Don,
I couldn't agree with you more. I too bought JLP before it was a hit, and
played it for a few set of friends, who all thoght it was remarkably expressive
of todays culture.
Also, it doesn't help when we are stuck in the North American radio climate,
where impact is more important than art. Take any Kate album, or most recently,
PSB's "Bilingual" which although critically acclaimed and supported by
most of the pasts PSB fans, without radio airplay, it is destined to become just
another record, with very limited appeal.
Jim
----
From: Dongerous! <fastslow@idt.net>
To: Raven Tompkins <rtompkin@indiana.edu>
Cc: rec-music-gaffa@moderators.uu.net
Date: May 31, 1997 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: The never-ending Kate/Tori debate
At 5:16 PM -0000 5-30-97, Raven Tompkins wrote:
>Since when does whether or not a song goes to the top of the charts
>have anything to do with with whether or not it's a "good" song? I
can
>only think of a handful of songs that made anyone charts in the last
>few years that I tbought were any good.
By the same token, NOT making the charts doesn't make a song good. And
every song that makes the charts is not, by definition, bad. A song's a
song. Sometimes good things happen to good songs.
>I don't agree at all that marketing is everything. I'm sure if Kate
>Bush were marketed exactly the same way that Alanis Morisette was the
>results would be different.
Of course they would. Millions, and I mean millions, of women relate
directly to the thoughts and emotions displayed on AM's hit album. I got
the record long before it was a hit and played it for many people who
usually hate "charttoppers," but felt a great bond with that
record.
Interestingly, KB was the first person I thought of when I first heard AM's
album. I thought of her as a post-punk KB.
> For the most part, mass marketed chart
>topping songs have a sort of lowest common denominator appeal. They
>sound alot like most everything else on the radio, they're lyrically
>simplistic and they don't challenge the listener. It's music for
>the masses. Kinda like the way that McDonalds has undoubtably
>sold more coffee than your favorite neightborhood coffee shop, but
>very few of would say that McDonalds coffee is better. It's simply
>more accessible.
Right. But many people claim McDonald's makes the best fries on the planet,
no matter how many they sell.
>I'd bet a bunch of money that no matter how you wanted to market
>Ani DiFranco, she'll never make a top 40 chart.
If you had heard AM's record before it was a hit, you probably would have
made the same bet. If you had heard Nirvana's "Nevermind" before it
was a
hit, you probably would have made the same bet. ADiF clicks with enough
people (not me), that a hit record from her is certainly possible. If the
next KB record tops the Billboard chart and sells a few million, will you
disown it. Personally, I judge a record on its merit, and I don't care if
it sells 10 or 10 million copies.
- Don