Track Listing
1. Sat In Your Lap
2. There Goes A Tenner
3. Pull Out The Pin
4. Suspended In Gaffa
5. Leave It Open
6. Dreamin'
7. Night Of The Swallow
8. All The Love
9. Houdini
10. Get Out Of My House
Review
Here we go with the first Kate Bush album on the list, I actually think that The Kick Inside should have been here, a great album with the possible exception of the overplayed Wuthering Heights. Now this album has no such problem of overplaying, and that makes it a more special experience.
I must say it is not only that but also the sheer strangeness of the music, that spread beauty and horror in such a great way that it soon stops sounding that strange as you get used to the album. The first impact will, however, be one of weirdness, but that is followed by a more mature appreciation of how great the music simply is.
Bush has always been an original performer, and in this album that originality comes to the fore, there is nothing else like it in the world, but there are plenty of imitators, you get glimpses of Tori Amos, Bjork, Goldfrapp and so many other things here, but of course none of those, great as they are in their own right, ever did anything exactly or even similar to this. This is a feast of experimentation that succeeds by being rooted in beauty rather than cerebral wankery. Strange and beautiful.
Track Highlights
All of them, but If I had to choose:
1. Houdini
2. Suspended in Gaffa
3. There Goes A Tenner
4. Get Out Of My House
Final Grade
10/10
Trivia
From Wikipedia:
Bush was in her early twenties when making the album and tended to look outside herself for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films ("There Goes A Tenner"), a documentary about the war in Vietnam ("Pull Out The Pin"), the plight of Indigenous Australians ("The Dreaming"), the life of Houdini ("Houdini") and Stanley Kubrick's film of Stephen King's novel The Shining ("Get Out Of My House"). There are a few more personal tracks, though: the lead single, "Sat In Your Lap", examines feelings of self-doubt versus burning self-confidence and the search for a balance between the two, while "Leave It Open" speaks of the need to acknowledge and express the darker sides of one's personality (within the greater context of maintaining an open mind). Bush herself has called The Dreaming her "I've gone mad album".
Video for The Dreaming:
3 comments:
Kate Bush is a class on it's own. Together with Joni Mitchell the greatest female singer songwriters of the latest century ... both they are lonely at the top. Indeed it is unbelievable that 'The kick inside' is not in this list. A true classic album indeed ...
This is a fabulous album - better even than the more famous Hounds of Love for my money.
After that it's a shame she never really hit these heights again - there are moments on Sensual World and Arial, but this album deserves an 11/10 just for the sheer ballsiness to do something this off the wall when the general public still thought of her as the 17 year old singing about wild and windy moors.
so I am going through a definite Kate Bush binge right now... I can´t get enough of the little lady.
Besides those on the list and the kick inside what other albums should I check out?
Any specific reccomendations would be appreciated!
Post a Comment