Re: (TV) The Wonder v. Warm & Cool

[Jesse Hochstadt <Jesse_Hochstadt@brown.edu>]

At 3:52 PM -0400 4/25/01, Cameron wrote:

> ... in the case of Warm & Cool, there's just too much that's lacking.  It
> needs more arrangements, more instruments.  When you compare Warm & Cool to
> Tom's film score stuff, his music for film sounds more complete, whereas
> Warm & Cool sounds like a blueprint to a great album.  It sounds unfinished.
>
> Having said that, there are lots of great songs on it.  "Spiritual" would be
> amazing in a film score.  It makes me think of someone remembering a summer
> evening at dusk when they were walking by a river with a girl who's not
> around anymore.
> Oh yeah, the cover of the album is cool looking, too.  It would make an
> amzing film score...

If Warm & Cool is an unfinished-sounding "blueprint to a great 
album," why do you write, "It would make an amazing film score"? Do 
you just mean "Spiritual"? (I presume you don't mean that the cover 
of the album would make an amazing film score....) I don't mean to 
criticize; I'm just unsure what you're saying.

(By the way, "walking by a river with a girl who's not around 
anymore" amuses me as a very Verlaine-esque turn of phrase: how can 
you be walking with someone who's not around? I know what you meant, 
but I'm a pedantic former editor, so....)

> The Wonder has some of Tom's most romantic lyrics.  "Pillow" is an amzing
> song, I think.  So is "Stalingrad", which, by the way, was the very first
> Tom Verlaine solo song I ever heard.  It just needed to be recorded
> differently.  Perhaps, more like "Tom Verlaine" or "Adventure".  To me,
> Tom's best recording sound came off of those two albums.

The fact that Stalingrad is the first TV solo song you ever heard 
reminds me of a theory of mine: I think we generally form our notion 
of what an artist "sounds like" from our first encounters with his or 
her music. After that, everything else is measured against that 
standard or prototype. That might explain why many fans rebel against 
an artist's growing and changing; the artist, of course, has no such 
inner standard to stick to: he does what he always did, namely, 
explore the latest musical avenue that interests him

It might also explain why your taste in TV differs from mine: your 
notion of what Tom "should" sound like is based on The Wonder; mine 
is based on Marquee Moon and, as far as Tom solo goes, his first, 
eponymous album. (Admittedly, you said that Stalingrad was your first 
Tom solo song, so I guess you'd heard Television before that.)

- Jesse
--------------
To post: Mail tv@obbard.com
To unsubscribe: Mail majordomo@obbard.com with message "unsubscribe tv"