True, but those songs got airplay and became iconic during the 70’s FM heyday, when DJs could put on a long, complicated song (or even a whole album side if they had to take a big bowel movement) and get away with it. At some point they were all taken over and a stop was put to it. Those kinds of things still happened on college, alternative and community radio, which is EXACTLY where Kate WAS played during the '80’s and '90’s in America.
If there are specific songs you want to hear (anyone), e-mail me and I can arrange it. God I miss Napster.
All due respect, but being able to think of a handful of exceptions doesn’t really do much to negate the general truth of Equipoise’s assessment of American mass taste. It only proves that there’s an exception to every rule, which I would think was a given.
The very fact that your examples stand out as such exceptions goes pretty far in supporting Equipoise’s assessment, which of course I happen to agree with.
I can come up with many more examples, if that’s even relevant. The point was that complex lyrics are not, in and of themselves, really an impediment to a song being popular in the U.S.
Your explanantion about lousy record-company distribution from page 1 makes much more sense to me than the “Americans don’t get it” explanation. I’m not comfortable with a brush that big being swung around. There’s a grain – a grain, mind you – of truth in the “Americans don’t get it” explanation … but it’s too simplistic.
But again, those songs were played on '70’s FM, not Top 40. They became “classic rock” mainstays and so seem more mainstream today than they actually were at the time.
Please name some similarly lyrically and musically complicated songs that have become hits on mainstream, Top 40, radio since 1980.
No one’s asserting more than a grain. Who has suggested that there’a simple one-word answer to a question that, A), addresses many different aspects of American popular culture and B), exists strictly in theory, as a thought exercise, and is ultimately as unanswerable as most “why DIDN’T happen?” questions.
My point was simply that the fact there have been occasional exceptions to the rule does nothing to negate the general truth of the rule; does nothing to negate the fact that one of the various obstacles to Kate’s becoming a top-forty diva in the US was the unconventionality of most of her music. “Yeah but others have overcome it” doesn’t negate the existence of the obstacle; it just addresses the complexity of the situation.
Also of note, regarding your examples of the exceptional songs that overcome the “unconventional” obstacle, is the fact that all your exceptions are male artists. During that era, I can’t think of any unconventional female artists who had some pop-chart success besides Joni Mitchell, with her inarguably exceptional “Parking Lot” song, the title of which escapes me at the moment. And of course that song arguably had a pretty strong hook; I remember really liking it as a little kid.
In the post-Carol King/Joni Mitchell/Carly Simon era, when Kate’s first album debuted in 1978, it wasn’t really until Tori and other Bush-babies like Sarah McLachlan, et al., came along in the wake of Lilith Faire that female artists, no matter how conventional, were more than statistical anomalies on the pop/rock charts. And it’s certainly arguable (though like all of the opinions expressed in this thread, equally debatable), that that whole Lilith Faire phenomenon and the subsequent return of the female voice to the pop charts owed, in fact, a great deal to Kate and the women she influenced, directly and indirectly. This makes organic sense to me; YMMV.
The whole discussion about radio could go into Great Debates, but I’m not qualified to start or participate in such a debate. I did want to say that I was pointing a finger more at radio itself rather than American listeners. I could list tons of songs (by Kate and others) that I think the American public would love, but they’ll never get to hear them because it’s practically impossible to get radio airplay. It always has been that way. There are millions of fun, poppy, interesting, gorgeous, serious songs that would play very well on the radio if they were actually played on the radio.
I’m not one to scorn pop music. I grew up with '60’s and early '70’s Top 40, and I loved it. The music played was very eclectic and the mix of years was widespread. Nowadays, music is more ghettoized by genre (Top 40, Oldies, Classic Rock). Back then you could hear “Fever” then “They’re Coming To Take Me Away Ha Ha” then “I Put A Spell on You” then “War” then “Sugar Sugar” and so on. I credit '60’s Top 40 for me having such eclectic taste in music today.
I may love the complicated music of Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel and Happy Rhodes, but I still melt when I hear “Johnny Angel.”
Limiting it to Top 40 radio makes it tough … that’s kind of an artificial test of “popular”. However:
Not all, but a lot of popular rap music featured lyrics far more complicated than contemporary rock/pop music. Go from “Rapper’s Delight” through “Paul Revere” to “Tennessee” – lyrical complexity aplenty. And the Beastie Boys and Arrested Development (among others) solf plenty of albums, whatever
To switch genres, Iron Maiden and some other heavy metal groups had put out more than a few songs with some pretty deep lyrics. Again, it’s the album format where they achieved success, much more so than the 45.
This would be a good proposition to put towards the Cafe Society at large … perhaps in a separate thread.
What’s “unconventional”, though? That can very easily be a tautology – if they had chart success in the early 70s, like Cher, Diana Ross, Melanie, Helen Reddy, or Anne Murray … they are by definition “conventional”, perhaps?
No, I agree with you here (you worded that like you were expecting oppositon). Even the little bit of sampling I did last night of Kate Bush’s stuff reminded me right away of the Tori Amoses, Sarah McLachlans, and Didos out there.
I’m just bewildered at what I see a lot of here: people participate in this kind of thread to share the positive aspects of an artist they appreciate; to tell others what they like about them. Singer, director, painter, whatever. But there so often seems to be someone who comes in with the agenda of proving them wrong. It just makes no sense to me. I can’t fathom the agenda. But whatever; I’ll try to ignore it rather than respond to it.
This is a bald mischaracterization. THis has been a discussion the complex constellation of theoretical reasons Kate Bush was popular everywhere on the planet except here. No one has made such a bald, oversimplified claim. That’s just dishonest.
Remember … I’m the one who’s trying her stuff out, with the help of Myspace, Equipoise, and yourself. Not trying to prove anyone wrong.
Also remember: the tangent we’re on right now concerns the reasons for her purported lack of commercial success in the U.S. That is in no way germane to the actual quality of her work, and of course shouldn’t be taken as a negative indictment of her or her fans.
Well, except that, for every theoretical *practical *reason for her lack of commercial success in the US, after proving her commercial viability everywhere else, you seem to be bending over backwards to “disprove” them. To minimize the significance of her unconventionality, or whatever, by mining the infinitesimal sampling of exceptions that do far more to prove the rule than to disprove it. The implication seems–to me–to be that you’re trying to knock down every possible theory beyond “I guess she just sucks.” That you’re not really willing to concede that there might, in fact, be external market factors; that popularity can’t possibly be a reflection of anything but artistic quality. After all, if Don McLean can have an unconventional hit, then Kate Bush should be ablet to make Madonna her chart bitch. If Anne Murray can top the charts, Kate’s got no excuse.
Seriously. Obviously I’m being oversensitive here, but I’m trying to find a way to fit your “position” into my brain in a way that makes sense. Unless you’re just being devil’s advocate, and reaching for whatever negative argument you can scrounge, as a way to “keep me honest.” In that case, of course I’m endlessly grateful.
K, low blood sugar making me pissy. Time to scrounge some breakfast, after being up for 10 hours with nothing but coffee.
I missed the part where she countered her tone of obvious sarcasm and hyperbole with the footnote: “all such statements are intended to taken literally and absolutely, and are exhaustively researched. EVery single American human being over the age of 6 has been contacted and interviewed, and without a single exception agrees with this statement. Signed affidavits on file.”
Do you really feel that a statement like “Americans like simplistic lyrics” is worth a rebuttal on statistical grounds? Do you really find it impossible to absorb that generalized statement in the spirit in which it was obviously intended? Do you really not see that “there’s an exception to every rule” is a given in such discussions, and does not need to be appended, as a clause, to every sentence?
You know what one of my personal godwins is? When the only response someone has can be translated as “There’s an exception to every rule,” I figure they’re pretty well done. When “Americans are a conservative lot” elicits no response beyond, “Well my Aunt Gwendolyn’s chaffeur voted Democratic in 1972, and he’s an American,” I figure the discussion has pretty well run its course.
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