Re: ho ho ho

["Chris Beckwith" <beckwith@biddeford.com>]

On Fri, 17 May 1996 "Xenu's Sister" <vickie@miso.wwa.com> wrote:

> Long ago, I came to the conclusion that Tori's just a personal
> problem with you Tori bashers. You don't like her, which is fine, but
> you, for some unknown reason, feel you have to drag Kate into it,
> which makes no sense to me. They're as different as night and day,
> except that they both play piano and they're both of the same gender.

I have a theory that a lot of K8 fans who dislike Tori are simply
jealous.  They see Tori getting the TV appearances, record sales,
and critical recognition they see as rightly Kate's.  If Kate were
more active promotionally (or, heaven forbid, actually toured the
States) there wouldn't be any talk about Kate v. Tori.  These
people's frustrations are simply misplaced.

> Goddess protect Happy Rhodes if she ever becomes popular enough for
> you people to hear her. She *does* sound like Kate (her high voice)
> and she *does* freely admit to being a huge Kate fan, and she *will*
> be the first to say that she learned how to sing by singing along to
> The Kick Inside when she was a teenager.

I don't think Happy will ever have that problem, in large part
because her mindset is so against jumping to a major label and
getting the big push.  I hear more similarities between Tori and Kate
*as a whole*, though Happy's falsetto is remarkably Katelike (the
unititiated may want to listen to her live performances on "The
Keep;" her vocals are not the result of studio trickery!)

> I'm beginning to think that some of you will never accept any other
> female artist as having a valid right to make music and sing, as long
> as that artist does any, *any* little thing that's even *remotely*
> Kate-like, real or imagined.

Vickie, it bugs me when critics resort to facile comparisons when
trying to describe what an emerging artist sounds like, for example.
Women in the business have always had to suffer this kind of
treatment.  Even Sarah McLachlan received criticism when she took on
Paula Cole as an opening act during part of her Fumbling Towards
Ecstasy tour.  What were some people expecting, a catfight?  (I'm
praying for a Jann Arden/Sarah McLachlan double bill, myself.)  There
is a pervasive notion out there that the boom in female
singer/songwriters is a finite phenomenon and that one artist's
success necessarily comes at the expense of another.  It's nonsense.

Alas, it now appears that Kate has entered the most inactive phase of 
her career, and the sniping appears fated to continue for at least 
the next couple of years, or when La Bush determines that the 
royalty payments aren't going to furnish her Reading estate to her 
satisfaction -- whichever comes first...  ;).

Take care,

Chris