Kate Bush: Klassik or Dudd

Search = "Christmas and the Beads of Sweat". Actually that's Laura Nyro, but Bush fans would like her, and all her stuff's in the bargain bin.

i say yes, she is as good. Wuthering Heights is super-spooky, very good and HOW DID SHE KNOW, like it seems impossible that anyone could do a song about that impossible book that wouldn't be totally stupid. So just for that you know ... but I am interested in klass issues here. I just feel like, was she so able to do this cause she had some kind of Bloomsbury type upbringing where she was saturated with real literature and so it presented no problem to her whereas maybe pop usually wouldn't be able to go there? Does anybody know?

As to the question in general: Classic, particularly the run of Never For Ever through The Dreaming to The Hounds Of Love. The albums on either side of that are slightly patchy but with moments of sporadic brilliance strewn throughout.

I can really understand Omar's comments about The Dreaming and techno. That album in particular always struck me as a terribly unexpected album for someone in Bush's position to make. It sounded a lot less bizarre to me once I got into post-punk, but that very connection is totally weird. A singer- songwriter discovered by Dave Gilmour shouldn't be able to make an album that at various points sounds like John Lydon, Siouxsie Sioux, Adam Ant and Diamanda Galas shoved into a room together.

I need to get more Kate Bush.

Okay, so the bit about the accent is perhaps not that much of a recommendation. How about "best pop song featuring Rolf Harris ever"???

The Dreaming is still good. Only the mumbly "Watching You Without Me" stands up off the much-slighted "Ninth Wave" section of Hounds Of Love - extra points to Danny Thompson for making the double-bass sound just like the ubiquitous fretless sound of the mid- 80s (like, why?). The singles off that are mostly umimpeachable.

I find everything on The Sensual World unlistenable save for the title track. I keep seeing The Red Shoes for tiny amounts of money on CD... worth a shot?

However, from The Sensual World I would strongly defend "The Fog" (the way the floods of sound drift in as she sings "Is this road big enough for the both of us?" is lovely) and "Rocket's Tail" before Gilmour's guitar solo ruins it. And of course "This Woman's Work" is to some extent undeniable.

I'm glad you like Hounds Of Love Gareth. If you decide to get another Kate Bush album I would say The Dreaming is the one to get. Those two are the only essential purchases in her collection, really.

Actually Tim (backpedalling furiously), I'll kinda go along with the above, save the last sentence. Still find it mawkish. This was not my initial reaction in 1989, when I thought the whole thing was a masterpiece (even the one about dancing with Hitler). I really liked hearing "Rubberband Girl" on the radio in '93 but never considered getting the LP.

any thoughts? it's a beautiful song

Actually, it is quite lovely. Perhaps Lionheart is being unfairly ignored. The song in question is the one with hand-written lyrics on the inside of the gatefold, some nice recorders, a harpsichord and the highest harmonies outside of a Stina Nordenstam LP. If I was really clever I'd link to an MP3 of it for Nick's benefit. But I'm not.

I hate her. Hate hate hate.

if she does play the hits i hope she totally fucks with the arrangement, structure, vocals, radically reimagines them. actually i can't really see her NOT doing this to at least a couple? i mean if taylor swift does it habitually it's not that weird to think kate will.

I predict she'll do a cover of After The Gold Rush, replacing the low notes with a contemporary dance routine.

I'm really impressed by the number of American friends I have who have bought tickets and are planning trips around these shows.

if i had the money, i'd do the same.

^^^^^ on this

Same reason Neil Young doesn't play After The Gold Rush any more

He still plays it, most recently in LA the other day.

I think Neil will keep playing it as long as there are 3-5 guys in every audience that'll go "whoo" after the "I felt like getting high" line.

LOL

Rational me is kinda relieved I failed to get tickets to one of the KB shows, because it would have been an expensive trip! Still woulda done it though.

first off, grats to all of you that got tix. hope it's as awesome as you hope.

secondly, I'd been exposed to Kate via a few tracks here and there, and of course "Don't Give Up", but never full albums, so this thread inspired me to pick up Hounds of Love and I instantly took a loving to it, but was surprised at how much more I loved The Dreaming. this is my wheelhouse! where should I go next after that one?

That's my fave but Aerial is amazing... Never For Ever is probably the most like The Dreaming

Never For Ever

Go with the Kick Inside because it's awesome yet very different from Hounds of Love or the Dreaming, or try The Sensual World or Aerial (especially Sky of Honey if you liked side two of Hounds). Avoid Lionheart, The Red Shoes, and Director's Cut/50 Words for Snow. They've got some good stuff on them, but they can definitely wait.

50 words for snow is pretty incredible but aerial should come first.

50 words is amazing! but listen to other albums first, I agree (except for maybe red shoes and lionheart).

I still rep hard for Sensual World. It has some reputation as being poppier than Hounds which is weird. It's smokier and sexier; smoother, I suppose, than the 9th Wave, but it's not some pop sell out album.

Never For Ever is really underrated in her canon. I love the best bits of The Kick Inside, which has higher highs, but never want to listen to it all the way through.

I finally played Lionheart for the first time yesterday and, yeah, it's definitely minor in the context of the rest of her work.

co-sign on the Never For Ever love. probably my third fave after Dreaming and Hounds

Aerial is fabulous - they all are - but I agree that you probably want to be going backwards before looking forwards.

Never For Ever is fantastic and sounds great on headphones, especially that part in 'All We Ever Look For'.

I came way late to Kate Bush, but that great run of HoL, The Dreaming and NFE sounds to me like solo Peter Gabriel as fronted by flower-costume and funny-voice Genesis-era Peter Gabriel. Totally genius/bonkers/awesome/funny and even a little annoying, all in equal, baffling, brilliant measure.

I always thought her pairing with David Gilmour was as wackadoodle an old guard/new guard mentorship/shepherding as Ray Manzerek was with X.

and of course Never For Ever also has this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJvXpvH2-Hk

(RIP Mick Karn)

With Pete Townsend and Phil Collins on drums too? Triple whoah.

^^From one of the Secret Policeman's Balls iirc.

imagined Peter and Phil playing bongo-like percussion on a cop's tucked away testicles and wondered how I got to this place in life.

definitely expected that mental image upon re-opening this thread

"Running Up That Hill" from the same place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwQQbfJFc5U

pretty sure the clips are about five years apart.

I still need Kick Inside and the latter 4 albums. Total bummer that you can't get the 2 bonus discs of b-sides/rarities of This Woman's Work by themselves or even on mp3. That collection costs a fortune.

Even though it isn't nearly the best, Lionheart is probably my favourite, my appreciation of her really deepened with that album. Particularly for the utterly incredible "Wow"; "In The Warm Room" is great too.

That "Running Up That Hill" is a lot better in paper than in reality. Yikes.

On paper.

"I still need Kick Inside and the latter 4 albums. Total bummer that you can't get the 2 bonus discs of b-sides/rarities of This Woman's Work by themselves or even on mp3. That collection costs a fortune."

you can find them illegally easily enough, or if you send me a personal message.

It's not really a priority right now but it annoys me that those two discs don't have their own collection. How many people shelled out for that who didn't already have the studio albums in the box? I bet there is a YouTube playlist somewhere. Kind of hoping if I wait, a more complete collection will come out (I think it might have just been a alternate versions left off and I'm not really one to get excited about different mixes).

How much of it is worthwhile?

I've heard contrasting opinions on Cathy's Home Demos. Anyone here think it's worth getting?

I've also heard that the Japanese editions of her albums have superior remastering. Is this just collector bragging nonsense?

I have the japanese box set. It's been ages since I had the original US pressings but I don't remember there being any earth shattering difference.

Think it was the difference between the American CDs and the British EMI reissues with the bonus tracks. Sound on the American CDs is pretty awful – HoL in particular.

If you're a fan of her music the B-Sides/rarities are a must listen, I think. there are often some wonderful diversions from what she was doing on her albums of the time as well as surprisingly deep yet minimal pieces ("Under The Ivy", Donovan cover "Lord Of The Reedy River").

Penman on the return

I take a different view from his reading of Bertie, its a very well realized idea and the only thing I would listen to again from Aerial

Probably agree on the majority of the piece - not that bothered to check the records. It may reflect on both Kate and the piece too. Or myself.

It's the best, most on-the-money thing I think I've read about her. Thanks for the link!

the only thing I would listen to again from Aerial

seriously wtf

I've heard contrasting opinions on Cathy's Home Demos. Anyone here think it's worth getting?

it's definitely worth a download. there are a bunch of different editions of the same material, but the best sounding version I've heard online is Alone At My Piano (hope it's ok to link to that). that particular download is sped up slightly — every other version I've heard sounds unnaturally slow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ5ouR6p-gM

^probably my favorite unreleased demo track

just read the penman essay, it's typically great but I can't really hang with the iconoclazzzm here, as with the michael jackson piece where he indulges in similar tropes of the sole clear-sighted non-kool aid drinker: part of me can't help wondering, admit it, let's face it, &c. It's annoying when lesser challop-merchants do it and it's annoying from a writer as thoughtful and incisive as penman. That said, I agree with a lot of what he says, I just draw different conclusions (I adore aerial)

tbh felt relief reading his assessment of Aerial. I never managed to see what others saw in it

well nobody has to like anything! but defaulting to "risk" and "edge" as intrinsically valuable allegedly missing qualities is a bit lazy I think

I mean ok, punk orthodoxy would have an automatic antipathy towards certain moves yet some of those same critics now love kate for doing similar - maybe that's cause they were wrong and they now realise it! And the whole sting hypothetical, where if he wrote a song like "bertie" "we" would dismiss it out of hand - this is probably true, but that's a more trenchant criticism of "us" than the song imo.

And this is coming from a guy who very recently wrote a beautiful essay defending apparently "cosy" (but often unsettled) music, in the scott walker book. Or, you know, everything he says here could equally be applied to robert wyatt or whoever. I think he's getting at something, but it reads as empty contrarianism whether it is or not.

TPL reaches The Whole Story and wonders who's really listening: http://nobilliards.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/kate-bush-whole-story.html

Currently reading "Under The Ivy". It's breezy enough - like an extended Mojo artist bio but with great detailed descriptions of her recording process on each album. I also didn't know she was such a pothead haha.

15 years

But what the fuck do YOU think of the lass?

The accuracy

In honour of the fact that there is now one week left until the Oscars, here is Kate Bush as each of the ten Best Picture nominees. 🧵

— 𝕋𝕠𝕞𝕒𝕤 (@cinema_gay) March 5, 2023

Rest In Peace Del Palmer.