I bought some Kate Bush records today. I don't quite know what to make of it: she's clearly bonkers but in a very individual and interesting way. The music certainly isn't the kind of thing I usually go for, though there are shades of 70s Joni Mitchell in there. The lyrics are interesting - very upfront about sex and relationships, especially considering she was a teenager at the time of the first album.
I've heard 'Wuthering Heights' around for years, but I always thought Bush was just another manufactured pop star until friends with serious musical credentials started going on about her. I'm already quite impressed. It may be that she's the Marmite of music: you've got to be ready for quite a high, histrionic voice and sharp changes of direction - which I am, though much of the production is distinctly of its time, and I'm no fan of the saxophone. For sheer range of styles, theatricality and confidence in her own eccentric genius, she certainly looks down on the self-consciously 'kooky' pretenders from a very great height.
I'm still not convinced by 'Wuthering Heights'. The video is just plain terrible, and the music and lyrics do shriek bad-adaptation-of-great-literature for the Musical Stage, though I have to admit that the novel is equally over-the-top, so perhaps it does work. Her miming skills leave something to be desired however.
Some of this one has been sampled recently. Can't remember by whom. Did you see that? WHOM!!! Use it or lose it!
Anyway, she's better than either George. Or the band Bush.
7 comments:
So many comments came into my head reading this, so I'll leave them all:
1. Lady Gaga _wishes_ she was as mad as Kate Bush, but in fact she (LG) just comes across as trying too hard and a little pathetic.
2. Con and one of his crazy mates built a cloudbuster in our back garden. It's now hidden in the back of the shed, but I still live in terror that the six 2m high copper pipes are going to act as a lightning conductor and burn the whole place down.
3. My new favourite joke goes like this:
A: Knock knock
B: Who's there?
A: To
B: To who?
A: Don't you mean 'to whom'?
Wokka wokka
obviously by "so many", I meant 3
Which records did you buy? The Kick Inside is superb, as is The Hounds of Love.
(And lady Gaga's Bad Romance is genius by the way. There. I said it.)
Those two plus 'Never for Ever'.
Just a heads up. You will probably hate The Red Shoes.
Thanks. Does it refer to the Powell and Pressburger film - which I love?
I think so. Prince got his grubby paws on the master tapes and did bad things with them (and not the bad things that you might imagine Prince doing to things which ironically would have been a good thing)
Anyway, just don't say you weren't warned.
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