Correction: I wrote her off enough to bring her up in a thread like this over 30 years later. And yes. I’d heard and read so many Lester Bangs wannabes proclaiming her importance that when she got a couple opportunities to demonstrate to me how great she was, and failed, I moved on to other interests.
Let’s say I had an early-on aversion to Wild Man Fischer. Do I have an obligation to check back every couple of years to see if he’s realized his potential in a disco phase or a C&W-influenced phase? I’m sorry, that’s not the level my music appreciation works on.
A lot of artists have bounced back from bad first albums (Tori Amos’s **Y Kant Tori Read **and Cyndi Lauper’s Blue Angel, to name two), but I, as a broke teenager, bought Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love and though it was (as someone once dismissively described Stevie Nicks) witchy-bitchy-airy-faerie, and just not my cup of tea. I get it, I just don’t like it. Cyndi Lauper, after the amazing She’s So Unusual and the respectable True Colors, got technically better with each album but hit a pattern of diminishing returns for sales and airplay. Tori Amos suffered a similar trajectory, but I just discovered her amazing work on the Mona Lisa Smile soundtrack. She’s back in the pantheon, for now.
Maybe Kate Bush will do something so amazing that I’ll like her, but she’s gotta come to me. Sorry. Other artists have done it.
I wasn’t aware being a good band or musician just meant being a good singer. I better run out and buy every Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, and Whitney Houston album.
I had in mind that she was a huge record-seller and concert draw in Australia but had to go online to verify my impression. According to Australian Music Online, her compilation album Ultimate Kylie, which includes hits from 1987 to now, contains the following:
31 International Top 40 Hits
7 UK No 1 Singles
9 Australian #1 Singles
8 Australian Top 5 Singles
2 Australian Top 10 Singles
6 Australian Top 20 Singles
25 UK Top 10 Singles
So, yeah, it appears that, even though her career was launched in Britain and most of her fan base is in England and Europe, she appears to do very well in Australia too.
To quote myself, with the important word bolded for clarity:
None of the four have wide vocal ranges. As I said, their songs are within the range of nearly everyone, and most of their popular songs are in keys in which most people can sing. Some songs are easy to sing, some songs are difficult to sing. The majority of Beatles songs are easy to sing. If you want to hear an example of the opposite, listen to K.D. Lang’s cover of the song “Shadowland”, which is written in a minor key and is nearly impossible for untrained singers to sing.
Effortless “singability” is a mark of pop craftsmanship. Stephen Foster had it in spades, as do the Beatles.
The Pixies! GAHHHHH :::::Covers ears, hides under desk:::: Please, for the love of God, not the Pixies. I swear, I’ll kill ya all if you don’t turn off the Pixies!
</OD>
I hate the Pixies. I mean the amount of hate I have for the Pixies is indescribable.
I managed a coffee house and the employees would play Pixies CDs from time to time. I usually lasted about 2 and a half songs before I would have to stop the CD. It was either turn off the CD or beat the ever living hell out of someone. Listening to the Pixies pissed me off. There is a lot of music I don’t like but none that actually cause me to get angry just by listening except for the Pixies. And it happened every time I heard them. (Note, Frank Blacks solo stuff did the same but I just figure it is Pixies lite)
Andy Kaufman. Hearing that he was coming on Saturday Night Live or some other show made me switch channels.
Don’t tell me that he’s not a comedian, he’s a performance artist – that doesn’t change a damned thing. I don’t change the channel because I was promised chicken and given steak – I change the channel because I was promised entertainment and got garbage.
Me too! In fact, I have a life-size cardboard cutout of tTS standing in my apartment. So to all those who say that tTS are strictly a guy thing: “Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” a sharp downwards nose swipe, and a gratuitous poke in the eye!
First time I ever saw him perform, he did his killer Elvis impression. The next time he did his stupid Mighty Mouse routine. I continued to watch whenever he popped up in hopes of his coming up with something entertaining and recapturing the magic of that Elvis routine. It never happened and he just got worse and worse.
I didn’t realize for a long time that his ‘art’ consisted of deliberately pissing people off. (Wow, now there’s an art form that really requires talent, intelligence and dedication.)
He was certainly good at his intended result though - to this day the mere mention of his name makes me see red.
A while back at a new job I was making the rounds and getting introduced to people. One guy was a Zappa cultist and in the interest of making nice with new cow-orkers, I made some comment about Zappa and how I’d read an interview with him and he seemed like quite an interesting guy, even if I wasn’t familiar with his music.
Little did I know, that’s like saying “I’m interesting in finding out more about myself” to a Scientologist.
Day or 2 later, he brings his cd player into my lab and plays some damn (seemingly) four hour song while he comments on the lyrics, history of the song, meanings of the song, and general Zappa info. He then gives me a cd to take home and listen to and ask questions about. It seriously was like being introduced to a cult.
Zappa did seem like an interesting guy, and any interview I’ve read with him is worth the read. But man, I do NOT get his music at all.
My husband likes Zappa, but has failed to indoctrinate me. I even read a biography, thinking maybe the person was more important than the “music”, but no…still don’t like him.
That reminds me: I didn’t get Richard Brautigan, either.
I’m a long-time SY fan and have been to about 6 shows. Their performance quality varies drastically…I’ve been to one great performance, a few mediocre, and at least 2 ear-bleedingly dreadful. Thurston and Lee were frequently too drunk to play, and Kim isn’t a good enough bass player to matter. Steve Shelley was always amazing though, greatest drummer since Keith Moon, IMO.
In my original fandom, they were original and fresh in their use of discord and distortion. Nowadays, I’m weary of noise just for noise’s sake.
Their sound didn’t age well, though, and now going back and listening to their albums, I find I hit the skip button on about 50% of their tracks. Their good songs though are still transcendantly thrashin’.
Add Harvey Pekar to that for me. Supervenusfreak has the collection that came out in conjunction with the film American Splendor and I just…don’t get it. It’s comics about an angry schlub. Unfunny comics about an angry schlub. Color me puzzled…
Woah, Blue Angel isn’t a bad album! It’s a lesser album (arguably), but no way is it bad. Certainly not on the level of the wretched Y Kant Tori Read (with the exception of “The Etienne Trilogy”). Blue Angel has some amazing work on it. I bought it after I’d heard “Girls Just Want To Have Fun” and was gobsmacked at Cyndi’s soulful voice and emotional range, something I hadn’t expected. I also liked the musical mix of rockabilly, R&B and torch songs. I haven’t listened to it for years, so I can’t defend it in-depth, but it’s got at least a couple of classics-that-unfortunately-never-were on it. “I’m Gonna be Strong” is the one that pops into my head immediately.
Ok, now I’m understanding. If you didn’t like HOL then you are definitely not equipped to be a Kate Bush fan, or at least weren’t then (you might be now, it’s a mature album). That’s not meant in a snotty way. It’s just the way it is. HOL is considered by many to be her best album (not by me, I think The Dreaming is her best, but HOL is very close behind it). And here I was thinking it was her early, high-pitched vocals that turned you off rather than lyrics that were way above your head. That’s still not meant in a snotty way. You were a teenager, it’s understandable. I’m sure I wouldn’t have gotten into Kate as a teenager either.
I know I know I know this is going to come off as an obnoxious fan lecturing someone on listening ability, but I can’t help it. If you, as a teenager, thought Hounds of Love was “witchy-bitchy-airy-faerie” then you did NOT “get it” and were too young to appreciate it. The songs deal with mature themes way beyond your then-emotional range and you weren’t ready for it. If you can tell me how, in this or any other universe, songs about (to distill them into their most simple meanings when in fact there are multiple layers in each) miscommunication among the sexes; the fear of love; watching and marveling at complex cloud formations; a mother of a serial killer who will do anything for her child including hiding them from the authorities; an eccentric inventor father who is arrested and killed by the government; and a woman lost at sea having hallucinations while on the verge of dying are in any way “witchy-bitchy-airy-faerie” then I’ll concede the point, but I would be surprised if you could. The closest you could come would be to explain how a green teenager didn’t know what the songs were about, didn’t take the time and effort to learn (nothing wrong with that), and therefore mistakenly proclaimed it as “witchy-bitchy-airy-faerie” music, how that mistaken attitude cemented itself and exists to this day.
