FEATURE:
Kate Bush: The Tour of Life
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Wilting Petals
__________
AT certain time sin her career…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed during the cover shoot for her 1989 album, The Sensual World/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Kate Bush did experience some burn-out and personal loss. I guess it happens with most artists, though she especially did encounter quite a bit of heartache and fatigue. In terms of the latter, shew was working so hard on her albums, which meant that there were periods where she needed to rest up. It happened after Never for Ever was released in 1980, and again after The Dreaming in 1982. That idea that an artist would make an album and then promote it extensively. Kate Bush, as a producer, spending so much time in the studio and working into the small hours on various details and elements of the albums. It meant, by the time the thing was released, she had precious little energy as it was. Then there would be the issue of having to go on interviews and be involved in that whole thing. It was draining. After The Sensual World was released in 1989, there was this period of struggle. Not to say that The Red Shoes suffered because of it. That 1993 album has moments of gold, though there years after The Sensual World did provide Kate Bush was some struggled. Graeme Thomson notes, in Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, that there had bene a fundamental change on The Sensual World. I have written about this topic before, though I want to approach it from a different angle this time around. If 1985’s Hounds of Love is an album in full bloom. This verdant garden of wonder with nooks ands crannies’ to explore. Songs that reveal new layers with each listen was The Sensual World a slight wilting of the petals? I do think it is one of her best albums, though there was a struggle perhaps to keep that consistency. It is less ambitious and big as Hounds of Love. Bush was definitely slowing to a degree. Graeme Thomson notes that there was a “slackening of intensity” when it comes to the sound. The production maybe overcompressed on her sixth album.
I do not agree that The Sensual World is cold and distant at times. There are songs that are not as good as her best. It is evident that Bush did face a struggle into the late-1980s. I have said before how the scene changed dramatically. In the mid-1980s, the most popular and commercial albums could be linked to Hounds of Love. There was not a vast difference between what Bush was doing and what other artists were, though her masterpiece was distinctly her own. Things were dramatically different by 1989. What is notable is that 1989-1993 was one of her most challenging periods. There was personal tragedy and loss that affected her drive and career. Losing friends Alan Murphy and Gary Hurst within a relatively short period of one another. In 1990, there was a box-set, This Woman’s Work, released. Bush said that the box-set marked the end of an era. She said how she will never work with Murphy and Hurst again, so it was this closing of a chapter. Bush took six months off. Bush said that she was obsessive about her work. “But now I can see that there’s a part of me that loves not being tied to a project, that loves just to be able to go off”. She was speaking with Q as part of an HMV Special mini-edition in 1990. I guess there would have been some doubts from critics regarding Bush’s genius. Near universal acclaim for Hounds of Love, she did release The Whole Story in 1986. Even if the new single, Experiment IV, did not get huge reviews and was seen as good as a Hounds of Love cut, she still had enormous backing and support. The Sensual World was an acclaimed album. It reached number two in the U.K. What I is considering is whether critics expected artists like Kate Bush to get bigger and bigger. If Hounds of Love was this peak. Epic and open, did they feel a 1989 was going to be even vaster? 1989 was a transition year, where grungier, Electronic-heavy trends of the 1990s were coming in. Perhaps less polished than what we had in the 1980s, it was a hard call for Kate Bush.
It was clear that personal circumstances and her intense work rate meant that there was a slight slowing. Telling that Bush revealed in 1990 that she needed to actively take a break. It is arguable that The Sensual World is less commercial or instantly impactful as Hounds of Love. A couple of natural singles, though a few of the songs less engaging. 1990 is a year that is particularly interesting. I do want to source a couple of interviews from that year. Music Collector spoke with Kate Bush in September 1990. They named her ‘The High Poetess of Rock’:
“The end of the eighties saw Kate Bush, now in her early thirties, releasing her seventh album, The Sensual World. She described it as her most feminine yet, and when compared to say, Hounds Of Love, it's certainly a more relaxed but perhaps less striking collection. Having said that, the title track (lifted as the first single) made the top ten, notable for its infuriating catchy rhythm, based apparently on the literary style of James Joyce. A song written for the John Hughes (director of The Breakfast Club ) film This Woman's Work [Hold on here! That was the name of the *song*! The movie was She's Having A Baby. Maybe the reason the writer got this so egregiously wrong is that the movie was never released in Britain! -- Ed], unfortunately got swamped in the pre-Christmas market, and ended up as only a minor hit.
The Sensual World album also sees a new departure for Kate: the use of the Bulgarian acapella folk group, Trio Bulgarka but lyrically, the most ambitious track has to be "Heads We're Dancing".
As we enter the nineties, Kate Bush's records appear increasingly out on a limb. Although she's always enjoyed a cult following, her current recordings are in competition with a youth-dominated world of House, Rap and Hip-Hop sounds. It'll be interesting to see if the deep, thoughtful and highly polished music which she records can sustain its success as the decade continues. With Kate Bush, you're never quite sure what's coming next! Whenever people have written her off in the past, she's hit back with her boldest and most adventurous work. With twelve years of recording success under her belt, Kate has emerged from the depths of middle-class Essex [ESSEX?? Everybody knows she's from Kent! -- Ed] to a unique status in terms of critical acclaim and respect within the music industry. Very few artists could go as long as her between album releases, only to see their work come straight back to the top again and again. She's consistently topped even her own high standards, and for that reason alone, you can't help thinking that Kate Bush, The Whole Story is incomplete. The best is yet to comer!”.
I will wrap up with more of that Q/HMV interview that I mentioned. It would be unfair to say that Kate Bush was in decline from 1989 onwards. She was working relentless since 1978, and it’s true that it was hard for her to easily fit into the contemporary music scene in one of the most changeable and exciting times for British music:
“Q: Have you begun to formulate your next move?
Yes, I have, but I can't tell you because it's probably oing to change! I want to find a balance between the observer and the observed. I love making music, and as long as I'm doing that, even if the albums don't sell, there'll be a certain amount of recognition. I feel I have to accept that, and learn from it and not run away from it any more.. .
Kate Bush relaxes with a Silk Cut-a habit common among ballet dancers past and present-and is asked once again to contemplate the life of isolation. In other words, to select her desert island discs. Sitting as we are in the legendary Abbey Road studios, her choice of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour could not be more appropriate, followed by Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts ("tremendously influential on me and the whole of modern of modern music with the repitition and sampling "), her friend Nigel Kennedy's The Four Seasons ("There's something light and uplifting about it"), The Trio Bulgarka's Strati Angelaki (on the Bulgarian compilation LP, Balkana), Donal Lunny's last album (called Donal Lunny) Eberhard Weber's Fluid Rustle ("a lot of fond memories"), Billie Holliday's I love You Porgie ("the singer of singers. Lindsey Kemp used to use this one in a show of his, and the combination of her sining and his theatre was terrific") and Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb.
Q: A song of your own?
"The song The Sensual World. Cloudbusting has fond memories for me because of the book and the video, but The Sensual World because musically I'm jolly pleased with it-and it was hell to make! "
Q: And your book?
"Oscar Wilde, in particular The Happy Prince. That's a strong story for me; I heard it a lot when i was little. It's so sad. I guess that's the Irish. We all like the beauty of sadness, but I do think there's a real Irish link of the happy with the sad. Everything contains the opposite-the little observer and the little observed. This is my plan, to get the balance.. . "
I have spoken about Kate Bush’s late-1980s and early-1990s. That era when she will still very much ibn the public consciousness. Though there was a feeling of slowing. Some of her faithful maybe not as committed. The Sensual World gained plenty of positive reviews. Though I keep thinking about what Graeme Thomson writes in terms of the production sound. A certain coldness on an album that Bush says was her most personal to that time. Loss and heartache definitely contributed to that, though most of that happened after the album came out. Bush did struggle a bit into the 1990s. Trying to keep inventive and adding something new, things around her had shifted considerably. This perfect rose perhaps losing some of its shine ands beauty. Though, let make it clear: there is no way that any Kate Bush album came be sense as disappointing ore a failure. I feel The Red Shoes is great and warrants more respect. If 1989 onwards was seen by some as a slight dip, the majestic Kate Bush hit a new vein of genius…
WITH 2005’s Aerial.