Kate Bush is BACK!! (1 Viewer)

[Vickie_M]

I searched for a thread and didn't find it. I know there are fans here.

Kate's first album in nearly 12 years, Aerial, will be released on November 7 in the UK and November 8 in the US (I assume the rest of the world gets it on the 7th).

The first single, "King of the Mountain," will be played tomorrow morning on BBC 2's Ken Bruce show at (fingers crossed that this information is correct) just after 10:00am London time. That's 4:00am here in Chicago. The Ken Bruce show runs from 9:30-10:30 so we'll listen to the whole thing just to make sure (yes, we plan on getting up for it, why do you ask??).

Here's the live online link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/index.shtml?refresh

Goddess knows how many people around the world who'll be trying to listen at the same time. There's a "Listen Again" option to hear it later in the day. I don't know how long the Listen Again links stay active.

It's late so I don't know if this will help anybody, but you can go here and see the time the show starts in London, then input where you are via a drop-down menu and it'll tell what time it will be where you are.

http://www.worldtimeserver.com/time_...d=21&h=9&mn=30


The cover of the single is unveiled now. Go to:

http://www.katebushnews.com/katenews.htm and scroll down a bit. It's an adorable kid-type drawing. Completely unexpected!


Oh yeah, http://www.katebush.com has got a teaser page up now. It's a useless Flash site for those without Flash, but for those with Flash, the little kid twirls around if you cursor over it.

Whew!

I heart Kate!

 

[Will_B]

Her videos were of that magic age when the UK pop artists were as much art and film students as musicians. Some neat videos from Ms Bush. And featuring people who were or went on to be famous actors, like Keifer Sutherland's father and Hugh Laurie. Maybe Kate's new album will spark someone at EMI to release these fantastic videos officially.

I hope her new album measures up to her early work, but how could it? There was nowhere for her to go but down.

 

[Vickie_M]

The new song is about Citizen Kane! I don't have lyrics yet but it's definitely about CK.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Vickie, thanks for this news. I'm glad that Ms Bush is back in business, but before we get too excited, let's remember that her last two albums were generally considered to be lemons. I hope (oh boy, do I hope) that this will be a return to form like Hounds of Love was after the last critical slump, but forgive me if I'm cynical.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Not by me. Red Shoes and Sensual World are brilliant. I'm looking forward to this one, too.

 

[TheLongshot]

"Sensual World" was considered a lemon? Not as far as I can tell. I know there are those who didn't like "The Red Shoes", but "Sensual World" is pretty good.

Wow, it's been 15 years since the last album? I didn't realise it was that long...

Edit: whoops, sorry, 10 years...

Jason

 

[Vickie_M]

The official lyrics have been sent to the fanzine Homeground, and the song is not about Charles Foster, it's about Elvis!

As with all of Kate's best songs, it's going to take several listens to get to know. I love it now, but it will grow with each listen.



That's it for me too, especially The Sensual World. I don't know who considered them lemons, but they're wrong. Hey, there are people who hate The Dreaming, and that's the Best Album Ever Recorded!! (IMHO, of course).

They're only "lemons" in comparison to The Dreaming and Hounds of Love.

 

[andrew markworthy]

Unless I have got a defective memory, it got panned by the critics and didn't sell all that well, at least in KB's home country.

Horses for courses - if you like the last 2 albums, then great. It'd be a boring world if we all had the same tastes.

Just before I get flamed as a KB-hater (I'm not, just selective in my love for her), here's a story reported about her in the music press a few years ago.

Her record company were constantly pestering her to do a new album, and eventually she phoned them up and said 'come round to see what I've cooked up for you' (or some such phrase). A record company representative dashed round to her home to be greeted by KB offering him a plate of freshly-baked mince pies.

 

[Bob Turnbull]

C'mon Vickie! You can't just leave us hanging with that kind of generalized review! What's it like? Comparable to any of her previous work? Totally different path? Any guest rappers? What??!!



I confess to having a crush on Kate Bush since seeing her video for "The Man With The Child In His Eyes" (from her first album). It was essentially just her in a body suit against a white background. Sigh...One of my favourite videos ever...

I was already a fan of her music though - like many people, getting introduced via "Wuthering Heights". Of the early albums, I think my favourites are that first one as well as Never For Ever. Hounds Of Love deserves all its accolades and I'm quite partial to most of The Sensual World. The only one that never grew on me was The Red Shoes. I should return to it at some point though as I can't remember much of it.

As far as I know, her only DVD release has been The Line The Cross & The Curve which I've never seen (any comments anyone?). Would love it if they released the old video Live At The Hammersmith Odeon on disc.

 

[Jason Hughes]

What would be a good CD to get started on with her? I am not very familiar with her (outside of Don't Give Up w/Peter Gabriel). Just wondering...

 

[Philip Hamm]

The Whole Story.

 

[Vickie_M]

That couldn't be true because she hasn't had that kind of relationship with her record company, EMI, for several albums. Right from the start she got an amazingly good contract because her family were determined that she wouldn't get ripped off by them. She's always owned her own masters, for instance.

Since, I think, Hounds of Love, she pays for making the record, then leases it to the record company for distribution. The Sensual World and The Red Shoes were in no way contractual obligation albums. Whatever's there is 100% Kate-approved. I think they're deeper than most people credit them to be, but as with most Kate, they need to be delved into. One of her great song lyrics is "You never understood me, you never really tried" and that's just as true for her early work as for her middle work as for her later work and will probably be true for her new work too. I don't mean to say that people should like everything (The Red Shoes is probably my least favorite album, even though I love it too) but there's a world in there and lots of things going on musically and lyrically that most people never realize.


Jason, I agree with Philip, start with The Whole Story, which is a compilation, sort of a "Greatest Hits." It's a nice overview, but very superficial. There's much much more where that came from, not least of all the original version of "Wuthering Heights." The version on The Whole Story is a remake of sorts, done several years and with a VERY VERY different voice. I don't really like the "New vocal" version much, but that's mainly because I love the original so dearly.


I do dearly love all the other songs on that compilation. There's a story behind every song. Kate rarely sings about herself. One of the things I love about her is her storytelling. "Cloudbusting" for example, is inspired by a book called "Book of Dreams" by Wilhelm Reich's son Peter. Reich was, well, that's vast. Look him up. He was a unique character. One of the things he tried to do was build a rain machine and Peter as a boy used to help his father try and get it to work. The song is from the point of view of Peter as a boy. In the video, Kate played the boy (short hair and all!) and Donald Sutherland played Wilhelm Reich.

"Breathing" is from the point of view of an unborn baby during a nuclear war! "Experiment IV" is about the military building a machine that can kill by sound. "The Dreaming," an incredibly bizarre song to release as a single, and one that should be listened to at least 5-6 times before you pass judgement on it, is about Australian aborigines. "Babooshka" is a folk tale about a woman who dresses up as another woman to try and trick her husband, to see if he's faithful. "Hounds of Love" is based on a movie (I forget which). "Wow" is about an old stage queen who's been dropped from the theater world, the only world they know (she has lots of songs from a male point of view). "Sat In Your Lap" is about the search for knowledge and how hard that is when you're lazy and depressed {"I want to be a scholar, but I really can't be bothered"), and how the more you learn about a subject you're interested in, the more you find out there's more to know. And so on. Everything is about something interesting if you dig. (Lyrics can be found here if there are no lyrics in the CD)

Oh gosh, my Kate fandom has been dormant. It's starting to wake up. Yikes!

 

[Vickie_M]

I forgot about this:



The Dreaming album was her worst selling album. The music press in England were horrified by it and crucified it. That of course meant that it was by far her best album to date (still is, for me). It wasn't what they expected from sweet little Kate. That album has a lot of aggression and anger on it. It's just downright alien, so to pop writers who only cared about pop things, it was from another planet. Strangely, even though it wasn't even released in America, the American music press loved it. It got fantastic reviews by people who really knew music and didn't have that preconception of who Kate was supposed to be. They saw it as a brave and original album, rightly so.

Hounds of Love which came next, was a huge smash in England. Well, a couple of songs were anyway. The album got great reviews and sold very well.

The Sensual World and The Red Shoes were, while not great hits, much more successful than The Dreaming, but not as successful as HoL, which, in some people's eyes, made them flops. As movie lovers, we know that box office failure doesn't always equate into a bad movie. Same with music.

Liking or not liking the music is one thing, I understand about that, but using sales figures won't work with Kate when talking about the failure of her albums as musical pieces. And the English critics, well, they've never been exactly kind to Kate. She's just too different. There were some great reviews though. The panners weren't anyone who mattered. I could find cites for all this for real examples if you'd like. It's too late right now.

 

[FeisalK]

I {heart} Kate

 

[andrew markworthy]

For some folks, maybe. Please accept that for others it was toe-curlingly embarrassing. Percy Edwards doing animal impressions was the final straw for some of us.

 

[Philip Hamm]

Nice read Vickie. I've never been a really devoted fan, I loved "The Whole Story" and got "Houds of Love" and both of the follow ups and love them dearly. I have a couple older albums that I bought on used vinyl when I lived near a record store in the mid-90s (I think "Lionheart" and "The Dreaming" but not sure). I'm going to have to transfer those to CD sometime soon. I do have some curiosities though.... I have the "Aspects of the Sensual World" EP which contains the extremely enjoyable "Ted", and her Elton John tribute cover, among other curiosities. I also have a couple of the CD singles from "Red Shoes" which also have great B-Sides/extended versions.

I could have sworn that I've seen "The Line, The Cross, and The Curve" on DVD. I have that on LaserDisc, as well as "The Whole Story" (Which I used to make my audio CD - I wonder which version of "Wuthering Heights" I have). The really interesting LaserDisc I have is the 8" "Sensual World" singles one. The single for "This Woman's Work" is extremely powerful. One of the many OOP reasons I love my LD players.

 

[Doug Otte]

Agreed, Vickie. The Dreaming is just so stuffed full of creativity, it's amazing. I can see how others don't like it, though. It is a very strange recording. Sometimes I can't even listen to it, but it's still one of my all-time favorite albums.

Doug

 

[TheLongshot]

Never really got into Kate back in the day. All I have now is "The Sensual World", which I picked up used, mainly for "This Woman's Work", which is a highlight for me from "She's Having A Baby". I happen to like the album.

My wife can't stand her. Mainly, she can't stand women who "try to sound like little girls". Tori Amos annoys her the same way. It is too bad, since both artists definitly have something to say, and I think she'd like the lyrics, but she can't get past the vocals.

Slightly off topic, but I never thought I'd see a guy doing a Kate Bush cover that sounded remotely like the original. But, that's what the band Angra did with "Wuthering Heights". Andre Matos is probably one of the few men who could probably pull it off, and he does a pretty good job with it. It is on the album "Angel's Cry" if you want to check it out.

Jason

 

[Doug Otte]

That's kind of a strange observation. If you listen to Kate for more than a minute or two, you'll likely hear her voice sounding like a little girl, an old woman, a man, etc. etc. To me, one of her strong points is the flexibility of her voice and the way she uses it to express many different characters, textures, and emotions.

Peter Gabriel used to do the same thing, but I think his voice is shot now, or maybe he just doesn't try anymore.

Doug

 

[Bob Turnbull]

Yeah probably. And if it did, I bet the song would start with some pretty neat tuned percussion and then kick in with drums to give it a rockier feel just at the point where you think it might not be going anywhere. And I bet Kate's voice would still have a great deal of variation to it that would put a smile on my face.

Of course, I'm just guessing...

Thanks for the lengthy post Vickie. I have nothing against The Dreaming and count both the title track and "Sat In Your Lap" amongst my fave Kate tunes. It just didn't quite receive as many spins as her other albums did at the time.

I too had thought The Line, The Cross and The Curve had been released to DVD (Allmusic even says it was), but it appears that it may be out of print. Here's an amazon.ca link to the out of print notification.

I'd love it if she could tour with this new album, but I believe she still has a fear of flying and wouldn't embark on a large scale tour. Aside from the UK, has she ever really toured?