I love Kate Bush. I think about Kate Bush at least once every single day.She has inspired extraordinary musical artists such as Florence + the Machine as well as St. Vincent and her flair for the dramatic and bizarre is riveting and addicting.This English prog-rockers is a Queen. Here's four reasons why you need to give Kate Bush a chance.
1. You've probably already listened to some of her songs
The song most people have heard by Kate Bush is "Running Up That Hill", which was her biggest hit in America, which has been covered by bands such as Placebo and The Chromatics. Its beautiful, haunting, and the original music video is super out there, and includes some pretty hilarious contemporary style dancing that was pretty cutting edge at the time. This song, from her "Hounds of Love" album (which many critics consider her strongest), shows Kate Bush in full force. The B-Side for "Hounds of Love" is also considered one of the greatest B-Sides of all time.
2. She's wacky fun
Her first single ever, "Wuthering Heights", turns a lot of modern listeners away, but its what got her attention in the seventies. I like to consider it the missing chapter from Emily Brontë's famous novel. Bush's high, mesmerizing voice can be a bit jarring at first, but by the end you'll be wanting to dance around the English country side in a red dress. Her dance moves are wonderful, because they are so weird, and she really is in a class of her own. She operated outside of the mainstream, though she does have some famous collaborations with Peter Gabriel.
3. She wrote her own stuff
Bush grew up in a very musical family, and when she first started performing it was actually with her brother's band. She was constantly making up songs when she was a teenager, and "Wuthering Heights" actually became a hit when she was around seventeen. What makes her music so unique is that she draws on so many different influences, from classic literature to movies to English history to ideas of the nuclear apocalypse. A lot of the overarching themes are womanhood, maternity, and sexual awakenings. "Sensual World" references the work of the famous Irish writer James Joyce, only going to prove how above and beyond Kate Bush went.
4. She's an enigma
Kate Bush is known for not performing. In fact, she gave a concert a couple years ago but it was the first concert of hers in thirty years. Thirty years! She keeps her private life very private, and is almost impossible to get a hold of. In America she is lesser known, but in the U.K. and the Republic of Ireland she is still a legend, and you will still hear street performers doing covers of her work. She recently released an album where she reworked a lot of her famous hits (I was not a fan), but besides that she has been pretty dormant. She is an icon and and inspiration. Who doesn't love a mystery?
So give her a try!
