FEATURE:
Director’s Cut II
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for 2011’s Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
Will Kate Bush Ever Revisit Her First Three Albums?
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I feel we have reached a point…
where Kate Bush has done all the revision and retrospection. I don’t think we will get any more album reissues and expansions. As good as it would be to have an expansive reissue of Hounds of Love or The Dreaming, I feel everything that has been released is enough. I do hold out hope that Kate Bush will open up the archives, as you just know there are studio takes and extras that nobody has heard. She seems to be much more open to her older work. Maybe she finds those offcuts imperfect and detrimental, whereas her album reissues have been about taking something album-worthy and making it even better. I have said before how it would be wonderful having a tribute album. Artists tackling Kate Bush’s songs. It has sort of been done before but not by well-known artists. It is a definite gap that requires filling. In May, it will be fourteen years since Kate Bush released Director’s Cut through Fish People (and EMI). I am going to write about that album nearer the anniversary. Her first studio album since 2005’s Aerial, it was a big step re-examining her older work. If fans were looking for new material, what they got was a compromise. Bush taking a real interest in previous work whilst offering new versions of those songs. She selected tracks from The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993). Maybe she felt were not great the first time around. The production sound not as she imagined.
I can understand why Bush wanted to tackle those two albums. Whilst she loves 1985’s Hounds of Love and 2005’s Aerial, the two albums in the middle were not as strong as they could have been. I am speaking for Kate Bush rather than providing my own opinion. Even though her production is terrific, there is room for reinvention and improvement. I do feel The Red Shoes especially has a bit of an edgy or emptier sound that is not as warm and fulsome as other studio albums. Whilst some of the reworkings improve on the originals or at least offer tantalising and fresh perspectives, a fair few of the songs cannot surpass the studio album versions. I was really excited when the album was announced. Director’s Cut got some positive reviews, though many consider it to be Bush’s only inessential album. There were some baffled by the album. I feel it is underrated and deserves more love. Director’s Cut is an album many fans leave to collect dust on the shelf. There are treasures to be found. I am going to sort of defend Director’s Cut in a feature near to May. It is a great album and it is wonderful hearing Bush with this older voice revisit songs from a couple of decades prior. Songs such as Top of the City (The Red Shoes) and Never Be Mine (The Sensual World), which fans might not have known about or appreciated, are put back in the spotlight.
I do wonder why Bush never considered revisiting her first three albums. She sort of wrote them off at one point. In the same way Steely Dan dismissed their first three albums as juvenilia, Kate Bush felt that her first few albums were maybe not up to snuff. A different person. What I would love to hear is Kate Bush now revisiting songs from The Kick Inside and Lionheart. Both released in 1978, she was nineteen and twenty respectively when those albums arrived,. 1980’s Never for Ever was the first album where she co-produced (alongside Jon Kelly). Even though at the time she said she was proud of the albums, that attitude sort of shifted in years since. I am ending this feature with a playlist of twelve songs from those three albums that would be interesting to see given a new take. I can appreciate how Bush might have wanted to keep some distance from her earliest work. After all, she was in her late-teens/early-twenties when those three albums came out, so it might have felt weird going that far back. Such a different sound and headspace, could Bush have tackled songs from The Kick Inside where she was writing from a teenage perspective. Albeit it a very mature viewpoint. She did re-record the vocal for Wuthering Heights (1978) and included it on her sole greatest hits collection, The Whole Story (1986). That question remains as to why she reapproached The Sensual World and The Red Shoes rather than her first three albums. Albums where she did not feel in control or that they were truly representative of her. I guess there are still distribution and ownership rights issues for those albums. Especially Kick Inside and Lionheart. I don’t think her Fish People label has distribution ownership of those albums, so would it be a hassle trying to reissue songs from those albums onto a new Director’s Cut?
The fact Bush felt The Sensual World and The Red Shoes suffered because of the production trends and sounds of the time in which they were released, her reasoning would be different for revisiting her first three albums. The title, Director’s Cut, does imply this was Bush releasing the albums she always wanted to. Taking control and giving her version. If she felt ownership of some albums were out of her control and she was wrestling it back, it was more silencing a nagging voice in her head. Rectifying some issues that were weighing heavy on her mind. I love how Steve Gadd was integral to Director’s Cut and its brilliant percussion. He would also be utilised for the follow-up, 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. Gadd said how Bush wanted him to treat the tracks as new. She stripped them down and built them again, so it seemed like a new album - albeit one with some familiar words! Another big reason for Director’s Cut was that she could use words from James Joyce’s Ulysses. She was not able to for The Sensual World’s title track but she was granted permission in time for Director’s Cut. That is because the book was in the public domain and was not subjected to copyright restrictions. Flower of the Mountain was Bush using words she longed to sing.
People are very keen for Kate Bush to move forward. She recently discussed how she is looking to do something new and has lots of ideas. Whether this is a much-demanded eleventh studio album or a new project of some sort, would a second Director’s Cut please or divide fans? On the one hand, those who disliked or were a bit ho-hum about 2011’s Director’s Cut would not jump at the sequel. My biggest problem was that many of the songs on The Sensual World and The Red Shoes Bush decided to rework were strong on the original albums. You could say the same about cuts from The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Never for Ever, though the biggest fascination would be going that far back. Giving this completely new spin on these songs. So many people overlook those first three albums and see them as inferior. It would give them their due and also introduce them to new fans. What would the motivation be for Bush revisiting albums from the 1970s and 1980s?! I think the most compelling argument would be how dissatisfied she is with them. At least there is this lingering feeling that she was not the driving force. Think of some of the songs and collaborations that could go into the album! I will end with my choices for songs that would appear on Director’s Cut II, though many others have their opinions. In any case, it is just a theory and hope, yet many other people would love to see Kate Bush take some time to re-record songs from the simply wonderful The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Never for Ever. I feel that Director’s Cut II would be…
A box office success.