I do also love Tori Amos' music. I've seen her in concert three times and enjoyed each profoundly. She is an amazing musician, along with being a charismatic performer. Made me wish I were a piano bench watching the way she grinds that thing! I thought it was a shame that her recent cover-album, "Strange Little Girls" didn't take off as much as it did. I thought there were some really interesting covers on that, and it was very unusual in the face of what she'd done. Loved that creepy spoken piece, "97 Bonnie & Clyde", which gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it. She is a master a using vocal intonations, and as long as we're comparing I prefer the nuances of both her vocals and her amazing musicianship over Kate Bush, though I am also a fan of the later (or former depending on how you look at it). As far as who came first, beyond the historical relevence, for me, it just doesn't matter. All art is derived in some way shape or form from art that preceded it. Each (successful) artist will bring something that is most entirely unique to what they produce that is distinctive as their fingerprints. If one wanted to be really cynical, one could say all artists are "talented magpies" (well, in many cases you could leave out the 'talented' part). I was never much in for history, so would prefer to just enjoy the moment rather than dwell in the past or trace back infleuences.....all that stuff puts me in my head and takes me away from the music, and I'd rather be with the music than in my head, inside my head ain't a pretty place to be....does that make sense. I'd rather listen to Tori long term than Kate, whose vocals tend to wear on me more, and who doesn't have nearly the musical abilities, IMO, as Tori. If Tori was infleuenced by Kate then I'm glad she heard her music as I love what she does, but I'm also quite sure that she was infleuenced my numerous sources way above and beyond Kate Bush that make her the musician and songwriter that she is. Yes, she does play a Bosendorfer, but I've also heard her play that toy piano she had modified for a few cuts on one album or another, and she made that toy piano just as compelling to listen to as her Bosendorfer. I think I have all the Kate Bush albums as well, and for some reason the music tends to sound more dated than Tori's. Kate's music tends to be more 'theatrical' to my ears....more from the head. Tori seems to be playing and singing right from her soul. My favorite of Kate's has got to be, "The Dreaming". There is not a single album that Tori has put out that I do not enjoy listening to. Lyrics by both are quite wonderul as well, and I would not understand comments to the contrary for either.
Marco |
Ben - Thanks for taking the time to coment. By the fact that you need to qualify your statement, I'm thinking that you may have misunderstood the point I was trying to make in my post. That point was, whatever infleuences either Kate Bush or Tori Amos pull from, and to whatever degree, in listening and enjoying the music of either one, I just don't care one wit about the infleuence nor the history nor the chronology! Who came first, who was most original.....neither of those facts makes either one "better" to my ears or in my experience, and neither of those facts commands more or less respect from me. Each have their infleuences, as does every artist, and whether Kate was more innovative in her time has absolutely no effect whatsoever on my ability to enjoy her music, nor the music of Tori, or anyone else strongly infleuenced by her. That shit is all just a head-trip to me. For me, I like it or I don't, I respect it or I don't, I get it, or I don't. I guess you're talking about respect on a more multi-dimensional level. As I said, history has never been my bag. But, just as you, I do respect your appreciation of it. As far as using history to judge musical talent goes, I just don't feel it is a criteria for judging musical enjoyment of one artist or another, but I realize that I'm saying that from the point of not caring about history, while others like yourself may. I can see and point out many infleuences in much of the art I enjoy, but I'd never think to judge it by it's success or failure in emulating something else. It is what it is, and I prefer to judge it on it's own merits. Understanding the infleuence, history and chronology has never seemed to give me any greater or lesser appreciation for a particular artist. But that's just me I guess.
Marco
PS I do like Hounds of Love too, second to The Dreaming. Of my favorites by Tori would have to be Boys for Pele. |
Enjoy some Dylan, and Guthrie too. Listen to some Beatles, and to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Tori and Bush. I give none a higher rung on the ladder of my appreciation, in listening to any one of them, simply for the sake that they came up with something new. So what? Just because it's new and innovative does not necessarily make it enjoyable to me. None of them raised the bar, some simply offered a new sound derived from older ones. A combination of DNA, chance, heritage, talent, hard work, luck.....the same as any of us may have bestowed upon us, or not. Because it happened to be unique at the time perhaps makes them courageous, but not necessarily good, bad, better or worse IMO. Dylan is Dylan, Guthrie is Guthrie. I like tomatoes, and you like pomagranite. I guess I just don't understand the need to put down one artist based upon the fact that they sound like another, and that you prefer the other. Why does it just not stop with I really like Kate Bush because.......blah, blah, original, blah, blah, visionary, blah, blah, etc. Why does that necessarily lead to comments like Tori Amos can't hold Kate Bush's jock strap?! Guthrie eats Dylan-burgers for breakfast. From where comes the need to put down one artist to create the foundation for the pedastal you need to place another upon? Sorry Ben, I just don't get it? Yes, I know those were not quotes from you and I don't mean to point a finger in your direction, but the "talented magpie" seems just as derogatory in some ways, albeit cloaked in a clever and amusing statement. All of this lauding and criticism just rubs me the wrong way. Maybe that's why critics are down there with monkey urine on my list of favorite things in life. Don't get me wrong, I do respect constructive criticism, but some posts on this thread, as well as countless others on this list and others, just don't fall under that category for me. Maybe it's just my time of the month.
Marco |
Wildoats - my point about criticism is that good and bad are entirely relative to the individual. They are on a sliding scale and not absolute. What bugs me is when people phrase things in the form of absolutes as if their opinions are not just opinions but should be held to some higher standard. My question was not why someone would say something like I like brown because _______ , and I don't like orange because_____________ . It's when someone starts to say things like brown blows orange away because orange really sucks. What's with orange anyway, it's not dark and rich like brown....why it's just a thin, pasty brown with no character at all. It's a brown wanabee, how sad!
Yes, it is a matter of semantics, but the energy behind those semantics, the effort to discredit one color to raise another to a status that implies it should be reveared by all, really bugs me for some reason. In my opinion the comparison to colors is perfect because it's just as silly, IMO, to making the same kind of statements regarding human beings, vegetables, high-end stereo gear, or any damn thing. Yes, there would be no black without white, but neither exists outside the human mind. Good and bad are entirely relative to being human and our (rather pathetic) need to categorize and judge and make meaning out of everything. All that shit takes us out of the moment, away from the present and sticks us firmly in our heads. Music, to me, is about anything but being in ones head, it is a pure experience of the moment. It has no requirements other than just being there, no experience is necessary. No knowledge of history, culture, nor music itself is needed to enjoy music. It is truly the universal language.
Marco
PS I can certainly understand clearly why, if Ben listens to Tori and constantly is hearing what he considers to be someone trying to poorly imitate someone elses music, that getting caught up in that head-trip would keep one from enjoying virtually anything. So that part of your explanation, Ben, I do understand. What I don't understand is the way you choose to state it. I have listened to both extensively, and am aware of the infleuences of one to the other, and can hear the similarities, but I don't think I listen with any sort of expectations at all of either one. I just enjoy them for what each are. I have no more need to state something like Tori smokes Kate, as I would to declare SET is superior to all other forms of amplification, as I know both statements are not at all constructive, nor truthful (though they may have some truth to me [neither really does], I know they would not be a universal truth). Those kind of statements are entirely relative so what's the point? Seems like a kind of public masturbation in some ways to me. The importance of being 'right' so that one may validate their own existence. I'm certainly not above all that as I'm just as human as all of us, and have the same hopeless need to make meaning out of everything. But I have found that the more I can just be in the moment and outside my head, the more I tend to enjoy life. So I do strive to maintain some perspective with the knowledge that I am indeed prone to going back to my head over and over, and that it is more fun when I'm not there at all. |
Great conversation folks....thank you! Man, what a different approach we have Ben. The respect is mutual, yet I'm still struggling a bit to understand your perspective. I actively avoid reading criticism, especially about the arts. No, I'd put little to no weight at all on a person's knowledge and experience where judging music is concerned for the very reasons that have come up here. I don't consider myself necessarily well-read and up-to-date and so thoroughly educated regarding music as yourself and perhaps many others here, and that is a most deliberate choice on my part. Yet in no way would I let that stop me from sharing my opinion on a subject I am passionate about. The only way that knowledge and experience may pay a part in my respect for another's opinions about music, is if I knew the person had a history of appreciating similar things as I appreciate. Beyond that one's knowledge of musical history as well as having one's finger on the pulse of current trends and artists means absolutely nothing to me for the very reasons that I've already cited: None of that head-trip has anything whatsover to do MY appreciation of the experience of music.
The high-end hardware criticism is another matter altogether. There I would lend some credance to experience and knowledge as there is a far greater amount of objectivity mixed in with the tremendous subjectivity. In the judgement of the arts it is just the reverse, IMO. High-end gear is subject to so many variables in creating the synergy that makes the magic that, even if you had the best advice, the gear you purchase may not necessarily sound good to you in your room, to your ears, with your music. I would still think observations like "tubes blow SS away" to be patently ignorant and a sign of a lack of experience, lack of perspective, or both (and I'm not speaking about the literal content of that statement at all, but the essense of the statement, or perhaps the intent). However, as much as I read similar statements over and over here on A'gon, they do not bother me as much as the objections I've brought up here for some reason. I guess it just seems much more ridiculous to me to think one can objectively categorize music into "better and worse".
Some interesting observations Wildoats. I would however suggest that you determine for yourself what you prefer and need no one else to tell you - in fact, no one else can tell you what YOU think is good or bad. It is not something to be learned because it is entirely relative to the individual. On a far more simplistic and perhaps more objective scale, as I've pointed out: Someone with vast experience here on the Gon' who's been in this hobby many decades, reads all there is to read, has degrees in acoustical engineering, etc. can tell you what they know, and pass on what may seem like wisdom of great value, given their experience. They can tell you with certain assurity that Au24 speaker cables are the answer you've been looking for given your system and your preferences. You go out, find a pair at a good price, and set out to compare them to say the $90 pair you got from member "DIY555". To your ears, in your system, in your room, with your music, those DIY cables somehow sound better than the $800 pair of Au24's. Yet you were advised by an seasoned expert......what gives. It happens......all the time!! Now that's an example in an area with a certain degree of objectivity. Music has no such leaning.....appreciation of music is entirely subjective. There are no figures or graphs to be plotted, no statistics or numbers to look at, unless you care about popularity contests which I don't give a rat's ass about. Why the f%^$ would I need anyone advising me what is good and bad in something so subjective as music. Again, the only credance I may give such advice would be if I knew my tastes ran similar to the one advising me, but I'd still not lend any respect to statements like "Kate blows Tori away".
I'm going to have to think about this one some more as it is getting late.
Regards,
Marco |
I agree, Wildoats; constructive criticism and comments about music can certainly provide some guideance in the vastness of what is out there. However what I was suggesting is that you need no one to tell you "Kate blows Tori away". Were you to follow such advice and just listen to only one, you'd be missing out on some very rich possibilites of musical enjoyment IMO. A compass is fine if you know how to use it , and where you are, and have some idea of where you may like to go. I would suggest that following advice to the nature of some of the criticism I've objected to in this thread would be not at all like using a compass, it would be like putting on a pair of blinders and being lead on a path like a donkey.
Regarding your equipment: Precisely! The point I was making there is that absolutely NO ONE can tell you what DOES sound good to you. ONLY YOU know that. What sounds good to me in gear may not sound at all good to you. If you put my speakers into your system, you may think I was nuts for listening to them, yet I think they sound wonderful. So again, what use would it be to follow my lead if I were to say "Horns are the only way to go as far as speakers are concerned", with the caveat that I've been in this hobby for twenty plus years. Following such advice on face-value is absurd. However I do believe, as I said, with the gear there is a greater degree of objectivity, so an educated guess may be more helpful than an "educated" guess in the realms of enjoying music (far more subjective IMO)
Marco |
Thanks Ben - that's a much clearer explanation of your persepective to me. I have to take a look at what gets me stuck on the 'criticism' aspect of this. I think it has something to do with the idea of critics playing God. Regardless, thanks for the thought provoking responses and taking the time to write them. Off-topic or not, it is certainly an interesting thread to me. I hope others get something out of it as well.
BTW - Someone introduced me to Nick Drake only a few years back. Picked up "Way too Blue" (a great compilation CD) and absolutely love it and play that one a lot. I think it was actually one of those Amazon recommendations that got me to him.....I'm often looking into resources and comments I do read that are of the nature of, "If you like banannas you should definitely check out strawberries as well". But I rarely follow such advice blindly, I usually try to cross-reference to find out more about strawberries and who likes them and why. Again it is simply the intent behind the types of statements I've already noted more than once that rubs me the wrong way, and strikes me as not constructive.
I just last night watched an fascinating film which does delve into literary criticism to some extent. Most of all it is about the enjoyment of literature as a lifestyle. That kind of enjoyment could be seen as parallell to the enjoyment of music. See the film if you can find it Ben, I think you may like it, as might anyone hear interested in the direction of this thread, and or literature. It's a documentary film titles "Stone Reader".
As far as missing out on music that is out there, I'm sure you are right in some ways. I have my own resources I look to, and most of those are in seeking out resources who have similar predilections as I do and pursuing directions that may come up there. Yep, some are reading criticism. I don't object to all criticism by any means. I won't go on as I think I've made the point I wanted to.
Regards,
Marco |
