FEATURE:
The Wedding List
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush
A Dream Celebration of Huge Kate Bush Fiftieth Anniversaries
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I am pretty sure that…
IN THIS PHOTO: Margot Robbie shot for Vogue Australia in January 2026/PHOTO CREDIT: Lachlan Bailey
2028 is going to be a great year. Maybe not for world events, though when it comes to music, I think that there will be some decades-best albums released. Pop evolving and other genes coming to the forefront. Also, Sam Mendes’s Beatles films will be released. I feel there will be some sort of movement or event like the Summer of Love. At a period in history when there is such brutality and violence, a reaction to what is happening around the globe. Also, there will be important anniversaries. In terms of albums turning thirty, a few to note: Madonna’s Ray of Light, Fatboy Slim’s You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby and Ms. Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. There are going to be things to celebrate, for sure. As this is a Kate Bush feature, there are several dates that are hugely significant. I am essentially trying to manifest a dream of mine. I said I would do this when I publish my 10,000th feature, though Squarespace doesn’t tell you how many features you have published, so I am guessing. I reckon I will not hit that number until the end of this decade. However, there is something that I would love to do ahead of that. Kate Bush would not want a big fuss made around her seventieth birthday. That is on 30th July. That is fair enough. However, inevitably there will be features run and maybe a podcast or audio documentary made. People wanting to show their appreciate and respect. Her debut single, Wuthering Heights, turns fifty on 20th June. Her debut album, The Kick Inside, turns fifty on 17th February.
Either flying out to Los Angeles or New York (the former probably because of the fact many of the people live out there who I want to speak to), it would be great to write a piece for The New Yorker. I have always wanted to do this. Being unknown to them, perhaps it is somewhat far-fetched. I do feel that a celebratory feature about Kate Bush’s debut single/album would be a popular one. Draw people to it. The idea would be uniting artists and others in the entertainment industry/culture – authors, actors, directors etc. -, who would talk about Kate Bush. When they heard her music, what it means to them, and their favourite song/line. Either working with the same photographer for each interview or one that each interviewee selects, it would combine maybe ten or fifteen people. I am thinking how Margot Robbie recently talked about how Kate Bush is important to her. She recreated the dance to Wuthering Heights whilst she was on the set of Emerald Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights”. In terms of U.K. artists (who could be interviewed from London), Charli xcx and Florence Welch seem like they would have some great insights and words to say about an artist that has influenced them. In the U.S., Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Lady Gaga and Hayley Williams are among those who are inspired by Kate Bush. And Big Boi. Björk is a massive Kate Bush fan. She is based in Iceland, though an interview could be coordinated there or in the U.K./U.S. (if she is visiting). Mainly, it would be those in music I would love to interview. Perhaps one or two actors/directors. ROSALÍA and Lily Allen also fans. It would be amazing to either recreate Kate Bush photos for the shoots and work alongside John Carder Bush, Guido Harari, Gered Mankowitz, Trevor Leighton and others who have photographed her through the years, or have these exciting and Kate Bush-influenced shots captured. I have never been to L.A. or New York, though going there for a couple of weeks and conducting these interviews would be amazing. I guess it would have to start in the summer of 2027, as it would take a lot of preparation, editing and work to get it published at the start of 2028.
Things could change between now and then. We hope that Kate Bush releases another studio album. That could heighten the chances of a commission happening. Making her more relevant ad visible somehow. As long as Bush herself was okay with it and had no objections, it would be a way of marking a date(s) that are very significant. I feel Kate Bush is one of the most influential artists of today. In terms of the artists who are influenced by her and the phenomenal albums released through the years that have elements of Kate Bush in them. A few years ago, or before Stranger Things used Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and Kate Bush’s music reached a whole new audience, perhaps there was less widespread knowledge of Bush and appreciation of her music. Finally, in 2022, America embracing Kate Bush! Some might say that artists do not usually get afforded this sort of honour when their debut album or single turns fifty. But think about Bush’s significance and how comparatively little has been written about her. A woman who undoubtably helped change the sound of modern Pop and inspired so many artists and people around the world, it would seem like a fitting tribute. It also could bring together newer artists/well-known fans with those who have been with her for many years. Having an assignment to interview these people and there being these great photographs taken and appearing in a special for The New Yorker in January/February 2028 would be a dream! Of course, this is wishful thinking on my part, and it couldn’t happen without them and there being this generous budget. And what they would get out of it. They run long-read interviews with artists, though if I was in the U.S. and speaking with someone like Billie Eilish or Florence Welch in London, that would cost time and money.
IN THIS PHOTO: Greta Gerwig photographed in 2023 for Vanity Fair/PHOTO CREDIT: Norman Jean Roy
I know that there will be articles published to mark fifty years of the sublime Wuthering Heights and The Kick Inside. I am not sure how many and where from, though quiet a chunk of the music media here and the U.S. will do something. Again, maybe an audio documentary or radio celebration. But nothing massive I would imagine. Perhaps the only time – or the most fitting – this could happen, this unique opportunity to unify a range of Kate Bush fans. The BBC did that in 2014 for their documentary on her but, in the twelve years since, so many other major names and incredible artists have expressed their love of Kate Bush. So we need to update things. How would Bush herself feel?! If she was to approve it, I can imagine she would be flattered. After all, nobody is asking her to take part of say anything, as I is unlikely she would want to be photographed or interviewed. Though it may not be totally impossible to get some written words from her as an introduction. Her memories recording Wuthering Heights and The Kick Inside. How she feels knowing so many incredible creatives and important people have her to thank (in part) for their success and talent. A dream guest list is taking shape but, as mentioned, maybe keeping it to fifteen tops would not make it an unwieldy read and something that costs too much. Perhaps eight or so artists then having the remainder be taken from the worlds of film, T.V., literature, art and theatre. Or politics. I know Greta Gerwig is a Kate Bush fan. Alongside Margot Robbie, maybe uniting them again (Robbie starred in Gerwig’s 2023 film, Barbie). Marking fifty years of the arrival of a life-changing artist. This incredible feature run in The New Yorker. Even if it is two years away, it will take a while to put together and finalise. It would be a dream I would…
LOVE to see realised.