First, she’s not related to the American politicians.
Second, practically everyone in the world (outside America) who knows anything about music knows who she is. She’s had hits and top-of-the-charts albums all over the world.
Americans have been deprived, with only a smattering of airplay, usually on college/alternative radio stations, and only a handful of airings of her distinctive videos.
Third, she’s influenced more modern female singer-songwriter-musicians than any other female musican. A generation of female artists, ranging from Tori Amos to Happy Rhodes to Dido to Sarah McLachlan to Goldfrapp to Bjork sing her praises and have openly cited her as a prime influence. Male artists ranging from Peter Gabriel, Tricky, David Gilmour (who discovered her), Jeff Buckley, John Lydon and even Big Boi of Outkast adore her music.
Fourth, she hasn’t released an album in 12 years, and advance word is that the upcoming double-album Aerial is stunning in every way, well worth the wait. Fans are buzzing. She’s not likely to get any more airplay in America now than she did back in the day, but anything’s possible.
Myth: She’s not a wild-eyed, wild-haired airy fairy hippie. She’s a sensible doctor’s daughter from Kent, and the personas she created for her videos are those of the characters in the songs. Since what Kate did was so original, telling stories in songs (most are very cinematic), some people never even realized that the videos went along with the stories, and had nothing to do with Kate herself.
Myth: She’s not afraid to fly. She has an inner ear problem and it hurts her. She has been to America a few times for personal appearances and vacations, but she always took the Concorde since it was faster and cut down on hurt time. I don’t know if she’ll come here at all this time, since the Concorde is gone.
Myth: She’s not a recluse/hermit/Miss Haversham. She had incredible fame (hard to believe if you’re an American who has never heard of her), and didn’t much like it. For her, it’s always been about her music, and the endless round of interviews, personal appearances, parties and photo shoots (before Diana came along, she was the most photographed woman in England) took time away from her music. She wanted to get her songs heard, and have the clout to be able to control how they were recorded and presented (thus producing her own albums and building her own studio to record them in), but fame as a byproduct has never appealed to her. Between albums, she’s a normal person, who loves puttering around in the garden, British comedy shows and being a homemaker, raising her son. Her music is so odd and fame is supposed to be so desirable, that some people (British tabloids) just assume that anyone who would walk away from fame and not want to go to all the latest parties has to be daft on toast. She’s not. She’s normal. They don’t get it.
Several articles have appeared in the UK recently, with several more to come, that give an idea of how her “comeback” (though she never went away) is being received. If you’re interested at all, but don’t know much about Kate, they’re worth reading.
The Scotland on Sunday
From that last article:
I guess I’m one of those “intense” fans, but I have her to thank for so much. I first became a fan in 1981. I had heard her sing on Peter Gabriel’s 3rd album, in the songs “Games Without Frontiers” and “No Self Control” but became a fan when a fellow Gabriel fan sent me a tape with several of her songs on it. I knew within the first 30 seconds of the first song, “Wuthering Heights,” that I’d found what I was looking for in a female artist. I met my husband when he put an ad in a local (then Kansas City) music paper saying “Kate Bush fan with records, videos, would like to meet other Kate Bush fans to trade.” I didn’t know any other KB fans, and he didn’t know any other KB fans, so when I answered the ad we jumped at the chance to meet. We started out as friends and are still together and still very much in love 23 years later. We’re both still huge Kate fans, the kind who have posters on the wall and who fly to England for fan conventions. We’d gotten out of the fandom in recent years, but never wavered in our love for her music.
Without her I wouldn’t have my soul mate, I wouldn’t live in Chicago, I wouldn’t have so many great friends all over the world, I never would have gotten my radio show, and I never would have discovered my lyrical soul mate and 2nd favorite female artist, Happy Rhodes, who’s meant so much to me.
Any questions? (besides, are you daft on toast?)
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