Oh snore. TSW discussion simmering.

["N. Richard Caldwell" <nrc@bsbbs.columbus.oh.us>]

Gosh, how could I let a discussion of the merits of _The Sensual World_ go
by without throwing in my two cents.  It seems like just yesterday that a
few of us thrice damned utterers of diverse opinions dared to speak those
first words of mild criticism for _The Sensual World_.  Back then, even
suggesting that TSW was perhaps not as great as Kate's best work brought
down hellfire and brimstone from the defenders of the faith.

Now we at least seem to be able to discuss the relative merits of TSW
without anyone's credentials as a Kate fan being questioned.  This
discussion has been refreshingly free of the phrase "true Kate fan" which
used to get rolled out whenever anyone questioned Kate's perfection.

I really can't add much at this point.  My opinions remain much as they
were the last time we went through this discussion and most of those points
have been covered here already, mainly by Jon and Stev0.   Let's review:
The engineering is clearly poor. Each individual track has more than it's
share of noise associated with it and the edits are entirely too obvious
at times.  As a completely separate issue, I agree that the vocals are too
far down in the mix, but that's a matter of taste.  Kate's voice is
clearly not in top form, she makes little use of her (once?) tremendous
range and at times she sounds downright raspy.   Many of the songs show
relatively little of Kate's songwriting genius.  The ideas are not as
original and intriguing and the atmosphere is not as well established. 
Fortunately, TSW does have three or four tracks where Kate is at her best
and manages to overcome all or most of this album's technical 
inadequacies.

As time has passed my opinion of TSW has not improved.  In fact, it has
slipped.  I now find that TSW is my least favorite Kate CD, including
Lionheart and the two B sides CDs.  I still love TSW, just not as much as
anything else Kate has done.  

It's interesting to note that TSW actually polled below every original
release except _Lionheart_ in the recent Kate poll.  In fact, if I recall
correctly, one of the B-sides discs was actually better liked than TSW.
One might go so far as to say that TSW is actually the least popular of the
original material LPs since _Lionheart_ is mostly leftovers from TKI.  I
wouldn't be surprised to see opinions on TSW slip even lower if the next LP
is a return to form.

I love TSW.  Just not as much as anything else Kate has done.


"Don't drive too slowly."         Richard Caldwell
                                  The Big Sky BBS (+1 614 864 1198)
                                  nrc@bsbbs.Columbus.OH.US