“Kate Bush, one of the musical geniuses of our time”
I’m pretty fluent on different artists, not just mainstream stuff, but either the samples on Amazon don’t do her justice or she sounds a LOT like Yoko Ono, especially on the earlier albums.
But, I’ll maintain an open mind. I have heard numerous things about Kate Bush–most of them positive–and am willing to be swayed. The Amazon samples from “The Dreaming” came across dreadful. That particular album was put forth, again by Equipoise, as her BEST.
Is there a podcast or something I can listen to a more substantial bit of her work? I’m not writing her off, but truly I don’t hear immediate genius on these, obviously butchered, cuts.
Anyone want to help me here?
Also, I’m sure Equipoise will chime in with some cites on the whole “Musical Genius” bit, and I’m more than happy to look at those–in fact, I WANT to look at those.
Okay, here’s the bump. At this point 92 people have looked at this post and no one has anything to offer on Kate Bush?!?
I don’t know if you thought I was being sarcastic or what, but this is to clarify that I am sincerely looking for a legal way to hear her stuff in its entirety.
Can anyone help me here?
Well, you can always check out a music store or pawn shop that sells her CDs used. But I stopped trying to convert people into Kate Bush fans a long time ago. She’s just an artist that I really like, but no one I know personally does.
I really didn’t like her latest album on the first couple of listens, but now I can’t find anything wrong with any of it. It’s in my car, and I throw it in when I’ve got to make a drive of at least 30 minutes.
Just so as not to be the hundreth person to read this with contributing. See if you can get your hands on some of the early stuff, Wuthering Heights, The Man With the Child in his Eyes. I’m less familiar the more recent (<15 yrs!) stuff.
The thing (or at least one thing) about Kate Bush is just how original she is. When she started out (1978) there was no-one else who sounded anything like her, that’s not the case now of course but I won’t name any copy-cats.
I can’t help you with downloads, I just don’t know how that stuff works.
While she doesn’t exactly pass the ‘genius’ test with me, I think she’s a brilliant musician and songwriter, a real pioneer, and I’ve enjoyed a couple of her albums. There was some cross-pollination with Peter Gabriel back in the 80’s that I think was fruitful for both of them. Frankly, The Dreaming probably isn’t the best intro to Kate Bush.
Here are some of my favorite songs and the albums they’re from:
Watching you without me - Hounds of Love
Mother Stands for Comfort - Hounds of Love
Cloudbusting - Hounds of Love
The Morning Fog - Hounds of Love
Suspended in Gaffa - The Dreaming
The Sensual World - The Sensual World
The Fog - The Sensual World
Never be Mine - The Sensual World
This Woman’s Work - The Sensual World
The Sensual World’s on iTunes. I don’t know where you can download Hounds of Love. That’s widely regarded as one of her best albums.
The reason that Kate Bush is often called a “genius” is that she actually made her own music, playing the synthesizers and doing the programming. Since women are generally not known for doing that, she gets an easy pass to “genius” level. In reality, she’s a moderately talented songwriter and arranger.
“Genius” is a stretch. She has a rabid fan base, an admittedly very nice voice, and some interesting lyrics. But she’s definitely an acquired taste, and I find her output very uneven.
But unless you’re an amazingly cheap person, she’s worth springing for the “Whole Story” collected works. Lots of Amazon shops selling it for less than ten bucks.
I can probably manage to pick those up at half.com or elsewhere and be none the worse for the money spent.
I’m curious about the Peter Gabriel connection as I think he is very talented and a must have in one’s music collection (don’t get me wrong, as has been documented here, I think Neil Diamond and Philip Glass are must haves as well).
Anyway, I’m hoping listening to the music in its entirety on a good sound system will easily trump the sad little bits offered at Amazon (which I expect are not a good introduction to anyone).
She’s one of my favorites, although I haven’t listened to all her albums. The first album I had was Hounds of Love, which I enjoyed on first listening and then The Whole Story, which similarly made an immediate impact. Some others, like her most recent Aerial and older The Sensual World have yet to grow on me. But I can feel it happening.
I personally think her work stacks up equally against male artists, and she’s one of the great songwriters of our time, regardless of gender.
Maybe the reason 100s of people aren’t popping up to defend Kate Bush’s music is because it’s not difficult listening like Yoko Ono’s music.
I’ve never had to “defend” her music, because it’s more a matter of taste. If you don’t think her voice is beautiful and otherworldly, or you don’t like the romanticism of her lyrics, I guess that’s just your thing. She’s definitely not a pop star “product”, she can play instruments, and she just recently put out her first album in 15 years (a possible reason she doesn’t get much discussion, the whole “reclusive genius” sort of thing.)
She did however write the “Wuthering Heights” song when she was 19 (though I’ve heard it said she was even younger when she first pieced it together).
She sang on Gabriel’s So and 3rd solo album, and I can’t actually remember what specifically he did for her.
At the time, though, Gabriel was well enmeshed in both cutting edge technology (Fairlight CMI - basically a sampler), world music via WOMAD (and later the Real World record label) and a heavy rhythmic sound built around the Linn Drum, drummers playing without cymbals, and studio effects. I think some of this rubbed off on Kate Bush, as she incorporated some of these elements into her music after working with Gabriel.
And she invented the wireless microphone that every performer nowawdays wears over one ear. She couldn’t dance while holding a mike, so IIRC she fashioned something out of a coathanger and mike disc.
Hounds of Love is still one of my favorite albums, and I got it in college in 1985. She is a wonderfully talented musician.
I second and third and fourth the statements that The Hounds of Love being a terrific album. Especially Running up That Hill, The Hounds of Love, Cloudbusting, and The Morning Fog.
'Take my shoes off, and thrrrrrrrroooooooow them in the lake"
Last I tried listening to her, I just couldn’t get beyond that shrill voice. Has she written any songs for other artists I might have heard, to get a sense of her songwriting without having to subject myself to her blood-curdling vocals?
Kate Bush is among the 15 or 20 most important musical figures of this century. Her influence, while not always direct, is nearly universal.
Her first album was released when she 19; the songs were written from the ages of 13 to 18. The Man with the Child in His Eyes was frist recorded, IIRC, when she was 15.
She has a tremendous vocal range, and an extrememly idiosyncratic style–although by now she’s been so widely influential that her old recordings won’t sound as revolutionary to newbies.
Most hardcore Kate fans consider The Dreaming to be her masterpiece. I certainly do. But it’s something of a difficult album. It’s pretty rough and raw; a very angry album. And it’s Joycean in its literary complexity. So no, it’s not always a good introduction. I recommend it to newbies only if I know their musical tastes are open to such “difficult” music. It’s been in my lifetime top 3 since 1982. Other albums has cycled through that list, but The Dreaming has stayed there.
Her first album, she had an entirely different vocal approach; nearly unrecognizable as the singer of her later albums. Very high register, totally unique. A turn off for many. But I have never known anyone, personally, who, if they trusted my recommendation and took the time to grow familiar, didn’t end up tremendously impressed.
Personally, I think she peaked with The Dreaming. To her credit, she didn’t ride that success and become a fake version of herself. She only records when she’s really driven to–the last album was after a 13 year hiatus–and no longer being the angry young woman of The Dreaming, the style of her recent album, Aerial, is more mature and subdued. It’s largely about the joys of motherhood; The Dreaming was largely about political angst.
Any, I’m glad to see that after 27 years, she finally found her rightful place as a grande dame of modern rock.
Very few of Kate’s songs are really “standard” enough to be covered by conventional artists. She really makes things up as she goes along.
Most of her songs are little works of fiction; tiny short stories told from the first person POV of a character. Many of them take extremely unconventional musical structures. That said, there is a tribute album–I Wish I Was Kate–but I personally think all the covers suck. Syd Straw did a boringly reverant cover of TMWTCIHE, but most of the other artists’ attempt to rework the song they covered just ended up sounding twisted and awful. YMMV.
Somebody did a decent cover of Running Up That Hill, but that may be her most conventional song. It took her four albums to finally do a song with a dance beat, and even then it was a galloping triple-beat (maybe a musician can supply a technical term here) that had never been heard on the dance floor before, to my knowledge.
I borrowed a few of her albums last year. They’re going to definitely have to grow on me, but after hearing The Dreaming I can say this for sure: I’m going to stay FAR FAR away from her house. :eek: