Some research has shown that Bush actually had commercial success in England. So I don’t know. She even reached the American Billboard Top 40 once (“Running Up That Hill”).
Is that the kind of song I might have heard a jillion times, and just never knew who it was?
[list=A]
[li]She’s not THE goddess of music; she’s A goddess of music.[/li][li]It’s kinda lazy and pretty, um, anti-Dopian to dismiss everything someone has to say just because you’ve found a stereotype you think you can pigeonhole them with. “Ahh, he’s a Kate Bush Fan, so we don’t have to pay his contributions to this thread any attention.” It’s called an argument ad hominem, and is far more revealing of your biases than of mine.[/li][/list]
I also happen to be a huge fan of Fats Waller, Trent Reznor, Doris Day, PJHarvey, Ella Fitzgerald, Marilyn Manson, Cat Power, Beastie Boys, David Bowie, Hank Williams, Diamanda Galas, Prince, etc. ad infinitum. So what? Does that mean my opinions of them should hold less weight than anyone else’s?
As I’ve said before in other threads, “credentials” have no place in such a discussion of subjective opinion. But I’m not a glassy-eyed hypnotized fan boy who was cunningly seduced and hasn’t had a thought of my own ever since. I have listened to a lot of music. A LOT. I own more music than all but about 4 people I’ve ever met in my life (not including several radio DJs I know; they take free shit home every day!). I spent many years working in record stores, writing music reviews, working in various capacities with 2 different radio stations–etc. I’m a hardcore MUSIC geek, not just a hardcore KATE geek.
And the more music I hear, the more I come across little nuggets of evidence of Kate’s universal–if indirect–influence on a VAST scale.
None of this renders my opinion any more or less IMPORTANT than anyone else’s, but it at least renders it an informed opinion, a seriously and consciously considered and arrived at opinion, and therefore at the very least not simply dismissable as lame-o fanboy wanksterism.
You can disagree with my opinion, obviously, but you don’t get to dismiss me–as a shortcut to dismissing my opinion–based on a quick and misguided assessment of my musical perspective, about which you know very little (very little still: my list above doesn’t scratch the surface of my list of musical greats).
And Snowboarder, I get that you have chosen not to become familiar enough with her work to see the influence she’s had; I get that her first impression on you was not a good one, and so you haven’t explored much further. Fine. As pointed out, she’s not hugely popular, numbers-wise. But just so you understand how this works, it’s not possible for you to prove, by argument, that something isn’t there just because you don’t see it.
This is one of the reasons I try to stay out of such arguments. Even with opinions, you can’t prove a negative.
For someone to “prove” that an artist has been influential, all that person has to do is find evidence of that influence. A positive. For you, Snowboarder, to “prove” that Kate has NOT been influential, you’d have to exhaustively catalog and annotate every single piece of recorded music since 1978, even before you make a case, in each and every instance, that there’s no influence to be found.
So you see why this kind of “debate” just makes no sense whatsoever.
You don’t like her, fine. YOu’re not alone. But the fact that your dislike for her means that you’re not as likely to hear her subtle influences when they crop up doesn’t mean they’re not there.
You probably–almost certainly–really love an artist who has been influenced, by some degree or another, by Kate Bush. Since you’re receiving that influence indirectly, you’re not aware of the it. Fine. Whatever. Until you can “prove”–see how silly this is?–that none of the artists you listen to–and none of the artists THEY listen to–and so on–have NOT been influenced by Kate Bush–your argument is silly.
This is not to say that I can prove my case and you can’t. This is just to say that such “rules” of debate and argument make very little sense in this kind of discussion.
This is the fault of her American record company.
For the first part of her career, Kate was one of the biggest musical stars in the world: everywhere but here. She was the number 1 chart artist in England for 3 or 4 years running, and she was very (wait for it) big in Japan. I mean VERY big in Japan.
Her US record label didn’t know how to market her. So their solution? They didn’t. Her first album got almost zero promotion–the single never even got a picture sleeve, just paper with a hole in it–and then they never even released her second and third albums. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was swept up in Kate fever. Her fourth album, The Dreaming, was unavoidable enough that it was released, but not really promoted. It was too weird for the label to get behind. So it achieved a kind of college-radio cult status.
The fact that, for the first three albums, the only way to get a hold of them was to be a crazy fan hooked into fan networks and trade bootlegs, or find a store that sold imports–the fact that her US popularity was ENTIRELY based on word of mouth “fan” networks–got her a reputation as a “cult” artist. AGain, only be default, because her label dropped the ball.
Then The Dreaming comes along and blows everyone’s mind, and her “outsider” status was sealed. US mainstream radio wouldn’t touch her with a ten foot pole.
The fact that her "small niche of fans included a vast disproportion of musicians and music industry people goes a long way to explaining the disproportion between her US sales and her influence. You pretty much HAD to be “in the know” to know about Kate Bush for the first 10 years of her career, so she had a lot of influence on those “in the know” people, who are of course the people most likely to spread that influence to the next musical generation.
She’s the classic “musician’s musician.”
I don’t want to be snarky, but I think it’s a stretch to say that because you personally haven’t heard of her it’s “weird” that some people consider her a towering figure in music.
Granted, she doesn’t have the name recognition of the Rolling Stones, but neither is she particularly unknown. You just happened to have missed her work. That proves nothing.
For what it’s worth, Kate Bush was a great favorite of me and many of my friends in high school. This was mid-1980s, middle of nowhere Michigan. We’re 100 miles from an interstate highway, and an eight hour drive from the nearest large city. We don’t have a Starbucks yet. Yet Kate made it here in the 80s. She ain’t that unknown.
In Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1980’s, I can personally attest that there were a substantial number of people (including me) who worshipped Kate Bush.
I lived in Chicago. And the only people I knew who knew Kate were people I knew. Strictly word of mouth. Well, until The Dreaming came out. The first time I heard a track from that on a college station I nearly shit my pants. It was like watching the Oscars and suddenly seeing your Aunt Fannie on the red carpet. Very weird. Took me YEARS not get all boggled when I met someone who’d heard of her.
My first boyfriend, the night I met him, he came over and asked me to dance (Jeffrey Dahmer’s hangout, Carol’s Speakeasy!). We get to talking, he asks me about music, I go, “You ever hear of Kate Bush?” He goes, “You’ll find me in a Berlin bar, in a corner, brooding.”
Suh-WOON!
According to this fangirl site, Kate Bush is worth more that 25 million British Pounds. That’s $43,397,500, ladies and gentleman. The only British female singer who’s got more money than Kate Bush is Annie Lennox. Somebody (me, for one) has been buying her records.
Here is a better cite for Kate Bush’s financial success as a musician, an article from the UK Guardian.
Interesting.
Annie Lennox once received an award that Kate was also in the running for–I forget; BMI? Best Female Artist? Anyway, Annie’s acceptance speech was something like, “This really should have gone to Kate Bush, not to me.”
Can anyone find a cite for that?
Non fans should read that article, just for a little real-world perspective on Kate’s stature.
As far as influence goes, that’s also mostly gray areas.
Jeff Buckley was not anywhere near as popular as Radiohead or Coldplay, but Radiohead and Coldplay would sound very different today if Jeff hadn’t come first. I doubt if Coldplay would exist at all; their first album might as well have been a Jeff Buckley tribute album.
But then, what would Jeff have been like if Robert Plant, Nina Simone, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, and Prince–to name just a few of his influences–hadn’t come before he did?
There’s no arguing that Prince has been HUGELY influential in pop music, but does the credit got Prince, or to George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, and Marc Bolan–to name just a few of his more obvious influences.
Both Prince and Jeff, by the way, have acknowledged Kate as an influence.
but does the credit [del]got[/del]* go to **Prince . . .
Not “weird” in the sense of “wrong”. “Weird” in this sense: it’s more understandable that Led Zeppelin, say, are regarded as titans in music. I can’t escape their music.
I’m not to prove a point in a debate – I’m giving my personal impression, and I’m sticking with it.
Except for writhing on a piano in a golden skin-tight body suit on Saturday Night Live .
Rroowrr.
I also remember “rolling the ball”.
I was 16. She made a big impression.
Yeah, that was my initial–and permanent–hook. I was 16 also I think.
Eric Idle did that: he got her booked on the show. The record company had very little to do with it.
That remains her only US appearance, I believe.
What’s kept from trying on her own from touring the U.S. and making a name for herself without a record company’s help? Sounds like America diehards would sell out her shows (of course … maybe she’s anti-“sold out shows”, anti-popularity … or something).
Her fanbase – at least the impression I’ve gotten from this thread – seems to be fervent like Jimmy Buffet’s or Bruce Springsteen’s.
First you say that others shouldn’t attempt to stereotype you and dismiss you, then you do it to me. You don’t know me, you don’t know my background, you don’t have any idea what I have or have not listened to… but you go ahead and make assumptions anyway. Leave the personal comments, will you? I certainly didn’t make any comments like “you are a clueless fan-boy who obviously hasn’t ever heard good music” or “you have the discriminating ear of a tonedeaf orangutan” or anything.
I only made comments about Kate Bush’s music.
Also, by your logic, Jandek is one of the biggest musical influences of the last 30 years. Kurt Cobain listened to him, liked him, and millions of people like Nirvana and countless bands emulate them, so they are indirectly emulating Jandek, right? Errrr, no. Not really.
You like Kate Bush; great for you. But the OP said
When matters of opinion are involved, there will be different answers. Some of you came in with words of praise; I came in with words of scorn. There’s nothing worse than being told repeatedly that something is an incredible work of art, and being made to feel deficient for not seeing it. I was merely doing my part to let ddgryphon know that he isn’t off base at all because he doesn’t hear genius in Kate Bush’s work.
Now lay off any assumptions about how much of her work I’ve heard (everything she did before 1996, btw), my listening habits, etc. Keep the personal comments out of the discussion, eh.
This is funny. I can’t seem to escape the garbage created by people like Britney Spears or the Blackeyed Peas, but it hardly makes them good, memorable, deep, inspiring, particularly creative or innovative, or influential.
For one of my examples, I had never even heard nor heard of the Carter Family until I was in my mid-twenties, and they’re undisputedly one of the most important and influential groups in the history of recorded country music ever.
Also, there are hundreds of influential and beloved musicians in the UK (and other countries obviously) that hardly ever get play in America, because that’s the way radio and the music industry work. Boring and middle-of-the-road get more attention, now more than ever with corporate radio and label consolidation. Kate was never an MTV darling, never marketable like, oh, Tiffany or Debbie Gibson, and a bit too deep for the lowest common denominator types.
If you haven’t been exposed to her, those are your circumstances, I get how that works. But you can’t write her off just because she wasn’t an arena rock band like Zeppelin, who were doing the right “sound” at the right time under the right circumstances in what at the time was still a heavily male-dominated industry.
Yes. But your claim wasn’t that Kate Bush was influential, it was that she ranks in the top 25 or so. And that’s a much grander claim than simply “influenced”. Because when you’re in the top 25, it’s not “little nuggets” of influence that you look for – it’s respected artists saying things like "When I was growing up, I wanted to be like [Aretha Franklin/Billie Halliday/Janis Joplin/Joni Mitchell/Joan Baez/Sandy Denny/Judy Collins/Carole King].
As near as I can tell, KB’s contributions to music are her frequent borrowings from popular and literary culture, her vocals and her arrangements. While there was a double handful of “confessional” style female vocalists in the 80/90’s (Tanita Tikaram,Tori Amos, Heather Nova, Liz Phair) – I think you’d be hard-pressed to say that there’s a “school” of Kate Bush-like singers out there.
While you can feel free to blame Kate’s record company for her lack of success in the US, it’s also possible that it’s just that her music is not very accessible. I had no trouble finding a copy of Never For Ever back in 1980 something when a friend suggested I might like it. But I listened to it a couple of times and I didn’t care for it that much. (Myself, I always though Babuska was a dumb song, bordering on embarrassing. * Chacun a son gout *) For me, Kate Bush was always in the category of singers I felt as though I should like, but just couldn’t warm up to. Sort of like June Tabor.
Dude, you need to reread.
My entire point was that there’s no way to “argue” from the “position” you’ve taken in a matter of subjective opinion. THere’s no way to “debate” that an artist that you don’t personally like is objectively “not likeable,” or whatever.
I made zero assumptions about your musical background, except to assume that if you think Kate’s vocals are screechy, that very fact has probably prevented you from exploring her music exhaustively. NOt much of a stretch there.
And I’m not directly familiar with Jandek, but if he had a huge influence on Kurt Cobain, then it’s a simple fact that he was indirectly influential on all the artists who claim Cobain as an influence.* My unfamiliarity of him doesn’t give me the “right” to come in here and claim the objective position that Jandek was NOT influential, as you seem to think you can claim about KB.
You need to remember that whether KB–or anyone else for that matter–was actually influential on other artists, does NOT depend on whether I, lissener, can “convince” you, Snoboarder, that she was. Any discussion you and I can have is gonna be relevant ONLY to your and my personal and limited understanding of our own musical experience, and absolutely zero beyond that. I believe she was influential; I understand that people will disagree. You don’t think she was influential, and you state so unequivocally as objective fact. Try a little humility.
I will never understand people who believe their experience of a particular artist or artform is the universal standard. Personally, when someone waxes enthusiastic about an artist I’m unfamiliar with, or that big a fan of, I’m more intrigued than dismissive. My assumption is always that there’s obviously something about that artist that I haven’t found a way to appreciate yet. None of us can ever know just exactly how limited our own experience is; we can’t ever really know exactly what it is we don’t know. I often fail, but I try to keep that in mind when talking about an artist I don’t appreciate as much as someone else might. I at least try not to elevate my distaste or indifference to the level of fact, when it’s far more likely attributable to ignorance or difference of perspective.
(Kurt was a Kate fan too. 
)