FEATURE:
Sat in Your Lap
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during filming of The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Albums, Songs, Books and Videos: The Kate Bush Collection
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WHILST I am writing a bit more…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at her home in September 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
than I normally would, I am going to include more Kate Bush features. Rather than pretend that I am going to limit my Kate Bush posts – and ensure there are not too many -, I feel there are relevant things to discuss and uncover. I have looked at Bush’s back catalogue before and pointed you in the direction of her best work. Today, I thought I would list her essential albums; the most underrated, and my personal favourite. I will also end with a complete playlist but, before, there are a few books that I can recommend - in addition to pointing to the very best Kate Bush videos. This is a little more expansive than previous, similar Bush pieces - to guide new fans and the diehards to avenues they might not have explored before. If you have some time and are not sure where to start with Kate Bush, I have focused down to the essential bits and bobs. Have a look and spend some time exploring…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush shot for the Babooshka single in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
AN absolute icon.
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Must-Own Albums
The Dreaming
Release Date: 13th September, 1982
Label: EMI (U.K.)
Length: 43:25
Standout Tracks: Sat in Your Lap/Suspended in Gaffa/Get Out of My House
Key Cut: Houdini
Review:
“The Dreaming was the real game-changer. Back in 1982, it was regarded as a jarring rupture. "Very weird. She’s obviously trying to become less commercial," wrote Neil Tennant, the future Pet Shop Boy, still a scribe for Smash Hits. He echoed the sentiments of the record-buying public. Even though the album made it to number three, the singles, apart from 'Sat In Your Lap', which got to 11 a year before, tanked. The title track limped to number 48 while 'There Goes A Tenner' failed to chart at all. It was purportedly the closest her record label, EMI had come to returning an artist’s recording. Speaking in hindsight, Bush observed how this was her "she’s gone mad" album. But The Dreaming represents not just a major advance for Bush but art-rock in general. Its sonic assault contains a surfeit of musical ideas, all chiselled into a taut economy.
And like that modernist masterpiece, The Dreaming glimpses at a very metropolitan melancholy. Bush would never make an album in London again, a city she felt had an air of dread hanging over it’. 'All The Love', a forlorn musical sigh, features percussive sticks imitating Venetian blinds turning shut. It climaxes with messages from Bush’s actual malfunctioning answerphone: all very modern alienating devices, straight from the same world of Bowie’s 'Sound & Vision'. This was after all, the year Time magazine voted the computer as person of the year. Palmer’s ECM-like drowsy bass almost sobs with regret.
Throughout The Dreaming, sound speaks. 'All The Love' is subdued relief. But its constituent parts hover desolately in the mix, pitching a ‘lack of love’ song with a choirboy, somewhere between Joni Mitchell’s road trip jazz on 'Hejira' and the void of Nico’s 'The End'. Full of space & loneliness” – The Quietus
Hounds of Love
Release Date: 16th September, 1985
Label: EMI (U.K.)
Length: 47:33
Standout Tracks: Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)/Cloudbusting/Hello Earth
Key Cut: The Big Sky
Aerial
Release Date: 7th November, 2005
Label: EMI (U.K.)
Length: 79:58
Standout Tracks: King of the Mountain/How to Be Invisible/Nocturn
Key Cut: Mrs. Bartolozzi
Review:
“Domestic contentment even gets into the staple Bush topic of sex. Ever since her debut, The Kick Inside, with its lyrics about incest and "sticky love", Bush has given good filth: striking, often disturbing songs that, excitingly, suggest a wildly inventive approach to having it off. Here, on the lovely and moving piano ballad Mrs Bartolozzi, she turns watching a washing machine into a thing of quivering erotic wonder. "My blouse wrapping around your trousers," she sings. "Oh, and the waves are going out/ my skirt floating up around my waist." Laundry day in the Bush household must be an absolute hoot.
Aerial sounds like an album made in isolation. On the down side, that means some of it seems dated. You can't help feeling she might have thought twice about the lumpy funk of Joanni and the preponderance of fretless bass if she got out a bit more. But, on the plus side, it also means Aerial is literally incomparable. You catch a faint whiff of Pink Floyd and her old mentor Dave Gilmour on the title track, but otherwise it sounds like nothing other than Bush's own back catalogue. It is filled with things only Kate Bush would do. Some of them you rather wish she wouldn't, including imitating bird calls and doing funny voices: King of the Mountain features a passable impersonation of its subject, Elvis, which is at least less disastrous than the strewth-cobber Aussie accent she adopted on 1982's The Dreaming. But then, daring to walk the line between the sublime and the demented is the point of Kate Bush's entire oeuvre. On Aerial she achieves far, far more of the former than the latter. When she does, there is nothing you can do but willingly succumb” – The Guardian
The Underrated Treasure
Never for Ever
Release Date: 7th September, 1980
Label: EMI (U.K.)
Length: 37:16
Standout Tracks: All We Ever Look For/The Wedding List/Breathing
Key Cut: Babooshka
Review:
“If you think about it, Kate Bush could have gone in any direction after promoting Lionheart. Her second album had some high points and some cute vocal deliveries but ultimately came up short in quality. Kate's third album could have been another decline in quality. It could have just been Kate treading water with more adorable pop singles. Instead, the follow up was an important step into new territory. Never For Ever shows Kate Bush at a much more mature stage. While Lionheart had embraced maturity quite well in comparison to The Kick Inside, it didn't help Kate break out of her cute pop singer shell. Most people were still infatuated with her first single, Wuthering Heights. A new direction was something Kate needed to assert. She managed to do that just enough with Never For Ever.
The album features plenty of single worthy pop hits as usual but does offer much more collectively. Babooshka and Army Dreamers are examples of Kate exercising more of her descriptive lyrical style. On this record, Bush explores more concepts in her lyrics than previously. It's easy noticing the lyrical contrast with the album's opening and closing tracks. The opener, Babooshka is about a distrustful wife who ruins her marriage through seducing her husband under a pseudonym. The closer, Breathing finds Kate writing about her nervous actions through a more Bowie influenced style. From this point, Kate Bush adds even more variety to the mix. Musically, Never For Ever naturally expands thanks to a more layered sound. The album features a vibrant mix of wet fairlight synths, pianos, fretless bass and layers of strings. The performances of the album fit smoother than on previous records as Bush goes for a more varied final product.
Kate's third solo album was no masterpiece but a fascinating and necessary step in her discography. Bush's writing had finally evolved enough to the point where she could write without relying too much on image or style. Whether it's experimenting with her remarkable vocal range, creative arrangements, or vivid lyrics, Never For Ever shows Kate Bush improving in all the right ways” – Sputnik Music
My Favourite Kate Bush Album
The Kick Inside
Release Date: 17th February, 1978
Label: EMI (U.K.)
Length: 43:13
Standout Tracks: Moving/Strange Phenomena/The Man with the Child in His Eyes
Key Cut: Wuthering Heights
Review:
“She only fails to make a virtue of her naivety on “Room for the Life,” where she scolds a weeping woman for thinking any man would care about her tears. The sweet calypso reverie is elegant, and good relief from the brawnier, propulsive arrangements that stood staunchly alongside Steely Dan. But Bush shifts inconsistently between reminding the woman that she can have babies and insisting, more effectively, that changing one’s life is up to you alone. The latter is clearly where her own sensibilities lie: “Them Heavy People,” another ode to her teachers, has a Woolf-like interiority (“I must work on my mind”) and a distinctly un-Woolf-like exuberance, capering along like a pink elephant on parade. “You don’t need no crystal ball,” she concludes, “Don’t fall for a magic wand/We humans got it all/We perform the miracles.”
The Kick Inside was Bush’s first, the sound of a young woman getting what she wants. Despite her links to the 1970s’ ancien régime, she recognized the potential to pounce on synapses shocked into action by punk, and eschewed its nihilism to begin building something longer lasting. It is ornate music made in austere times, but unlike the pop sybarites to follow in the next decade, flaunting their wealth while Britain crumbled, Bush spun hers not from material trappings but the infinitely renewable resources of intellect and instinct: Her joyous debut measures the fullness of a woman’s life by what’s in her head” – Pitchfork
Stunning Books
The Photo Collection: Kate: Inside the Rainbow
Release Date: 22nd October, 2015
Author: John Carder Bush
Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/kate/john-carder-bush/9780751559903
Synopsis:
“KATE: Inside the Rainbow is a collection of beautiful images from throughout Kate Bush’s career, taken by her brother, the photographer and writer John Carder Bush. It includes outtakes from classic album shoots and never-before-seen photographs from sessions including The Dreaming and Hounds of Love, as well as rare candid studio shots and behind-the-scenes stills from video sets, including ‘Army Dreamers’ and ‘Running Up that Hill’.
These stunning images will be accompanied by two new essays by John Carder Bush: From Cathy to Kate, describing in vibrant detail their shared childhood and the early, whirlwind days of Kate’s career, and Chasing the Shot, which vividly evokes John’s experience of photographing his sister” – Kate Book
The Biography: Under the Ivy: The Life & Music of Kate Bush
Release Date: 11th April, 2012
Author: Graeme Thomson
Publisher: Omnibus Press
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/under-the-ivy/graeme-thomson/9781780381466
Synopsis:
“The first ever in-depth study of Kate Bush's life and career, Under The Ivy features over 70 unique and revealing new interviews with those who have viewed from up close both the public artist and the private woman: old school friends, early band mates, long-term studio collaborators, former managers, producers, musicians, video directors, dance instructors and record company executives. It undertakes a full analysis of Bush's art. Every crucial aspect of her music is discussed from her ground-breaking series of albums to her solo live tour, her pre-teen poetry and scores of unreleased songs. Combining a wealth of new research with rigorous critical scrutiny, Under the Ivy offers a string of fresh insights and perspectives on her unusual upbringing in South London, the blossoming of her talent, her enduring influences and unique working methods, her rejection of live performance, her pioneering use of the studio, her key relationships and her gradual retreat into a semi-mythical privacy” – Waterstones
The Lyrics: Kate Bush: How To Be Invisible
Release Date: 6th December, 2018
Author: Kate Bush/David Mitchell (foreword)
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/how-to-be-invisible/kate-bush/9780571350940
Synopsis:
“Ivor Novello winner Kate Bush has long forged her love of literature with music. From Emily Brontë through to James Joyce, Bush has consistently referenced our literary heritage, combined with her own profound understanding of language and musical form.
How to Be Invisible: Selected Lyrics draws from her superlative, 40-year career in music. Chosen and arranged by Kate Bush herself, this very special, cloth-bound volume will be the first published collection of her work.
Accompanying the collection is an expansive introduction from Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell. ‘For millions around the world Kate is way more than another singer-songwriter: she is a creator of musical companions that travel with you through life,’ he said. ‘One paradox about her is that while her lyrics are avowedly idiosyncratic, those same lyrics evoke emotions and sensations that feel universal” – Waterstones
The Useful Addition: Homeground: The Kate Bush Magazine: Anthology One: Wuthering Heights to The Sensual World
Release Date: 10th March, 2013
Authors: Krystyna Fitzgerald-Morris (editor), Peter Fitzgerald-Morris (editor), Dave Cross (editor)
Publisher: Crescent Moon Publishing
Synopsis:
“HOMEGROUND: THE KATE BUSH MAGAZINE: ANTHOLOGY ONE: 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS' TO 'THE SENSUAL WORLD'
HomeGround is a magazine devoted to Kate Bush (born in 1958), a British pop star best-known for hits such as 'Wuthering Heights', 'Wow', 'Hounds of Love' and 'Running Up That Hill'.
This book is pure heaven for music fans. The HomeGround anthology includes material inspired by all periods of Kate Bush's musical progression. It is a book about the reaction to her work and how her unique music has touched the lives of so many people.
This is a unique book, a labour of love for hundreds of music fans who have contributed to HomeGround over its thirty-year existence. The book includes an enormous amount of information about Kate Bush, accounts of every release, album, single, pop promo and appearance, as well as memories and accounts of music fandom (such as conventions, meetings, hikes, stage door encounters and video parties). It also includes material on many other pop acts and events. It features poetry, stories, letters, reviews, interviews, memoirs, cartoons, drawings, paintings and photographs.
This is the first book of a two volume set, totalling over 1200 pages. The first book covers Kate Bush's career from 'Wuthering Heights' to 'The Sensual World' (from the late 1970s to the late 1980s). The second book runs from 'The Red Shoes' album to the present day.
The first issue of HomeGround appeared in 1982, four years after Kate Bush's dramatic debut with 'Wuthering Heights'. Starting with an ancient manual typewriter, and a pot of glue paste, the editors mounted articles on recycled backing sheets and added hand-drawn artwork to fill the gaps. The first issue was photocopied, the pages hand-stapled together and twenty-five copies were given away to fans they knew. Only later did they discover the magic of word processing, and desktop publishing.
From those beginnings HomeGround became a cornerstone of the 'Kate-speaking world', the editors going on to organise four official fan events at which Kate Bush and members of her family and band appeared, arrange at Bush's request a team of fans to be extras in two of her videos and organise informal fan gatherings at Glastonbury and Top Withens, the storm-blown ruin on Haworth Moor. Years before the internet, HomeGround became a place where fans could discuss Bush's music, and a place where they could publish creative writing and artwork that music inspired” – Abe Books
The Podcast
Who They Are: The Kate Bush Fan Podcast
Official Website: https://katebushnews.libsyn.com/
About: “A show for fans of the music artist Kate Bush put together by the people behind www.katebushnews.com and HomeGround Magazine! Chat, interviews, reviews and more on all things Kate and her amazing work” (The Kate Bush Fan Podcast)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/katebushnews
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/katebushnews