Though I'd (unwittingly) seen Kate in concert (in November of 1978, as the opening act at a Peter Gabriel concert in Nancy, France), I had no clue as to who Kate Bush was and never really connected with the name or music until I first heard the amazing song "The Dreaming." This would have been 1982, during my years in graduate studies at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. As was my custom, it had become part of my beat to stop in at at least one of the record stores after classes were over--this one called Wazoo Records, beneath the Cnetre Pompidou-like parking garage a block from the world's most beautiful college campus. This would have been 1982, either late August or early September, as the song was released (in the US) as a promotional single the week before the release of the album of the same name. I loved that album--played it to death--always on the headphones, always in the intimacy of my own privacy due to the incredibly nuanced sound engineering.
The following year I started a job working in a record store in Gaithersburg, Maryland ("Waxie Maxie's") in 1983. That was the year that I started reviewing each year's albums, rating them metrically song-by-song and in toto. The Dreaming came out as the "best" album of 1983. At the time I thought The Dreaming the best album I'd ever heard and for many years it remained the highest rated album I ever reviewed. Every moment of every song feels so personal, so heart-felt, so carefully- and intentionally- crafted.
On an interesting aside, for years (at least 20) I proclaimed "Get Out of My House" as the best song I'd ever heard. It was so powerful--told such a powerful story--from several perspectives--in a very cool, theatric way (like all of the songs from The Dreaming). I was sure it was about rape--the first and most powerful feminist "me too" song ever! You can imagine my terrible disappointment, years later, when I found out that it is not, in fact, about rape. But, it always worked for me as fuel for my own hatred of the violence inherent in the biological programming of my own sex, something I'd developed and cultivated from an early age (perhaps even and issue or sentiment I'd carried forward from previous lifetimes). Anyway, I still think this is one of the most creative storytelling contrivances I've ever heard. Leave it to Kate to help reveal even more of the hidden power of music!
In the Autumn of 1985, I happened to be in England--I was actually in a car, being driven to Cheltenham by a Brit friend named Andrew--when I first heard "Running Up That Hill," which, the radio DJ announced, was the first song (and album) by a female artist to ever debut in the Number One position on the UK charts. That song was so different! And so infectious. (It still is--as we all witnessed in 2022 when it became a #1 hit worldwide due to its use as a character [Sadie Sink's "Max Mayfield"] theme song in the Netflix series Stranger Things!) Needless to say, Kate's penchant for creating incredibly personal and often-archetypical and cinematic video interpretations for her songs--especially her hits--is quite unusual and, for a time, unusually prolific--even though this was definitely the MTV/VH1 era. Many of Kate's most memorable (and popular) videos came from Hounds of Love. Unfortunately, I often find many of her videos to be embarrassingly hokey, the dancing and movement almost grotesquely exaggerated as if in parody to her intended meanings, so now I usually avoid them.
A few months later, back in the USA, I had the weird and serendipitous (or was it?) occasion to be standing next to the phone inside a record store in Ann Arbor, Michigan, when Kate called just to chat up her latest album with whomever might answer the phone. If memory serves, she had just taken a ship across the Atlantic (she had always expressed her hatred/fear around flying)--which in itself was actually a news-worthy item at that time. Apparently, she was calling a random list of record stores across the US from some place in New York City at the request (demand) of her record label. Small talk ensued: literally the weather!); nothing else of substance was parlayed. Too bad. (I remember wanting so badly to grab the phone from the store employee--if only to express my gratitude for her ground-paving creativity). Anyway: What are the chances? I'm not sure Kate believes in coincidences. (Something about her words and music make me believe that she has a Jungian worldview--perhaps even naturally/inherently so.)
After my record-store discovery of The Dreaming and now bolstered by the arrival of Hounds of Love, I began to seek out Kate's back catalogue of studio albums. I will not lie: The Kent-born artist's first two albums have always been impenetrable to me--even nearly-repulsive; no matter how much I've tried, it has been very difficult for me to find any source of enjoyment and pleasure from Lionheart and/or The Kick Inside. These albums issued forth a barrage of very quirky pop songs--songs that seemed poised to garner attention and praise from an exclusively British (or maybe exclusively literate or lyrics-oriented) audience. In fact, with all of the inside colloquialisms and English-only references contained in many of the songs, it felt as if she was courting an almost-exclusively British audience. It wasn't until I found her Never For Ever album that I felt any kind of connection to her previous music (though the British bias remained odiously obvious.) This is when her toes first crossed over into the "proggy" side of music's landscape.
Kate's evolution into "progressive" sound and music devices and constructs coincides with her discovery of the Fairlight CMI in 1979. (Thank you, Peter Gabriel!) This one of the major events that aligns with the beginning of her unique and rather imaginative experimentation with sound engineering. It was also the transition time in which she began shedding many of the mainstay band members that had become the "KT Bush Band"--those musicians who had been touring with her through 1979. These were guys who had arrived via previous bands like TAME (Del Palmer and Brian Bath) and The Bay City Rollers and Pilot (David Paton and Ian Bairnson--the latter of whom also guested with Renaissance on "Ashes Are Burning") and Preston Heyman. Though bassist (and now-boyfriend) Del Palmer was kept on, the rest were now being replaced or worked into "shared" duties with more skilled and accomplished musicians like journeyman Max Middleton (Gary Moore, Cozey Powell, Jeff Beck Group, Nazareth, Hummingbird), session man/guitarist Alan Murphy (Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Ace), drummers Preston Heyman and Stuart Elliot (who had played with Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, Al Stewart, and Alan Parsons Project) along with various family members (including brother Paddy, who played quite an assortment of traditional folk/Celtic instruments) and myriad "big name" guests (Morris Pert, Geoff Downes, Duncan Mackay, Larry Fast, John Giblin, Roy Harper). The result is her 1980 release, Never For Ever. Suddenly, Kate's music had become much more interesting, much more enhanced and sophisticated, with many songs fully able to stand up on the music alone--not existing to serve only as pop vehicles for her acrobatic vocals and quirky story lines--the mastery of which would first reach the public in the form of her first masterpiece two years later.
The majority of people consider Hounds of Love to be Kate's masterpiece but it grew old on me: it sounds dated and has always remained oblique to my sustained interest and enjoyment. Even at the time of its release, with so many shining examples of quirk genius and originality, I found it hard to give repeated listens--especially to Side One with all the hits. Side Two, "The Ninth Wave" suite, however, has always held my undivided attention. The odd and often-awkward videos that came out with the album may have also posed as considerable elements to the souring of my enthusiasm for the album. But, when The Sensual World came out, in 1989, I was held captive--not in the same intimate way that The Dreaming had intoxicated me but in a more shock and awe-struck kind of way: for the expression of genius in her chosen topics and subject matter; for her unique song and sound designs as well as the odd, raw performances she'd managed to inspire from her rather unusual lineup of collaborators. Once again she'd opened with a song that I knew instantly was a timeless classic: one of the most sultry/seductive songs ever created by an intellectual white woman. This then paves the way for a remarkable (and often obtuse) musical journey: (I purchased the CD format right off the bat--which contained an eleventh song, "Walk Straight Down the Middle" as its "bonus" song) ten more unique and separate "worlds" to walk through--including one about Hitler(!). The experience was like traveling through a complex labyrinth that is mined at every turn with video game dingers, pop out clowns and monsters, and plenty of incredible musical rewards, surprising and (I should think) delighting the adventurer from start to finish (assuming one can find her/his way out).
While only three songs from The Sensual World remain on my all-time "Kate" playlist, they are three of my Top 10 all-time favorite Kate Bush songs--a number that is higher than any other of her albums. And, talking about collaborators, two of these songs, "Never Be Mine" and "Walk Straight Down the Middle," contain remarkable performances from bassist Eberhard Weber while "Never Be Mine" also includes the magical and unseemly fit of Trio Bulgarka.
Other than The Dreaming, there is no other 20th Century release from Kate that I hold in so high esteem as The Sensual World.
1993 brought The Red Shoes. For me this has always been--and continues to be--a complete-throwaway album. Perhaps there was a lot of turmoil or distraction in Kate's world; perhaps it was an album that was being rushed by some external or internal clock or deadline, but, to me, it's almost unlistenable.
Then Kate took a break: a 12-year break. During this unusually long spell she also saw the end of her long-time romantic relationship with collaborator/band mate Del Palmer (who, sadly, just passed away at the beginning of this month of January of 2024), the death of her mother, her flame and marriage to guitarist/collaborator Danny MacIntosh, and the birth, in 1996, to her one and only child, son Albert "Bertie" MacIntosh. One cannot say that she wasn't busy.
2005's release of the double disc entitled Aerial is another amazing journey into genius song-rendering (especially Disc Two). While Disc One has a wide variety of song styles, each occupying and representing its own universe, and all providing interesting and totally mature and masterful songwriting, it is the "single flow" lineup of songs built within the concept of a single day in the life of a child immersed in Nature that hits it out of the park (and previews the styles and approaches used on her next album six years later). The journey is so engaging, so enticing and mesmerizing, that one finds one as unaware of the passage of time as a if one were a child passing a single day. Kate's intimate vocal and piano play, often augmented by simple traditional folk instruments, hand percussion, and/or Michael Kamen's exquisite orchestral work as well as the little spoken samples of birdsong and human speak (performed by the family: Kate, Dan, and Bertie himself) make for such a warm and engaging listening experience. Definitely another masterpiece in the artistry of Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire Catherine Bush.
Looking back over Kate's distinguished career, I think that it is through her collaborations that she really excelled; gathering virtuosic musicians around her in order to not only help her realize her musical visions but in order to trust in their seasoned abilities to offer cogent contributions of their own based upon their own experience and mastery. Some of my favorite collaborations on Kate albums have been with the likes of Swedish bass player Eberhard Weber, Danny Thompson and his loyal double bass, Victoria, Trio Bulgarka (who were members of the Bulgarian State Radio and Television Female Vocal Choir, the group that the London-based independent record label, 4AD, made world-famous in 1986 and 1988 with their release of two international best-selling albums under the Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares title) and her son, Bertie. Other notable collaborations have occurred with with David Gilmour (her founder and long-time champion and friend), Peter Gabriel, Mick Karn, Steve Gadd, and Elton John.
I think my adult-life-long infatuation with Ms. Bush also stems from the fact that she was born a month after me in 1958 into place and family that I idealized with a kind of elevated mediæval reverence. She is one of those people that I'd love to thank personally, face-to-face, for her not insignificant contributions to my life. Though I have been unable to find any kind of access point that would allow me to enjoy any single song from The Kick Inside or Lionheart (despite the fact that I do comprehend the ways in which these two albums express the extraordinary uniqueness of this idiosyncratic artist), it really wasn't until her 1980 discovery of and experimentation with the Fairlight CMI (thanks, Peter Gabriel!) that she began to express herself with any kind of music that might be considered "progressive," and, in my opinion, it wasn't until The Dreaming that she actually crossed the line over into Prog World--and, while I've never been much of a fan of The Red Shoes, at least she was still using forms and sound palettes that prog lovers might be accepting of, something she was not doing (mostly out of ignorance) for those first two pop albums.
These are my 20 Favorite Kate Bush songs:
These are my 20 Favorite Kate Bush songs:
1. "Blow Away" - Never For Ever
2. "The Sensual World" - The Sensual World
3. "Snowflake" - 50 Words for Snow
4. "Running Up That Hill" - Hounds of Love
5. "Somewhere in Between" - Aerial
6. "Get Out of My House" - The Dreaming
7. "Experiment IV" (12" version) - The Whole Story
8. "Walk Straight Down the Middle" - The Sensual World
9. "The Dreaming" - The Dreaming
10. "Never Be Mine" - The Sensual World
11. "Prologue" - Aerial
12. "Lake Tahoe" - 50 Words for Snow
13. "Delius" - Never For Ever
14. "Houdini" - The Dreaming
13. "Delius" - Never For Ever
14. "Houdini" - The Dreaming
15. "Aerial" - Aerial
16. "Waking the Witch" - Hounds of Love
17. "Night of the Swallow" - The Dreaming
18. "Wild Man" - 50 Words for Snow
19. "Nocturn" - Aerial
20. "Army Dreamers" - Never For Ever
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