Parodies of Madonna and Kate Bush

[David]

One of the gals from KATH & KIM did this video parody of Madonna's FROZEN. It's kind of funny. The original FROZEN video was influenced by Gautier & Aubrey Beardsley, & that nouveau thing is what's parodied here.



I was looking around on YouTube for other musical parodies, & I found this great one of Kate Bush. You can identify four or six Kate Bush tunes in this mockery-snockery, including THEM HEAVY PEOPLE, VIOLIN, & of course OH ENGLAND MY LIONHEART.



Kate Bush is an excellent source of parody. What do I like about Kate Bush?

1. She's an idiosyncratic singer.
   
2. She's a very weird songwriter with the stamp of personal vision & style.
   
3. She's very gifted as a track arranger & orchestrator, & her scale stretches from miniature (e.g., SUSPENDED IN GAFFA) to epic (e.g., THE NINTH WAVE).
   
4. Her albums have emotional power, lyricism, wit, & complexity (relative to the rest of pop music).

If you have THE SENSUAL WORLD, listen to the intricate track she creates for the title song. I've provided the skeletal framework in staff notation here.




Listen for the oddball use of instruments (fiddle, bouzouki, uillean pipes, drums & bass but no lead guitar), & how understandingly she paints a sonic homage to Molly's interior monologue that closes ULYSSES.

My big problem with her: There's an extreme of high-toned literary reference in a lot of her lyrics. Her humor usually lightens or enlivens her silly wintry romanticism (e.g., LEAVE IT OPEN or BABOOSHKA), but sometimes she strikes one as fey & precious. I don't think she's one of the great pop lyricists, but she's usually able to fuse her words with a transformative soundscape so that this or that banality doesn't stick out or ruin things. She's a great pop alchemist: her whole is greater than the sum of her parts. Another problem I have with her: She's hooked on the mime & dance of Lindsay Kemp, & that crap has infected her video work.

[BombaySapphire3]

save for the video for "King of The Mountain" from 2005's Aeriel in which she was mostly stationary she hasn't done much video work in recent years and one thing that can be said for Kate is that she began doing conceptual videos long before MTV existed..she had that in common with that other Kemp devotee David Bowie..too bad that you mentioned her and Madonna in the same thread title since Kate has real talent and Madonna's only talent seems to be a prodigiuos gift for manipulating the media and surrounding herself with the hip musical partners of the moment.

[GarboSpeaks!]

too bad that you mentioned her and Madonna in the same thread title since Kate has real talent and Madonna's only talent seems to be a prodigiuos gift for manipulating the media and surrounding herself with the hip musical partners of the moment.

Hounds Of Love could be a Desert Island Disc for me. I STILL have not heard Aerial, and am told that I suck.

Mentioning Madonna & Kate in the same sentence is alarming, but your ref to what Madge has to offer is something I have always shared a like opinion about. What I have come to discover is that I can appreciate a person that has vague musical talent, but can become a worlwide phenomena based soley on the traits mentioned above. I mean, really, that is something else. Who the hell else has done that and maintained?

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by GarboSpeaks!

Hounds Of Love could be a Desert Island Disc for me. I STILL have not heard Aerial, and am told that I suck.

Mentioning Madonna & Kate in the same sentence is alarming, but your ref to what Madge has to offer is something I have always shared a like opinion about. What I have come to discover is that I can appreciate a person that has vague musical talent, but can become a worlwide phenomena based soley on the traits mentioned above. I mean, really, that is something else. Who the hell else has done that and maintained?

Uh ..no one has gone so far on so little and for so long and I give her credit for that.. .in this arena she is one of a kind and her like I hope to never witness again.You're missing out on not hearing Aerial the second disc is a conceptual piece that one critic describes as what Pink Floyd would have sounded like in their prime if Kate had been their lead singer..it also kind of reminds me of Roxy Music's Avalon ..high praise indeed.

[petep9000]

Originally Posted by David

One of the gals from KATH & KIM did this video parody of Madonna's FROZEN. It's kind of funny. The original FROZEN video was influenced by Gautier & Aubrey Beardsley, & that nouveau thing is what's parodied here.

I was looking around on YouTube for other musical parodies, & I found this great one of Kate Bush. You can identify four or six Kate Bush tunes in this mockery-snockery, including THEM HEAVY PEOPLE, VIOLIN, & of course OH ENGLAND MY LIONHEART.

1. She's an idiosyncratic singer.
   
2. She's a very weird songwriter with the stamp of personal vision & style.
   
3. She's very gifted as a track arranger & orchestrator, & her scale stretches from miniature (e.g., SUSPENDED IN GAFFA) to epic (e.g., THE NINTH WAVE).
   
4. Her albums have emotional power, lyricism, wit, & complexity (relative to the rest of pop music).

If you have THE SENSUAL WORLD, listen to the intricate track she creates for the title song. I've provided the skeletal framework in staff notation here.




Listen for the oddball use of instruments (fiddle, bouzouki, uillean pipes, drums & bass but no lead guitar), & how understandingly she paints a sonic homage to Molly's interior monologue that closes ULYSSES.

My big problem with her: There's an extreme of high-toned literary reference in a lot of her lyrics. Her humor usually lightens or enlivens her silly wintry romanticism (e.g., LEAVE IT OPEN or BABOOSHKA), but sometimes she strikes one as fey & precious. I don't think she's one of the great pop lyricists, but she's usually able to fuse her words with a transformative soundscape so that this or that banality doesn't stick out or ruin things. She's a great pop alchemist: her whole is greater than the sum of her parts. Another problem I have with her: She's hooked on the mime & dance of Lindsay Kemp, & that crap has infected her video work.

I love K8. And I agree, she does pepper her songs heavily with that literary stuff, alot of which makes me run to Google to catch the reference. Once in a while, I would catch a few from my college recollections- but still a bit heavy for maybe the average listener living on a council flat somewhere in Manchester circa 1985 , no?
But 'The Sensual World' is one of my favorites, it's pretty erotic especially the "mmmmm yes!" parts, and how the song drifts in from a carillon. That evokes a chorus of London churches pealing their bells all at once for a special occasion like a royal wedding, very British...

Like Stevie's 'Bella Donna', I feel that the first album is the best. 'The Kick Inside' is kooky and moody, and maybe a bit precious (a song about incest probably should be less of a dew eyed love ballad and more of a tale of regret..) but I like it. Especially 'Moving' and 'Oh to be in Love'.

[petep9000]

She eff's up at the end, but it's a hell of a lot better than I could do. And don't her laquered nails look pretty though? I love this song...
David what do you think?

[LiamMcConville]

I have recently got into Kate Bush, and Hounds of Love is already one of my favorite albums. Sensual World is also up there on the list, my favorite tracks, in no order:

1. Hello Earth
2. This Womans Work
3. Cloudbusting
4. Running Up That Hill
5. Dream of Sheep
6. Hounds of Love

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by David

Listen for the oddball use of instruments (fiddle, bouzouki, uillean pipes, drums & bass but no lead guitar), & how understandingly she paints a sonic homage to Molly's interior monologue that closes ULYSSES.

My big problem with her: There's an extreme of high-toned literary reference in a lot of her lyrics. Her humor usually lightens or enlivens her silly wintry romanticism (e.g., LEAVE IT OPEN or BABOOSHKA), but sometimes she strikes one as fey & precious. I don't think she's one of the great pop lyricists, but she's usually able to fuse her words with a transformative soundscape so that this or that banality doesn't stick out or ruin things. She's a great pop alchemist: her whole is greater than the sum of her parts. Another problem I have with her: She's hooked on the mime & dance of Lindsay Kemp, & that crap has infected her video work.

One consistent theme throughout Kate's work has been her feeling of intellectual inadequacy, e.g., "Sat in Your Lap," due to her never having attended college. Accordingly, I think she tends to overcompensate with her references to literature and classical music. But despite all of her naive aspirations, I think she had an incredibly accomplished string of albums between 1978 - 1985. I mean, "wow."

Regarding her early videos, I think she is a bit of a frustrated ballerina like Stevie- she just doesn't quite have the physical bearings to pull it off well, hence the "interpretive" modern mime-dancing. Yes, they were corny and precious, but then again, I'm sure you would cringe at the things you did in your late teens and early twenties that passed as "cool" at the time.

With regard to the Madge vs. Kate issue, I think Kate really was a groundbreaker of sorts with her very theatrical concerts with all of the dancers, costumes, choreography and props. Yes, Madonna later went on to do it umpteen times larger, but Kate was the first female popster to do it, and she even used those wireless headsets. But then again... maybe she was just copying Peter Gabriel??

I have always considered seeing Kate Bush in concert to be one of those "now I can die" events. I'm not counting her out just yet... but it does seem that with every passing year it's less and less likely to happen. Oh well, at least we can look forward to her next album in 2020 .

BTW, Aerial was a masterpiece. Well, Disc 2 was, anyway. I'm still not quite on board with "Bertie" and "Joani."

[David]

Do you folks remember reading "The Lark Ascending" by Meredith? The penultimate line & the title are key, as is this poem's use by Vaughan Williams.

[Stew_Matthews]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

..too bad that you mentioned her and Madonna in the same thread title since Kate has real talent and Madonna's only talent seems to be a prodigiuos gift for manipulating the media and surrounding herself with the hip musical partners of the moment.

I couldn't agree more. I think Kate's track 'Moments of Pleasure' from The Red Shoes is one of the best songs I have heard. The lyrics and melody are just wonderful.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by BombaySapphire3

. . . since Kate has real talent and Madonna's only talent seems to be a prodigiuos gift for manipulating the media and surrounding herself with the hip musical partners of the moment.

I disagree. I think Kate has a talent for producing incredibly unusual music and lyrics. Sadly, that headier method is not for the masses. I think Madonna is an entertainer on a mass scale that produces some good if not great work (see "Ray of Light" the song and the Record) with the help of others - though she clearly has her own vision. That is where her talent resides and she has that in spades. Part and parcel of that talent is she is a very talented dancer. I also think the gifts of Madonna's that you mentioned are talents as well.

I do agree that the two are apples and oranges when compared. Madonna appeals to the masses so she likely is considered in a less favorable light by some. I think they are both extremely talented, but in different areas.

Also - Roxy Music's Avalon - swoon indeed. I still get teary when I hear "More Than This"

[BombaySapphire3]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

. I think Madonna is an entertainer on a mass scale that produces some good if not great work (see "Ray of Light" the song and the Record) with the help of others - though she clearly has her own vision. That is where her talent resides and she has that in spades. Part and parcel of that talent is she is a very talented dancer. I also think the gifts of Madonna's that you mentioned are talents as well.

I do agree that the two are apples and oranges when compared. Madonna appeals to the masses so she likely is considered in a less favorable light by some. I think they are both extremely talented, but in different areas.

She may be a good dancer ,truth be told I have not watched her enough to really notice but I'm certain there are many ,many more talented dancers in the world..her singing is pretty ordinary she can carry a tune most of the time but nothing to merit the level of stardom she has attained and maintained and as for her acting she is completely and utterly without talent,excruiciating to watch.As I have said before quite possibly the worst actress ever to be given a series of somewhat major rolls in films .Again I will admit in manipulation of the media and at least at one time of being ahead of the curve of the mainstream for pop culture trends and seeking out the hippest collaboraters she is without peer so if those things are talents then yes she is talented.

[Stew_Matthews]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

I disagree.

you always disagree with me! Maybe we should be married?