If anybody told her to rip off Kate Bush to get rich, they need their heads examined. What she did wasn’t popular when she started doing it, so I’m not sure that’s selling out. I take it you’re not a fan (;)), but her sound went through some major changes while she was still popular, and she lost a lot of fans as a result.
She’s bad at pretending: she occasionally plays songs from that period in concert.
The story I’ve always heard was that the record company created the Y Kant… image because they didn’t know what to make of her. She had one bad video (“The Big Picture”) and the album tanked (sealed copies can command big bucks on ebay).
As for ripping off Kate, let’s face it, Kate has a rabid cult following in the US, but that’s about it. By the time she had her first (and it was minor) chart hit (“Running Up That Hill”) she was already established elsewhere.
I don’t see how you can say that someone has sold out when you’d never heard of her at the time (ca 1988).
Her style has changed over the years, but so has the aforementioned Prince and David Bowie (who admitted to selling out with Let’s Dance).
I was very careful not to say that she ripped off KT to get rich. She ripped off KT because she had nothing original to offer of her own; she STUCK with the fake kate because it worked. As I said, if it hadn’t, she’d be doing a bad Lil Kim impression right about now. Or maybe Shania Twain. She’s probably talented enough to wear either skin convincingly, depending on which paid better.
And if she’s doing YKant songs now, it’s no doubt because she was embarrassed into acknowledging their existence. Last time I bothered to pay any attention, she was extremely cold to interviewers who brought it up, and made it very clear she would just as soon deny it ever happened. Things change; she must have found a way to profit on it.
I find that much more plausible. She was always into hard rock, or so the story goes.
I’m not saying that changing your style is proof on its face that she hasn’t sold out. I’m saying her Little Earthquakes sound and her Boys for Pele/From the Choirgirl Hotel sound can’t both be stolen from Kate Bush; they sound nothing alike.
And how does that account for the changes in her style?
Look, this is obviously a difference of opinion. You can’t “prove” me wrong, and I can’t “prove” you wrong.
She’s a very talented musician. Finding a basic approach that works and continuing to improve upon it and refine with that talent does not conflict, in my opinion, with my opinion that she ripped off the approach in the first place. Her changes since she switched over from YKant to Fake Kate have been solidly within that “genre.”
Bottomline, it comes down to, when I listen to her music I hear nothing but cynical–and talented–manipulation of borrowed stuff. I don’t have a problem with borrowing; I have a problem with borrowers who deny they’re borrowing. (A friend of mine, early on, to Tori, thrilled to have found a fellow KT fan: “Is the cover of Little Earthquakes, with you in the box, a reference to Kate Bush’s first album cover?” Tori, coldly: “Kate Bush didn’t invent the box.”) And I have a problem with cynical borrowers who seem–to me–to be exploiting serious subjects because they feel like “seriousness” works for their marketplace.
It is my personal feeling from listening to TA’s music that she has manufactured her musical persona based on what she thinks her paying audience wants. If she were a politician, she wouldn’t shit without consulting the polls.
YMMV.
It seems to me that the changes in her style match up pretty well with what she’s going through in her life. LE was a rather depressing album, but when things started to pick up for her personally, so did her music. She started heading back down with the miscarriage of her child (subject of the song “Spark”), but has perked up more in recent albums. Though her lyrics can be opaque at times (understatement of the year), they almost always come from personal experience; it never sounded to me like she was trying to cater to anyone.
FWIW, here’s what Tori has to say about Kate Bush:
That’s only if you define “genre” so loosely that it has no meaning at all.
She may have seemed cold because she had grown tired of people comparing her to Kate Bush ever since she was a teenager. As the above quote shows, those comparisons predate YKTR by a number of years.
None of that contradicts my opinion. I never said that KT was the only person she borrowed from, nor that she copies her exactly, nor that she hasn’t very skillfully synthesized her influences. And her denials will be interpreted differently by different people. You buy it; I call bullshit. Whatever.
Even if it were so, us longtime KT fans (1979 for me) are WAY used to hearing people compare the most bizarrely disparate artists to KT, just because they have a uterus. These are comparisions I have actuall heard over the years:
“If you like Kate Bush, you’ll love . . .
. . . Pat Benatar.”
. . . Celine Dion."
. . . PJ Harvey."
. . . Bjork."
. . . Heart."
. . . Shawn Colvin."
. . . The Story."
. . . Olivia Newton John."
. . . Linda Carter." [not making this up]
For many people who heard KT for the first time, all they heard was “female” and “not easily categorizable.” Period; nothing else seemed to register. It doesn’t surprise me at all that the 18-19-year old Tori was told by ignorant dilettantes that she sounded like Kate Bush. Probly because she had big hair at about the same time KT did.
What part of YMMV don’t you understand? you hear one thing in TA; I hear another. I’m not trying to convince you you’re wrong; I’m just trying to share my critical process in arriving at my opinion.
I’m with you on the “same genre” thing - my girlfriend has listened to her for years, and there haven’t been any huge stylistic changes throughout her career.
That Kate cover was for the North American market, IIRC. This is the UK cover.
Fair enough. It just seems to me that you’re doing the same thing of which you’re accusing others. Obviously, I’ll grant you that Tori sounds more like Kate than most of the artists on your list (Celine Dion? Geez! Talk about insulting!).
I do wonder, though, why Tori would say that she loves Kate, lists “Hounds of Love” among her top ten favorite CDs, but denies being influenced by her when she’ll happily list every one of her other influences to anyone that asks. It just doesn’t seem to make much sense to me, and IMHO, is a pretty good indicator that she’s being truthful.
Well, that’s pretty much what I was trying to do, too.
I can understand your interpretation of things and how you would arrive at your conclusion, but I just happen to disagree.
I’m not accusing anyone of anything.
Look, I’ve earned the right to my opinion. I loved *Little Earthquakes *when it came out. I gave copies to lesbians for cryssakes. I even bought Under the Pink. But after a while, the more I listened to it, the shallower it became.
My overall impression became: Ah ha, she’s figured out (by listening to KT) how to SOUND deep and important . . . but when we peek behind the curtain, not that much going on. She came to seem to me to be, like, doing the Kate Bush dance without really understanding the steps. It’s like she’d perfected the accent but still couldn’t really speak the language. She just got hollower and thinner the more I listened to her. That plus everything I heard made her really sound like a bitch, which doesn’t help.
And this is the Japanese cover, and this is the Canadian cover. I’d owned all four on vinyl at one point. My Bush Box is Japanese, so now I only own the Japanese cover on CD.
Forgive my ignorance, but how does KT = Kate Bush? Some insider reference not known to non-fans?
Kate had a band called the KaTie Bush Band. The letters KT appear all over the artwork for her albums.
Dwight Yoakum
Yoakum is a guy who easily could have turned his song writing skills and vocal abilities into Garth Brooks-type trash. Or even marketed himself as a loveable “outlaw” like Hank Williams Jr.
But he hasn’t gone that route, keeping it simple. Not making it radio friendly. Not moving into the big arenas. Doing some of his own small production.
But, I’m sure he’s still made gobs of money, some of it from his acting, too.
That Candian cover is hideous. Is she trying to pop a zit?
I’ll pass on the opportunity to make a joke about your Bush Box. 
As for Tori’s writing abilities. As much as I like most of her stuff, I can’t help but notice how much of her lyrics seem to be a series of unrelated phrases strung together in order to sound deep and mysterious.
