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Nice review - Desperate to hear it
But... "Director's Cut wasn't a masterpiece?" Wrong on that one.
nah
I mean I like it, and the fully reconstructed stuff like 'This Woman's Work' is awesome, but I don't think it really makes the Red Shoes stuff suddenly brilliant and it's hardly her most coherent record.
I've listened to that very album 3 times
it wasn't a masterpiece... it was kind of just above par.
Ummm...no. You're wrong. Director's Cut doesn't even count.
What?
"Aerial was a masterpiece; The Red Shoes, The Sensual World and the diversionary Director’s Cut weren’t."
I've not heard Director's Cut, but quite liked The Red Shoes and The Sensual World. I'm not sure if you're saying they weren't masterpieces is you saying they sucked, or if you actually liked them, but don't think they are up at the level of masterpiece.
I'm not saying they sucked
They just weren't masterpieces (imho etc etc).
I suppose the point I'm dancing around a bit in the review is that she attracts a degree of reverence that would suggest everything she's ever done is out of this world brilliant, which I don't think you can or should take for granted.
She even admitted herself that The Sensual World and The Red Shoes weren't her best work.
Actually, lumping them together is kind of unfair because while The Red Shoes is for the most part kind of cheesy, The Sensual World is an extraordinarily coherent work, beautifully produced, and with a few really outstanding songs like The Fog; probably the closest sonically to 50 Words... in fact.
Actually other then Aerial, Hounds of Love and
now 50 words for snow what other album's of hers are even highly regarded?
definitely The Dreaming
to some extent The Kick Inside.
The Dreaming is considered her best work by a considerable group of fans.
What is a masterpiece?
I'll have to give this more thought. Sensual World was very, very good, and I did like The Red Shoes. For the latter, I will only concede that it is 'lighter' and 'poppier' as an album. Ariel was very good, and even though An Endless Sky of Honey is this big work, it just gets better and better with every listen. (The danger being that it gets too abstract to easily follow ... I'm having a harder time with Tori's Night of the Hunters which I can only listen to after listening to Bjork's Biophilia.)
Today I listened to Director's cut. Oh. my. gawd. What was that? I'm sorry, the originals were far superior. Her voiced did not sound well mixed, either.
I'm listening to 50 Worlds for Snow now. Some songs grab me more than others, and I think it will take a few listens to fully grown on me. I love her son's voice in the 1st song. So far, it reminds me a lot of an Endless Sky of Honey in texture and feel.
I'm not sure I worry about 'coherence' in an album when judging it. I think the Dreaming is utterly amazing, but it's all over the place, no?
Anyway, if you can define what qualities you think make a masterpiece, I'd love to discuss further. I definitely agree about Aerial, but might want to argue for Sensual World.
Do you have any earlier albums in mind that you might call masterpiece?
All I mean by a masterpiece
is just a really, really good to all intents perfect record. Maybe it's one of those glib critical buzzwords that'd be best left off on the shelf, but I don't find it too hateful...
In terms of other records, as I say, it's all subjective... I personally WOULD say The Dreaming was a masterpiece... and I wouldn't call it incoherent at all, it's obviously not all one narrative or anything like that, but it is all dense leftfield art-pop songs of roughly the same duration and unexpectedness of subject matter, and her production and use of the Fairlight definitely binds it together.
I like The Sensual World, but for whatever really I just don't think it gels into her best work... some of it's brain meltingly good, but I find it a bit goopy in the middle, the production's a bit overegged.
The Red Shoes is just pretty AOR, it kind of feels like the '80s finally caught up with her as soon as she left them. From what I understand she recorded it with half an eye on playing the songs live, hence she kind of scaled back the sonic ambition and studio trickery so it'd be more practical for a live band to play. And then obviously didn't tour.
She did remastered versions
of Red Shoes and The Senusal world but I wish she'd do one for Hounds of Love and The Dreaming.
Re: her not touring with scaled-back Red Shoes
Well, she did do that film, The Line, the Cross & the Curve, which used songs from that album, so maybe that was the "live" for which the scaling back was done instead of a tour?
I thought they did do remastered reissues
of The Dreaming and Hounds of Love this year (the latter of which ditched all the bonus tracks on the previous edition) - or was that just a straight reissue for both of them?
Of course it counts
How can it "not count"?
Because obviously it's not a "true" follow-up to Aerial. It's a case of new old songs. Director's Cut is a stopgap and will soon be forgotten, as it should be.
Kate Bush
I'm a Chinese 24 yr old man,and a huge fan of Kate Bush.The ensemble of Kate Bush's works never gave you affinity,where nebula blossom and fairy elves flash among flowers,in other world,it's a whole different universe you might never understand.What you can do is standing there and taking a sigh for an artist so talented and so otherworldly that the mortal shall never steer her spirit.