Re: Kate Bush on Vinyl (fwd)

[cilldara@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu]

wyzdom@skypoint.com (Mark Nesser) wrote:
> If you're a huge Kate Bush fan like me, you might want to own all of 
> her records ,instead of just CD's! I mean,owning her LP's is like 
> owning a piece of history in a way!

I have tKI, NFE, The Dreaming and HoL/tNW on vinyl, and boy let me tell
you the KT is a lot easier to spot!  :)  Seriously, it also makes a big
difference in terms of the album art, especially in the case of Never For
Ever.  Although I think they did a good job of fitting the artwork in with
the CD booklet, the original conception is a whole other idea. 

As a piece of history it's nice too, especially if you can get some of
those funky pressings with pictures.

And I have to admit, sometimes I am still nostalgic for the whole concept
of an "A" and a "B" side.  True, I like not having to get up every 20
minutes, but there is sometimes a certain psychological satisfaction to
there being two sides, again especially if that was the way the album was
originally formatted.  Maybe if artists had had the option 20 years ago
they would have gone straight from, say, "Strange Phenomena" to "The Kick
Inside" without that break in the middle, but since they didn't have that
option, we don't know (unless it's something obvious like Hol/tNW, or if
they explicitly say so) if they structured the album by sense of
continuity or expediency, or both.  (Or neither.)

On the other hand, this is only a question when talking of recordings; 
Beethoven certainly didn't mean for the audience to get up and stretch (or
turn over the orchestra!)  between movements 2 and 3 of his symphonies,
even though when we have them on record that's what we have to do, thus
causing a break in the musical/listening experience Beethoven never even
dreamed of.  But having started all my listening in a
platter/cartridge-based culture -- and albums at least formerly having to
take that culture into consideration -- I still sometimes value the effect
going to the flip side can have and the way some artists have utilized
that former necessity as an artistic element in the work.

Just today's tuppence...

Susan
--
cilldara@mail.utexas.edu
"Our words must seem to be inevitable." -- William Butler Yeats