[sub]Don’t ignore, don’t ignore me, let me in, and don’t be long.[/sub]
My faves,
The Sensual World (I know the Hounds lovers seemed dissapointed, but for the life of me I don’t understand why. There is such an inspired breadth of diverse and beautiful musicality that it is just essential Kate.
The Dreaming (my first exposure and first love)
The Hounds of Love (simply profoundly groundbreaking)
…The biggest dissapointment for me was The Red Shoes. It didn’t work for me as either a conceptually whole piece as side 2 of HoL, or a gathering of disparate yet brilliant individual songs.
I love everything she does (except Between a Man and a Woman) but how long can hope sustain itself.
This woman’s work
This woman’s work
ooooh it’s hard on the man
Well, for me every album has its own distinct feel and mood - as well as an association to a particular time in my life - and I try not to compare them to each other. For me, even The Kick Inside and Lionheart are very different, even though Lionheart was released about six months after TKI. (TKI was actually recorded in 1977, with the exception of The Saxophone Song and The Man With The Child In His Eyes, which were recorded in 1975. EMI just held off on releasing it so that KaTe could “grow up a bit,” work on her dance, etc. Some have said that Lionheart was weak in that it was essentially made up of the tracks that were rejected for TKI, but I disagree vehemently. I think it fits together beautifully.)
The only two that seem connected - part of a diptych, as lissener said - are The Dreaming and Hounds of Love.
Never For Ever was, of course, KaTe’s first true departure, released two years after her debut, and a year after her one and only tour, the Tour of Life. It’s dark, it’s sensual, it’s scary at times… it’s full of Fairlight and atmosphere.
The Dreaming, two years later, was KaTe on KaTe’s terms, EMI be damned. She actually had some difficulties with EMI after that album, because it didn’t produce any hit singles (although “Sat In Your Lap”, released in 1981 as a teaser, charted rather well). Never mind that the album sold well and went to #3.
Hounds of Love was once again KaTe on her own terms, but the recording itself has a more comfortable feel to it - most definitely because she recorded it in her home studio. And it was the album that I believe definitely cemented her as almost untouchable - to be respected, revered. To enchant and frighten. The album produced hit singles - “RUTH” even charted on the U.S. dance charts - fantastic videos, and a B-side (The Ninth Wave) that is beyond description.
The Sensual World was, to me, a series of musical vignettes, only connected to each other through a smoky, woodsy atmosphere. Walk through a forest on a crisp autumn night, and blast “Rocket’s Tail” on your walkman. The crackling harmonies of the Trio Bulgarka, then KaTe joins in with:
I get shivers just typing the lyrics. I’m suddenly thrust back to 1989 and a very incredible and life-changing period of my life.
The Red Shoes was in many ways a return to KaTe-and-piano-based songs. “Rubberband Girl” charted well as a first single. Much imagery is evoked in songs such as “Top of the City” and “The Red Shoes”. And KaTe - for the first time since The Kick Inside - reveals quite a bit about her own personal relationships. (How can “You’re The One I Want” be about anyone else than Del Palmer, with whom she broke up sometime during recording, perhaps beforehand? They had been together 17 years.)
So, in short, who knows what to expect? Every album has been a surprise. And worth the wait.
Hopefully, there won’t be any more collaborations with Prince.
Collaborations with Prince? Did I miss this, or was it so gawdawful I’ve erased it from my memory?
“Why Should I Love You” from The Red Shoes. It starts off OK, but then the Prince shit kicks in and the song goes rapidly downhill.
Agree. I’m a huge Prince fan, and a huge KaTe fan, but that just didn’t work. I’d almost like to see ANOTHER such collaboration, to see if they could maybe get it right this time. And yah, scott, Rocket’s Tail has to be the song I return to most frequently on TSW, though every once in a while the title track takes me where no other song ever could.
Ever read the original Joyce lyrics, that KaTe couldn’t get the rights to?
You know, I own The Red Shoes. I did erase the Prince song completely from my memory.
It’s all rushing back now…rushing…
OK, clue in the newb. Why the capital “K” and “T”?
Wow, wow, wow…