Re: Kate vs. Tori

[brownfld@rcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (Kenneth R Brownfield)]

chrisw@fciad2.bsd.uchicago.edu (chris williams) wrote:
>   Ok, I'll try to state it more clearly. It seems impossible for
> critics and most listeners to describe female singers without
> comparing one to another. Now this would seem reasonable enough,
> that comparisons are necessary for the listener to be able to have
> a point of reference. But look through any magazine with a large
> number of reviews, and you will notice that the male singers are
> not often compared with one another (other than obvious idolatry,
> Harry Connik and Frank Sinatra for example.) But try to find a
> review of a female singer without pigion-hole comparisons to to
> at least one other female singer. Why is this? 

     What comes immediately to my mind is that female vocalists seem to
be much more popular than male vocalists.  Especially in Europe, where
the female vocalist & "etherial" guitar bands are getting a lot of talk.
I think the plethora of interest and sex tendencies makes it easier for
"journalists" to make comparisons.
     For instance, I could compare (because I know of many) more female
vocalists to, say, Kate Bush, than I could male vocalists to Black Francis.
Give it a wing.  I think it's a side-effect of what sort of vocals are
popular now.  If I say that Happy Rhodes' upper range is a near-dead-ringer
for Kate's, is that an insult because I can't think of a single bloody
singer that's similar to Black Francis?  I think more female vocalists
means more similarities; there is a fairly limited range of styles that
can be separated by the use of the English language.  Comparisons, while
rough and inaccurate, are better than "soaring, sweet," etc., ad nauseum.

niall@marple.as.utexas.edu (Niall Gaffney) writes:
>Perhaps it is rooted in our male dominated monogomous society.

     Is this under the assumption that comparisons (synonym being pigeon-
holing) are degrading?  I can see how claiming that "singer A" is a "more
<insert adjective here> singer than singer B" can be somewhat limiting to
singer A, but when you're trying to explain the style and quality of a
person's singing voice, do you present graphs of harmonic structure?  Vocal
range?  Volume of left and right tonsils compared to vocal chord length and
mass?  Feh!
     
>Especially with women who move us in such fundimentally emoutinal
>ways as both Tori and Kate, many men may feel almost "unfaithful" 
>if they listen to the words of another woman, and that they must
>defend the ways of their own personal favorite.

     This is assuming that "many men" bond with one (monogamous, I assume)
woman (in this case, a singer,) and are forever bonded to, and defensive of,
this woman.
     Pardon a guy for being astonished, but that's baloney.  Maybe this
is good material for a Sociology mid-term, but then again academic sociology
was never terribly logical.
     Is there some basis for your theory that men marry their favorite
female singer?  And that they can have only one, since that would be
adultery?  Outrageous.  I no longer have a single favorite female vocalist,
because each vocalist has a unique delivery, and the music that accompanies
their voice (which can create an even more fertile ground for comparisons)
also enhances their singularity.
     I do not feel like I have to defend Kate Bush over any other vocalist,
primarily because I think some other female vocalists have voices/deliveries
that are superior in some ways, and vice versa.  If our "male-dominated
monogamous society" truly _is_, I think female performers would have a much
harder time filling concert halls and selling CDs.  After all, only one
female singer per male, right?
     Now, before my argument sinks too deep into anyone's head, I realize
that _many_ readers of gaffa think that Kate is _the_ bees' knees, Goddess,
et.al..  While there is the extreme tendency to hail Kate over all else, I
strongly doubt that anyone here owns, likes, or favors NO other female
vocalists.  Vickie has at _least_ Happy Rhodes and Victoria Williams.  I'm
sure many other people have many other tastes.  Jon Drukman comes to mind. ;)
Let's not let gaffa's intense elitism streak get in the way of explaining
events in the more common world of journalism and pop music.

>It is my personal recoletion that most of the discussion of Tori vs. Kate
>is lead by men (correct me if I am wrong, this is just my own
>personal recolection and is not based on any real statistics).  

     Indeed.

>I too am a big fan of both Kate and Tori (as well as Rossane 
>Cash and Mary Chapin Carpenter for that matter, though this 
>discussion doesn't rage on about their music), and have been 
>know from time to time to compare and contrast them, but in 
>what I hope is a constructive manor, be it philosophical or 
>musical.

     But everyone else (since all reviewers and members of this newsgroup/
mailing-list are male) is insulting women by making the same comparisons?
Have I missed something terribly elementary?

>However this is more to extend the pleasure I get 
>from listening to both of thier works.

     I can agree with you completely on the reasons you compare
singers.  You defend the "acceptability" of making comparisons, and yet
you blame the preponderance of female-on-female comparisons on male
chauvinism?  Why is it chauvinism if there's nothing wrong with it?
     Truly perplexing.
     Now I must admit that I just came back from a month's vacation, and
I can only assume that this thread was started by a Kate/Tori comparison.
They are similar in some ways, different in many others.  In explaining
the style of Tori, how could the mention of Kate Bush, an admitted major
influence on Tori's style, be insulting?  Besides the fact that the
comparison is helpful for an explanation, the similarity is quite obvious.
     I think there is a hidden assumption that "Tori is similar to Kate but
not identical means Tori is less than Kate."  Comparisons do not have
this agenda in mind (unless the person really is a Tori hater, in which
case my argument is patently invalid.)  Tori is similar to Kate.  This
gives me a bloody ROUGH idea of how she sings.  And owning her album,
I'll say that anyone who denies the hints and breezes of similarity is
deluding themselves and ignoring Tori's art.

     A lot of hot air builds up after so long!  ;)

>Niall Ives Gaffney          ---   Department of Astronomy
>niall@marple.as.utexas.edu  ---   University of Texas at Austin

     If you every happen over by the Commerce building, give a Ph.D.
student by the name of Gaeron McClure a kick in the pants.  ;)
--
                                                        Ken.
(217) 352-5679                                   brownfld@uiuc.edu