Re: beauty, meaning, and other things out of fashion...

[wagreiner@ucdavis.edu ()]

In article <9402181810.AA20536@dlsun87.us.oracle.com> jdrukman%dlsun87@us.oracle.com (Jon Drukman) writes:
>Wade writes:
>
>>Well, I guess we all have our opinions on "the good old days" of
>>music.  Personally, I think it all started to go downhill with the
>>album that has had the largest negative impact in popular music
>>history: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band.  After all, that was
>>the album which, it seems to me started the trend towards
>>substituting tape effects and cutting and pasting for the ability to
>>perform musically.  I mean without Sgt. Peppers would we have had to
>>deal with the likes of Yes, Pink Floyd, ELP, Genesis, and all that
>>art rock stuff?
>
>the point of Sgt Peppers was to create an atmosphere, a sense of time
>and place, within the context of pop songs.  the point of Yes and
>Genesis (as far as I can tell) was to show off technical virtuosity.
>Pink Floyd was sort of halfway between the two.  so already your last
>sentence makes no sense.  the point is, without Sgt Peppers, would we
>have Kate?  a lot of "the dreaming" seems to me to be an attempt to
>create that sense of time and place... each song is a little
>mini-environment where the sounds and ideas all contribute to the
>3-dimensionality of the listening experience.

My point about the connection between Sgt. Peppers and Yes, etc., was
just that after Sgt. Peppers the emphasis in a lot of pop music moved
away from putting together good songs and performances to putting together
"concept" albums.  I think the "concept" album led to horrible excesses
like Yes' "Tales From Topographic Oceans" (a double album with 4 [very
boring] songs).  Sgt. Peppers also accelerated the trend of making 
records in which the performers don't play at the same time (the gross
practice of laying down a billion tracks to make one recording) which
has led (IMHO) to a pop music world in which performers don't know how to
improvise and react to one another's playing which led to a shift from 
the skill of performing music to that of "composing" an album, a trend that
I just don't care for.  (Of course that doesn't mean it's bad, just means
I don't like it.)  I was actually dragged to an "Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman,
and Howe concert about 4 years back or so.  Everything sounded exactly like
it did on the records.  It was just the most boring thing I've every sat
through.

Of course we wouldn't have "The Dreaming" without
Sgt. Pepper's, but I think Kate is the *exception* to the rule.

>
>>I hasten to add that though Kate uses a lot of Sgt. Pepper-like ideas
>>(especially on "The Dreaming" I don't include her in my list of negative
>>impacts.  I love Kate's stuff, obviously, and think of her as the exception
>>to the rule.  No matter how much "production" Kate does I think she always
>>retains a certain authenticity that the afore-mentioned lack.
>
>well, i think you've set up a strawman just so you can knock it down,
>but what do i know...
>
>besides, if Sgt Peppers (which you despise) can influence one person
>to make The Dreaming (which you like), how can it be bad at all?

Actually, if you read carefully, I never said I despised Sgt. Peppers.
I think it's a good album, though certainly not among the Beatles best.
The Beatles understood this, I think, and went on to make the much more
impressive Abbey Road.  The Beatles had already made "Revolver", "Please,
Please Me", and several other albums better than Sgt. Peppers.  But that
I think is because the Beatles had paid their dues already, had become an
excellent performing band and knew the value of a good song.  Bands that
were influenced by the Beatles didn't necessarily have all that.  It was 
the influence of Sgt. Peppers that was the bad thing (IMHO) not the album
itself.  (My all time favorite artist is Bob Dylan, and let's face it if
there was not a Bob Dylan doing psychadelic lyrics we probably wouldn't
have had to deal with "Donovan" so even Bob had something of a negative
influence on pop music!  :-)  And yes, I do love the Dreaming and Hounds
of Love, etc., but I think that is because Kate grew up listening to
her brothers play a lot of trad. folk instruments and, she too, knows
the value of good songwriting and performing.  However, as much as I love
those albums, I like a lot of Kate's "simpler" music even better.  I would
love to hear a whole album of Kate doing songs like "The Handsome Cabin
Boy" and "Under the Ivy."  If it maintained the high standards of those
two songs it would (IMHO) stand a good chance of making me forget all about
even "The Dreaming."  (Well, maybe not "forget", but it would be great.)
And though I am a Kate fan I am afraid I am not a "fucking Kate Bush
fanatic!" as IED calls for more people to be.  So although Sgt. Peppers
did influence a good thing "The Dreaming" the negative influence it has
had, to me, outweighs it.  Heck, if there was no Sgt. Peppers maybe Kate
*would* have recorded an album of "Under the Ivys"!  I guess we'll never
know.


Wade