e.g., Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush) has a new release after a period of 
inactivity.  Unless the new release is very different from earlier 
work (e.g., the new Sinead), the new stuff almost invariably gets rave
reviews.  Then, a year or two later, when someone happens to bring up
the "which ones are best" thread, the formerly-new album drops to a
much lower position than one would have guessed from its initial recep-
tion (e.g., _The Sensual World_).  I'm not saying that this is an iron-
clad rule, but it happens a _lot_ on the net.

>>So far none of the songs have effected me like several of the songs 
>>from each of his last couple of albums.
>
>_Security_ will always be my favorite Gabriel album, and PGIII will
>always be second. This album threatens PGI for 3rd place.

Yo, Vickie, are you serious?  What about _Passion_?  Does it not count
because it's a soundtrack and has no lyrics?  IMHO _Passion_ is one of,
if not the, best things PG has done.  And what's this "will always be"
stuff -- is it all downhill for PG from here?  

On a different subject, it's unfortunate that Kate decided not to release
the b-sides CDs separately... it would've helped ease the frustration of
the "Real Soon Now, Next Spring Maybe" syndrome... %(  I'm surprised that
she wouldn't have a bit more sympathy for those of us who can't justify 
paying steep import prices for a boxed set of CDs that we already have in
order to get the two extra discs...  %( %(

-- 
Larry Spence
larry@cs.com
uunet!csccat!larry