I definitely don't like GDW as much on the album as I do live. Strangely though, when the reissue extras came out, I loved the GDW stuff. Michele

More brilliant than the Beethoven violin sonatas?

I'm not sure it's the second-best thing she's ever done, but Side 2 is a captivating, cinematic flight fantasy that riffs on images & sensations in George Meredith's poetry.

People who lump Tori Amos with Kate Bush have cauliflower eyes & ears -- & probably minds. Amos needs to get a sense of humor, for one thing. Nowhere in her crybaby music does one find the exotic, sophisticated irony & wit that suffuses "Kashka from Baghdad," "Violin," "Babooshka," "There Goes a Tenner," "Suspended in Gaffa," & on & on.

"Leave It Open" alone is about the best response imaginable to the dissembling politicos & their plebs in our hallowed halls of Congress.

Unfortunately, Kate's more recent work -- from, say, The Sensual World to the present -- mostly avoids British humor & scatology in favor of traditional feminist themes & music that's too precious & wispy & lush (though still often very gorgeous). It's probably Kate's more recent music from 1989 till now that makes silly girls think she's in any way equivalent to Tori Amos.

I think so too.

Oh, I disagree completely.

I think I agree with you. Under The Ivy fits with the reflective, introspective themes of The Ninth Wave. It's a beautiful song. Have you ever seen the live performance of it? It's divine.

My favourite Kate Bush album is The Dreaming, then Hounds of Love. Both of which I find to be flawless. I think the concept of the latter is more realised though, and it's absolutely magnificent.


I love Tori Amos, she's my third favourite artist. I hated her for ages though, for the reasons you said. I also heard she denied knowing who Kate Bush was in an early interview. :eek: The irony in that is too much for my tiny mind to take in. Then, eventually, I thought that I'd listen to her on a blank slate, without the Kate Bush comparisons, and I loved what I heard. There are some definite Kate things she does though; the themes of her work, the nuances in her voice, the Little Earthquakes cover - blatantly influenced by The Kick Inside American LP cover.

I think besides the comparisons listed though, Kate and Tori are completely different. Kate uses more literary references, and is more of a "story-teller", in that she has the ability to write a novel with a song. She does write personal songs, but I think she writes through other characters. Tori is intensely forthright with how personal her songs are. She's more of a political writer than Kate (not disregarding Army Dreamers or Breathing). She also comes across to me as less polished than Kate generally.

Back on topic!

I Don't Want To Know to me is as deserved of a place on Rumours as any other song. I've been mulling over which song I think is the weakest on the album, and then realised that the reason it's considered one of the greatest records of all time is because there's not a weak track on there. I find there are songs I like less than others, but not songs that I don't think should have made the cut.

By the way, I think Oh Daddy is beautiful!

Wasn't Blue Lamp left off Bella Donna?

Agreed, Gerald. There is no filler on Rumours. Even "Don't Stop," which I can hardly tolerate, is not filler -- it's a good, pop shuffle. Just sick of it. And yes, it's too odd to hear "Silver Springs" on the Rumours issue.

Yes, and I think that's a mistake right there. I know it was probably because of timing issues on vinyl, but if that song was placed between Outside The Rain and The Highwayman, it would make a brilliant album even moreso.

Blue Lamp is better than ANYTHING on Bella Donna.

This article/blog? is totally inane and shows no understanding for that album or music. Besides, the Dance version of SS is definitive. The 2004 reissue and re-writing of history is offensive (imagine: side one not ending with Songbird, side 2 not beginning with The Chain -- ridic). And IDWTK is the Go Your Own Way of side 2. And Oh Daddy is better than SS.

Blue Lamp kinda sounds Roxy Music-ish to me, right? LOVE it. Also think it's better than anything on BD other than EO17.

And, yes, though I officially choose Hounds of Love as KB's best album, The Dreaming is its equal.

I agree.

Your attempt to account for the cauliflower is valiant. You are a better person than I.

You're right. Forgot about that gem.

My favorite studio version is on The Chain box set. I don't think it appears anywhere else.

From having extensive knowledge on both of their back catologues, I don't think they're as alike as people make them out to be. Mainly illiterate music journalists that only got their jobs because they're failed record executives. They feel the need to compare all women that write their own songs and play piano.

Leave It Open... what a song! I love the end bit, 'we let the weirdness in'. I think she's a fantastic political commentator, on the rare occasion when she does it, which isn't that much considering she talks about a lot of other things. Or should I say, the few times she does it blatantly.

I agree to an extent about your assessment of her later work. It did become a lot more feminist, and softer. But, people mellow with age. She'd hit her thirties by then, she couldn't keep on dancing in silver space suits and making donkey noises forever. :laugh: I love The Sensual World though.

I like those albums, too. Plenty of moments of pop brilliance, like the title track.

Her main strength, in my opinion, is essentially Lindsey Buckingham's main strength: a real talent for orchestrating using multitrack technology. You can study a Kate Bush track score in much the same way you can study the score of a Halvorsen or a Barber symphonic work. Her orchestrations don't have that level of complexity, but they would certainly reward textual analysis -- & you can't say that about most pop record-makers.

That sort of rococo orchestrative texture is something that Stevie Nicks's music outside Fleetwood Mac completely lacks. She hires a bunch of guys & they just wail away. There isn't anything innovative or texturally interesting going on in the music tracks on her albums. For example, I doubt that anyone has ever had to make horn charts or string charts for any of her songs, the way Tom Scott & Rickie Lee Jones charted the intricate horns for "Traces of the Western Slopes" -- Paul Buckmaster arranged the strings for "Beauty & the Beast," but that old pro (who used to work on Elton John albums) probably did "Beauty" in his sleep. There isn't anything complex about it at all. It's child's play for anyone who knows string writing.

All you can hope for on a Stevie Nicks solo album is that the support doesn't get in her way (as vocalist or songwriter), & that it is at least engineered with a pleasant clarity (which it sometimes is not).