Kate Bush

[HejiraNYC]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

^^It's time to hear the albums. I recommend just getting them in order.

As much as I love Kate, I have to admit that her first couple of albums were not my favorite. That's not to say that they are necessarily bad recordings... but they lacked the kind of grandiose eccentricity that I love about Kate. The first two albums were just a bit too sugary and innocent for me to sit through repeated plays.

This is how I would approach Kate:

1. The Whole Story- This is a well-edited selection of highlights from her early albums along with one original new track and a re-recording of "Wuthering Heights." I especially love all the pictures of the artwork on the singles- just gorgeous stuff.

2. The Hounds of Love- This is Kate's finest hour.

3. Aerial- Kate's second finest hour. I love everything about this album- even her Elvis impersonation on "King of the Mountain." It's rather distressing that she did almost zero promotion behind this album because it is such a masterwork. The second disc, "Sky of Honey," is my summer soundtrack.

4. The Dreaming- Now that you've heard where she ended up, you can hear where she first took a sharp left turn to the bizarre. Peter Gabriel released his first "world music" album the same year Kate released this album- her own "world music" album. It's all there- Celtic fiddle, didjeridoo, Brazilian rhythms. She also brays like a donkey and plots a bank heist. Lots of fun here!

5. The Red Shoes- I have always considered this to be kind of like The Dreaming II. It doesn't sound anything like The Dreaming, but it is full of that kind of bold-faced experimentation with different musical styles. But this is no longer the bold, feisty, political, angry Kate of yore. This is the more mature, reflective, somber Kate, who is both older and wiser.

6. The Sensual World- This is Kate's "girl power" album. The title track starts it all with Kate vicariously exploring "the power of a woman's body" via lines borrowed from James Joyce's Ulysses. Later she is mourning the sense of loss and renewal of childbirth in "This Woman's Work," and then ending up imagining the limitless possibilities of a girl's life on "Rocket's Tail." This is perhaps one of Kate's most cohesive-sounding set of songs.

7. Never For Ever- This is where the cracks begin to appear in Kate's placid veneer. Here she goes from the typical girl next door to the woman next door with a fetish for young boys. You know something's not quite right once you hear her screaming "Violin, violin, violin, violin!!" like her life depended on it.

8. Kick Inside or Lionheart (interchangeable)- These are the left-side bookends. They are interchangeable because they are stylistically and thematically indistinguishable. Here she portrays herself as that precocious teenager who was probably reading Bronte in her attic bedroom rather Tiger Beat magazine. Still, despite the lush production, the songs are about as deep as petrie dishes. The girly angst is there, along with her bloodied, broken hymen. I would save these for last because it really allows you to appreciate the mature artist she eventually evolved into. But the song "O England, my Lionheart" is also the song that perfectly captures the dyed-in-the-wool British-ness of this gal. It is a pure paean to her homeland without the slightest bit of irony, which ironically, eventually became a recurrent theme in her latter work.