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Kate Bush is BACK!! (1 Viewer)

Philip Hamm

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"King of the Mountain"....... All I think of is the Midnight Oil song of that title.

Nice video. Nice song. Love the guitar work.
 

DavidNighorn

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For you copy protection folks: I have found that holding the SHIFT key down for 90 seconds when the cd is inserted will defeat the 'Autorun' program. If the cp software doesn't load onto your computer, then you are in business.

I am so looking forward to this release!

David
 

Harrison Shinn

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Definately worth the 12 year wait! To put it simply, the album is a masterpiece. I've been a devoted Kate fan since the early days and she's only gotten better.

All we need now is a multi-channel version of A SKY OF HONEY...hell, why stop there? We need multi-channel versions of all of her albums!

Cheers!
Harry
 

Doug Otte

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SACDs of her entire catalogue! Mch would be nice, but I'd even settle for 2ch SACDs if they're done right.

I guess I'd better send an e-mail to Deep Discount CD. They haven't shipped my Aerial yet.

Doug
 

Mikael Soderholm

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Mine came today (thank you CD-WOW) and it absolutely ROCKS! I have only listened to it once so far, but it is SO GOOD! Autumn doesn't feel as dark and rainy any more :)
 

andrew markworthy

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Sorry to disagree with those praising Aerial, but I think it sucks big time.

IMHO, there was always somewhere on a KB album where the lyrics would be toe-curlingly embarrassing or pretentious, but she has excelled herself with this one. Sorry, but I think the only rational reaction to someone repeating the line 'washing machine' [on Mrs Bartolozzi for those interested] like a holy mantra is to crack up laughing and then skip to the next track. If only that were an isolated case, but throughout we have similar examples, which I leave you to find out for yourselves.

However, on KB's early albums, even when the lyrics were awful, there would always be a glorious melody to redeem things. Here, we get what I personally call new age mumbling. It seems to affect a lot of musicians when they run out of tunes. Slap down an rhythm track (preferrably containing esoteric instruments) and then sing a dirge-like 'song' with scant regard for making the metre of the words fit the rhythm of the music. The acid test is if you can imagine interchanging lyrics with backing tracks with no discernible change in quality and IMHO this album succeeds with flying colours.

Personal reaction only, and if others like it, then great. However, for the undecided I think this is definitely a case of try before you buy. I think it's fair to say that the single King of the Mountain is the most tuneful piece on the album, if that's any help.
 
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I'm fan since I was 15 and heard Cloudbusting on the radio. Since then I collected all her albums. I like her more complex work on The Dreaming (still her best album), Hounds of Love (specially The Ninth Wave side). Rediscovered The Sensual World a couple of years ago. I like Kick inside but I prefer the albums she also produced, she has an amazing way to put feeling into the music.

All I can say that with Aerial is that she's doing on that album what she does best. Only she sounds now more mature, it's not the Kate Bush from The Dreaming with voodoo and nightmarish visions, it's now more about her little kid, the normal day to day work, people she lost and everyday life. About making simple things in life a piece of art.

still difficult to place it near the other Kate Bush albums, and I think that's a good sign.
 

Vickie_M

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No, it's not fair to say. If there's such a thing as a "worst" track, King of the Mountain is it. But, it's still a very very good song. It's just that I like all the other songs on Aerial more than KOTM. There are many more catchy and "tuneful" songs on the album besides that one.

I hate building the album up via a negative post, but Andrew is definitely not the one to judge this album. He's already dismissed her best album (The Dreaming) partially in the basis of one of the people Kate hired to work on the album, so I wouldn't trust his opinion on anything regarding Kate Bush. I'd get second and third and fourth opinions.

A good place for interviews and reviews is Gaffaweb's Reaching Out section. My husband has been adding in the most recent reviews and interviews. Most of the reviews are positively glowing, on both sides of the pond.
 

Harrison Shinn

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Thank you Vickie!

The new album is absolutely brill! The only problem with it is that I already know it backwards and forwards and it's only been a couple of weeks! I just hope she releases heaps and heaps of b-sides and gets to work poste haste on a visual representation of A SKY OF HONEY!

I remember your name from the early days of the KB push here in the states. Didn't you contribute to BREAKTHROUGH or am I mistaken?

My favourite songs? A CORAL ROOM and NOCTURN.

Cheers!
Harry
 

andrew markworthy

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Vickie, my criticism wasn't directed at individuals. If you'd read my post with a quarter of the care you say I should invest in KB's music, you'd have seen that I was expressing a personal opinion from which others may differ. This is supposed to be a discussion forum, not a place where a little coterie of fans can post troll-like personal insults to anyone with another opinion.
 

Vickie_M

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:eek: Yes, that's us (Chris and I are still together). You have an amazing memory. Your name is familiar but I'm not remembering details. Give me some time. Did we correspond? (oh my, do we owe you tapes?). Were you at the Winnipeg convention?

Do you know about this place?

Kate Bush News & Information/Homeground forum
 

andrew markworthy

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What I wrote *was* considered and informed. And a valid opinion of this album is that it's pretentious, lacking a decent tune and self-indulgent. You have a different view - fine. Just don't resort to the name-calling. That is something that should have been left behind in the schoolyard.
 

Bob Turnbull

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And then you end up using ad hominem attacks which completely dilute the worth of any debate.

It's also a sure fire way to get a thread locked on HTF.


edited to remove a 2nd quote and related comments - as per Andrew's post below


In the interest of keeping the thread open so that both pro and con reviews can be posted (my disc should be waiting at home for me as we speak), could both of you cool it for a bit?

Just asking...
 

andrew markworthy

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Bob - removed the bit that you objected to (which was a bit mean spirited I agree) - perhaps edit your post so the comment disappears?
 

Vickie_M

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I'm not understanding what was "ad hominem" about what I said. If someone gives an opinion on something based on a wildly innaccurate interpretation, it's impolite to sneer a bit? As if you wouldn't sneer at someone who said that Citizen Kane was silly because it's all about a sled?

I do apologise though. I'm still in the first flush of discovering the many joys of this wonderful album. It's so packed with fantastic songs and amazing little touches (musically, lyrically, vocally) that I take insignificant remarks way too seriously. I'll try to stop doing that.
 

TheLongshot

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Jason


Except that he said that he skipped to the next track, not listened to one song and judged the whole album on that song. He only makes specific comments about that song, but it is what he feels about the album in general.

Basically, it is like watching Moulin Rouge, skipping the Can Can, and still watching the rest of the movie and still not liking it, but only commenting in detail about the Can Can.

Jason
 

Bob Turnbull

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I didn't mean to say you had. Just that insults lead to further ad hominem attacks. Re-reading my statement now, I see can see that I wasn't overly clear as I meant if one uses personal insults then the debate becomes pointless.

Anyway, that's all behind us now...:)

I gave the discs my first spin today, but admit to not being totally focused on them (listened while driving and at work). I'm not head over heels for it, but I'm certainly coming back for further listens. "King Of The Mountain" is easily (IMO) the most accessible track and is the standout for me so far. Both "Pi" and the fifth or sixth track also managed to lodge into my brain, so that's good. The solo piano songs didn't fare as well, but I'm definitely one who focuses on rhythm and grooves in music. Ballads or simple melodic songs take longer to work their way through to me. We'll see if these manage.

Though I love a good turn of phrase, I'm not one to get hung up on lyrics either way. I briefly scanned the booklet and thought the lyrics for "Bertie" were quite charming and sweet while I thought it was kinda cool that she was using the numbers of Pi in the lyrics for, well, "Pi". The former works well in the song, the latter not as well (though I like the hook "he love, he love...").

Disc 2 ("Sky Of Honey") sounded great though. "Sunset", "Nocturn" and "Aerial" have me looking forward to my next spin.
 

Vickie_M

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Right again, but there's a history behind it I must tell. It doesn't excuse my reactions, but it might explain it a bit. I have to go back in time, and explain some things to the Americans...

When Kate had her first smash hit single in late 1978 in England, "Wuthering Heights," it came out when punk and progressive rock were just about the only things out there musically. That's a broad brush and people could get rightly nitpicky about that, but the point is that WH was different from most anything else being played or talked about. It was weird, with Kate's impossibly high, unearthly voice singing about ghosts and Heathcliff. I wasn't there (I didn't discover Kate until 3 years later, in another country an ocean away) but that's what I get from all the reviews/interviews/articles/personal accounts I've read. It caught EVERYBODY'S attention, for good and bad.

To some, Kate was a heady breath of fresh air because there wasn't anything else around like it. To others she was a massive stink because there wasn't anything else around like it. To some she was a unique slice of heaven and to others she was fingernails on blackboard. She sold a lot of records and got very famous very quickly (in England). She also got scorned and laughed at and parodied a lot, not just because of the music and the ghosty videos, but also because in interviews Kate came off as a bit of a flake. She wasn't. She's very intelligent and, if she feels comfortable, is very articulate, but she didn't feel very comfortable with all the promotion she had to do. It also didn't help that she was incredibly beautiful and the record company talked her into doing several *dead sexy* photo shoots before she told them to fuck off and refused to do any more.

To some she was a fascinating potential genius-in-waiting, to others a weirdo airhead who showed her nipples (showing through thin shirts) on the sides of busses.

A lot of reviews and articles by the British music press came with titles like "Wow wow wow wow, Amazing amazing amazing amazing" and "Kate Grates." Kate became big sport among the too-cool-for-school "reviewers/writers." She was an easy target.

So, Kate became hugely popular and well-known (of course, I'm talking everywhere in the world except America). An example, though I can't find the cite for it, is that Kate was the most photographed woman in the world until Diana came along. But, at the same time, she was being parodied and scorned by many in the music press. Ok.

Fast-forward 3 albums, each progressivly getting more interesting and unusual as she took greater and greater control, several hit songs, and roughly 5 years. It seemed the more serious she tried to get the more scorn she had heaped upon her by the music press (though, interestingly, not among musicians. People as diverse as Peter Gabriel, Siouxsie Sioux and the members of Sex Pistols loved her)

Kate releases The Dreaming in 1982, widely considered now her masterwork (if not that one, then the next, Hounds of Love). It was decidedly odd, weird, unusal, bizzare, very very unconventioal and higly non-commercial. Only her fans and the American alternative media critics embraced the album. It got scathing reviews in England and the singles sank without even leaving a ripple.

It is a hard album. It requires several listenings to even start to get a handle on it. It's my favorite album by anybody, but I can understand others not wanting to dig that deep. Reviewers rarely have the time, let alone the inclination, to dig deep. The writers who wanted to be supportive just gave up in confusion at what she was up to. The writers who had hated her before had a field day.

One thing I kept noticing when reading reviews and articles slamming The Dreaming, was that some reviewers couldn't figure out what to write about concerning the music, because it wasn't music to them, it was just noise. So instead, they'd latch on to certain things to make fun of. I started noticing a pattern that confused me (well, other than the fact that they couldn't see that TD was the greatest freaking album ever made).

On the title song "The Dreaming," which was set in outback Australia and was about the Aborigines and their treatment in Australia, she needed two things to help set the atmosphere soundscape of the song, a digeridu and animal noises. To play the digeridu Kate hired Rolf Harris, and to supply the animal noises, she hired someone named Percy Edwards.

The Dreaming was the first new album released when I became a fan (I'd become a fan about a year before it was released) and when I looked at the liner notes I recognized the name Rolf Harris from a song called "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport." I didn't recognize Percy Edwards.

When sneering references to Rolf and Percy started appearing, I was perplexed. I figured out the Rolf thing when I found out he hosted some sort of children's show. Ok, I figured, it would be as if, example out of my ass here, Bob Keeshan played amazing saxophone and someone prevously known as being a flake hired him to play an unconventional and uncommercial album. Critics would be sneering that the artist was getting Captain Kangaroo to be on their album. Ok, that doesn't really work but it's the closest I can come. Rolf was considered a kids/novelty guy and that's what people focused on, rather than the fact that he plays a mean digeridu, not an easy instrument to master, since you have to breathe in through your nose while at the same time exhaling through your mouth into a several foot-long hunk of wood hollowed out by termites.

To this day I don't know who Percy Edwards is that he was the object of such scorn, but he got a lot of it and Kate got a lot of it for having him play on the album. To me, a clueless American who just knows the music, thinks the animal noises in "The Dreaming" are perfectly placed and well-done, I don't really care what kind of past Percy Edwards has. It certainly doesn't affect my love of the album.

I just got to a point, a couple of decades ago, to dismiss immediately anyone who brought up Rolf Harris and/or Percy Edwards when putting down the album The Dreaming. Been there, done that, made no sense to me then and makes no sense to me now. After awhile it got really irritating. What happened to actually listening to the music and basing a review on that, instead of insignificant details that seemed to be an in-joke among many different reviewers?

Well, the years went by and I forgot about the Dreaming/Harris/Edwards dig days.

Then...

Early in this thread andrew puts down The Dreaming with, guess what? A slam at Percy Edwards! Finally, I had come "face to face" with one of these people I'd read so much of. I asked him (twice!) to explain why he would even bring up Percy Edwards and he ignored me. I assumed that he assumed that oh everyone knows why, so why even bother to explain?

So that's where my pent up scorn of andrew came from. He doesn't like The Dreaming? Fine. Too bad, but fine.

BUT WHO IS PERCY EDWARDS AND WHY IS HE AN OBJECT OF SCORN AND WHY IS KATE AN OBJECT OF SCORN FOR HIRING HIM TO DO PERFECTLY ACCEPTABLE ANIMAL NOISES ON AN ALBUM TRACK THAT REQUIRED ANIMAL NOISES?? (Not yelling at anyone in particular, just illustrating my frustration with andrew's bringing Edwards up in the first place then not explaining himself when asked to do so.)

Yes, I tried to dismiss andrews comments, but when he dismisses an entire album based at least in part on some guy who Kate hired, then dismissed Mrs. B based on a faulty interpretation, I sort of snapped. I don't think I snapped too terribly insanely, but I should not have been snarky. I should have just explained what I thought the song was about and left it at that. I've done that elsewhere. The reason I didn't do it here is that bit of history. It's really all Percy Edwards fault. Bastard. :D Who is that guy, anyway?? Won't someone please tell me??

Anyway, I've sort of stuck my foot in it here, and I apologise. Aerial is a beatiful, breathtaking album. It certainly doesn't deserve to be in the middle of a flame war because I couldn't control myself.

Sigh.
 

Harrison Shinn

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I used to write to Dale Somerville from time to time (when he was still into Kate) and even corresponded to his ex-wife Robyn for a while, but after I moved to Hawaii I lost everyone's address. I even wrote to Tom Dunning for awhile too! I can't remember if we corresponded but I do remember your name quite well since it was usually all over the place (and I mean that in the nicest possible way) when it came to Kate.

You don't owe me any tapes (why what do you have that I don't? :D ) and I wasn't able to make it to the Winnipeg convention. I did manage to sticker San Diego (where I grew up) into a Kate-Stupor regarding the BUSH-CON and I still have a couple posters and bumperstickers somewhere amongst my Kate memorobilia. Among my most prized KB stuff are the Japanese 2 CD promo, the US CLOUDBUSTING Promo CD single, my Japanese LDs of THE SINGLE FILE, LIVE AT HAMMERSMITH ODEON and a letter that Kate herself wrote to me back in 1987 (around the time of THE WHOLE STORY).

I've been into Kate since I first heard her sing at the Tokyo Song Festival! (I used to live in Japan also!)

Anyway...

Cheers!
Harry
 

Mikael Soderholm

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Well, what can I say, I'm glad I've been busy listening to Aerial instead of, well, fighting on an Internet forum ;).
I think this is one of the albums of the year, and also one of Kate's best, but I fully understand and respect those who don't like her or this album. There are even people who don't like Bowie
htf_images_smilies_smiley_jawdrop.gif
, guess it takes all kinds...
It makes me feel really good listening to it, and to me it grows with every listen, and that is all that counts.
 

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