FEATURE: Spotlight: Hana Giraldo

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Von Robinson

Hana Giraldo

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LOOKING around at the artists….

PHOTO CREDIT: Von Robinson

that we need to follow next year, there are definitely sparks of excitement. Artists that you should be looking at. One such artist is Hana Giraldo. I am going to spend time with her and her music. Bring in a few interviews. Some great insights from this year. I am starting out with an interview from Loop Mag. Rather than it specifically being about the music, I was interested in this piece as we get a look into her personal life and activism. An artist who wants to be a very positive influence in the world:

“After sitting in the makeup chair, Giraldo straps on a silver minidress and large hoop earrings that are reminiscent of a time when people went to clubs (you know, before every nightlife venue in Los Angeles closed to slow the spread of COVID-19). She tells stories about pre-pandemic nights out, like when she and her boyfriend, Kyle Massey, who starred on Disney Channel’s “Cory in the House,” met Justin Bieber.

“He’s a really good guy, he’s really sweet,” she says. “I think it was Kyle’s birthday, and I remember being in the club, and him just coming in and there were like, 80 security guards. … I just remember I’d never seen so much security. It’s nice too when you meet someone like that and they’re so humble.”

“Staying humble is my biggest thing because I hate it when people will act like they’re the shit”

Giraldo prides herself on similar attributes. “Staying humble is my biggest thing because I hate it when people will act like they’re the shit,” she says. “…Growing up with famous parents, I’ve always had a smaller ego because they taught me to be like that.”

Although she was raised in the spotlight—born a decade after her mother released classic hits like “Love Is A Battlefield” and “We Belong”—Giraldo wasn’t immune to things like bullying. When Giraldo was about 9 years old, her family moved from their Malibu home to Hana, Hawaii, an island she was named after, where she was constantly picked on. What she didn’t realize at the time was that the harsh words used by her peers were grooming her for a career in content creation.

“I don’t ever really dig too deep into the comment section, just because I’ve heard it all,” she says. “You tell me what’s bad about me, I’ve heard it all. It doesn’t really affect me how it would affect another person.”

When Giraldo’s family moved back to Los Angeles three years later, she remembers traveling with her mom on tour and having to find ways to entertain herself. Since this was before the smartphone era, she’d make videos using a Macbook Pro.

“I wouldn’t have anybody to hang out with, or I’d have my babysitters, so I’d have them dress up and I would shoot a video,” she says.

While these early skits weren’t Giraldo’s best work, she says today her highest performing videos are often the ones for which she has the lowest budgets and puts in the least amount of effort. “It’s very strange; it’s like the more you think about it, the more you get in your head,” she explains. “People just like to see what’s authentic, and what’s really going on”.

Another interview with Loop Mag, I was interested reading what Hana Giraldo had to say about her childhood. We get a glimpse into her past and future. How she unwinds and where she likes to hang. Also, what it is like being the daughter of a major artist who has so many fans around the world. It must have been an exciting and artist household to grow up in:

“Hana Giraldo, daughter of pop queen Pat Benatar and songwriter and guitarist Neil Giraldo, is not to be trifled with. A victim of bullying herself, this fashion forward social media star says, “I thank God every day for putting me through that. Now I have the thickest skin in America! Just try to stop me…There’s not one thing that someone could say to me that would make me give up.” Hana began her social media career by styling Vine stars when she unknowingly moved into the Vine house on Hollywood and Vine in West Hollywood. Soon after, Hana was asked to be in these influencers’ videos and it’s been up, up, up since then, with currently over 500,000 followers on Instagram.

What was it like growing up with Pat Benatar as your mother?

HG: I guess my upbringing was different from the way most kids grow up. I learned the business very young. I traveled a lot. It was a blessing but it was normal for me. I didn’t know anything other than going to your mom’s shows every day or living on a tour bus.

In one of your videos, I heard you say that you were more of an introvert growing up.

HG: I grew up in Malibu until the fifth grade when we moved to Maui, Hawaii. I was badly bullied there. I didn’t want to make things harder on my family so I just didn’t say anything and I just stuck it out. I was always super nice, super happy, loved life. But I was badly bullied and I was alone. I always wanted to hide in my room. Being bullied takes a lot out of you. I internalized a lot. Before I was bullied, I was very outgoing. I really did have a positive mindset. I thank god everything day for putting me through that… now I have the thickest skin in America! Just try to stop me. 

You traveled a lot growing up. Do you still travel quite a bit? Where do you like to go? Anywhere you haven’t been that you would like to visit?

HG: I’ve been everywhere, except for Africa, Tokyo and Dubai. I want to go to Dubai. I love New York, Paris, Italy… I love the Cayman Islands and anywhere tropical. But I know the ambassador of the Cayman Islands so when I go there I’m with like Cayman Island royalty! On my 21st birthday, I got driven home from a Lil John concert by the ambassador of the Cayman Islands…Yeah my life’s a movie!

Does nightlife play a big roll in how you socialize?

HG: I’m very selective with who I choose to let in my life at this point. I started going out at a young age. I would go out with my sister when I was 16 or 18 years old. I went out to clubs so young. I still go out occasionally. Although, I don’t drink so it’s not fun being around really drunk people when you’re not drunk. The reason I go out is to network. I know all of the clubs in Los Angeles and all of the club owners. I am definitely involved in the nightlife scene.

What are your favorite clubs to go to?

HG: I love Delilah. I like Good Times at Davey Waynes. I like places where I can actually have a conversation and connect with people without screaming to get people’s attention over techno music. Growing up with famous parents I was always backstage so in crowded places, I am a little uncomfortable.

How does fashion play a role in your life?

HG: Fashion for me is everything. I can make something super cheap look expensive by accessorizing it correctly or putting it with the right jacket. I like to mix high-end brands with fast fashion. I love Balenciaga, Gucci, YSL, House of CB for a cheaper brand, but vintage is my shit. I don’t want to be seen in the same outfit as someone else. I would rather go to a vintage store and find something cool that is older. I make half of the stuff I wear. I will get vintage stuff and transform it into my own thing. My favorite store is Wasteland.

How would your fans describe you? What do you think they like about you?

HG: They would probably describe me as humble. I like to keep my fans in the loop. I never forget about them. I make it a big part of my journey to include them. The interaction between my fans and me has brought me where I am today. They would say I’m genuine, funny, fashionable, loyal, and a little crazy. My thoughts on genuineness are simply that it’s one thing to act like you’re the most successful person in the world. But in reality, the most successful person doesn’t have to act like the most successful person in the world.

So many young girls idolize Instagram stars and I just want my fans to realize that I’m not perfect. I don’t look like I do in my professional photo shoots all the time. I want people to go embrace who they are. First, find out who you are and work with it. I will never look like a Victoria’s Secret model. I’m not 5’10” but I’m okay with it because I’m me. With Facetune and all these crazy apps, kids are looking at this and thinking other people are perfect. It’s not healthy.

You are an advocate for victims of bullying. What are some of the things you are doing to help awareness of this issue? I think a lot of people think bullying is just something that happens to children. Do you think adults can be bullied?

HG: Absolutely. Now with Instagram and the Internet, it’s a whole other beast. It can happen to anyone. I went through a traumatizing bullying experience and had all these targets on me on this tiny island. Now I feel like I can help people. Fans will reach out to me and I will respond and that will make their day. My ultimate goal is to spread awareness. This issue is often swept under the rug. Bullying kills people and it needs to be stopped. I’ve been making videos about it lately.

Is there anything you’d like to tell your followers?

HG: Follow your dreams. Don’t let people stop you. Be positive and be whomever you want, you can achieve if you believe in yourself and your work enough. I’m always here. I answer DMs! There’s not one thing that someone could say to me that would make me give up”.

Prior to rounding things off, I want to highlight parts of an interview with XS Noise. A remarkable artist who I think will make some big steps next year and perform around the world, I do hope that Hana Giraldo gets to come to the U.K. at some point. She is someone I am new to but am compelled to follow:

“They say talent often runs in the family, for Hana Giraldo, that has undoubtedly proven to be true. As the daughter of iconic musicians Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo, Hana has carved her path in the music world, earning herself millions of followers on social media and heaps of praise from fans and media outlets alike.

Her latest single “Reputation” plays like an anthem of self-acceptance and understanding, while showcasing how much she has developed and grown as an artist, and as an individual. Here, she shares what she hopes listeners take from the track, reveals how much and how her parents influence both her music and her life and looks ahead to the future and what she’d like her artistic legacy to be.

Tell me about your new single, “Reputation.” Is there a particular idea or story behind it?

“Reputation” is a playful, introspective look at how people perceive me and the labels they assign to me without really knowing who I am. It’s my way of giving listeners a deeper glimpse into my true self on my own terms. I like to take risks, and I believe that’s essential for an artist to thrive – not just by being authentic but by being unapologetically true to themselves. This song is a tongue-in-cheek way of doing that. I’m showing a side to my fans they haven’t seen before. It’s about taking control of my story and embracing who I am.

Your music blends several genres and styles, including rock, pop, and dance. Which artists and bands have most inspired you?

My biggest musical influences are my mom and dad, along with Rihanna and Lady Gaga. But it’s not just their music that inspires me – it’s what they stand for. They’ve all made significant marks through their artistry, standing up for women and empowering others to do the same. Their ability to blend genres while staying true to their message has deeply influenced how I approach my music. I aim to be as successful as my idols, and I truly hope the world sees that in my work, too.

Did either of your parents give you any advice when you decided to follow in their footsteps and carve out your path in the business?

When I decided to follow a path in music, my parents’ advice was both empowering and realistic. They always encouraged me to pursue my dreams wholeheartedly, reminding me that anything is possible if I stay committed. They’ve been a constant source of support, reinforcing the idea that I should never give up, no matter the challenges. They taught me that in this industry, there will always be people who love what you do and others who don’t – that’s just part of the journey. This perspective has helped me develop resilience and confidence, knowing their unwavering belief in me. They’ve always been there, not just as parents but as mentors. They encourage me to trust in my voice and to push forward because I can achieve anything with passion and determination.

How much of an honour for you to be chosen to cover Madonna’s “Burning Up” for International Women’s Month on Cover Nation?

Oh my gosh, I was absolutely floored when I got the opportunity to cover a Madonna song, especially for something as significant as International Women’s Month!! Madonna has always been one of my favourite artists and a huge inspiration to me. Her ability to blend theatrical music with powerful performances is something I find absolutely fascinating. As someone who loves performing, it was an incredible honor to pay tribute to an artist who has been my idol for so long. This opportunity meant the world to me.

You also co-wrote the song “LA Here I Come” from the film Dance Rivals. How did that experience come about, and is songwriting for film something you’d like to do more of?

Yeah, this was actually the first song I ever scored for a movie, and I owe a huge thanks to Andrew Lane and Kyle Massey for giving me that opportunity. They put me in a room that was totally new to me, but I love challenges and exploring new creative avenues so it was an exciting experience. I’m really honoured to have been a part of it, and it was such a fun exercise in expanding my skills. I’m definitely eager to do more in the future. Lady Gaga has always been one of my biggest influences – she’s a powerhouse as a singer, actress, and someone who scores films. If I’m on a path even remotely similar to hers, I’m all for it. Yes, I would be honoured to do more!

You’re also an ambassador for Boo 2 Bullying. Is bullying you’ve experienced yourself, and how important to you is it that you can use your platform and audience to support charities and organisations that stand up against it?

Yes, I was bullied for years, so becoming an ambassador for Boo 2 Bullying is incredibly meaningful to me. Using my platform to support charities and organizations that stand up against bullying is something I’m deeply passionate about. I’ve always wanted to help others, and whether it’s through my music, my voice, or my actions, I’m committed to making a difference. I know firsthand how tough it can be, and if I can use my experiences to help others navigate those difficult times, then I’m fulfilling a mission that’s very close to my heart.

Finally, you’re a considerable newcomer to the industry, so this might be a hard question for you to answer, but what’s your long-term goal as an artist? What do you want to have achieved years – perhaps decades – from now when you look back on your career? What do you want your artistic legacy to stand for and to say?

As an artist, my long-term goal is to create work that resonates deeply with people and stands the test of time. I want to be known for pushing boundaries and staying true to my vision, even when it’s challenging or unconventional. Decades from now, when I look back on my career, I hope to see a body of work that not only entertained but also inspired others to be bold, authentic, and unapologetically themselves. I want my artistic legacy to reflect a commitment to excellence, integrity, and the courage to take risks. Ultimately, I hope my journey will encourage future generations of artists to trust their instincts, stay passionate, and never be afraid to evolve”.

Next year is going to offer up a lot of wonderful artists to look out for. Those making their first moves. If you do not know about Hana Giraldo, go and follow her on social media. A really promising artist with a great sound, I do genuinely think next year is going to be a massive one for Giraldo. An artist who has a growing and loving fanbase. She is someone that you need to…

HAVE on your radar.

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Follow Hana Giraldo

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/hanagiraldo/

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@hanagiraldo

Twitter:

https://x.com/hanagiraldo

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4GHae3C65Td725v3sUH68g

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/c/HanaGiraldo

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/littlest.hans/

FEATURE: Ricky Don’t Lose That Number: Getting Kate Bush’s Music Into the World

FEATURE:

 

 

Ricky Don’t Lose That Number

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1972 aged fourteen/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Getting Kate Bush’s Music Into the World

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I am not sure whether it happens….

IN THIS PHOTO: David Gilmour and Kate Bush performing together in 1987/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport/Getty Images

so much now in this digital age but, for many artists, getting their record deal relied on a lot of hauling demos tapes around. Handing them to D.J.s, clubs, promoters, agents, fellow artists and anyone else. Few were given a leg-up or a hugely easy ride. That is the case with Kate Bush. Even if she did not experience an arduous trek like so many artists, it was still not handed to her. Getting her music into the right hands in the 1970s was a matter of some luck, foresight and some family connections. Ricky Hopper was a man who made a big move. Even though David Gilmour was aware of Kate Bush before 1975, that year was a crucial one. You can see a detailed timeline here. Where Ricky Hopper had this great demo tape and passed it along to a man who would instantly take a shine to a teenage Kate Bush. Recognising true talent the minute he heard her! This article from 2023 gives us some background to that fateful moment back in ’75:

“By 15, she had amassed over 50 songs. With the help of her family, a self-made demo tape ended up in the hands of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour, and the rest was history.

Ricky Hopper, a friend of the Bush family, passed her demo tape onto the Pink Floyd guitarist, who was immediately impressed. He was so impressed, in fact, that Gilmour himself paid for Bush to go and record a more professional track, leading to her being signed to EMI.

Just as Bush met Gilmour in 1975, Pink Floyd were working on their ninth studio album, Wish You Were Here.

During one of their album sessions, 15-year-old Kate Bush was invited along. “I was absolutely staggered,” Bush later wrote in a book celebrating the famous studio. Best known as the eponymous studio behind The Beatles album, artists including Aretha Franklin, Little Richard, The Zombies, and more have all recorded at the studio. To this day, Abbey Road remains a landmark, with acts like Nick Cave, Blur, Amy Winehouse, and Spice Girls adding their names to history over the last few decades.

To a teenage Kate Bush, the studio seemed like a dream: “I really thought I would never be able to record in a place like Abbey Road.”

I am going to talk more about Ricky Hopper. How he was key when it came to getting Kate Bush’s music to David Gilmour. And soon enough it would be shared with the world. Before that, this PROG article from last year discussed how David Gilmour saw that promise from the demo tape he was handed. It must have been a magical and unforgettable moment for the iconic musician:

“One afternoon in the mid-70s, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd decided to play one of the many demo tapes he received each week. This one had been given to him by Ricky Hopper, a friend of his and of the family of the artist. Although the quality of the recording was poor, Gilmour discerned something special within it.

“The songs were too idiosyncratic,” he remembered, talking to Jason Cowley of The New Statesman in 2005. “It was just Kate Bush, this little schoolgirl who was maybe 15, singing away over a piano. You needed decent ears to hear the potential, and I didn’t think there were many people with those working in record companies. Yet I was convinced from the beginning that this girl had remarkable talent.”

He got Bush into a studio and assisted in the recording of more demos, with Andrew Powell – a Cambridge friend who’d worked with Henry Cow, Cockney Rebel and The Alan Parsons Project – producing. Three songs, including The Man With The Child In His Eyes, were then presented to EMI. They weren’t averse to listening to anything recommended by Gilmour, who’d made them a few quid in his time.

They signed the young woman instantly. One of the great careers in British music history was about to burst into life. But not quite yet: EMI put Bush on a retainer with an advance for two years, feeling that if her music didn’t take off, she’d be too young to handle it. And if it did take off... she’d be too young to handle it”.

Gilmour too has said, “When I first met Kate she was this shy little schoolgirl, but very quickly you could see that she’d have arguments with producers if they didn’t do things the way she wanted them to.” The success of Wuthering Heights gave her the subsequent creative freedom that’s made her oeuvre what it is”.

I do love that period. Because this year is fifty years since David Gilmour received Kate Bush’s demo and the two headed to AIR studios that June to record professionally, it is important to mark that period. Such a magical moment. I wonder how both reflect on it now. Whether Ricky Hopper is known by Kate Bush fans. A key part of her history, it is great that he (Hopper) and Gilmour were connected. Kept that number close. I guess it was only a matter of time before Kate Bush and David Gilmour worked together. Bush hadn’t really experienced Pink Floyd in 1975. Her sitting in to hear Wish You Were Here being recorded was one of her first tastes of their music. In later years, she said how much she loves 1979’s The Wall and has named it one of her favourites. Some of her album tracks nod to Pink Floyd. The outro to The Saxophone Song (from 1978’s The Kick Inside, it was one of the songs recorded at AIR in 1975). Bits of Breathing (from 1980’s Never for Ever). I think quite a bit of Hounds of Love too. Anyway, Bush’s family knew that she was special. The transition from these earliest demo recordings and how David Gilmour came into her world. Before continuing, I want to bring in part of this article from Dreams of Orgonon that was published in 2018:

“Having a professionally recorded song makes our job much easier. What nuances are lost in the lo-fi recordings of, say, “Queen Eddie” or “Sunsi” are picked up in the clean sound of “Passing Through Air.” This is largely due to Cathy recording with professional equipment for the first time. She didn’t need it to shine before, of course—she’s simply honing her best work to date for a really, really important moment.

Artists rarely get a big break. A 15-year-old artist’s home demos getting picked up for professional recording was pretty much unheard of in the pre-Soundcloud age. For a young artist to be discovered by a musician coming off the back of releasing one of the bestselling albums of all time seems colossally unlikely. Yet this is an exaggeration—plenty of people had heard Cathy’s demos by this point, and she wasn’t the only artist David Gilmour had taken under his wing at the time. Coming off The Dark Side of the Moon’s massive success, Gilmour was nurturing about eight protégés, the luckiest of whom would hit #1 on the UK singles charts five years later. He’d found Kate via her brother Jay’s friend Ricky Hopper, who played Gilmour some tapes which struck him. Maybe it was the undercurrent of ethereal strangeness in Kate’s songs or her musical aptitude which struck him. After he’d worked on “The Great Gig in the Sky,” no wonder he was into this sort of thing”.

This passage - “What started as a "private thing between her piano and imagination", according to brother Jay, resulted in an ever-expanding songbook, copyrighted through self-addressed mail, captured on an Akai tape recorder. Plugger, Ricky Hopper, a Cambridge friend of Jay’s, circulated the tapes. Labels rejected them as "morbid, heavy and negative". But Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour immediately heard a "remarkable talent". He recorded her several times, alone at the piano, and in August 1973, with Unicorn’s rhythm section at his Essex home studio. ‘Future Army Dreamers’ B-side, ‘Passing Through Air’, comes from these sessions; doe-eyed, dreamy soft rock, remarkable for the barely 15-year-old Bush” – from a 2023 article explains how these beautiful-yet-lo-fi recordings mesmerised a musician who was used to working in professional studios. He noted the nuance and promise of these songs. I will end by coming back to Ricky Hopper. When Kate Bush was at Abbey Road during the recording of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here, Gilmour knew she had something. At age fifteen, Bush’s repertoire expanded from thirty to fifty compositions. In 1999, when speaking with Q, Gilmour said: “I had her up to my studio and recorded some things (Passing Through Air and Maybe, with Peter Perrier and Pat Martin of Unicorn, a band he was A&Ring, on drums and bass). I decided that the way she sung and played piano, on its own, was not going to be very effective for convincing A&R men at record companies of her value”.

However, Gilmour bankrolled demos that provided a more expansive and panoramic view of her talent and potential. Starting from these sparse demos that has twinkles of future genius but were not quite big and varied as a set, Gilmour was confident enough that Kate Bush was worthy of a record deal. And so it transpired. Gilmour knew that one of Bush’s songs needed an orchestral backing. Producer Andrew Powell – who produced Kate Bush’s first two albums – was contacted and they, alongside an all-star cast including Beatles engineer Geoff Emerick, realised that in June 1975 at AIR with The Man with the Child in His Eyes. It wasn’t a first-time success when it came to Kate Bush’s demo tape. Earlier, in 1972, Hopper (who was close friends with Bush’s brother John/Jay) tried to circulate some demo tapes. It is amazing that he saw promise in her when she was so young (thirteen/fourteen). Maybe a footnote to some and unknown to most, we cannot forget Ricky Hopper and his role in getting Kate Bush’s music to the world! He persevered and used his connection with the music industry to get her music to David Gilmour. Someone Bush knew about only through Pink Floyd but not on a personal level, things changed. Things begin earlier than 1975. 1973 was a key year. As the Kate Bush Encyclopedia note, this was a year when the first glimpses of her brilliance were noticed by David Gilmour:

“In 1972 and 1973 Kate recorded several tapes of songs. Reports vary about the amount of songs that were recorded, but there must have been dozens. 20 to 30 of these demos were presented via Kate’s brother John Carder Bush‘s friend Ricky Hopper, first without success to record companies. Ricky Hopper then presented the songs to David Gilmour. Gilmour noticed her talent, but also the bad tape recorder quality. This led to one or more recording sessions with David Gilmour present, but with a better recorder. According to Kate: “Absolutely terrified and trembling like a leaf, I sat down and played for him.”

At Gilmour’s insistance, another recording session took place in the summer of 1973”.

Even if Kate Bush fans mark other events in her timeline as being more significant, there is no overstating how important someone like Ricky Hopper was. Making that introduction or at least being part of it. By 1975, Bush was in a position where she was given the money so that she could record at AIR studios and record songs that were far more polished and professional than those demo tapes. There was no turning back. I drift my mind back to 1975 and Ricky Hopper. If Bush was not truly aware of David Gilmour and Pink Floyd when she first met him – less Progressive/Contemporary Rock in her life as a teen perhaps -, she did at least know their name. She later heard The Dark Side of the Moon and realised how exceptional Pink Floyd and David Gilmour were! It was a marriage meant to be! From this child and young teen with an exceptional talent, her tapes then found their way into the hands of David Gilmour. It truly was…

A seismic event.

FEATURE: Lean Living: The Kate Bush Diet

FEATURE:

 

 

Lean Living

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outtake from 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

The Kate Bush Diet

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ONE may not find it relevant….

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush on the set of Eat the Music in 1993

to her music and career, but there is something to be said of any artist’s diet and how they live. In terms of how it affects their body and mind. How a bad diet can impact the music negatively and reduce productivity. How a better diet can be beneficial in that regards. I am interested in the diet of Kate Bush. There is this mix of healthiness and conscientiousness together with occasional excess. Moments where there was a slightly less healthy approach. Tricks she used to give her voice mucus and gravel. How vegetarianism played a big role. One big reason why she could take to the stage for 1979’s The Tour of Life and have such stamina. How key that diet was to her energy levels and mental wellbeing I think. Even if there have been times of unhealth eating, Bush managed to overhaul this and return to her previous self. Rather than this being something a tabloid newspaper would print and then discuss her figure in a derogatory and misogynistic way, this is much more loving of course! I am writing about it because I can’t see anyone else that has. In terms of the food and drink that accompanied Bush through her career. I am going to drop in a clip of Bush with Delia Smith from early in her career. Where Bush talked about her vegetarianism and why she decided to stop eating meat as a child. Last year, I did discuss Kate Bush meeting Delia Smith. I am tempted to buy this on eBay, as I am going to reference this magazine cover from 1986. It is in Lean Living magazine and there is this wonderful photo of Kate Bush on the front I can’t seem to see anywhere else! It was another chance to read about Kate Bush talking about her vegetarianism. The magazine is about the meat-free lifestyle. Later in this feature I will talk about slightly less healthy habits and times.

However, when it comes to Kate Bush, she is someone who has had to have this healthy diet. Such a hardworking artist and dancer, her physicality was a big part of her music and videos. I will come to Lean Living soon. However, this article collates quotes and interviews where Kate Bush has spoken about her diet and vegetarianism:

“I asked if people were interested in Kate Bush quotes about Vegetarianism, and got an overwhelming response. So here's a bunch, they're from my 'Lectronic book Cloudbusting - Kate Bush In Her Own Words, which is available on the Genie computer network and in the Love-Hounds archives (the international Kate Bush Computer Network - rec.music.gaffa). It's pretty long so if you're not interested hit "N" now!

If vegetarians are against the killing of animals for food, why don't they object to them being killed for leather?

I think there are a lot of vegetarians who are against animals being killed to make leather, and they do go out of their way to wear rubber and plastic shoes and belts, but I think that there is a practical side to it, as well. Leather is very warm, and it's nice to look at, but it does require a lot of effort for most of us to make a different choice from the normal, and I find myself that I do wear quite a few leather shoes. Not that I consciously buy them because they're made of leather, but I do have a few, and I think it's something to do with the tradition of leather being used in clothing. But there's no excuse for the mass production of leather, and I think it comes down to effort and how far you really want to go. It's up to you in the long run.

You are a vegetarian and yet you wear fur coats. Why?

I don't wear fur coats. I haven't got one. I don't own one and I don't believe in wearing them - I may have occasionally been in photos with one, but it wouldn't have been mine. It would have been one that I'd borrowed because it was very cold; for instance in Switzerland, when I did the Abba special. [In fact, as far as I know, that was the only time Kate has ever been seen in a fur. - IED] But I don't believe in people wearing fur coats, I think it's very extravagant and again, I think people don't tend to associate the clothes with the animals they come from, especially the rare animals that some of the coats are made of. You can get incredibly good imitation ones now - I've seen ones that I thought were real fur and they weren't. They're really fantastic, and they cost less, too.

Do you follow vegetarian recipes from books, or do you make up your own?

I do follow recipes from books, but I find that normally I don't stick to them, especially if I haven't got all the ingredients, and I tend to substitute different vegetables. If I'm feeling really brave, occasionally I base a meal on a recipe and make the rest up. Cooking is quite a logical thing, really, and you soon learn the things that go together - what works and what doesn't.

You say in interviews that you don't eat meat because you don't believe in eating life. But you eat plants, and they are living things. Why?

I do eat plants, and I know they're living, and I'm fond of them, but I think you have to find your own level. I could live on pills, but I don't think it's very human to do that - that is something we dream of in the space age: food without texture or mass. I don't think plants mind being eaten, actually. I think they'd be really sad if no-one paid that much attention to them. I appreciate them very much for the things they give me. I'd be very sad if there weren't any vegetables, and normally it isn't the actual plant that's killed - it's the fruit or vegetable that's taken off. I think this is the purpose of plants, that they grow to be eaten. The only problem is that it has become a very mass-produced market, again, and that the really natural, unchemicalised environment doesn't really exist. Too many chemicals are used on plants, but while there is a demand for brightly coloured food in pretty packets, that's how it will carry on. But you can get fresh, organically grown vegetables. You can grow them yourselves, and if you look around and ask, you'll find that there are a few shops and some local farms that sell vegetables that have not been grown in chemically fertilised ground. (1980, KBC 5)

I just couldn't stand the idea of eating meat - and I really do think that it has made me calmer. (1982, Company)

People probably eat so much pre-packaged food because it's always so easy to get in shops, and they don't connect it with live animals. If they actually had to kill the animal themselves, they would probably have great difficulty in doing it. People who live and work with animals can be aware of what they are doing when they kill an animal. They realise that they're going to be eating it, rather than it being sent off to be sold in supermarkets. On some levels this seems to be all right, because it's on a one-to-one basis: you feed and look after the animal for a certain length of time and then it repays you by becoming your food. But it's the mass-production of living creatures just to be eaten, and the fact that people aren't really aware of what they're eating, that I don't like.

These days it seems more and more probable that fish are likely to contain pollution - which can't do you any good - as they have no choice but to eat all the muck that's in the water. But hopefully people's general awareness is getting much better, even down to buying a pint of milk: the fact that the calves are actually killed so that the milk doesn't go to them but to us can't really be right, and if you've seen a cow in a state of extreme distress because it can't understand why its calf isn't by it, it can make you think a lot.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at East Wickham Farm appearing on an edition of Delia Smith’s Cookery Course in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: BBC

Working in London, I often have to go past meat markets, and when I see all those people working in there with blood all over them, and dead animals strung up from meat-hooks, just waiting to be devoured, it's like something out of a horror film. When I realised that, I didn't want to eat meat any more. I became more conscious about the things that I did eat. I think this helped me to learn more about food, because I had to start thinking what the nutritional value of something was, and I'm still learning about things I didn't think I could eat, which is really good. Just the discipline of not eating meat is a very good thing. It's like giving up anything you like - it hurts at first, but then you feel much better for it. I don't know whether it was just me, but when I first became a vegetarian I was really hungry a lot of the time, but I'm not now, and I wonder if that's because my stomach has adjusted. When you eat meat, you do tend to eat more than you need, and the body has to work a lot to break it all down.

It's interesting how the traveling that I've done reveals things about people's diets. In many European countries it's very hard to get something that hasn't got meat in it. There was one instance in Germany where I asked for a bowl of tomato soup and, having been assured that it contained just tomatoes, I tucked into it. But about halfway through the soup I could see all these lumps floating around at the bottom, and of course they were all meatballs. They just naturally do things like putting bacon and meatballs into vegetable soup, without even thinking about it. So many shops are meat-oriented: it's all sausages and pies, and the only other things you can really get are just potatoes and salads, when there is such an enormous variety of non-animal foods that can be eaten. Looking forward to a breakfast of toast and marmalade, and then getting a couple of slabs of cold meat and white bread pushed under your nose, isn't the way I like to start my day.

Japan seemed to be more vegetable-oriented. They take great pride in their vegetables, although they're greatly into fish, and this is causing them and the dolphins a lot of problems. I found Australia very meat-oriented, too, and this might have something to do with it being such a young country, and it's true that meat does give you a lot of energy. I suppose there was a time when a slab of bacon fat for breakfast might have been necessary for somebody working in a heavy manual job. But I've found that if I keep an eye on the sort of vegetarian food that I eat, I don't have any problems about dancing and singing on it.

It all comes down to looking more closely at the sort of food you are just used to having and saying to yourself, Do I really need to eat this, or is there something that will be better for me? The more people who get into good vegetarian food, the easier it will be for us. If I go into a restaurant with friends, and they settle down to a feast of meat and sauces and so on, I usually end up with salad and chips - which is OK, but that's about as far as most restaurants can go in the direction of vegetarian food. (1980, KBC 5)”.

I would love if anyone has a copy of Lean Living or could transcribe the piece or see what is in it! For Woman’s World, Bush wrote about her vegetarianism. That, in addition to her talking with Delia Smith, did project this image of an animal-conscious person. This ethical side. Whether it was a decision she made instantly as a child or there were artists she admired who were vegetarian (I can only think of Paul McCartney), it is commendable that she discussed it. It is clear that Kate Bush would occasionally use food and drink for effect in her music. To change her voice. This blog post discusses how she managed to get some rawness in her vocal for The Dreaming’s Houdini:

“The song is far from a stringent one. “Houdini” is fueled by anguished conniptions rather than melodic coherence. The verse initially sounds like “The Infant Kiss” or some other perfectly normal song with its piano balladry in Eb minor with a progression that finishes on a major tonic chord. It commences as a séance with mourners preparing to reach into the ether (“the tambourine jingle-jangles/the medium roams and rambles”). The refrain is the apex of Bush shrieks, culminating in a gravely, agonized “WITH YOUR LIFE/THE ONLY THING IN MY MIND/WE PULL YOU FROM THE WATER!” The result is hardly melodic — it’s willfully ugly, produced by Bush eating lots of chocolate and drinking milk to sabotage her own voice. Whether or not the experiment works, it doesn’t seem like Bush cares — she wants this to sound raw and ugly”.

Of course, like all people, Bush did like to indulge. I have heard her mention chocolate a few times. Even if the lyrics of Lionheart’s Coffee Homeground says, “Offer me a chocolate, No thank you, spoil my diet, know your game!” – more to do with her not being poisoned by it I suspect -, she has said in interviews how she will console herself with chocolate in the studio. That’s what she said to Phil Sutcliffe when he interviewed her for Q. I think Bush’s weight and body was described in very disrespectful tones by the media. She would snack and indulge in chocolate in the studio. It did mean she could be out of shape. However, as a comfort and consolation, it no doubt helped her a lot. Bush would often come into the studio with a big bar of milk chocolate. I know when she was producing Never for Ever (1980), there would be chocolate and tea in the studio. And something else. I will come to that later.

There were times when Bush was so busy working she couldn’t have the time to cook and eat a healthy diet. Hospitality was top of her mind when running a studio. She would offer tea and snacks to musicians and people in her team. However, I think about albums like The Dreaming (1982) where she would work all day and night. Subsiding off of takeaways and junk food, it showed that a balanced diet was essential to good mental health. A reason why she was exhausted and anxious after that album was recorded is because of her diet. She would overhaul her diet by 1983 and take up dance again before Hounds of Love was released in 1985. Think back to 1979 and The Tour of Life. Lots of filling vegetarian food was brought in. It meant that Bush and her crew could fill up but had this healthy diet that gave them energy and nourishment. Something that she stuck with through her career. If fish did come into her diet later from time to time, Bush was not someone who gave up on her principles. She also knew how important healthy eating was for all aspects. Her body, mind and music. I would love to know more about the sort of tea, cakes and biscuits Kate Bush likes now. It would be interesting. I know people who have interviewed her and said that she would serve cake, biscuits and tea. I wonder what brands she likes! Tea played a big role in her career. She would often drink over a dozen cups a day. It did seen to be one of her main sources of fuel! Bush has also spoken about her love of Indian cuisine too. Kate Bush is someone who bits contrasts in her music. Polemics and huge range of emotions. Not someone who was one thing or another.

Though I see Kate Bush as someone who had a very healthy lifestyle and understood the benefits of healthy living, there was also this other side. She was and is not a big drinker. Cigarettes were a vice. She gave up smoking in the 2000s. Having taken up the habit as a child, I am surprised that it continued for so long. She managed to maintain a healthy diet and was very engaged in dancing but also smoked! I guess it was something pretty normal for artists of the time. Maybe not it would be more of a stigma or less healthy thing to talk about – even if modern artists like Charli xcx smoke and it is part of her image. I think that Bush did use cigarettes as a social lubricant. Maybe something that was more communal. There are photos online of Kate Bush having a smoke break. Whether that is in 1978 when she was at De Efteling Amusement Park, in 1993 whilst filming The Line, the Cross and the Curve or a 1993 interview from Q (that bizarrely touted her this bloke-chasing, cigarette-totting ladette!). In any case, we are glad that she has given up! Maybe it was also a way of helping with stress and anxiety. Whilst determinantal to her health and voice, she did suffer anxiety a lot through her career. Bush also partook in smoking weed. During The Kick Inside (1978), she would smoke it quite a bit. Maybe artists she admired like The Beatles compelled her. Maybe just something artists did more in the 1970s and 1980s. She would offer engineers and people in the studio weed when recording The Dreaming. Sometimes she would be chided and told that she had to put it away and focus! Again, whilst we can see this as a negative, it may have benefited her in some ways. Maybe not creatively but in terms of feeling relaxed in the studio. The late Donald Sutherland recalled a time when he was on the set of Cloudbusting (from Hounds of Love) with Kate Bush and approached her about smoking:

“During the video shoot, Sutherland also vividly remembered one funny moment he shared with Bush while on set.

“I remember being in the car and the hill and them taking me, taking Reich, away and looking back through the back window of the car and seeing her, seeing Reich’s son Peter, standing there,” said Sutherland. “And I remember the first morning on set seeing her coming out of her trailer smoking a joint and I cautioned her, saying she shouldn’t smoke that, it’d affect her work. And she looked at me for a second and said she hadn’t been straight for nine years, and I loved her”.

Kate Bush I think has also said she lives with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Of course, one might see signs of this in her working method. However, she probably also knew that she could fall into bad habits if she let her diet slip. Hard to correct. It is fascinating thinking about it. I love her discussing being vegetarian and how important that was to her. The fact she and chocolate were occasional studio collaborators. Whilst there were some unhealthier moments and times when junk food became a source of comfort - also around 1994 and 1995 -, Bush has always inspired me because of how she lived. How health and fitness were so important. As this amazing hostess, she also made sure her musicians were fed and looked after. When recording, her mother might provide the tea whilst her dad might nip out to collect takeaways for the gang. Even if she smoked her first cigarette aged nine, she knew how damaging it could be living with addictions. I would love if anyone could add anything or if they had a copy of Lean Living from 1986! As it is almost Christmas, I want to end with some words from Bush’s brother, Paddy. Sharing his thoughts in 1981 for the Kate Bush Club (KBC) he mused on what to get his sister for Christmas:

“It's December again, and how do you find me this chilly month? Well, I'm surrounded by my recent musical instrument projects: bagpipes, Indonesian mouth-harps, and a few ancient Egyptian temple instruments. There are little heaps of crumpled paper scattered over the whole of the floor, they are Christmas lists for Kate. What am I going to get her? I hear some of you shout something like Chocolate Elephants--come now, wouldn't that be a bit predictable? What a dilemma!

I could give her something really, really weird, like a reproduction of a sixteenth-century royal Viennese court tartold, but believe me, even something as crazy as that is still predictable for me. It's not as if it's easy. Kate as you know is a vegetarian so any presents like leather coats, pork chops, etc., are out. I can just see it now...rustle rustle "Ooh look! It's a..." rustle... "cabbage...Oh, thank you." You just can't give vegetarians vegetables for Christmas. The hours tick by, the piles of paper accumulate--maybe a vegetable rack, no she's got one, a carrot knife, a leek mulcher, or why not a turnip-condensing unit? Maybe a computer-aided marrow-stuffer, that might take a little too long to come from Switzerland, and it would sit around unused for months until marrows came back into season.

Hard, isn't it?

What about something to do with dancing? Some shoes, maybe... right...she doesn't wear them--says it doesn't feel natural. Maybe some mirrors--how can I get them down her chimney? Anyway, she's got mirrors when she dances with Gary and Stewart. Did you know that Gary and Stewart have their own dance group now--you must look out for them, they're called The Dance Theatre of London, and are doing shows all over the country and are getting lots of mentions in the press.

Did you see Kate on Desmond Morris's Friday Night and Saturday Morning? Wasn't she great? I could buy her a collection of his books, but as you can guess, she's already read them all. [Morris is a zoologist, and has written numerous books about the behaviour of cats, dogs and other animals.] I know you all think I'm joking, and I'm just making all this up, and what I'm really going to do is go out and buy some sophisticated electronic musical gadgetry like a Digital Real-Time Quantum On-Line H.A.R.P. Ballistic Sequential Processor, but like all these things, there is such a long waiting-list, and of course--she's already got one!

The hands on the clock creep round. I try playing the bagpipes for inspiration--soon the sound of broom handles and other heavy blunt household objects can be heard on the ceiling, floor and walls. I can hear voices crying things like "Are you strangling a cat or something?" and "I can't stand it...argh!" Ah me, it's tough trying to write Christmas lists. So this December the 25th, when you unwrap Santa's parcels to find that he has left you a new dumper-truck or a snake-charming kit, think of me as I try and wrap this giraffe in paper with "Noel Noel" written all over it--Kate likes giraffes and it fits down the chimney a real treat--well, almost. I tried earlier when she was out. Desmond said try the head first, but it isn't quite as easy as he said it would be. Nevertheless I think I have solved my problem of a Christmas surprise for her--just picture her face when she unwraps my lumpy, long, soot-covered parcel…”.

Taking things slightly away from music, I wanted to talk about the food and drink of Kate Bush. Someone whose diet was crucially linked to her productivity and wellbeing, there was a mix of healthiness and occasional indulgence. This ethical artist who would not eat life. Someone who also enjoyed chocolate and tea. The latter occasionally used to give her voice more spit. Smoking but not really drinking. Tea seems to be the defining element to me. Maybe quintessentially British, I imagine interviews overflowing with tea! Bush doing tea runs constantly! It does make me smile. This is a subject and thought that I may explore…

NEXT year.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Songs from Fantastic E.P.s of 2024

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover for Emmy Meli’s Hello Stranger

Songs from Fantastic E.P.s of 2024

_________

WHILST many of us can name….

our favourite albums of the year and recognise the ones that have made a big impression, there are not many discussing E.P.s from this year. So many have been released. I wonder whether we view them as highly and as important as albums. A sort of middle ground between a single and an album, it is a great opportunity for artists to collect singles together or put out a project before a full-length release. I think that an E.P., whether it is four, five or more tracks, can be more consistent and tight than an album. More focused in a lot of ways. Rather than mark the very best E.P.s of this year, I have collected songs from some wonderful examples. I know that if I tried to rank the very best I will miss some obvious ones out! Instead, enjoy some cuts from some brilliant E.P.s that arrived this year. You may recognise a few of the artists, though many will be new to you. Here are songs from some…

IN THIS IMAGE: The cover of Little Simz’s Drop 7

AMAZING E.P.s.

FEATURE: One for the Record Collection! Essential January Releases

FEATURE:

 

 

One for the Record Collection!

IN THIS PHOTO: Ringo Starr 

Essential January Releases

_________

THE first month of a new year….

IN THIS PHOTO: Moonchild Sanelly/PHOTO CREDIT: Vicky Grout

I am looking ahead to January and the best albums out. There are some really great albums due, so I will highlight them here. Even though other months of the year will be busier, it is worth shining a light on what is out next month. The first great batch of albums for 2025. I am starting with 10th January. I would recommend people pre-order Franz Ferdinand’s The Human Fear. If you have not heard about the album, here is some more detail:

“Produced with Mark Ralph, who previously worked with them on their 2013 album Right Thoughts, Right Words, Right Action, the album showcases Franz at their most immediate, upbeat and life-affirming, unashamedly going for the pop-jugular in classic Franz style. Recorded at AYR studios in Scotland, the 11-songs on The Human Fear all allude to some deep-set human fears and how overcoming and accepting these fears drives and defines our lives.

Ever since their beginnings, throwing illegal parties in condemned Glasgow buildings, Franz Ferdinand have been defined by a fresh, unfading, forward-facing outlook, a transgressive art-school perspective, but with a love of a big song and The Human Fear undoubtedly continues in this tradition; distinct yet new, musically, and creatively it’s a record eager to push forward. Pretty much all written before they hit the studio, the idea was to have a songbook ready before they started recording and once in the studio it was all quickly executed - a lot of it recorded live with the band in the room and many of the vocals on the album being the original takes.

The first studio album to feature members Audrey Tait and Dino Bardot, the record also sees Julian Corrie step forward to collaborate with Alex Kapranos and Bob Hardy on song writing and creative duties.

A band for whom the aesthetic and style is almost as important as the sound, as ever the importance of this is reflected in the cover artwork which was inspired by Hungarian artist Dóra Maurer’s self-portrait 7 Twists - Maurer’s work appealed because it does exactly what they want from their music: a striking immediacy that is impossible to ignore, but with a depth and vulnerability that bears many returns and satisfactory repetition. Maybe this is a set of songs about fear, maybe this is a set of bangers from an era-defining band continuing their unquestionably living legacy. Is that something to be afraid of?”.

Another great album out on 10th January is Moonchild Sanelly’s Full Moon. A tremendous artist who everyone should know about, this is going to be an album that you will want to pre-order. I am a fan of Moonchild Sanelly, so I am excited to hear what is coming. An artist who should be commanding big stages, Full Moon is going to offer up plenty of treats. Although there are not a lot of details available about the album, Rough Trade have put together a little bit of information regarding Full Moon:

“New album from the South African musician and creative visionary, known for her vibrant, inimitable style and affirming lyricism.  Full Moon is a collection of 12 songs which displays Sanelly's unique sonic fingerprint, joyous attitude, distinctive vocals and genre-bending hits.

Recorded in multiple locations while on the road, Full Moon is an introspective yet kinetic display of her versatility. "I can make any genre, I have fun creating music because I'm not limited," she says. Its club-ready beats oscillate between electronic, afro-punk, edgy-pop, kwaito, and hip-hop sensibilities”.

There are a lot of artists moving from genres like Pop into Country. The legendary Ringo Starr is the latest example. His new album, Look Up, is one that is going to be fascinating. Featuring some excellent guest artists, I think this is going to be one of the best albums of next year. Even though many might associate Starr with The Beatles, he is a brilliant solo artist. I would urge people to pre-order this upcoming album:

“Throughout his career, Ringo Starr has received nine Grammy® Awards and has twice been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame - first as a Beatle and then as solo artist. Now, he releases a brand-new country music album, Look Up, produced and co-written by T Bone Burnett. This stunning collection features 11 original songs, recorded this year in Nashville and Los Angeles.

1. Breathless (featuring Billy Strings)

2. Look Up (featuring Molly Tuttle)

3. Time On My Hands

4. Never Let Me Go (featuring Billy Strings)

5. I Live For Your Love (featuring Molly Tuttle)

6. Come Back (featuring Lucius)

7. Can You Hear Me Call (featuring Molly Tuttle)

8. Rosetta (featuring Billy Strings and Larkin Poe)

9. You Want Some

10. String Theory (featuring Molly Tuttle and Larkin Poe)

11. Thankful (featuring Alison Krauss)”.

From a megastar and one of the best-known artists ever to someone who might not be on your radar, Sophie Jamieson’s I still want to share is out on 17th January. An album that is definitely worth pre-ordering, I am going to check it out. An artist with an interesting biography (“Sophie Jamieson doesn’t shy away from discomfort, or life’s ugly truths. The subjects of her songwriting are put to unflinching examination, often revealing aspects of the human character that most would rather turn away from. Need, desperation and anger simmer through her songs, but are balanced by an unsentimental acceptance of life’s painful contradictions. All of this is carried by a deep, raw voice which pivots from wobbling vulnerability to soaring, pent-up longing unleashed. On stage, Sophie digs deep into the darkest corners of the human spirit. Her performances are inescapably intimate and intense, earning her supports for the likes of Father John Misty, Ezra Furman and Marika Hackman to name a few. Her debut album, “Choosing” received widespread critical acclaim for its candid examination of the self-destructive urge, with high praise from the likes of Uncut, Mojo and The Financial Times”), do go and investigate this album:

“Co-produced by Guy Massey (Spiritualised, The Divine Comedy, Kylie) and Sophie Jamieson, I still want to share is an album exploring the push and pull, merry-go-round nature of anxious attachment and how it weaves, cuts and steals through familial and romantic relationships.

Throughout the record is a perpetual longing to belong, a yearning to learn how to love and let go, and a continual missing of the mark. Each song clings tightly to the possibility of home, but never arrives there. The album was recorded in North London between Guy's studio and Konk Studios, with string arrangements from Josephine Stephenson (Daughter, Ex:Re, Lisa Hannigan) and drums from Ed Riman (Hilang Child)”.

The final album from 17th January I want to highlight is The Weather Station’s Humanhoon. Once more, there is not a lot of detail about this album out there. However, go and listen to music from the band. They are well worth investing in. Humanblood is an album shaping up to be very special. One that I will definitely be keeping an eye out for:

“The Weather Station returns with new album, Humanhood, following up 2021's Critically acclaimed album, Ignorance, and its companion piece, How is it That I Should Look at the Stars. In the fall of 2023, Tamara Lindeman gathered six musicians at Canterbury Music Company, where she had recorded Ignorance and How Is It That I Should Look at the Stars. Several of these players - drummer Kieran Adams, keyboardist Ben Boye, percussionist Phillippe Melanson, reed-and-wind specialist Karen Ng, and bassist Ben Whiteley - had worked together but never in this specific arrangement or context. Much of Humanhood is a riveting and real document of what it means to be lost, to be hamstrung by confusion, unease, and grief for a period so long you begin to wonder if there is an end”.

There are four albums from 24th January that I want to cover off. The first is  Anna B Savage’s You and i are Earth. This is an album that I am very keen to hear. An artist I have been following for a long time now, go and pre-order this album. A tremendous artist that everybody should listen to:

“Linking music and literature, building a bridge between the written and the sung–only the greats have managed to do this in the past. Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker, and Patti Smith were just some of the shining stars that Anna B Savage orientated herself towards as a teenager. Born on the anniversary of Bach’s death, the young musician spent her birthday every year in the Green Room of the Royal Albert Hall watching her parents perform compositions by the grand master. That shaped her. Today, thanks to albums such as her debut, A Common Turn (2021), and the incredibly sensual art-pop opus in|FLUX (2023), the singer-songwriter is one of the truly exceptional talents on the British independent scene. In her music, otherworldly vocals nestle up against chamber orchestral compositions, delicate arrangements rise up and blow away, and the musician’s highly eclectic sound grows song by song into an experience that lingers for days and weeks. Potentially life-changing. A sense of rootedness is at the heart of Anna B Savage’s third record You and I are Earth, a record that is as much about healing as it is an unbowed sense of curiosity, and, more simply, “a love letter to a man and to Ireland.” Following on from her critically acclaimed records A Common Turn and in|FLUX, You and I are Earth manages to convey a sense of intimacy, while also being open-ended. Gentleness is as radiant a touchstone on the record as earthiness, something that Savage attributes to the place she finds herself at present, both geographically and emotionally. And quite literally the record bears witness to a particular piece of earth-Ireland, and Savage’s relationship to it as her new home. That process is brilliantly rendered on Agnes, a complicated piece of work featuring AnnaMieke that turns on tropes of duality and transformation. It mirrors an unsettling experience that Savage had through meditation, which ultimately ended in an immersive, beautiful feeling, “I felt like I was part of the earth, completely connected to the mycelium network, felt like I was where I was meant to be.”In many ways, that experience framed the album’s artwork, a photograph taken in some woodlands in Co. Sligo, with Savage looking up at the trees, their fractals reflected in her eyes, mirroring something she had felt in her meditation, bringing us back full circle, and to that sense that we are essentially in unison, or at least striving to be, that “you and I are earth”.

With one of the most striking covers from all the albums I will recommend, FKA twigs’ EUSEXUA. The new album from an iconic modern artist, this is another that is going to be among the best-reviewed of the year. There may be some who have not heard of FKA twigs. I would recommend people check this album out. It is going to be tremendous:

“FKA twigs releases her highly-anticipated third studio album, EUSEXUA via Young Recordings. Eusexua is a state of being. A feeling of momentary transcendence often evoked by art, music, sex, and unity. Eusexua can be followed by a state of bliss and feelings of limitless possibility. Also used to refer to: ‘The pinnacle of Human Experience’. It is united through any moment in which we are fully embodying ourselves, present in the moment, disconnected from technology, synthesized with those around us. It was moments of Eusexua that birthed EUSEXUA the album, as twigs cites her late nights in the underground techno scene of Prague”.

Before moving on, it is worth providing some background about EUSEXUA. I have been a fan of FKA twigs since she released her debut album, LP1, in 2014. Her new album is sure to sit alongside the very best of 2025:

“Twigs first began teasing the album in January 2024 through a string of posts on her Discord. Having relocated to Prague "a couple summers" prior to work on The Crow (2024), she fell in love with techno; while she explained that the album would not consist of that genre but would bear its "spirit", and she described it as "deep but not sad". She further revealed that she had teamed up with electronic duo Two Shell who helped her craft the era from scratch after 85 of her demos were leaked in October 2023. In an interview with British Vogue in March 2024, she explained the meaning behind the word "eusexua", saying that she came up with it to describe the "sensation of being so euphoric" that one could "transcend human form”.

The penultimate album from 24th January that I want to bring to your attention is from Larkin Poe. Bloom is an album that I would definitely suggest people pre-order. A fantastic duo that have a distinct sound. A new album that is going to be one you’ll not want to miss out on:

“Larkin Poe’s new album Bloom sees the dynamic sister duo venturing further along on their evolving musical journey with a collection of songs that resonate with introspection, authenticity, and a profound connection to their roots in American music. Produced and largely co-written by Megan, Rebecca, and Tyler Bryant, the album marks a significant evolution for Larkin Poe, reflecting a synergy that extends beyond mere musical partnership. Already hailed for the sincerity of their songcraft, the Lovell sisters now place an even greater spotlight on their gift for storytelling, delving deep into personal narratives with universal themes of self-acceptance and individuality against a backdrop of contemporary blues and rock influences. With their distinctive blend of masterful instrumentation and soulful harmonies, each track unfolds like a chapter, with lyrics that wind deeper and deeper towards the heart of Larkin Poe”.

Before moving on to 31st January and a few great albums out that week, the final one from 24th January I am spotlighting is Mogwai’s The Bad Fire. A wonderful album looms from the band. One that you should pre-order and add to your collection:

“Mogwai’s The Bad Fire was recorded at Chem19 studios in Scotland with American Grammy Award winning producer John Congleton (St Vincent, Angel Olsen, John Grant) joining the band in the studio for their eleventh album. A Scottish colloquialism for Hell, The Bad Fire draws inspiration from a series of tough personal moments that the band found themselves in following on from their chart-topping tenth album, As The Love Continues. All vinyl comes packaged in a gatefold sleeve, with MP3 download code and etching. The photo booklet in the box sets includes a series of photographs taken by producer and Chem19 studio owner Paul Savage (Belle and Sebastian, Mogwai, Arab Strap ) during the band's recording sessions”.

I think I will round off with two more albums. The penultimate album I want to recommend is Lilly Hiatt’s Forever. Go and pre-order an album that should be on your radar. This may be another artist you do not know about, though the album will definitely blow you away:

“Forever was a record that was written and recorded one track at a time with my husband Coley. After scrapping about 20 songs or so I had written the last few years, I wanted to get to the heart of things. I had a great talk with a friend on the phone and she mentioned she just wasn’t sure where I’d been. I realized I wasn’t really certain of that either. It’d been a foggy few years after 2020, and the pieces seemed to just be starting to be picked up. I had fallen in love, gotten married, had a dog, a house…things I had always dreamed of. But it took my quite some time to accept them as my life. For a bit, I felt like an outsider watching myself stumble though everything, and was constantly critiquing myself, to the point where I could hardly leave the house for a bit. But then I realized my life was passing me by, and the love I was living in required presence to accept. I started to do the little things you have to do to just show up for people: listen, grow, change, write….get outside of my own problems. Time is flying, and I want to be here for it all rather than lost in my thoughts all the time. My love is forever. When I was a kid I used to say to my mom and dad “I love you forever and always” then neurotically changed it to “I love you forever and always and it’s true and I mean it”…because I wanted to make sure they knew how much I wasn’t messing around! I still feel that way when I say “I love you” to anyone and hope it comes across on this record. Love y’all forever!”.

The final album I am recommending is from one of the all-time best bands. Manic Street Preachers’ Critical Thinking is out on 31st January. Go and add this album to your collection. A great album to end the month with. Here is where you can pre-order it:

“The Manic Street Preachers return with their most urgent album in years. This is a record of opposites colliding - of dialectics trying to find a path of resolution. While the music has an effervescence and an elegiac uplift, most of the words deal with the cold analysis of the self, the exception being the three lyrics by James (Dean Bradfield) which look for and hopefully find answers in people, their memories, language and beliefs”.

There are other albums out in January that you can pre-order. It is a busy year. Though there will be more choice from February onwards, there are some gems from January that you will want to own. I have selected a few that are well worth pre-ordering. It goes to show that 2025 will get off to…

A strong start.

FEATURE: The Charmers Under Me: Compiling and Considering Kate Bush’s Influences and Musical Heroes

FEATURE:

 

 

The Charmers Under Me

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980

Compiling and Considering Kate Bush’s Influences and Musical Heroes

_________

I have nodded to this before….

IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 1973/PHOTO CREDIT: Masayoshi Sukita

but I have been thinking how a playlist does exist of Kate Bush’s influence. Both artists Bush grew up listening to, those she was name-checking in interviews through her career and collaborations through her career. Including cover versions and albums other than her own she appeared on. My mind casts back to a very young Kate Bush. Catherine actually. When she was a girl and young teen. Maybe not adorning the walls of her 1960s/1970s bedroom wall at East Wickham Farm with Pop stars of the day, there would have been a few posters I am sure. In an artistic household, there would have been more books and albums than posters and anything other teenagers would have had. As a girl, Bush was listening to her parents’ music and anything her brothers were introducing her to. Unknown or under the radar artists that were all important building blocks. Songs that Bush would have enjoyed but were not necessarily important in terms of her own music. The sonic and instrumental elements would definitely have inspired her yet, lyrically, it is hard really to think of other artists who Bush might have channelled. Maybe musical heroes like Elton John and David Bowie. Bush was at the final Ziggy Stardust gig at the Hammersmith Odeon on 3rd July, 1973. That gig was twenty-seven days before her fifteenth birthday. There was something in that performance and the gravity of the night that compelled Bush. That drove her to the stage six years later for The Tour of Life. Not only that, but David Bowie’s different personas and being able to keep the music non-personal yet compelling would have spoken to her. She would have imbibed a lot of poetry from her brother Jay. Folk music and Irish sounds. Bowie was a big draw for her. The theatrical nature of his work and his incredible stagecraft. Elton John, perhaps her biggest idol – who she duetted with for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow – fostered her love and exploration of the piano. Again, a wonderful stage performer, he and David Bowie charted different musical courses. Maybe John showed that a successful Pop artist could play piano. An instrument not necessarily in fashion or spotlighted in the 1970s, Bush was listening to Elton John from the 1960s. At a period in music when bands and guitars were probably more prominent.

Bush was also listening to artists like Roy Harper, Captain Beefheart and The Beatles. Think about her brief stint with the KT Bush Band in 1977. Just before she was ready to step into AIR studios to begin recording The Kick Inside from July 1977, Bush was in a band that toured pubs and clubs mostly around London. A chance to provide stage experience and also help with her performance skills, which would be utilised in her music videos, it was a chance for punters to hear some of the songs and artists who were important to Bush. One song, Nutbush City Limits (there was talk of renaming it Kate Bush City Limits, but this was quickly abandoned!), was part of the set. A 1973 song by Ike & Tina Turner, it seems that this year was important to Bush. Bowie’s retirement from the stage – which was obviously not true – and music speaking to her in a big way when she was fourteen and fifteen. The Beatles’ Come Together was also played. Released on 1969’s Abbey Road, it was one of the earlier influences that appeared in the set of the KT Bush Band. One song that I was not aware that was part of their set was by Steely Dan. Called Brooklyn (Owes the Charmer Under Me), it was their debut studio album, Can’t Buy a Thrill. That album was released in 1972. That time period (a year or so) once more making an impact. Elton John released two of his best albums in 1973 – including Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player -, though he was not worked into her live sets as far as I know. However, it is clear that he was a big inspiration.

There are interviews, especially early ones, where Bush discussed her influences. In fact, whilst researching, I have found a playlist of Kate Bush’s influences. Pink Floyd and Nick Drake sitting alongside Peter Gabriel and Roxy Music. Frank Zappa and Devo are other artists that spoke to Bush when she was younger. Not too many female influences. Although some might cite Joni Mitchell, I am not sure whether Bush was listening to Blue (1971) or Ladies of the Canyon (1970). I do think that we need a compilation or more playlists where there is a wide spread of Kate Bush’s musical influences. This feature from March highlighted an interview from 1980, where Bush spend some time talking about albums that mean a lot to her. The Beatles featuring. She covered several of their songs at various moments in her early career. Albums like 1967’s Magical Mystery Tour and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Bush revealed some more of her favourite albums. The Eagles’ One of These Nights was in there. That album was released in 1975 (when Bush was sixteen). Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Steely Dan’s Gaucho was also discussed. I will end with a playlist of songs from ger favourite albums, some she covered with the KT Bush Band, plus some other artists and albums that have influenced her.

“Another personal choice is The Eagles’ One of These Nights. “I played it to death when studying with Lindsay Kemp, and it reminds me of him,” she said, honouring the teacher who taught her to dance. When she received her first record label advance, she spent some of it in classes with Kemp, a famed modern dance teacher who also instructed David Bowie. Clearly feeling a kind of kinship with the artist, she also picks out his own Young Americans.

One of her choices also reminds her of even earlier years as it soundtracked her childhood home. Bush picked A.L. Lloyd and Eran MacColl’s Blow Boys Blow, writing, “I was brought up with this album.” The fact that Bush was raised on a diet of shanties and traditional folk makes so much sense when considering tracks like ‘Jig Of Life’.

There are a fair few left-field yet traditional or cultural sounds on Bush’s list. She also chooses albums from The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra and German double bass player Eberhard Weber. Showing exactly where her interest in global sounds comes from, her eclectic musical engagement came to fruition across her records.

But she also loves the big names. She picked out Stevie Wonder’s The Secret Life Of Plants as a more soulful choice, deeming it a “modern symphony”. The Beatles naturally make an appearance as she picked out Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Her reasoning is simple as she stated, “It’s an album of excellent songs.” Somewhat bridging the gap between her classic rock tastes and her more unusual choices, she discussed her love for Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, the resident weird guys of the 1960s and ‘70s. As both artists pushed the sounds of the era to wilder places than their peers, the two figures make total sense as firm favourites of Bush’s.

Kate Bush’s favourite albums of all time:

• Frank Zappa – Over-Nite Sensation

• A.L. Lloyd and Eran MacColl – Blow Boys Blow

• The Eagles – One of These Nights

• David Bowie – Young Americans

• The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

• Eberhard Weber – Fluid Rustle

• Captain Beefheart – Blue Jeans and Moonbeams

• Stevie Wonder – The Secret Life of Plants

• Pink Floyd – The Wall

• The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra – Treasures of the Baroque Era”.

I would love to have heard Bush sing songs from albums like Gaucho. Maybe Glamour Profession. It seems like One of These Nights’ title track would be perfect for her. A Bush rendition of The Wall’s Mother. Perhaps something from Captain Beefheart. I have a dim memory that Bush might have sung some David Bowie at some point. Maybe Young Americans?! Even though she did cover a fair few of The Beatles’ songs, I would have love to hear her take on Magical Mystery Tour’s I Am the Walrus or Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’s Fixing a Hole. She did cover She’s Leaving Home when visiting Japan in 1978. Also, there is this other side. Artists Bush worked with who she was a fan of. The Trio Bulgarka (who appeared on 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes), Peter Gabriel (she featured on three of his songs), Roy Harper (he appeared on her Breathing; she retuned the favour for 1980’s The Unknown Soldier), Big Country and Elton John (she covered Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time) for a tribute album to Elton John and Bernie Taupin in the 1990s). Backtracking to Kate Bush and Steely Dan. She did actually mention Peg (from 1977’s Aja) as a standout of theirs. I keep thinking about all these artists and how, from the 1960s through to the 1980s, they made an impression on Kate Bush. Those childhood and teenage loves. Artists she was discovering and loving when she was making her own music. You can bring it up to date and artists she has mentioned in later interviews. Gorillaz in 2005. Elton John and Leon Russell in 2011. I might do another feature of the artists influenced by Kate Bush. Updating a feature I wrote a while ago. I would love to know if there are other artists who were important to Bush that I have not mentioned. I have included many (though not all) in…

katebushnews.com · Radio 1 Paul Gambaccini Kate's Favourite rock and pop 31st December 1980

A comprehensive mixtape.

FEATURE: Chart Dreams to Interesting Nightmares: Kate Bush’s Move From Pop and Into New Sonic Territories

FEATURE:

 

 

Chart Dreams to Interesting Nightmares

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during a photoshoot for 1989’s The Sensual World/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harrai

Kate Bush’s Move From Pop and Into New Sonic Territories

_________

ONE of the most interesting….

PHOTO CREDIT: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

topics of discussion around Kate Bush’s music is her move away from more conventional and commercial Pop to something that pushes beyond the fringes. One could say that Kate Bush has never been conventional or commercial. Consider her debut single, Wuthering Heights, and how strange that still sounds. Since it was released in 1978, nothing like it has come along. However, there are distinct periods of her career where she has released singles that are designed to get chart traction. That are more radio-accessible and less divisive. One can listen to Kate Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, and see that as a distinct period that ended by the time of 1982’s The Dreaming. Her first three albums, whilst distinct and varied, had songs on them that could be considered relatable. Not too out-there. Perhaps never a traditional ‘Pop’ artist, there was this sense that these songs could be released as singles and be successful. Albums, at the very least, which have a distinct palette. Think about a lot of the love songs on The Kick Inside.Also, tracks like Them Heavy People. Tracks of Lionheart such as Kashka from Baghdad, Wow and Fullhouse. Cuts on 1980’s Never for Ever like Delius (Song of Summer), All We Ever Look For, The Wedding List or Babooshka. These songs are like nothing that was released at the time. However, in spite of a lack of cliché love lyrics and Pop dynamics, these tracks do seem to be of a similar kin. You can draw lines between them. Not as heavy or haunted as some of her other songs. How would one class Kate Bush’s music? At least her early albums? Not commercial Pop like you got in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a degree of relatability to her lyrics and compositions. Shorter songs that could theoretically be played on radio.

Even when she stepped more outside of Pop and experimented more for The Dreaming in 1982’s, the songs were not too long and there were at least one or two on the album that had similarities with her earlier material. I feel tracks such as There Goes a Tenner and Suspended in Gaffa have an air of familiarity. Kate Bush songs but with a slightly different edge and sound. That was the first album where she knew that she could not be a normal Pop artist. Writing songs and producing albums that were want EMI wanted or what the public expected. Bush was always able to release music that was evolving but she did not need to pay homage and acknowledge the scene around her. She had influences and artists she loved, though working with those artists or sounding like them was not high on her agenda. By 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, her most recent album, Bush acknowledged that she was pushing away from Pop and did not want to be considers a Pop artist. There was always this tussle between staying true to herself and making music that was genuine but also needing to connect with her fans and the public. An interesting tussle and development occurred between 1982 and 1985. Two terrific albums that sounds completely different. The former saw the release of Kate Bush’s fourth studio album, The Dreaming. I think it was Bush consciously trying to explore the depth and possibilities of music. Embracing the Fairlight CMI. A move from Pop’s conventionality. It did yield a terrific album that she produced solo. However, given some unhappiness from EMI and low-charting singles, Hounds of Love could not see her follow what she did before. However, though it is still an experimental, ambitious and a profoundly unconventional album – The Ninth Wave, the second side of the album, it a song-suite that is almost an album in itself -, there were songs on the first side that moved slightly more towards traditional Pop. Perhaps Art Pop. 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes were terrific albums but did seem to move away from The Dreaming - and, with it, possibly take Bush back more into ‘accessible’ territory. However, from 2005’s Aerial onwards, she has moved again further from Pop or being easy to predict.

It is no coincidence that Bush seems happier as an artist when she is not bound by chart positions or creating singles. Hounds of Love was a hugely happier time for her, though I do not see that album as ‘mainstream’ or Pop-focused as, say, Never for Ever or even The Sensual World. It leads me back towards the question as to whether Kate Bush was ever a Pop artist or someone who was always outside of that restrictive realm but did move further towards something outside and experimental at various points in her career. She has always been popular, yet that has never been at the expense of brilliance and vision. I want to move on to a few articles that frame Kate Bush as this distinct and pioneering artist. One who has influenced scores of other artists because she was able to mix something accessible or familiar but completely fresh and original. In 2020, this feature saluted Bush as one of the most revered and influential Pop artists ever:

“By 1980 and Never For Ever, her third album, Kate had broken away by setting up her own publishing and management company and producing her own material. This determination to do it her own way rewarded Kate with her first chart-topping album and big hits in ‘Babooshka’ and ‘Army Dreamers’. With her work blending imaginative themes and dramatic promotional interpretation, Kate’s commercial fortunes were consistent and her artistic reputation was soaring. She guested on Peter Gabriel’s hit ‘Games Without Frontiers’ and was continuing to win further industry awards, including another Ivor Novello Award.

It was business as usual when the stopgap single ‘Sat In Your Lap’, released in July 1981 and preceding its parent album by more than a year, got to No.11. But when The Dreaming finally hit the shops amid an exploding new pop scene dominated by The Human League and Duran Duran, the 10 songs struggled to find much of an audience and the set became Kate’s lowest-selling to date, with three of its four singles failing to even trouble the UK Top 40.

1989’s The Sensual World lacked the commercial clout of its predecessor, but contained the well-regarded title track and, perhaps, Kate’s most tender ballad, ‘This Woman’s Work’, which first featured in the cult 80s movie She’s Having A Baby. The era was also characterised by another brief run of more consistent activity with a contribution to an Elton John and Bernie Taupin tribute album that was swiftly culled for a single. Her cover of ‘Rocket Man’ made UK No.12 and was named “best cover ever” in a national newspaper poll, 16 years later. She also made an appearance in a TV play by The Comic Strip team and produced a track for singer and harpist Alan Stivell”.

Someone who never wanted to me famous or live a celebrity life, Bush’s music has always been defined by this desire not to be ordinary. To fit in or sound like artists around her whose agenda and ambitious were less concerned with musical excellence and progression, and more to do with getting them name out there and being ‘celebrated’. Earlier this year, PROG wrote how the less we see of Kate Bush, the more we need and want to know. Since that feature was published, Bush has conducted a new interview (in October) where she has opened up the possibility of an eleventh studio album:

“While the marketing men and mainstream media were far from subtle in their slavering celebration of Bush’s obvious sexual appeal, she was already proving to be more enigmatic and far smarter than the mindless pop star they clearly hoped to pin her as. When The Man With... won her an Ivor Novello Award and she swiftly followed The Kick Inside with second album Lionheart, the critical acclaim grew.

“EMI really had no idea,” says Carder Bush. “It was run by salesmen who saw her as part of an assembly line – they had obviously never studied her lyrics! So once Kate became a success, they barged in with sexy photo shoots, offers of Las Vegas residencies and Bond themes. She said ‘no’ to all of them because it was the brain and not the body that was Kate’s real quality.”

Ultimately though, Bush’s reclusive tendencies would be the making of her. As chart music went through a period dominated by glossy pop that was all veneer and little content, Kate Bush’s outsider status worked to her advantage.

A string of albums throughout the 80s went to Nos. 1, 3 and 1 respectively – Never For Ever (1980), The Dreaming (1982) and Hounds Of Love (1985).

No one song was easy to pin down, with Bush’s music drawing on murder ballads, the childhood wonder of nursery rhymes, her part-Celtic genealogy, the mythology of a lost Albion favoured by some prog and pastoral folk singers, the ethereal end of goth, the organic tones of early music, digital synth pop and emerging sequencing technologies.

Hounds Of Love alone spawned yhree classic singles – Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting and the tumultuous, dramatically-heightened title track – and further reiterated her prog tendencies by devoting the entire second side of the album to a an experimental opera, The Ninth Wave, whose name came from a Tennyson poem. She also helped define the 1980s whilst being unlike anything else in that era: her skill was not to experiment in the live arena but by embracing emerging technologies in the studio .

“For three or four years it was a rollercoaster for Kate,” says Carder Bush (Joh, her brother). “She was being sent all over the world, and fortunately she had stockpiled a lot of songs. But when that stockpile ran out she was expected to come up with an album, then promote it, go on TV, all within a year. Well, the type of artist Kate is meant that just couldn’t work. That’s why each album has taken longer and longer to come to maturity.”

Today Bush may not be so obviously viewed as a practitioner of prog rock – not at first glance anyway. Yet her career history and collaborations are inextricably tied in with prog and her ever-evolving output has much more common with the genre than the pop world in which she first found herself operating.

In fact, Kate Bush is prog’s first pop star and pop’s first prog star. And one who is always capable of delivering nothing less than the unexpected”.

I am going to end with a feature from 2014. This was released alongside a score of other features to coincide with her returning to the stage for her Before the Dawn residency. This queen of Art Pop always defied the critics. Perhaps the more that they derided or lampooned her, the more her music stepped away from the core of Pop. I don’t think that she ever compromised or made an album that was what was expected. However, one can say that various albums/career points saw her move towards the fringes. 2005’s Aerial and 2011’s 50 Words for Snow show Bush no longer wants to be seen as a ‘Pop’ artist. Just an artist:

“As words and as music, none of these scream "hit single". Yet all but one of them were. It's therefore hardly surprising that Bush's name gets reeled out, with varying degrees of appropriateness, as the ancestor for any new female artist trying to merge glamour, conceptualism, innovation and autonomy: recent examples include Grimes, Julia Holter and FKA Twigs. Yet, strange as it seems now, Bush was not always impregnably cool. In fact, despite her massive record sales and mainstream fame, she was not afforded much respect by critics or hip listeners in the late 1970s.

Despite being as young or younger than, say, the Slits, Bush seemed Old Wave: she belonged with the generation of musicians who had emerged during the 1960s ("boring old farts", as the punk press called them). Some of these BOFs were indeed her mentors, friends, and collaborators: David Gilmour, Peter Gabriel and Roy Harper. Growing up, her sensibility was shaped by her older brothers, in particular the musical tastes and spiritual interests of Jay, 13 years her senior and a true 60s cat.

Punk often sneered at "art" as airy-fairy, bourgeois self-indulgence, but its ranks were full of art-school graduates and this artiness blossomed with the sound, design and stage presentation of bands such as Wire and Talking Heads. Yet Bush's music seemed the wrong kind of "arty": ornate rather than angular, overly decorative and decorous. It was the sort of musically accomplished, well-arranged, album-oriented art-pop that EMI had been comfortable with since the Beatles and had pursued with Pink Floyd, Cockney Rebel and Queen. They signed Bush expressly as the first major British female exponent of this genteel genre.

And that's where Bush was situated on her first two albums, The Kick Inside and Lionheart: somewhere at the crossroads of singer-songwriter pop, the lighter side of prog, and the highbrow end of glam. Like Bowie, she studied mime with Lindsay Kemp, took classes in dance, and made a series of striking, inventive videos. EMI's Bob Mercer hailed Bush as "a completely audio-visual artist" and spoke of the company's intention to break her in America through television rather than radio (this, several years before MTV even existed). Her one and only tour was a theatrical mega-production in the rigidly choreographed tradition of Diamond Dogs, all dancers and costume changes and no-expense-spared staging. Reviewing one of the 1979 concerts for NME, Charles Shaar Murray typified the general rock press attitude towards Bush at that point, scornfully describing the show as a throw-back to "all the unpleasant aspects of David Bowie in the Mainman era.... [Bowie manager/Mainman boss] Tony DeFries would've loved you seven years ago, Kate, and seven years ago maybe I would've too. But these days I'm past the stage of admiring people desperate to dazzle and bemuse, and I wish you were past the stage of trying those tricks yourself." Spectacle, in the immediate years after punk, was considered a narcissistic star trip, fundamentally non-egalitarian.

Of the ethereal-girl artists emerging in the mid-80s, Elizabeth Fraser was the most clearly indebted – indeed, the frou-frou side of Cocteau Twins could be traced to a single song on Never For Ever, Delius (Song of Summer). Björk's starburst of vocal euphoria likewise owed much to Bush. Enya, formerly of Clannad, followed in Bush's footsteps in her explorations of synths and sampling, as well as taking vocal multi-tracking to the dizzy limit.

The 90s saw the arrival of Tori Amos, whose piano-driven confessionals blatantly drew on Bush's ornate early sound. But there were less obvious inheritors, too. Touring their first album, Suede liked to air Wuthering Heights immediately before going onstage: Brett Anderson placed Bush in his personal trinity of utterly English ancestors, alongside Bowie and Morrissey. Esoteric-industrial duo Coil hailed Bush as "a very powerful witch", possibly knowing about – or simply sensing – the Bush family's shared enchantment with the ideas of Gurdjieff who, among other things, explored the magical effects of particular musical chords. Closeted fans started to emerge from the unlikeliest places: Johnny Rotten, for instance, gushed about the "beauty beyond belief" of Bush's music.

Still, it's hard to think of an artist with such an amazing body of work who has produced such a small collection of quotable remarks. (Her only rival in this regard might be Prince.) Here, to close, is one she gave me that's not bad as a encapsulation of the spirit of Kate Bush and her Never Never Pop.

"That's what all art's about – a sense of moving away from boundaries that you can't – in real-life. Like a dancer is always trying to fly, really - to do something that's just not possible. But you try to do as much as you can within those physical boundaries. All art is like that: a form of exploration, of making up stories. Writing, film, sculpture, music: it's all make-believe, really”.

One of the most distinctive aspects of Kate Bush’s music is how it cannot be easily labelled or attached to genres. Never truly commercial or conventional, there were waves of sonic change. Albums that had more clear singles. Perhaps an effort to keep her in the public mindset whilst also pushing her music forward. However, in later years, Bush is releasing albums as single pieces. Not concerned with singles or radio play necessarily, Bush definitely wants her fans to experience albums fully. Not to say that her music is inaccessible or outsider. Its greatest gift is that it is like nothing else around it and not concerned with ‘fitting in’. However, the songs resonate and stand up to repeated listens. Less concerned with Pop’s structures and rules, Bush’s lack of being ‘cool’ or even following artists she has inspired gives her music extra depth and credibility. From 1978’s Wuthering Heights to 2011’s Misty, the divine Kate Bush has very much…

BEEN iimpossible to define.

FEATURE: 1 Problem: A New Level of Misogyny and Disrespectful for Women Through Hip-Hop

FEATURE:

 

 

1 Problem

IN THIS PHOTO: Jay-Z has been accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in 2000. He has called for the lawsuit to be thrown out

A New Level of Misogyny and Disrespectful for Women Through Hip-Hop

_________

THERE has always been a huge issues….

IN THIS PHOTO: Diddy

with misogyny which has run through the marrow of Hip-Hop for decades. It is one of the last genres where there is this rife and unrelenting sense of disrespect for women. I don’t think that it has massively changed through the years. Small improvements from decades past, though very few of the men in Hip-Hop boost women or mention them in their music. Positive, empowering and respectful narratives about women. You get collaborations happening but, when you look at a lot of the lyrics of modern Hip-Hop, there is still this misogyny that is never going to shift. I don’t think the genres will ever radically change so that its men are respectful of women. I know other women in Hip-Hop can be demeaning and aggressive towards other women, though it is almost solely women in Hip-Hop who are platforming and highlighting women. Alongside misogyny is something ever darker and more disturbing. Men in the genre being accused of sexual assault. How that is slow to change. Also, when men are accusing of sexual abuse, their attitudes towards the women making the accusation are also hugely disrespectful and disgusting! When you look at Hip-Hop’s men, especially those in the mainstream who have been around for decades, there is this complete lack of positivity of basic respect for women. So many abusing through their music of reducing women to their bodies. Vulgarity and aggression. I am mentioning this because Jay-Z has been accused of rape. Alongside abuser Diddy, Jay-Z has been accused of raping a thirteen-year-old. Although it is has come to light that the victim’s story has some inconsistencies, there is no reason ever to not believe her. The attitude displayed by Jay-Z towards the allegations and victim are at best dismissive and, in reality, disgusting. Someone who has power and privilege trying to write it off.

This is not a one-off. Over the past few years, there has been a slew of men in Hip-Hop accused of sexual assault, rape and violence towards women. Nobody can say that this problem is on the brink of being resolved. So far from that are we now, it is depressingly commonplace to read a story of women coming forward about being assaulted and abused by a male Hip-Hop artist/someone in the industry. The Guardian reported on Jay-Z’s reaction to being accused of rape. How it is systematic of the Hip-Hop scene:

“Jay-Z himself isn’t a newcomer to rumours about inappropriate relationships with minors. For years, speculation about the timelines and natures of his relationships with Foxy Brown, Aaliyah and eventually Beyoncé (all of whom are significantly younger than Jay-Z and were teenagers when they met him) have put him in the category of, at the very least, “Questionable Man”.

That’s why it was even more appalling to watch the typically measured, always calculated rap mogul release a statement that was condescending, un-self-aware and smacked of the smug overconfidence of someone who has operated with god-like status for so long that they don’t know what the rules even are, let alone that they have to follow them.

For starters, Jay-Z “implored” the plaintiff to file a criminal suit, “not a civil one!!” – a nonsense request when we know just how hard it is to secure a criminal conviction in a case like this, and just how useful the civil courts have been in awarding judgments in favor of victims of old crimes.

He’s also filed a motion to deny the plaintiff’s request for anonymity, asking that either her identity be disclosed or the case be dismissed. This demand that she out herself isn’t some attempt to level the playing field in the court of public opinion like he’s suggesting – it’s a way to force her into opening herself up to scrutiny, a move that is especially diabolical considering how the world treats women who stand up to abusers. And Jay-Z of all people should know: he was instrumental in helping Megan Thee Stallion navigate the hell she went up against after being shot by Tory Lanez.

But the rapper’s hostile approach to the accusations doesn’t end with his accuser. He is also suing her attorney, Tony Buzbee, whom he accuses of extortion. Buzbee has responded, accusing Jay-Z of “orchestrating a conspiracy of harassment” against him and his legal colleagues in an attempt to intimidate and silence his client.

When it comes to public response, much of it has been predictably asinine and filled with rap legend apologia. Some Black men on social media dusted off the Bill Cosby defence playbook, gleeful to be able to call the allegations “proof” of a conspiracy to bring down one of their own.

“My biggest problem in all of this is the clown show that sexual assaults have become,” said radio presenter Ebro Darden, hedging his defence of Jay-Z as a protection of the gravity of sexual assault. “I don’t know why so many people want to see Jay-Z get torn down. It’s disgusting. People love a tear-down of somebody successful … I would say in all this [that] it still takes me back to how upsetting it is that sexual assault is a game.”

All this is to be expected: Jay-Z is arguably the most powerful man in hip-hop and our misogynistic, celebrity-obsessed culture demands that he have staunch defenders in a moment like this. What I think is more interesting are the ways that Jay-Z has situated himself within the white American establishment – his relationship with the National Football League (NFL), in particular – and what role that will play as this story continues to unfold. For his part, Roger Goodell, the NFL commissioner, said in a perfunctory statement on Wednesday that the league was aware of the allegations and Jay-Z’s “really strong response” to them, and that their “relationship is not changing”.

Hip-Hop is not isolated in regards to misogyny. It is as bad now as ever. When you look online and how women are viewed and discussed, you do get this sense that we are heading backwards. To some dark days. The latest case of a powerful figure in Hip-Hop being accused of rape shows that there is a huge issue in the genre. The way a lot of male artists perceive women. Thinking they are beyond punishment and can do what they like. Like women are objects and are inferior to men. I do hope that the woman who has come forward to accuse Jay-Z finds justice. Hopefully it would send a clear message that men cannot get away with this sort of thing. Sadly, it is likely that the case will be thrown out or the victim will be paid off. After the dust has settled – not that it could ever! – there needs to be this spotlight on Hip-Hop. How it is still this genre overrunning with misogyny and controversy. How women in the genre are treated and still have to fight to be heard. It is a really sorry state of affairs. Women attacked and abused and there being little in the way of hope. In terms of seeing a light. It is especially terrible when high-profile men are accused and you know they will escape consequences because of who they are. As I said, the Jay-Z case is likely to be tossed out. His attitude towards the allegations is horrible! Next year has to be one for genuine change in the music industry. Where misogyny is tackled and addressed. It is especially severe in Hip-Hop. We need to be in a place (very soon) where…

WOMEN feel safe and heard.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Eddie Vedder at Sixty

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Eddie Vedder at Sixty

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ON 23rd December….

IN THIS PHOTO: Pearl Jam

one of music’s true greats turns sixty. Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is a true legend who deserves saluting. Because of that, I am going to end this feature with a playlist featuring some of the best Pearl Jam songs and deeper cuts. Some Eddie Vedder solo material too. Prior to that, AllMusic provide a detailed biography of the wonder Vedder:

“As the singer for Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder cemented his place as one of modern rock's best-known frontmen, riding the band's early success as Seattle grunge icons into a remarkably consistent and varied career. His low, rugged vocals, introspective lyrics, and dynamic presence made him one of the 1990s' most influential frontmen and he used his celebrity to promote issues like environmental activism and women's rights. As Pearl Jam's success continued into the 21st century, Vedder also branched out into occasional solo work, contributing to a number of films including his acclaimed soundtrack to 2007's Into the Wild. After his 2011 solo acoustic release, Ukulele Songs, he spent much of the following decade devoted to Pearl Jam, becoming a Rock & Roll Hall of Famer in the process. In 2022, Vedder released Earthling, his first solo album devoted to rock & roll.

Born Edward Louis Severson III in Evanston, Illinois Vedder was raised by his mother Karen Vedder and stepfather Peter Mueller. Unaware of his biological father's existence, he used Mueller as his surname until his late teens; he later found out his real father had died and eventually took his mother's maiden name as his own. The family's relocation to San Diego in the mid-'70s ushered in Vedder's two primary passions: music and surfing. He learned to play the guitar which, along with his surfboard, helped sustain him through a difficult period that ultimately saw him drop out of high school. After earning his GED back in Chicago, Vedder returned to San Diego in the mid-'80s, where he worked odd jobs, recorded songs, and played in bands like Indian Style and Bad Radio.

In 1990, friend and former Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Jack Irons gave Vedder a demo tape from some Seattle friends seeking a new lead singer. Vedder's powerful voice and thoughtful lyrics earned him an invitation to Seattle to meet Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament, whose most recent band, Mother Love Bone, had just folded following the death of its lead singer, Andrew Wood. In fact, they were recording a tribute album to Wood called Temple of the Dog and invited Vedder to contribute vocals on several songs alongside Soundgarden's Chris Cornell. Upon its April 1991 release, "Hunger Strike," a duet with Cornell, marked Vedder's first featured vocal appearance on record and became Temple of the Dog's breakout single, introducing the newcomer to fans ahead of Pearl Jam's own debut later that August.

Anchored by Vedder's distinctive baritone growl and the band's battery of dark, chugging riffs, Ten catapulted Pearl Jam into the mainstream and became one of the best-selling albums of the decade. It preceded the release of Nirvana's watershed album Nevermind by one month, and the massive success of both bands assured that Vedder and Kurt Cobain would become the public faces of the early-'90s grunge movement. While both singers struggled under the weight of this role, Vedder managed to parlay the group's early success into a long and lasting career, while Cobain sadly succumbed to his demons in 1994. Pearl Jam spent the middle part of the decade at the top of their game, notching three consecutive number one albums, building a devoted fan base, and earning a reputation for doing things their own way; their legendary David and Goliath-like battle with Ticketmaster over inflated concert prices earned them plenty of goodwill from frustrated concertgoers. For his part, Vedder used his elevated platform to support a number of causes from abortion rights and gun control to environmentalism and liberal politics. He also dabbled in extracurricular collaborations, singing with a range of artists from famed qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan to the Ramones.

At the dawn of the new millennium, Pearl Jam were fast becoming a rock institution, touring relentlessly and satiating fans with scads of official bootleg releases of their live shows. Parallel to artistically satisfying releases like 2002's Riot Act and 2006's Pearl Jam, Vedder made occasional forays into solo work, contributing songs to films like Sean Penn's I Am Sam (2001), the documentary Body of War (2007), and the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There. An ongoing friendship with Sean Penn led Vedder to compose music for Penn's 2007 film Into the Wild, the soundtrack of which became Vedder's first official solo release. In 2011, he offered up a second solo outing in the acoustic Ukulele Songs, which he supported with a tour of smaller, more intimate venues. He also continued to guest on songs by other artists including R.E.M., Neil Finn, and Glen Hansard. Meanwhile, Pearl Jam aged gracefully into middle age, releasing 2013's low-key Lightning Bolt and a 2017 live double-LP recorded at historic Wrigley Field, home of Vedder's beloved Chicago Cubs. They were also inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That same year he appeared performing under his birth name, Edward Louis Severson, during an episode of Twin Peaks' long-awaited third season. Along with Pearl Jam's 11th studio album, Gigaton, 2020 brought the Vedder solo EP, Matter of Time. The following year, he resumed his ongoing collaboration with Sean Penn, contributing heavily to the soundtrack of his film Flag Day. He also teamed up with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Morello for a cover of AC/DC's classic "Highway to Hell."

During May of 2021, Vedder visited the Beverly Hills studio of producer Andrew Watt in order to rehearse for a benefit concert. The singer and producer unexpectedly started collaborating on new material, songs that became the seeds of Earthling, the 2022 solo album from Vedder. Earthling found Vedder working in collaboration not only with Watt and Red Hot Chili Pepper drummer Chad Smith, but with Elton John, Ringo Starr, Benmont Tench and Stevie Wonder on a diverse, colorful album”.

The music world celebrates Eddie Vedder’s sixtieth birthday on 23rd December. An artist that I have been a fan of since childhood, I have compiled a mixtape of the finest Pearl Jam cuts, lesser-known songs and some great solo material. A couple of days before Christmas, we have a reason to cheer, as one of the all-time great band leaders…

TURNS sixty.

FEATURE: A Primadonna in Red Shoes: Why a Kate Bush Exhibition Is Long Overdue

FEATURE:

 

 

A Primadonna in Red Shoes

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in London, 1989/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

Why a Kate Bush Exhibition Is Long Overdue

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I might have covered this off….

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing copies of The Dreaming in London on 14th September, 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Pete Still

a year or two ago but, in any case, it is worth revising and updating. I recently posted a feature where I theorised how marvellous it would be to have photographers Guido Harari, Gered Mankowitz and John Carder Bush get together and discuss and dissect photos of Kate Bush they have taken through the years. I posted it to social media and Guido Harari said it would be a great idea and hopes it will happen. It would be wonderful to see! There has not been, to my knowledge, a photo exhibition for Kate Bush. There have been photobooks from the three photographers I have mentioned but I am not sure whether they have opened a gallery for people to see. In any case, there has not been a larger exhibition in London with images of Kate Bush from her childhood through to 2011. She may see it as exposing (not pun intended!) or too personal. However, as these photos have been shared, seen and many are available online, so having the public pay to see them should not cause a moral or personal crisis or conundrum. Whether it would purely be photographic or fashion-based I am not sure. I have been thinking about the various iconic looks from Kate Bush through the years and how artists like David Bowie have been the subject of exhibitions. This exhibition at the V&A. Album artwork, photographs and memorabilia. I would love to see an exhibition that included some Kate Bush fashion. The problem might be that the original garments are not available. From photoshoots through to public appearances, Kate Bush has sported some incredible looks. Whether it is the more down-to-earth fashion she wore at East Wickham Farm (her family home) and in 1978 or some of the more elegant or stylish photoshoots from that time, she kept consistently fashionable, innovative and relatable through the years. Her videos and their aesthetics are hugely important too.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush washing up at her family's home in East Wickham on 26th September, 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Chris Moorhouse/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

One of my favourite moments of Kate Bush fashion is when she was signing copies of The Dreaming in London on 14th September, 1982. You can buy a replica of that T-shirt here. I am not sure which year of her career is the standout in terms of fashion. Many would have their own opinions. I personally love 1978 and 1989. Photos taken by photographers like Gered Mankowitz and Guido Harari. Some incredible photos like with Claude Vanheye. His 1979 photo session with Kate Bush was scheduled for thirty minutes, but she sent away her entourage and stayed for six hours, with props like a fake dolphin and dresses by Fong Leng. Bush staying fashionable and distinct during the 1980s. A decade not perhaps known for its reputable and cool fashion! Even if at times her music seemed out of step with the times, too dense and lacking commercial prowess, the same could not said of Bush’s style and designs. From what she wore through to album covers and promotional images, this is an artist who has not been discussed enough in terms of her fashion and design abilities. Not only recording the music but collaborating with photographers to create these timeless images. It is one of those gaps in the Kate Bush cannon that I think could be filled and should. Kate Bush is now more than ever receptive to a new generation and open to the idea of new music and possibilities. She has reissued her own albums so I don’t feel she would veto the idea of an exhibition. Maybe at the South Bank Centre. It would be amazing to have this retrospective. Not only to show what an icon Bush is but to showcase her amazing videos and covers. Right up to date with the sketches for the Little Shrew (Snowflake) video.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the Tour of Life in Hammersmith, May 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne

Costumes worn during 1979’s The Tour of Life. Set designs and memorabilia from 2014’s Before the Dawn. Her album covers dissected and explored. Photoshoots around the album and this interactive aspect to the exhibition. Like with David Bowie, Prince or other artists who have had their clothing and music displayed for the public, it would be incredible. To be fair, Kate Bush has been covered when it comes to portraying her as a fashion icon. Articles like this from Sloane Street that tells us how to get the Kate Bush look. There is this feature that discussed the various periods of her careers and the colour palettes and aesthetics of her looks. How they changed through the years. This article highlights seven iconic Kate Bush looks, including her performing in Amsterdam in 1979 for The Tour of Life. With seventeen costume changes, there are many stunning fashion choices to spotlight. I wonder whether Kate Bush photographed with Claude Vanheye when she performed in Amsterdam during the tour. Check out this feature that gives us some iconic Kate Bush looks. Most from her early career. People tend to ignore the wonderful photos and outfits from 1989’s The Sensual World right through to 2011’s 50 Words for Snow. There are a couple of Vogue features dedicated to Kate Bush’s best looks. One here and another. Whilst there are articles that focus on her changing and always-amazing fashion choices, nothing has been mounted in a gallery or museum. That is just the tip of the iceberg! In terms of the visual side of Kate Bush, very little has been done. You feel this has to change. In 2022, DAZED celebrated Kate Bush returning to the charts after the Stranger Things effect. They heralded a ‘bizarro style icon’ whose eclectic looks through the years have had a lasting influence and legacy:

“Nearly 40 years after it was first released, Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)” has become the hottest song of the summer. Playing a prominent role in the dark new series of Stranger Things, the offbeat ballad has become a global hit, as endless streams by a new generation of Bush fans propelled it to the top of the UK charts. First appearing on Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love, the track is a rallying cry for extreme empathy that explores what could be achieved if two lovers swapped places to understand one another better – themes which feel just as timely and pertinent as they did back then.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during the cover shoot for 1985’s Hounds of Love/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Despite her fame, Kate Bush has managed that rare thing as a mainstream musician – retaining a cult-like aura that still makes listeners feel like insiders sharing a secret. To those in the know, this appreciation extends far beyond the music. A great foreshadower of the slick pop package expected today, Bush’s work has always been led by an understanding that a great singer uses all her available tools. From taking lessons with David Bowie’s dance teacher Lindsay Kemp to devising music videos that cover every genre from sci-fi to macabre fairytale, Bush’s vision was, and is, multi-faceted. Clothes have played an integral part in this creative odyssey, cementing Bush as an idiosyncratic fashion icon in the process.

Here, we look back at the way the musician has utilised fashion throughout her career, and her subsequent influence on the way we dress.

KATE’S KEY LOOKS

Let’s reverse to the beginning. Bush burst into the limelight in 1978 with her debut album The Kick Inside. She was just 19. The lead single “Wuthering Heights” remains one of her best known to this day, its high-pitched, broken-hearted register still a favourite among brave karaoke-goers. Two separate music videos released to accompany the Emily Brontë-inspired track featured Bush fluttering around a field and a stage in flowing gowns: one red, one white. Often, this is the Kate Bush we still imagine, all big hair and ethereal seventies regalia.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Claude Vanheye

Away from her videos, Bush was frequently pictured wearing rustic knits, silk blouses, waistcoats, colourful tights, thigh high-boots, and a further succession of diaphanous dresses. Her style suggested not only hippyish ease but a particularly English kind of eclecticism: all thin fabrics and big woolly socks. She wasn’t afraid of high fashion drama either. A series of photos of her taken in the late ‘70s by Claude Vanheye see her in various jewel-coloured Fong Leng pieces, with one ritzy yellow number worn to walk a leashed crocodile.

The needs of dance also influenced Bush’s love of glittery bodysuits and tight lycra – all the better to move in. Her 1979 show The Tour of Life was a heavily costumed affair, featuring outfits including a magician’s top hat and tails, a veil, wings, leotards, and WWII army attire. Always ahead of the game, she was also the first singer to perform with a wireless microphone headset, her stage sound engineer Martin Fisher devising it from a coat hanger.

During those early years, Bush was prodigious. The Kick Inside and Lionheart were both released in 1978, Never Forever came in 1980 (featuring a brilliant futuristic look complete with chainmail bikini for “Babooshka”), and The Dreaming in 1982. The latter, which marked her most experimental work to date, received lukewarm reception but has since been recognised as a classic. Bush then stormed back onto the charts in 1985 with Hounds of Love.

Forever a shapeshifter, across the course of the album’s music videos and shoots Bush fashioned herself into a small boy complete with knitted jerkin for “Cloudbusting”, an overcoat-clad dancer for “Hounds of Love”, and an Ophelia-style figure in a life jacket framed by flowers for the album’s B-side telling the story of a slowly drowning woman. For “Running Up That Hill” she opted for grey leotards and hakama – draped Japanese trousers – ideal for the video’s soft purple light as she and fellow dancer Michael Hervieu (dressed identically) grappled together in a series of motions that rolled between intimacy and distance.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for the 1981 single., Sat in Your Lap

A LASTING INFLUENCE

To some degree, it’s hard to write about Kate Bush’s ‘style’, because so much of it exists in service to her music. Take her 1993 album The Red Shoes. There it’s all about the scarlet ballet slippers, used to reference Powell & Pressberger’s 1948 film of the same name – itself nodding to Hans Christian Andersen’s gruesome tale of a girl cursed to dance forever. For Bush, clothing is both kinetic and character-forming. It frees or accentuates the body. It allows the wearer to play role after role. Often, her vision has extended beyond the merely human. In her promotional images you can find her dressed as both a bat and a lion.

This exhilarating malleability has made the singer a firm favourite in the fashion world. Designers including Kim Jones, Phoebe Philo, Clare Waight Keller, Alexander McQueen, Hussein Chalayan, Luella Bartley, and Craig Green have lined up to declare their love for the grand witch-queen of pop. The latter recently described his first encounter with her work aged 13 to AnOther, saying “I was spending a lot of time alone in my bedroom, working, and I started listening to her over and over… I love that she can find music in anything – from mother-and-son love, to pigeons and snowflakes.”

There is a narrative that exists in the fashion world – that of the slightly awkward kid who spends their adolescence sketching in their room and grows up to create clothing that fulfils their hunger for beauty and fantasy. No wonder Bush appeals to that cohort. It’s one of the reasons why she’s so beloved. Yes, there’s the emotional precision of her lyrics and the expansive reach of her sounds. Yes, there’s that fantastic willingness to be intelligent and daring and strange. But there’s also an implicit suggestion about the galloping power of the imagination, particularly when combined with an outsider-ish sensibility that leaves you dreaming about literary ghosts or the merits of the mathematical symbol Pi.

That’s why her fashion choices are so memorable too. It’s not just their ethereality or eccentricity, but the stories they tell. Designers love to throw around vague statements about creativity, but in someone like Kate Bush you see the full force of an active, searching mind – and an understanding of what the dressing up box can do. Really, it’s a very simple fashion philosophy. To become someone new, all you need is a costume change”.

Now more than ever, Kate Bush is reaching people. Not only would an exhibition emphasise her incredible fashion and role as a genuine style icon. It would also make people more aware of her music. Going deeper. Whether it is Kate Bush in a T-shirt signing The Dreaming in 1982, wearing red shoes in 1993 for the film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, or some amazing shots with Trevor Leighton in 2005, this is someone who is always pioneering and distinct! Next year, there is definite opportunity for some new celebration of Kate Bush. An exhibition would bring in fans from all over the world. Making it multimedia, interactive and truly career-spanning. I hope that one day this idea…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional photo for Eat the Music in 1993

WILL become a reality.

FEATURE: Welcome to New York: Why There Is a Definite Need for Another Show Like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

FEATURE:

 

 

Welcome to New York

Why There Is a Definite Need for Another Show Like The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

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THERE is no denying….

IN THIS PHOTO: Rachel Brosnahan played the eponymous Mrs. Maisel in the Amazon series, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which ran between 2017 and 2023/PHOTO CREDIT: We Are The Rhoads for Variety

the fact that, when it comes to the best T.V. comedies and the most stylish well-directed and ambitious, the U.S. leads the way. By miles! We in Britain can do some things well. Low-budget and interesting films now and then. Our theatre and music is incredible. However, when it comes to television, what we put out pales into insignificance compared to the best of the U.S. I find our comedies at best half-baked and average. No style or anything that approaches excellence. A few classics stick in the mind, though the modern crop is woefully overrated and inadequate. Far weaker than they should be. Nothing that stands in the mind or has any sort of sheen or visual appeal. Quite a few that are decidedly lo-fi and depressingly real (code: grubby or homemade). No air of fantasy or escape. The writing and performances inferior compared to that of our American cousins. The same with dramas too. Too many melodramatic series of formulaic ideas. Our very ‘best’ comedies of the past ten years are incredibly poor when it comes to what the U.S. has offered. If I had to compile a top ten of the best T.V. comedies of all time, it would have at least nine American shows in. One of the best and most well-produced and brilliantly-written and directed is The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Starting in the late-'50s and centring around Miriam ‘Midge’ Maisel, the lead lives on New York’s Upper West Side and soon discovers a talent for comedy. The series follows her into the world of comedy and she navigates her life as a wife and mother and her growing ambitions. Starring Rachel Brosnahan and with a wonderful supporting cast, it began in 2017 and its fifth and final season was aired in 2023. It was a huge shame when the series ended! Ending during the pandemic, the show gave so many of us comfort and uplift at a horrible time. Running at fifty-three episodes, it ended at the right moment. Even though there were some criticisms around the fantastical elements of the show or the frenetic and fast pace of the show; its issues with whitewashing and portrayal of Jewish people. Some highlight the style and visual feast over a perceived lack of punch and substance. Some have asked about the authenticity of the series.

Its creator, Amy Sherman-Palladino (who also created Gilmore Girls), blends some incredible pop culture references and this amazing palette. Beautifully directed with some stunning one-shot takes, choreography and sumptuously beautiful and evocative nostalgia, the writing is sharp, witty, full of humour and real moments of emotional hit. The final episode of the third season, where Midge is on the runway and is denied access to board a plane to go on tour in Europe with Shy Baldwin is heartbreaking. The music throughout the series is wonderfully deployed and adds to the scenes. Rather than the music being background or wasted, it is beautifully selected and perfectly placed (my favourite music moment is this). Its makers, Amy and Daniel Sherman-Palladino, created an incredible series. Its final season was exquisite and, unlike so many popular series, ended wonderfully and did not disappoint. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel received huge critical acclaim. It won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2017 and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in 2018, with Sherman-Palladino receiving the awards for Outstanding Directing and Outstanding Writing at the latter ceremony. Rachel Brosnahan reflected on a perfect finale. It is such a shame that the series ended. There are some wonderful articles about the final season and what the show meant. Rachel Brosnahan has gone on to appear in some amazing films and shows, though her defining role might always be Mrs. Maisel. She made it her own!

Pairing with Alex Borstein (who played Susie Myerson, who runs the Gaslight Cafe and later becomes Midge's manager), there was this incredible chemistry and brilliance. The directing always wonderful and inventive. The 1950s and early-'60s aesthetic so vivid and sumptuous. The scripts packed with so many memorable moments. Though technically a comedy-drama, it is still sharper and funnier than almost anything that has followed it. A golden T.V. series that sort of signalled the end of something. I have not seen a series like it since. After watching The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, it made me aware of the wonder of Rachel Brosnahan. Someone who compelled me to write comedy and various projects. She runs Scrap Paper Pictures out of New York with Daniel Kahn. Fostering and developing ideas from female filmmakers from, as the name implies, scrap paper through to realisation, a huge dream is to write a comedy/comedy-drama where she is a part of it. One that is directed and maybe co-written by Amy Sherman-Palladino. That has a lot of the style and wonder of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel but set in a different time. Maybe the modern day or maybe the 1980s. Though set in New York. I have discussed and dissected an idea I have had that centres around Kate Bush’s The Ninth Wave. The second side of 1985’s Hounds of Love, it would be great to bring it to the small screen. Star Saoirse Ronan in a lead role and hear and see the songs from The Ninth Wave brought to life. Each given their own style and look. Greta Gerwig is someone else I would love to work with. I am inspired by incredible filmmakers like them. So blown away was I with The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and how it still hits me when I rewatch it now, it has made me think about my own ideas. It also has left a gulf. There have been some amazing T.V. series made since 2023 – yes, most of them from the U.S.! -, but nothing has left an impression as big as The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. This remarkable, dizzying and unique series earned…

ITS place in T.V. history.

FEATURE: How to Be Visible: The Discord Around Kate Bush Being Present

FEATURE:

 

 

How to Be Visible

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 2005/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

The Discord Around Kate Bush Being Present

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ONE of the most interesting….

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

discussions around Kate Bush relates to promotion and visibility. The early part of her career was defined by endless promotion. Bush having to be seen and heard as far and wide as possible. Maybe it was just what was expected of artists of the time. From her debut in 1978 through to at least 1989, Bush was engaged in an endless cycle of interviews and appearances. There was a danger of her being overexposed. The music was simply brilliant and Bush was a distinct and original artist. I have covered this before. How promotion pushed Bush. That she was not given much time and space. Whether EMI felt that she needed to engage with the press so much to stay relevant or whether they threw everything against the wall, one could not escape Kate Bush in the 1970s and 1980s. It took a long time for Bush to become a serious artist in the eyes of many. Seen as a novelty and something to parody for so many years, the conversation did slowly start to turn. Even today, there are sections of the media who lazily define Bush or see her as a recluse, weird singer or someone who sung one or two good songs. One can forgive the change in her promotional duties after 1993. I have covered that topic so I will not tread on that ground again. What I did want to discuss is the way in which Bush promoted her albums from 2005. She was present but not. Think about the sound of an album like 50 Words for Snow. It is not what you would call ‘popular music’. It did not fit into the scene of 2011. Any disappointment around the sound and impact of the album was faintly felt or suggested rather than overt. Those who knew Kate Bush understood that she was not trying to fit in. However, for the casual listener, Kate Bush must have felt alien. Not only was she an artist making music that was very different from anything around. She was also promoting her albums but not in the same way as her contemporaries.

I still think that there was this discussion that Bush was not present and a traditional artist. If others were on T.V. and doing live radio, one of the legends of music was  conducting a lot of interviews but her words were heard and read. Her face was not often seen. In fact, aside from a selection of promotional images, Bush was keeping private. This started in 2005. Aerial was a huge release. A new album after twelve years, it was difficult for Bush to step away but also be engaging. A modern music scene demanded a certain amount of exposure from an artist. However, what was clear is that Bush was not engaging with the music around her. Aerial is very much her own sound. If she was influencing artists such as Florence + The Machine and Bat for Lashes, there was not a reciprocity in terms of sound. Bush was not going to cite them or collaborate. I don’t think that will change. Bush’s collaborations through her last three albums have largely been with male artists. Artists who have been on the scene for a lot longer than women who highlight her as an inspiration. It is another topic that I might explore. Bush’s musical tastes and how she engaged with music when she is creating albums. One could say her influences are slow to progress. If Bush name-checked Gorillaz when promoting 50 Words for Snow, that does not mean she wanted to work with them. However, a recent report of her attending a London studio owned by Gorillaz’s Damon Albarn suggests that she may well feature on one of their future albums! I think that one of the most definitive and interesting changes from 1993 was the balance between working on the album sound and packaging versus promotion and singles.

If 1993’s The Red Shoes found singles released and Bush doing a lot of promotion – including her final T.V. interview -, Aerial beckoned in an artist who wanted to have her music heard rather than her face be seen. It was not her fault that promotion was so hectic and draining up until 1993. It was what the label and industry expected. That need for her to be relevant and discussed. By 2005, Bush was in a position where she could take more time and work in her own way. 1993 brought some negative reviews and feeling that her best work was behind her. As such, Bush calibrated her music so that it had real depth and endurance. Bigger projects that were less focused on singles and promotion that was done more on her terms. From 2005 onwards, the discussion around Kate Bush was much more respectful, healthier and music-focused. Bush would offer instructions and strict rules for journalists listening to her work before it was released to the public. It was almost a legal agreement. People swearing they would not breathe a word. That might sound like an artist who was strict and did not want to have her privacy invaded. Instead, this was someone who was placing much more importance in the music and how it was perceived. That is not to say Bush gave fewer interviews. She gave a lot of them. As the view and perception of her changed, Bush was not going to fall back into old practices. When 50 Words for Snow was released in 2011, there was far fewer of the nasty labels that were applied to Bush years previous. The feeling she was a strange recluse holed up somewhere. The eclectic and incredible promotional photos for that album were about setting a mood and tone. Beyond that, Bush very much kept things tight and controlled.

One can see that with Aerial. Some great promotional photos and some longer-form interviews. I think the music industry still expected artists to be doing the rounds in the twenty-first century. Pop shows and radio stations dragging in popular artists and drilling them with inane questions and making them engage with an audience like a celebrity. Bush, aged forty-seven when Aerial was released, was not going to lower herself to the often shallow promotional duties. By 2011, she was in her fifties and had a teenage son. She wanted to be heard and visible, though she very much wanted to achieve that in her control. Bush did put her full weight behind 50 Words for Snow and was as visible as ever. Though not in a way. Billboards were put up and her name was out there. There was a T.V. advert voiced by Stephen Fry (who collaborated with Bush on the title song). Bush still read reviews because she wanted to know what people think. However, she realised she had to be strong. She didn’t have worried. The reviews were hugely positive. That was the case in 2005. If she was nervous how she would be perceived after so long out of the spotlight, she was welcomed with open arms. After 2011, Bush was firmly back in business. Two albums that year – Director’s Cut was released that May -, the next phase of her career had begun. The impact of those albums lasted into 2012. Bush was nominated for a BRIT in 2012. In January 2012, her image adorned the front page of The Guardian. As Graeme Thomson writes in his biography, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush, Bush was not immune from the tabloids. In January 2012, it was reported a stalker broke into Bush property after Christmas. He had flown from the U.S. with an engagement ring. Not actually finding Kate Bush he apparently left the property. He was in her Devon home for about ten minutes and, after breaking a window to get in, was arrested and deported back to the U.S.

IN THIS PHOTO: Halsey/PHOTO CREDIT: About-Face

That would have provided enough of a shock for Kate Bush to realise that, even if she was not the same artist as she was before – in terms of promotion and being visible everywhere –, she could not avoid the downsides of exposure and fame. Bush sold a home in Theale and bought a nine-bedroom property in Oxfordshire. That shift happened after the completion of 50 Words for Snow. 2011 seemed to signal the progression of a new act of her career that began in 2005. She was more engaged and alive to the possibility of new work and possibilities. Bush, as always, said how she hoped to work quicker. We could put to bed any notion Bush was gone and invisible! That there was this silence. Since 2011, although there has not been another album, she has slowly built up new potential. Earlier this year, she spoke with Emma Barnett for Today and dropped the biggest hint yet that another album is coming. In 2011, Bush had cleared a path. She had many new ideas. They have not yet transpired. Maybe a second volume of 50 Words for Snow?! In some ways, Bush is as busy and engaging as she was at the peak of her career. Though her voice is heard and her face is not seen. The last public photo of her is a decade old. That does not matter. Kate Bush is perfectly comfortable engaging with the media and fans but at a distance. She is very much present. As we look towards a new year, there is no telling what will come from Kate Bush! Looking around the media, apart from a few idiot rags who label her as a ‘recluse’ and have not done her homework, there is this sense of respect and stability. A whole new generation of artists paying tribute to her (including Halsey). Her influence very much strong and widespread. Embracing technology as a way to communicate but also remaining private and putting the focus on music and away from her private life – and onto charity in many cases -, maybe this is a new chapter. The previous chapter ended with 50 Words for Snow. This new one (that started over a decade ago) has been fruitful and varied. If Kate Bush does release a new album in the future, there will be no radical promotional changes. What will happen is that the discourse around her image and need for privacy will change. The realisation that Bush should and will not do what is expected of a modern artist. Having being in the industry for decade, she has won the right to be visible…in her own way. Bush has comprehensively proven that she is…

NORMAL rather than an enigma.

FEATURE: The Dreaming: The Desire to Track Down the Handwritten Lyrics for Kate Bush’s The Man with the Child in His Eyes

FEATURE:

 

 

The Dreaming

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

The Desire to Track Down the Handwritten Lyrics for Kate Bush’s The Man with the Child in His Eyes

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FOR my nine-hundredth….

Kate Bush feature, I am returning to a song that is in my thoughts. One that is part of a run of features around Kate Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside. That was released in 1978. Composed of thirteen songs, two of them were recorded in 1975. Alongside The Saxophone Song, The Man with the Child in His Eyes was laid down at AIR studios. I am not going to get into the album again I promise. I will cover it in other features. Instead, I want to focus on this song from a particular (personal) angle. I have written about it before. How my most desirable Kate Bush memorabilia or piece of history is the handwritten lyrics for The Man with the Child in His Eyes. Bush wrote the song was she was only thirteen. One of her earliest songs, it is a remarkably mature and beautiful song. The lyrics were written in pink felt tip pen. Hot pink to be precise. Of course, in terms of purchases, there are some items that are accessible but maybe out of my range because of cost. Among them is the photobook, Cathy. These are very early photos of Kate Bush taken by her brother, John Carder Bush. I have seen copies selling for hundreds of pounds. In terms of those items not for sale that would be those dream to-own items, I would love stage plans and sketches from 1979’s The Tour of Life. Any plans too for 2014’s Before the Dawn. I have seen a few rare items on auction sites similar to this. Though I know there are intimate or personal notes and plans that have not made it onto the market. I would also really love to own video memorabilia. Items or clothing that were worn. To have that part of history. However, as my number one dream item would be those original lyrics to The Man with the Child in His Eyes, I will explain more why it is so important and desirable.

I am surprised Kate Bush let it go to auction. Well, I am not sure how its journey started. I will talk about the auction and the fact it was bought. Without repeating too much of another feature where I have discussed these lyrics. I know there will be handwritten lyrics and personal artefacts Bush has kept and will not let out of her sight. I am not sure why she was okay to let go the handwritten lyrics for The Man with the Child in His Eyes lyrics. The song celebrates fifty years next year. As it was recorded fifty years ago, it makes those lyrics even more precious. Bush stepping into AIR studios to record words for a song she wrote several years before. A then-sixteen-year-old backed by an orchestra recording a song she wrote when she was thirteen. It makes the hairs on your body stand on end thinking about it! There are some Kate Bush songs where you think about their creation and Bush writing them. How evocative the time and setting was. Songs from Hounds of Love. Bush surrounded by countryside or writing in Ireland during one of the happiest periods of her life. Her writing Wuthering Heights with a full moon in the sky with the window open one summer’s night. Bush hasn’t really discussed writing The Man with the Child in His Eyes. The fact it was written in pink felt tip pen. I often wonder if this was the final or first draft. Bush writing in pencil or pen but then making another copy in hot pink felt tip. Maybe she has the earliest version. However, Bush might not have had that much sentimentality about the song. She was a girl when it was written so might not feel it is important as some of the songs she wrote much later in life. I think about those lyrics a lot. How amazing it would be to own perhaps one of the most pieces of Kate Bush history! In the sense The Man with the Child in His Eyes was the second single. It reached number six in the U.K. and was performed during The Tour of Life.

On 9th December, 1978, Kate Bush performed live on U.S. T.V. for the first and only time, as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live. The song itself is really interesting in the sense the single version differs from the album version. The single starts with the words “He’s here!” and laughter echoing. Many people prefer this version compared to the album version. There is no real truth that the songs lyrics are about David Gilmour. Bush’s mentor and good friend, people have speculated that the song might be about him. Whilst many assume that Bush’s former (and first) boyfriend Steve Blacknell is the man with the child in his eyes, Bush has said it is more general. About men and the fact they have this child-like wonder. When it came to songs of love, Bush never really applied a name or specific inspiration in terms of people. I genuinely believe Bush had nobody particular in mind when she was thirteen and was penning some of her finest words. The fact Bush has said in interview where she discussed The Man with the Child in His Eyes and mentioned how she was attracted to older men naturally led people to assume people like David Gilmour or Steve Blacknell were in her thoughts. I like to think that the man in the song was fictional and could apply to many people. Here we get some insight from Kate Bush about one of her greatest songs:

“The inspiration for ‘The Man With the Child in His Eyes’ was really just a particular thing that happened when I went to the piano. The piano just started speaking to me. It was a theory that I had had for a while that I just observed in most of the men that I know: the fact that they just are little boys inside and how wonderful it is that they manage to retain this magic. I, myself, am attracted to older men, I guess, but I think that’s the same with every female. I think it’s a very natural, basic instinct that you look continually for your father for the rest of your life, as do men continually look for their mother in the women that they meet. I don’t think we’re all aware of it, but I think it is basically true. You look for that security that the opposite sex in your parenthood gave you as a child.

Self Portrait, 1978”.

I am not sure when the lyrics reached him, but they did used to be in the ownership of Steve Blacknell. Bush’s first boyfriend (or first serious one), he put them on the music memorabilia website 991.com. It was definitely authentic. The lyrics written in hot pink felt tip pen with pink circles in place of the dots over the letter i. I can picture Bush writing those lyrics and the emotions running through her. How the lyrics pages were kept in great condition. I am not sure how faded they were when they were sold in 2010. I hope that they are being looked after. I would give anything to know who has them. If they did ever go back up for auction, you could imagine they would sell for thousands. Possibly into five digits! That would be out of my price range. I would love to own them. As one of my favourite Kate Bush songs from my favourite Kate Bush album, having this treasure would be incredible! A lot of Kate Bush-related items and memorabilia has been put on auction sites. Nothing as personal in my view. Not to judge Steve Blacknell, but if you did have these stunning words vividly written in pink felt tip by someone you used to be in a relationship with, why would you not frame them or keep them somewhere safe?! Selling them risks putting them in the hands of someone who might not recognise their value. I do not know who has them now but I think long and hard where they could be in the world. As I turn over and turn the light off. I wonder why Steve Blacknell would let those words go. Too painful to keep hold of or meaningless. Bush wrote them when she was thirteen. In 2010, The Man with the Child in His Eyes was nearly forty. That much time had passed. In 2010, when the news about the sale of the handwritten lyrics was made public, The Independent wrote the following:

“Fame creates an aura of association. The name Steve Blacknell means nothing to me and Kate Bush will leave most people under 40 blank but, if we say the first boyfriend of the musical predecessor of Florence Welch, we are in business. Blacknell is selling a teenage love letter from Bush, claiming that he is the subject of her song "The Man with the Child in His Eyes".

The eBay generation points out impatiently that Blacknell has a lousy sense of timing. Why didn't he flog the letter when Bush was famous?

The sale and the timing suggest two things. Blacknell could use some cash but is neither greedy nor vengeful. If anything, his crime is sentimentality. Aged 58, he has the glow of recall and the bittersweet awareness of the passage of time. When he met Kate Bush they did not know how their lives would turn out, which ambitions would be realised, which hopes dashed. We know that age improves the longterm memory and Blacknell's relationship with Bush may have been the most acute phase of his life”.

For my 900th Kate Bush feature, I wanted to return to a dream. A fantasy. Owning the handwritten lyrics for The Man with the Child in His Eyes. That torment that they might not even exist anymore. Whoever bought them in 2010 might have sold them on. The pages might be yellow and the lyrics faded. A sad sign of ageing. I think back to when Bush wrote the words and how fresh the ink was. A hot pink felt tip pen and this excitement of penning such gorgeous lines. How she decided to keep hold of them. Next year, it will be fifty years since Kate Bush recorded The Man with the Child in His Eyes. I hope someone writes about the song and shines a light on it. Right now, the handwritten lyrics are out there somewhere. I am not sure about any of her other songs and whether she kept any of the lyrics or they were sold on. We do know The Man with the Child in His Eyes is unique in the sense it made the news when it was sold. Those lyrics written by a thirteen-year-old who would be a worldwide name six years later. I have checked Google and auction sites and there is no news or updates regarding the lyrics. It almost makes me teary thinking how a blank piece of paper soon had these amazing and timeless words written by a girl! A song that would cause so much speculation and have this aura of mystery. How those pages (or page, I guess) remained in Bush’s possession for a while. I am not certain if someone else had them before Steve Blacknell. The fact he made the decision to sell them. Now they are owned by a Kate Bush fan. I am not sure who or where they are. I do think about it a lot. The one thing above all I would like to own. Wherever those lyrics are and whoever owns them, I just hope they take good care of them and realise…

HOW important they are.

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Marking Thirty-Five Years of The Simpsons: The Musical Guests

FEATURE:

 

 

The Digital Mixtape

Marking Thirty-Five Years of The Simpsons: The Musical Guests

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ONE of the greatest and most important…

comedies of all time turns thirty-five on 17th December. Although the first episode of The Simpsons did not air in the U.K. until September 1990, the U.S. got the first episode a week before Christmas. Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire was an introduction to the Simpsons family for many. Although there had been shorts of The Tracy Ullman Show, this was a full-length episode. Hard to believe it is thirty-five years old! Since its debut, 776 episodes of the show have been broadcast. It is the longest-running American animated series, longest-running American sitcom, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series, both in seasons and individual episodes. In addition to the great voice cast – the main cast are Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer -, there is this Simpson family. Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. The other residents of Springfield. The incredible writing and the way the show has won its way into our hearts though the years. Although its look has changed vastly since 1989, at the core is that family of five. Plus Santa’s Little Helper and Snowball II. The first episode centred around Homer not getting a work Christmas bonus and the family having to use savings to get a tattoo removed from Bart’s arm. Desperate to raise money to buy presents, Homer and Bart go to toe dog track and are at their lowest. That is until a greyhound, Santa’s Little Helper is kicked out of the stadium and into the arms of Homer. Though not among the funniest episodes, it is one of the most memorable and important episodes of The Simpsons. Another big part of the show’s endurance is the guest stars. Many of them been musicians. Huge names like Paul McCartney and The Rolling Stones have featured in the show. Because I run a music blog, I wanted to mark thirty-five years of The Simpsons by compiling a playlist of songs from some of the artists who have appeared in the show through the years. I will open and close with musical numbers from The Simpsons themselves! Here is a Digital Mixtape of thirty-five songs from thirty-five musical guests who have appeared on one of the greatest T.V. shows ever made. Sit back and enjoy…

A Simpsons-themed mixtape.

FEATURE: “They Really Aren’t Me Anymore” Dissecting Kate Bush’s ZigZag Interviews with Kris Needs

FEATURE:

 

 

“They Really Aren’t Me Anymore”

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at Studio Two in Abbey Road, London on 5th October, 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport

Dissecting Kate Bush’s ZigZag Interviews with Kris Needs

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THERE are a few more features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at the 1980 British Rock and Pop Awards/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix/Getty Images

that will be inspired by words from a recent edition of PROG. I am taking from pages 36-39. I have sourced interviews from ZigZag before where Kate Bush was interviewed. To coincide with the release of her third studio album, Never for Ever, in 1980, Bush was approached by future PROG writer, Kris Needs. Although some convincing needed to take place, Bush agreed to three separate interviews, which occurred at various intervals during the height of her success. For the new PROG, Kris Needs looked back at his encounters with Kate Bush. I am diving in and picking up on some of the observations and quotes. ZigZag was launched in 1969. The magazine was more used to seeing Punk figures and a slightly edgier type of artist, perhaps. In 1980, Bush appeared on the cover. She needed to be convinced this was not a stitch-up. Bush was understandably wary about photographers and magazines. Earlier in her career, she had engaged in photoshoots where she was persuaded to do unwise things or appear a certain way. Exploited a bit. Journalists skewing her words and portraying her in a very harsh way. However, Kris Needs understood that Bush was as engaging, unique and as important as any artist. Someone who deserved better treatment than she was getting from the music papers of the day. The ice was broken soon enough. Needs did get the green light to interview her. On Monday, 8th September, 1980, Never for Ever was released. Needs was scheduled to interview Kate Bush after the Daily Express. It was the Friday afternoon after Never for Ever was released. It was a memorable day. When he got to EMI’s Manchester Square offices in London, staff were popping champagne bottles. Corks flying n doubt! Why?!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush at EMI’s offices in Manchester Square, London on 15th June, 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Rasic/Getty Images

Well, Bush went to number one! It was the first time a female artist had gone to number one on the U.K. charts with an album that was not a compilation. A record-setting achievement for the then-twenty-two-year-old. Remarkable! Naturally, Bush would have been more at ease than if the album has charted a lot lower. Never any fear that would happen! In an “emerald green top” smiling, Kate Bush was perched on a sofa in a side room. No wonder she was so happy given that incredible album achievement! Needs commended Bush on a maturity beyond her twenty-one years (she was twenty-two in September, 1980; perhaps he meant she was twenty-one when she completed the album). She was talking in her beautiful and distinct South London accent. Chatting for ninety minutes, Bush joked at one point it was like “two psychiatrists talking!”. Kris Needs must have been used to a different type of artist. Nobody with the same blend of characteristics. He outlines her “…bewitching mix of down-to-earth honesty and humour, steely determination and wide-eyed sense of wonder at her success, including coming in at No.1”. Bush revealed how she could not be believe she was at number one. She had to pinch herself! Such an important step and evolution for her, she noted how her first two albums – 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart – were so far away. “They’re really not me anymore” she noted. Perhaps one of the most memorable things she said. Was she unhappy with those albums or recognising how far she had come in a couple of years?! Putting distance between where she was in 1980 and that busy 1978.

As Kris Needs notes, Bush was not unappreciative towards The Kick Inside and that debut success. She felt vindicated that “an album she spent a year conceiving and recording was a success”. Bush knew how her career would go now and how she would work. She told Needs that “When you stereotype artists you always expect a certain kind of sound. As a person, I’m changing all the time and the first album is very much like a diary of me at the time: I was into a very high range. The same with the second album. I feel like this is perhaps why this one is like starting again. It’s like the first album on a new level. It’s very much under control”. That final word. I think it has a double meaning. Maybe Bush feeling more settled as an artist and her vocal is more honed and less dramatic. Also, as a producer on Never for Ever (with Jon Kelly), she had more say and control with regards her sound and vision. A coming-of-age album, Never for Ever followed the rushed Lionheart.  As with her previous albums, there were clashes with EMI regarding singles released. They wanted Babooshka released as the first single. Understandable as it is clearly a song that would be a commercial access. Babooshka was the second single released. Bush wanted Breathing. A more political, heavy and perhaps more extraordinary song, Kris Needs told Kate Bush it was her creative peak to that point. This pleased Bush, who smiled and said she was pleased to hear it. Bush felt that it was the best thing that she ever produced. Her instincts were right, as Breathing reached sixteen in the U.K. and boasts one of her most memorable videos (directed by Keith MacMillan (a.k.a. Keef). That was released on 14th April, 1980; Babooshka on 27th June, 1980 (where it reached number five in the U.K.).

When Kris Needs first spoke with Kate Bush, she was twenty-two. He recalled how, during the “marathon conversations”, it felt as though Bush was “thinking aloud or working something out as her creative muse swum with new possibilities and pivotal moves like deciding between making a new album or doing another tour”. As her studio experience grew the answer was invariably making music. Bush in a place where she was making music truer and more real to her. Needs recalled how Bush came across as strong and focused. More ballsy than many of the male artists he interviewed! Bush said how easy it was to drown and be buried unless you state your presence. “Everyone has to fight and there are different ways of fighting”. She noted how she is trying to state her presence and wanted to do things as a “one-woman basis”. Working better as a single entity and then getting feedback from others, she knew in 1980 how the rest of her career should play out. That she was better producing and working alone. She would solo produce her next album, 1982’s The Dreaming. Even if Never for Ever was a step towards a musically truer version of herself, Bush did offer a caveat or caution: “…but it’s nowhere near to what I actually want”. Kris Needs asked whether success had sort of got in the way or stopped Bush from progressing her music. She answered how she was not aware of success when she is in the studio. It is only during promotional rounds she is conscious of it. “But the real pressures of success, I think, are something that comes from the inside…”. She did not want any of success’s pressure to take her down and get too much. Bush rightly stated how success is something people put onto you. She was going to be strong and not use it as a  measure of something that defined her. Before moving on with the interview archives, PROG included a photo of the front and back of a sweatshirt that Kris Needs was given by Kate Bush. On the front was “It’s in the trees… It’s coming…”; the back has ‘Hounds of Love’ on it.

Kris Needs then moved to 1982’s The Dreaming. Producing solo with engineer Nick Launay engineering, percussion and a bigger drum sound was very much at the forefront. Tribal drums. The Fairlight CMI was experimenting with. A big decision why Bush built her own home studio for Hounds of Love was that huge studio bills were notched up when she recorded at Abbey Road, Townhouse and Advision. Given how Bush was not only producing solo but creating an album with more layers, sounds and experiments than Never for Ever, her routine was mainly work. Not sleeping as much as she should and with her diet taking a slide, the next time Kris Needs met her was very different to that initial meeting at Manchester Square where Bush was smiling widely. Now, as Needs writes, when he met Bush at the EMI offices, she was “less ebullient, somewhat drained and cautiously defiant about how the set would go down with fans”. Bush put her fans into two camps when explaining expectations around her fourth studio album. Those that knew her work understood how she does something different every time. She said that “a lot of people won’t like it”. If you were new to Kate Bush in 1982 or expecting an album with songs like Babooshka on them, then they were going to be in for a shock! That people wouldn’t understand. However, Bush stated how “the more I write the stuff, the less I worry about this stage, and the better it is”. Bush was conscious on second and third albums of what people would think. She would stop whilst writing a song and ponder that. Not so with The Dreaming. Bush was in a place where she wanted to be in 1982, so she would take the risk and potentially lose a few fans. Quite a brave risk for an artist who two years prior to The Dreaming came out had released a record-setting number one album.

Kris Needs was asked (by Bush) what he thought of the new album. He mentioned the new resonance in her voice, the “cinematic quality” and the “tiers of vocal overdubs”. Whilst giggling and absorbing Needs’s first impressions, she suddenly became animated. Proclaiming how this was the first album where she enjoyed listening to her voice. Maybe The Dreaming was a conscious effort to maybe make her voice grittier, deeper, more gravelled and masculine. Wanting to disassociate herself with that perception that she was squeaky-voiced and fairy-like. The Dreaming is an album with heavy percussion, dense layers and Bush taking her voice to new places. Hounds of Love, whilst not completely softening the palette, was a lighter and more accessible album. One with more nature and the open air. The Dreaming is quite dense, smoky and claustrophobic. Bush, in her words, put some balls into her voice. She had never written songs as long as the ones on The Dreaming. Bush was aware that a leap into experimentation and a whole new sound would cost fans. Making something that was more art than commercial music. The Dreaming entered the U.K. chart at number three and then dropped out of the chart. It sold 60,000 in comparison to The Kick Inside’s million-plus units. Quite a shift and gulf! After once more turning down an invitation to hit the road and tour with Fleetwood Mac, Bush spent three years working on her fifth studio album, Hounds of Love. That album would sell ten times more than The Dreaming in the first nine months of its release (Hounds of Love was released on 16th September, 1985). Kris Needs attended the premiere of Hounds of Love at the London Planetarium on 9th September, 1985 with his flatmate, Youth (Martin Glover). He played on Hounds of Love and his bass can be heard on The Big Sky.

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush with Del Palmer at the London Planetarium on 9th September, 1985 during the premiere of Hounds of Love/PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Hogan/Getty Images

The third interview between Kris Needs and Kate Bush occurred before Bush appeared on The Old Grey Whistle Test on 8th October, 1985. Needs’s questions and interview was a lot less patronising than the one she was subjected to on The Old Grey Whistle Test! She was on the show talking about the single, Cloudbusting. Dressed in the same black jacket and lace blouse she would wear for the interview on The Old Grey Whistle Test, Bush gave longer answers to Kris Needs. Bush talked about Hounds of Love’s long gestation. It was the culmination and triumphant end to the first stage of her career. The stage that had been getting underway five years earlier when she first spoke with Kris Needs. Bush was not having to compromise or work with other producers. It meant that she could take more risks and work in her own way – and to her own timescales. She said that it could “seem like what you are doing is mad” How you need to be in control to get away with that sort of thing! Bush told how she didn’t have time to socialise because “Work just obsesses my life and everyone around be is dragged into it”. Whilst she liked the work and music, the exposure was perhaps not as welcome. She hated the idea of being this media-trained artist who grinned and announced an album was out! That vision of her on the side of a bus and everywhere. “I hate that! You have to laugh at it to survive”. Even though things were going well (Hounds of Love reached number one in the U.K.), Bush gave a thoughtful pause and said, “but it really is little me on the end, trying to keep up with it all”. In the new PROG recollection feature, Kris Needs ended the feature saying how after parting ways, he and Kate Bush swapped addresses and sent each other Christmas cards that year (1985). That Hounds of Love sweatshirt was dropped off by a motorbike courier. Very Kate Bush! Life took over and they lost touch. However, Kris Needs is happy that he spend some great time over five years with Bush. Someone who was this “beautifully driven and grounded artistic genius I spent those brief but magical afternoons with continued to stand her ground, see through her dreams and live happily ever after”. It is wonderful reading back those vivid memories and words from Kris Needs when he interviewed Kate Bush for ZigZag. From that happy first meeting when Bush’s Never for Ever hit number one to the more tired artist of 1982 when she had released The Dreaming; the final chat happened in 1985 when Kate Bush was at the…

PEAK of her powers.

FEATURE: This Woman’s Work – The 2024 Extended Mix: Reflecting on a Terrific and Busy Year for Kate Bush

FEATURE:

 

 

This Woman’s Work – The 2024 Extended Mix

 PHOTO COMPOSITE: The GRAMMY Awards

Reflecting on a Terrific and Busy Year for Kate Bush

_________

THE year is not yet through…

 PHOTO CREDIT: TFL

so we have not heard the last from Kate Bush in 2024 (follow Kate Bush on X and Instagram)! There is going to be the Christmas message coming very soon. If last year’s was a slightly downbeat yet realistic view of the modern world, I think this year is one that will have more sunshine and positivity. It is still a bleak world and there is violence around the world. Kate Bush is aware of that and recently released a video, Little Shrew (Snowflake), to raise money for War Child. I will come to that near the end of this feature. Nobody knew what 2024 would hold in store a year ago. Not that Kate Bush had been quiet and off the radar. After the reaction to Stranger Things featuring Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and it hitting number one in 2022, there was residual attention and buzz from that. 2023 (that boasted album reissues) was quite a busy one when it came to Kate Bush, though this year has been even more eventful and exciting! Even though the start of the year had some tragedy. We lost Del Palmer in January. It was a tragedy that Kate Bush posted about. Last year has some clear highlights. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) surpassed a billion streams on Spotify. Bush was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. On 20th April, Record Store Day 2024 took place. Kate Bush was announced Ambassador. She also donated a signed turntable to raise funds for War Child. Some incredible generosity from Bush. On 30th July, there was a lovely salute to Kate Bush from TFL. Bush responded to it. At the start of the year, Bush announced that an Illustrated Edition of 1982’s The Dreaming would be released. Thanks to Kate Bush News. You can purchase it here. A Polar Edition of 50 Words for Snow has been released. Bush spending time reissuing her albums and realising that a whole new generation are picking up her music. Bush reissued Hounds of Love and there was the amazing Baskerville Edition. It has been nominated for as GRAMMY. In fact, as I shall get to, that is not the only GRAMMY nod Bush received this year. In February, it was announced that Kate Bush would be releasing a 10” UV printed picture disc of Eat the Music. That came out on 20th April. Kate Bush News posted the news about the reissue:

“Kate has been announced as the official UK ambassador for this year’s Record Store Day, on 20th April! To mark this she will release a limited 10″ UV-printed picture disc of Eat The Music on the day. The BBC were first to break the news this morning with quotes from Kate’s statement. Since 2009 artists such as Ozzy Osbourne, Iggy Pop, Jack White, Chuck D, Dave Grohl, Metallica, St. Vincent, Pearl Jam, Brandi Carlile and Taylor Swift have worn the annual “ceremonial sash” and used their high profiles to help promote the event online. The band, Paramore, have been named US ambassadors for the 2024 event. Find your local participating record store here.

Following on from her vinyl single releases to support independent stores on Record Store Day in previous years (Hounds of Love, Lake Tahoe and Running Up That Hill 2012 remix) on Saturday April 20th 2024 Kate will release a limited 10″ 3-track picture disc single of her joyous, Madagascan-infused 1993 song, Eat The Music, taken from The Red Shoes album. The 10″ disc features the cover art as a colour UV print on a side without grooves, with all three tracks on the other side, additionally including Lily and Big Stripey Lie, both also taken from The Red Shoes album.

The Eat The Music front disc artwork features the original single cover photo by John Carder Bush of Kate’s hands delving into the luscious fruit…”Split me open, with devotion, you put your hands in, and rip my heart out, eat the music….rip them to pieces, with sticky fingers…” The reverse side is white vinyl pressed with grooves playing the 3 tracks.

Kate’s statement in full:

What a huge honour to have been asked to be Ambassador for this year’s Record Store Day. It really is a great privilege.

Isn’t it great to see how the resurgence in vinyl has taken the Music Industry by complete surprise? It had decided to leave vinyl far behind, but it would seem that not everyone agrees! I love that!

I know there are many, many artists who are just as excited to see the audience turning the tide.

In the same way that some people like to read a book on Kindle but also want to have a book as a physical object, a lot of people like vinyl and streaming. Both have different appeals.

The added bonus of vinyl is that it encourages people to listen to albums. An art form that I’ve always thought can be treasured in a unique way.

An album on vinyl is a beautiful thing, given a strong identity by its large-scale artwork. There’s a much more personal connection with the artist and their work.

It’s been fun putting designs together for some of the previous RSDs. This year’s design echoes the cancelled release of ‘Eat the Music’ as the first single from the album, ‘The Red Shoes’.
The image was intended to be on the cover of the single bag and is now on the disc as a UV print.
The title, ‘Eat the Music’, is meant to be a playful nod to ‘If music be the food of love, play on,’ from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Each year Record Store Day gathers more attention, more momentum, and attracts more people who cram into indie record stores all over the world to see what’s up. What’s new?
This year, I hope you have a fantastic time at this very important event, and that you get to celebrate music that’s been specially released for you.

Very best wises,

Kate”.

I am going to lean onto Kate Bush News for the updates and news from this year. There have been so many wonderful updates posted through the year. Included is the fact that a cassette of Hounds of Love on the set of Stranger Things as they were filming the fifth and final season earlier this year. Will Kate Bush feature again?! If you can donate to Kate Bush News, you should do so here. Not only did we get updates and news blasts. There were other events and interesting things. Bush’s brother John (Jay) turned eighty on 26th March. I am going to work my way to June. This is when Graeme Thomson reissued (bringing things up to date and reacting to updates and events of 2022 and a new lease of success and attention) Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Graeme Thomson also contributed to the April 2024 edition of Disco Pogo. Twelve pages of Kate Bush writing. I would advise people to pick up a copy as it is essential reading! Among the bright spots from this year, there have been some losses. As mentioned, Del Palmer died in January. Donald Sutherland (who appeared in the video for Cloudbusting) died in June. Kate Bush’s music was making its way into film and T.V. In July, The Morning Fog – from 1985’s Hounds of Love – was featured in an episode of The Bear. Placed prominently into an episode from season three, Kate Bush News spotted it. Kate Bush turned sixty-six on 30th July. Of course, there was so much love and affection for her. Lots of messages. Bush posted thanks to her website. On 26th August, we marked ten years since the first night of her residency, Before the Dawn, began. That opening date in Hammersmith was hugely anticipated and beckoned in celebrities and members of the public. Everyone mingling to see Bush take to the stage. Her first large-scale live undertaking since 1979’s The Tour of Life. It was a momentous live spectacle! The newspapers reacted in 2014. On 7th September, the Kate Bush Fan Podcast celebrated a decade of Before the Dawn.

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The amazing Kate Bush tribute act, Baby Bushka, were in the U.K. and Ireland. An Evening Without Kate Bush toured extensively and there are some great dates set for next year. Amazing performers bringing the music and magic of Kate Bush to people in their own distinct ways. Earlier in the year, Halsey released I Never Loved You. It was inspired by Kate Bush (Halsey spoke in 2022 about Kate Bush and why she decided to cover Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). Taken from her acclaimed and astonishing The Great Impersonator, Halsey conceived it as a confessional concept album believing it would be her last project after being diagnosed with lupus and a T cell lymphoproliferative disorder. As part of the album’s promotion, Halsey replicated music photos where she impersonated artists who inspired her. Among them was Kate Bush. Rather than replicating an obvious photo, she instead copied the ‘blue gauze’ shot taken by Clive Arrowsmith in 1981:

“Already known for covering Running Up that Hill live back in June 2022, US singer Halsey has announced that the song “I Never Loved You” is inspired by Kate Bush. The singer also pays visual homage to Kate on social media with a photo shoot recreating the Clive Arrowsmith “blue gauze” photograph of Kate used for the cover of the January 1982 issue of Company Magazine.

The track is featured on Halsey’s upcoming new concept album, The Great Impersonator, which takes influence from many different artists and eras, thematically tied to artists who’ve influenced her. Halsey also sent a message to her subscribers upon the song’s release to detail the dark story behind it: “This song cuts deep….a woman lies ill-fated in an Emergency Room. She’s holding on with all her might, in hopes her lover will show to say goodbye. He arrives, too late and defensive. Who was driving the car that hit her?”.

In October, PROG included Kate Bush in their magazine. Specifically, they combined features and interviews around her debut album, The Kick Inside. There were some parts that focused on later periods of her career. I have taken from those pages and am sharing them in features that will be published between this month and February. It is a great edition that you should buy! On 16th October, The Sensual World turned thirty-five. Although there were very few anniversary features, I hope it turned people onto the album that did not know about it. You can buy it here.

In October, a trailer for The Legend of Ochi featured a remix of Kate Bush’s iconic song, Hounds of Love. Kate Bush News reacted to this wonderful happening:

“The new trailer for the movie The Legend of Ochi features a TOTEM remix version of Kate’s song Hounds of Love, and it sounds fantastic! Teases of the “hounds” vocalisations start as early as 15 seconds into the clip, but later Kate’s actual vocal from the 1985 single explodes onto the trailer soundtrack along with stirring drums and orchestration. TOTEM (Patrick Buchanan and David James Rosen) were also responsible for another memorable remix of Running Up That Hill for the Stranger Things TV series in 2022 – Kate has clearly been impressed by their work.

We think we can see why Kate would have been charmed by the film, it even stars one of the kids from Stranger Things! The Legend of Ochi is an upcoming American fantasy adventure film written and directed by Isaiah Saxon in his feature film debut. The film stars Willem Dafoe, Emily Watson, Finn Wolfhard and Helena Zengel. It is scheduled to be released by A24 on February 28, 2025. We have no idea if the track will feature on the film soundtrack itself (by composer David Longstreth), but this is a brilliant use of Kate’s iconic track to promote this charming movie. The trailer music was also composed in conjunction with composer Ursine Vulpine (aka Frederick Lloyd).

On the film company A24’s site, the story is given thus: “In a remote northern village, a young girl, Yuri, is raised to never go outside after dark and to fear the reclusive forest creatures known as the ochi. When a baby ochi is left behind by its pack, she embarks on the adventure of a lifetime to reunite it with its family”.

On 24th October, we got this tantalising-if-confusing update that we did not know would lead to the biggest Kate Bush event of 2024! A new Radio Edit of Snowflake (which originally featured on 2011’s 50 Words for Snow) was available in New Zealand. It seemed slightly random! It was available on iTunes there. The following day, the song became available on Spotify in the U.K. and Ireland (and other territories). The same day, we were treated to something huge. Kate Bush News gave us all the details:

“Wonderful, wonderful news this morning! Kate has given an interview to Emma Barnett on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme (listen back to it here) to announce the launch of a new short film she has written and directed to raise money for children affected by war. She also talks about her plans to make a new album. The black-and-white, four-minute animation, called Little Shrew, is set to a shorter edit of her 2011 track Snowflake and aims to raise money and awareness for the charity War Child. (be sure to read the story of Little Shrew on Kate’s official site)

Little Shrew is released on Kate’s official website today. It is free to watch, but Kate encourages viewers to support organisations helping children in conflict. Kate says: “I would like to ask that if you watch the animation, please make a donation to War Child, or to another charity that aids children in war.” War Child are accepting donations at their site here. The short film, which Kate worked with illustrator Jim Kay to create, was partly inspired by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. “I started working on it a couple of years ago, it was not long after the Ukrainian war broke out, and I think it was such a shock for all of us,” Kate explained.

“It’s been such a long period of peace we’d all been living through. And I just felt I wanted to make a little animation that would feature, originally, a little girl. It was really the idea of children caught up in war. I wanted to draw attention to how horrific it is for children.

“And so I came up with this idea for a storyboard and felt that, actually, people would be more empathetic towards a creature rather than a human. So I came up with the idea of it being a little shrew.” Reflecting on the impact of conflict on children, Kate said: “I think war is horrific for everyone, particularly civilians, because they’re so vulnerable in these situations. But for a child, it’s unimaginable how frightening it must be for them.”

Kate added: “I think we’ve all been through very difficult times. These are dark times that we’re living in and I think, to a certain extent, everyone is just worn out….We went through the pandemic, that was a huge shock, and I think we felt that, once that was over, that we would be able to get on with some kind of normal life…But in fact it just seems to be going from one situation to another, and more wars seem to be breaking out all the time.” The Guardian newspaper in the UK have already given Kate’s animated film a five star review “…this devastating film will make you weep at war’s violence against children.” Also, concept artist on the Little Shrew animation, Jim Kay, writes about working with Kate over on his official site.

War Child are accepting donations at their site here

About her next album, Kate adds that she is “very keen” to start working on new music. She said there are “lots of ideas” she wants to pursue, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I’m really looking forward to getting back into that creative space, it’s been a long time.” BBC report”.

Following the video and the introduction of Little Shrew, Bush added some new merchandise to her store. Alongside the Little Shrew T-shirt are Snowflake Christmas cards. Two great books about Kate Bush were released/reissued this year. One was Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 book for Hounds of Love. That came out last month. This is a book that you need to own (you can pre-order a signed copy here):

“This book charts the emergence of Kate Bush in the early-to-mid-1980s as a courageous experimentalist, a singularly expressive recording artist and a visionary music producer. Hounds Of Love invites you to not only listen, but to cross the boundaries of sensory experience into the realms of imagination and possibility. Side A spawned four Top 40 hit singles in the UK, ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’, ‘Cloudbusting’, ‘Hounds of Love’ and ‘The Big Sky’, some of the best loved and most enduring compositions in the Bush catalogue. On side B, a hallucinatory seven-part song cycle called The Ninth Wave breaks away from the pop conventions of the era, leaning into strange and vivid production techniques that plunge the listener into the psychological centre of a near-death experience. Poised and accessible, yet still experimental and complex, with Hounds Of Love Bush mastered the art of her studio-based songcraft, finally achieving full control of her creative process. When it came out in 1985, she was only 27 years old. Track-by-track commentaries focus on the experience of the album from the listener’s point of view, drawing attention to the art and craft of Bush’s songwriting and sound design. It considers the vast impact and influence that Hounds Of Love has had on music cultures and creative practices through the years, underlining the artist’s importance as a barrier-smashing, template-defying, business-smart, record-breaking, never-compromising role model for artists everywhere”.

Back in June, Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush was reissued for 2024. Go and order it here. This was before Bush dropped the Little Shrew (Snowflake) video and suggested new music was coming (will we see the book reissued again if Bush releases an eleventh studio album?!). However, in his final chapter from the 2024 edition, Thomson reacted to all the recent news and developments. How Kate Bush is still so relevant and visible. An artist making a huge impact in so many ways:

“The critically acclaimed definitive biography of Kate Bush, revised and updated for 2024, with a new foreword by Sinéad Gleeson.

Detailing everything from Bush’s upbringing to her early exposition of talent, to her subsequent evolution into a stunningly creative and endlessly fascinating visual and musical artist, Under The Ivy is the story of one woman's life in music. Written with great detail, accuracy and admiration for her work, this is in equal parts an in-depth biography and an immersive analysis of Kate Bush's art.

Focusing on her unique working methods, her studio techniques, her timeless albums and inescapable influence, Under The Ivy is an eminently readable and insightful exploration of one of the world's most unique and gifted artists. The text has been updated to include coverage of Bush’s return to the top of the charts in 2022 following the extraordinary resurgence of ‘Running Up That Hill.’ An eye-opening journey of discovery for anyone unfamiliar with the breadth of Bush’s work, Under The Ivy also rewards the long-term fan with new insights and fresh analysis.

“The best music biography in perhaps the past decade” The Irish Times

“Superb.... A compelling examination of an artist in a constant state of becoming” Mojo

"Penetrating textual study potently combining interviews and research" The Beat

"Excellent... expertly unravelling her contradictions and motivations" Record Collector

"I’ve never met Kate Bush. But on occasion we may have shared the same dream about the afterlife of Elvis Presley – a fact I learnt while reading this wonderful book. She’s beguiling and eccentric and in thrall to a singular vision. She’s also smart in not dispelling her mystery. Over the years she has come to occupy a unique place in the British psyche. She’s now part national treasure, and part pop Athena with her devoted acolytes. Under The Ivy is respectful, but it gets us pretty close to the temple. This is the perfect book for aficionados or even the merely curious" Paddy McAloon (Prefab Sprout)

"Graeme is a fantastic biographer, warm and wise. He brings Kate’s interior and exterior lives to life, in vivid colours, in this wonderful book" Jude Rogers, author of The Sound of Being Human

"Peers deep into the weeds of this extraordinary woman’s work. Under The Ivy brilliantly fleshes out the stories behind the Bushcraft, without reducing any of her music’s enduring magic" Rob Young, author of Electric Eden and All Gates Open: The Story of Can

"Written in prose that from time to time seems linked umbilically to the very same ‘otherworld’ from which Kate Bush’s art manifests, Graeme Thomson’s style of storytelling penetrates the surrounding truths and myths. In doing so he presents us with the rarest of things: a portrait of Kate Bush incarnate" Jim Kerr (Simple Minds)

"There is no shortage of books written about Kate, but when Under The Ivy first appeared it felt like the definitive text. Probing, exhaustively researched, with a huge attention to detail, it was immersive and engaging. Graeme Thomson is clearly an admirer of the work, but avoids any hagiography" Sinéad Gleeson, author of Constellations and Hagstone

"An absolute joy for the Kate Bush fan, indeed any music fan, delving deeply and passionately into the world of one of our most important and cherished artists. A fascinating and richly rewarding read, this book explores in exquisite detail a truly unique vision and uncompromising approach in what has been the creation of some of the most incredible and intoxicating music ever recorded" Emma Pollock

"This is writing about music, and one of the key songwriters and performers of her or any time, that demands to be read not only by fans and connoisseurs, but by anyone interested in art and those who make it" Laura Barnett, author of The Versions of Us and Greatest Hits

"It’s such a well written and detailed book.... satisfyingly in depth and revealing and just as its title suggests a door to a secret garden, we get unseen glimpses of a private life and the connections of that world to one of the most influential and important artists of my life time. Absorbing, revealing and immersive" Kathryn Williams, singer-songwriter and author of The Ormering Tide

"Highly praised, comprehensively researched" Classic Rock

"Thomson is a perceptive critic and frames Bush's talent sympathetically, viewing her as a storyteller and 'a determinedly concealed individual'" 8/10 Uncut”.

Alongside all the Kate Bush activity and news have been great episodes of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast. One of the best was from 27th November. Alan Skidmore featured. Darrell from Bush Telegraph talked with Skidmore, who was the saxophonist on Kate’s 1975 track, The Saxophone Song (it appeared on her 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside). Kate Bush’s video for Little Shrew (Snowflake) was a winner at the World Film Festival in Cannes. Also, last month, we heard that Kate Bush had been nominated for two GRAMMYs. It was another huge bit of news in a busy and exciting year. Kate Bush News provided all the details:

“At a time when we’re already buzzing at Kate’s confirmation that she is working on ideas for a new album, it has been announced that Kate and her son Albert McIntosh have been nominated as art directors in two categories in next year’s 67th Grammy Awards in the USA. Her 2023 illustrated vinyl release of Hounds of Love, The Baskerville Edition is nominated for Best Recording Package, while The Boxes of Lost at Sea art pieces (also editions of Hounds of Love) have been nominated for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package. You can read more about these releases on our original news item here. Congratulations to Kate and Albert and team! We are sure you must be delighted by this. Winners will be announced on the day of the Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles on February 2nd 2025.

The Grammy Awards, established in 1958, are awarded annually by The Recording Academy of the United States for outstanding achievements in the music industry. They were originally called the Gramophone Awards, as the trophy depicts a gilded gramophone. There are a whopping 94 categories covering not just every genre of music but also for the likes of record packages, historical recordings, production, engineering, composition and arrangement. Most of these less glitzy Grammy trophies are presented in a pre-telecast “Premiere Ceremony” in the afternoon before the Grammy Awards telecast, a live show dominated by the most popular “general field” pop categories. Previously Kate was nominated three times for a Grammy; in 1988 for Best Concept Music Video (The Whole Story), in 1991 for Best Alternative Music Album (The Sensual World) and in 1996 for Best Music Film (The Line, the Cross and the Curve).

Significantly, in terms of Kate’s profile and status in the USA, these are Kate’s first Grammy nominations in nearly 30 years, with Forbes magazine musing that “clearly Recording Academy voters seem interested in recognizing her work and her talent.” This follows Kate’s biggest chart success ever in the USA in 2022 with Running Up That Hill and her induction last year into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Forbes also notes that while Kate faces tough competition in the two fields, “she should be considered a serious contender for one, if not both awards. She is one of many artists who have never won a Grammy whose legacy has grown throughout the years.”

The Baskerville Edition of Hounds of Love, adorned with artwork by Timorous Beasties, was notable for its innovation for being the first ever vinyl record to have a solar powered LED light specially developed and built for the project by Kate and her team. The circuitboard was exclusively designed for the package so it would fit into the standard thickness of the gatefold sleeve. The release was accompanied by a special Cloudbusting-themed short film written and directed by Kate. Read more about the Grammy for Best Recording Package on Wikipedia here”.

I would also recommend people check out this Kate Bush Fan Podcast episode from Seán. Recently, UNCUT published a new edition that featured a ‘lost’ Kate Bush interview from 2011, where Andy Gill spoke with the icon about her then-new album, 50 Words for Snow. Kate Bush shared her excitement that The Baskerville Edition has been nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Recording Package. The GRAMMY ceremony takes place on 2nd February at the Crypto Arena in Los Angeles. Kate Bush will not attend, though if she wins, she is sure to post an update to her website. It will be wonderful if she did win a GRAMMY! She has been nominated multiple times but never won one. We have a few more days of this year to go, so there may be other updates coming before her Christmas post. It has been a very exciting and busy one for Kate Bush. So many different events and bits of news. A special shout-out to some great people on social media like kate bush’s aquarius moon and FishPoeple Kate Bush for their dedication and posts! With potential new music coming soon and with Bush very much active and in people’s thoughts, this year has been incredible! Thanks to sites like Kate Bush News for keeping us abreast. To the journalists and tribute acts. To authors like Graeme Thomson and Leah Kardos. They have helped to keep Kate Bush very much at the forefront! It is going to be amazing seeing what Kate Bush news there is…

IN store next year.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Nia Smith

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Delali Ayivi

Nia Smith

_________

ONE of the brightest…

talents in the current music scene, Nia Smith is someone who should be on everyone’s radar. The South London artist mixes Soul and Neo-Soul into a wonderful and distinct blend. I think that next year will be a huge one for her. I am going to end with a review of her debut E.P., Give Up the Fear. I want to start off with an interview from Vogue. Speaking with her in the summer, they heralded Nia Smith’s rise as the new sound of Soul:

“It’s a cloudy Friday morning when singer-songwriter Nia Smith cycles to our interview at a Brixton bakery. “I will happily go out for half an hour and just Lime-bike,” says the south Londoner, wearing a crisp black shirt over billowing jeans as she sits down with a hot chocolate. It’s her way of unwinding from an increasingly hectic schedule. This past summer has seen Smith, still only 21, support SZA at BST Hyde Park and perform at London’s All Points East festival. We’re meeting a couple of days after her British Vogue shoot – her first ever. “I hate to be in front of the camera,” she says, grimacing, “but it was a good day!” Now she is gearing up for the long-awaited release of her debut EP this winter (despite fever-pitch buzz in the music industry, at the time of writing its title is still top secret). “It’s nice that people will be able to type my name [into Google] and have actual recorded music come up, rather than just my TikTok account,” she says, with a smile.

On her debut track, “Give up the Fear”, Smith’s vocals shine, bringing to mind early Adele, to say nothing of Amy Winehouse and Raye (all fellow Brit School alumni), while “Personal” – her second single – is the kind of groovy earworm any R&B artist would be glad to have in their early discography. Yet before finding music – the trombone was her unlikely starter instrument – Smith wanted to be a firefighter (“I’m scared of everything so I don’t know where that came from”). Growing up she was “probably a bit mischievous” but puts it down to being the middle child in a family of brothers, and she still lives just down the road from her family. “When my dad went out to work I would steal his iPod and memorise the lyrics to all the songs,” she says, laughing as she recalls plugging herself into Aretha, Tina, Nina… Smith was inadvertently coached by the greats. If things keep going her way, she could be on track to be one”.

I will move on to an interview from Rolling Stone. With such a distinct and special voice, this is an artist that is going to have a phenomenal 2025. I am new to her music but have been instantly hooked. If you have not discovered Nia Smith yet then you really need to check her out. Go and follow her on social media. A sensational young artist with a huge future ahead:

“It’s early morning in New York when Nia Smith appears on a zoom call, hours before preparation begins for her debut show in the Big Apple. Her debut EP isn’t even out at this point, but her prodigious talents have already landed her a support slot in the US with Elmiene, whose blend of neo-soul and more classic sounds have allowed him to sell out shows across the globe.

Like Elmiene, Smith deals in classic soul stylings, but the inclusion of her own musical upbringing allows it to take on a kaleidoscopic edge. The title track of her newly released EP Give Up The Fear is a heartfelt ode to the importance of being care free, while ‘Personal’ takes on a subtle dancehall edge – which led to a fresh version of the song with Popcaan.

Now, she’s on the cusp of becoming a truly important voice within UK music. You can read our whole Q&A with Nia Smith below.

You’re in in New York, how have the shows been supporting Elmiene?

They’ve been really good! I love New York, so it’s been really good. I mean, we only landed yesterday and I’ve never performed here so I’m excited.

We’re here to talk about your EP Give Up The Fear. What does this first body of work say about you as an artist?

I wanted to have a nice introduction to me, the different layers across five songs and I didn’t want to be boxed in too soon, so I feel like it represents the chapters of my life and the stories from it.

What are they? What personal side are you putting across?

Well I think ‘Give Up The Fear’ reflects a degree of self belief and ‘Don’t Cry’ reflects why I just want to live my best life as a single queen. There’s a song called ‘Reckless Soul’ too which reflects how I just had to be there for myself when I didn’t like life and ‘Personal’ is the best song on the EP in my opinion.

Why is it the best song?

I grew up listening to a lot of reggae and I think with the others you can’t tell how much reggae means to me. Obviously it’s not a reggae song, but it’s infused with reggae drums and parts like the bass line so it’s nice to have that in a song and let people know a bit more about my heritage.

You told us earlier this year about stealing your dad’s iPod as a kid to listen to different music. How did that shape you and what did you listen to growing up?

Well I didn’t really appreciate reggae as a kid because the baseline would rattle my bedroom! But stuff like Michael Jackson, Nina Simone, Tina Turner, James Brown, all the big voices. My dad played a lot of Amy Winehouse and Adele too.

What did you like about those artists?

Amy, Aretha and Adele were just proper stand out voices. But Amy had that rhythm, she had it all and she was definitely my favourite from that iPod selection.

What’s the one thing you want people to take away from this EP?

I kinda want people to find a piece of themselves in it. All the music is honest and the more honest you are, the more people can relate. I’m sure there’s people who have gone through every story in that EP. People can find truth in it. But if you want to dance, just listen to ‘Personal’!

And what’s next for Nia Smith?

I just want to play more live shows, man and make more music. Maybe another EP, but music where I can elevate the sound. Keep it in the same world, but deliver the next story and next part of Nia Smith”.

There are a couple of other interviews I want to source from before coming to a review of Give Up the Fear. It is one of the best and most important E.P.s of the year. Wonderland. included Nia Smith in their New Noise feature. Someone who is going to be included in a lot of ‘Ones to Watch in 2025’ pieces:

“Who have been your main inspirations—both musically and personally? 

My main writing influences is my life and what’s around me but Amy and Lauryn defo inspire the music I make.

How has your upbringing and your cultural background shaped your artistry and creative outlook? 

My Caribbean heritage, growing up on a lot of reggae and has defo influenced my melody and cadence choices. I’m a proud south Londoner from Brixton which I defo like to portray in my creative.

Congratulations on your debut EP! How are you feeling about the release? Talk us through the creative process of the EP? What were the biggest challenges you experienced? 

Feeling good about the release. Finishing the EP with Jimmy (Napes) was a lot of fun. We had a full band in and it was a real collaborative process. The biggest challenge was knowing when something was finished which is why I decided to keep some of the demo vocals, which I love.

What are you trying to convey across the project, lyrically and thematically?

“Give Up The Fear” is about letting go and finding your inner child. That space where you create stuff without overthinking. I want people to find a piece of themselves within the songs. It’s a lil time capsule of my life. New era pending! 

You’ve supported some massive names already this year, from Tems to SZA to Jordan Rakei. What have those experiences taught you? How did those achievements feel? 

Feels great. I just like being on stage. It’s nice to have artists I love want to share their space with me. It’s nice seeing the room come together by the end of the set too.

Describe for us your essence as a live performer? What can we expect from an Nia Smith show?

It’s all about the voice. From a Nia Smith show you can expect the mic to be ON lol. Maybe a lil boogie during “Personal” and a great cover at some point. 

What else have you got coming up, this year and beyond? 

My EP is came out on the 8th so I’m now working on the new stuff, hopefully an elevated sound. some cheeky live show appearances and more shows etc”.

The final interview I want to mention is from The Line of Best Fit. Highlighting Nia Smith as an artist on the rise, this is someone I cannot recommend highly enough. Such a stunning voice and amazing songwriter. Someone who will put British Soul back at the forefront. Such a deep and interesting interview, I want to include quite a sizeable chunk of it as we get to learn a lot about a wonderful talent:

“Every line was pretty much a joke,” says Smith of her reggae-imbued second single. “It was about getting rid of that bad energy; we don’t have to be besties – we can be civil. Sometimes people make it seem like you have to be friends with everyone, but I don’t think it’s personal if you’re not my sort of person.”

Sometimes, there is a need to simply get a job done and, despite her young 20-years-of-age, Smith is not about time wasting. The Brixton native recalls times where she has walked into a studio to take care of business and been frustrated by the vibe.

“With the music industry, sometimes it feels like high school – there’s this clique over here, a clique over there” Smith adds. “Authenticity is really big to me; if it’s not that, I really struggle in situations. But I’ve made some really good friends in music.”

So far, these ‘good friends in music’ have certainly been of the covetable kind, most recently with dancehall icon Popcaan signing up to appear on the remix of “Personal”, which drops today. When Smith got the call, she couldn’t believe it. “My party song is ‘Clarks’, so he was on my main list of people I wanted.” Smith was adamant that, if it wasn’t an artist from her list, she didn’t want to release a remix – though she needn’t have worried about the end result. “It came back and it [was] great – he is great. I feel like it added some more grit. I met him at Unruly Fest [held for the first time in London this July] and he’s just a vibe.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Brennan Bucannan

Both “Personal” and Smith’s upcoming debut EP, were produced by Grammy-winner and Sam Smith collaborator Jimmy Napes – an artist who Smith admired in her younger years. All of her musical connections have “naturally come about”: she has been working with producer Dom Valentino “out of his bedroom” since she was “16 and he was 23”; likewise Ed Thomas, who has co-written for artists including Jayda G, Amaarae and Nia Archives.

As such, Smith was keen to see if her dream trio could work together to manifest a sound that encapsulated her smorgasbord of influences – from Lauryn Hill, Little Simz and Amy Winehouse to Chronixx and Bob Marley. “I feel like they all really appreciate reggae – not as much as me! – and R&B and soul and pop, and all those worlds infused into one. It was a perfect collision,” she says. “I got what I wanted from that.”

Smith’s passion for music has been a lifelong endeavour spurred by a family of music lovers. Her grandfather possesses what she describes as a “crazy” music collection, something her father emulated digitally with the iPod she would steal to sing along to “all the great voices” such as Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Tina Turner, James Brown, Michael Jackson. Her uncle is a producer, while Romeo from So Solid Crew is her father’s cousin. The first CD Smith’s mother bought for her was Rihanna’s single, ‘Rude Boy’, something she considers as making sense in hindsight, given she was accustomed to “waking up to dub bass from reggae shaking my room like crazy.”

Aged 14, Smith began to teach herself guitar but struggled to play other people’s songs – or perform at all. Instead, she found a canny workaround: “I was like, if I make my own songs, then no one’s gonna know how bad I’m playing it – because they don’t know the song. I found singing songs to people always scary,” she explains. “I would play the songs to my parents and then run back upstairs. I remember writing a song about my mum asking me to do dishes and I didn’t want to. It sounded like a heartbreak song – it was so dumb.”

A stint at the BRIT school studying musical theatre and, later, East London Arts & Music studying music instilled Smith with “hustle and drive”, a conviction to make things happen for herself; it was not long before she began booking any gig she could find. A southbank music festival? Sure. Lambeth Country Show at Brockwell Park? Smith was there – even if no one was in the audience. She found it gave her a buzz “just to live a little – all of that was so quick.”

Community is vital to Smith, an aspect of her growing whirlwind that brings her back to herself. This evening, for example, she is going bowling with friends – an opportunity to reclaim some time for herself after a busy day shooting and being grilled for this feature. Her friends make an appearance in the video for “Personal” because Smith feels “like it’s hard to create that sort of vibe with strangers.”

The acceleration of her momentum is documented between music videos: her debut, “Give Up The Fear” has Smith cycling through the night in black and white; meanwhile, “Personal” sees her level up, cruising around in a vintage convertible during the London summertime. Being in motion helps take the self-conscious pressure away, especially when it comes to expressing herself (“It’s going to be on YouTube forever”, after all) and it is clear that Smith finds it as hard to be static as she finds it necessary to cultivate the need to plough forwards in her career.

The sentiment anchors “Give Up The Fear”, a debut at striking odds with its follow-up single, “Personal”. A vulnerable piece of vintage R&B tinged with soul, the track’s brushed drums and lamentable keys give room for Smith’s incomparable bassy vocal to breathe. “The pain won’t stop until you give it up. Your heart is blocked until you give it up,” she intones. “I don’t wanna live like that.” For a first outing it is remarkably ruminatory, and Smith saw it more as an artistic statement than a play at the numbers game.

“It was the best introduction because of what it was about – giving up fear, letting go, and just creating the stuff you want to create,” she explains. “It was all about my high standards, overthinking everything I was making. I’m a crazy overthinker.” Smith recalls watching her ten-year-old brother create books and drawings for the fun of it and doing the same at his age. Now, with social media, the temptation to compare is always there, and fearless creativity becomes lost as the years tick by. “I had all this weight on my shoulders about how to write a song, which I’ve been doing all this time; why am I now thinking about it so deeply? It was about the pain of that, and letting it go.”

For all her bravado, Smith is not without a thread of self-doubt, and despite such achievements this propensity for perfectionist tendencies and high expectations of self meant her confidence ebbed and flowed. She had ideas of being a “teenage popstar” in part due to the success of artists like Billie Eilish, thinking “if I’m not a teenager when I’m doing this, I’ve failed; now, she realises “it’s really not that deep. When I turned 20, I was like ‘my teenage popstar dream is over’ – but it hadn’t even started yet. As long as I’m making music, I’m happy.”

However, such dreams were abruptly thrown into trepidation when Smith lost her voice last November. Two months later, it still hadn’t returned, and a consultation quickly informed her she was in need of surgery. It was a scary reinforcement that the gifts that let her pursue lofty dreams carried the risk of being finite. “My single [was] supposed to drop in a couple of weeks. I’d just moved out, so was living alone. All this change is happening. I learned some lessons from it.

“At the end of the day, we’re not built to sing,” Smith continues. “If I want to still sing when I’m 30, I’ve got to look after it now.” Back then she says she would “YOLO life – go out, scream, have fun with my friends;” now, she warms up and cools down, a drink and a late night is rare, as well as oily food. “Life’s more boring now ‘cause I think about everything; it’s just a part of a regime. It’s quite long and tedious.”

Whether it be grand or incremental, Smith’s eyes have always been set on the end goal, the bigger picture, but a sense of balance is also important. From “Give Up The Fear” to “Personal”, the progression from childhood to adulthood – and easing into one’s sense of self – is bolstered by finding your community, a chosen family. Currently, she is acknowledging the need to prioritise experiences, and living to fuel the work. “I have my current crew that I work with; some of them are taking breaks to live life, which I need to do as well. You can’t write if you’re not pouring from anything”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ciesay

I am going to end with this review for Give Up the Fear. It is one of the very best E.P.s of the year. I am excited to see what next year has in store for Nia Smith. A wonderful artist that, whilst new to me, is firmly in my mind. She has that impact on everyone who hears her music:

“Her voice can do impressive runs and hold onto notes like artists such as Beyonce or Mary J Blige. Her previously released singles “Give Up The Fear,” “Little Red Car” and “Personal,” which are on the EP were a smash hit and helped grow her online fandom. At just 20 years old, she has achieved more success than many artists ever dreamt of. This new EP marks the beginning of her career.

The first single “Little Red Car,” is a slow R&B infused pop song. It feels like an echoey dream-like sequence of chord progressions that bubble up into a beautiful melodic chorus. From the beginning of the song, it feels like we are just hearing a slow ballad. As we begin to hear more pop beats and a smooth bass tone, we’re invited to hear more of Smith’s vocal range abilities.

The song, which was co-written by Smith, blossoms into this beautifully written heartfelt hymn. “You set my soul on fire. Going way too fast in your little red car.” The words are simple but feel gut-wrenching when Smith sings to you. She’s exhuming so much passion and power behind her voice.

Even when she’s more laid back during each verse, she tells you this euphonious story from a female perspective in a relationship. A woman who’s aware that she is too deep in love with someone and feels overwhelmed by the encompassing emotions. Smith takes you along this journey and shows you the emotions she feels in each moment.

The second single “Give Up the Fear” is a sweet rhythmic battle cry to people struggling to overcome their problems.  “The pain won’t stop till you let it go. You don’t believe it cause it said so. The pain won’t stop until you let it go. The more you know the less you know” are the lyrics of the song. Daunting and intrusive, they make you feel like you’ve been cracked open and exposed. It makes you reflect on the deeper underlying insecurities you’ve been holding onto.

Smith’s writing is always an attempt to find a deeper truth within us. Why do we hold onto these fears of the future that haven’t yet occurred? Is there something holding me back from becoming my better self? The self-doubt and cries for help are what Smith is singing to.

The laid-back beats and reggae-like harmonies make it a lighter, heartfelt tune. Smith is a master at creating raw emotional vulnerability. Each song lays a path for listeners to delve deeper into themselves and connect with themselves.

Photograph of Smith smiling and posing holding up a magazine article of her interview and picture. Photo by Instagram account: Delali Ayivi.

The third single “Reckless Soul” is a pure but simple, heavenly ballad. It’s airy and light but affects you emotionally at the core. The crisp sounds make a beautiful flow over the lyrics. Smith sings simply: “Take me where you go. A place only I know. And I will hold you close. And I’ll save your reckless soul.”

Smith’s unique isolated vocals play alongside the guitar, without any background noise. Once she builds up the hymn, she leaves without singing any words and the song continues with the sound of an electric guitar. Smith sings from her heart and has perfect composition in her music.

Nothing feels out of place or overdone. Despite only having one EP, she has proven that she has a diverse range and ability to shift from different genres effortlessly.

The fifth and last single “Don’t Cry” from Smith’s EP is one of the most popular. During an interview with Rolling Stone UK, Smith said that “Don’t Cry reflects why I just want to live my best life as a single queen.” The upbeat rhythmic hymn calls for women to not make any devotion to men and live their best life.

Rather than come off as petty and resentful, Smith reflects on the beautiful possibilities that come with being single and being happy. “Don’t cry, oh yea. I’m good on my own, never promised devotion. My eyes are bored of emotion, don’t Cry” sings Smith. The lyrics tell single women everywhere that being single is a happy and harmonious thing to celebrate and not to look back in bad faith.

Smith’s vocals capture the song’s vulnerability, while the jazzy background beats drum up a momentous catchy tune and make you bop your head. It’s a simple but powerful message for women seeking relief from break ups or bad relationships.

Smith is one of the latest rising stars who is creating her own path in the music industry despite the oversaturation of pop music. She has character, lyrical talent, musical composition and a unique voice.

This EP is a great introduction to the young promising singer and a beautiful list of R&B hits you’ll never stop singing. If you would like to listen to Smith, you can check her out on YouTube, Apple Music, and Sound Cloud”.

An amazing artist who has such an enormous talent, everyone needs to hear Nia Smith. She is someone I have recently found but has been on the music press’s radar for a while now. Next year is going to be a really successful one for her. If you are new to Nia Smith then you need to make sure that she is in your mind. An artist who is going to…

DEFINE 2025.

__________

Follow Nia Smith

 Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/niasmithy

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@niasmithyyy

Twitter:

https://x.com/niasmithy

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/50MUpOKyCZMtBcYlBQP260

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6-ue5KMo12pIkTAh_yPh2A

FEATURE: Spotlight: KATSEYE

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

KATSEYE

_________

FOR this Spotlight…

I want to spend time with the amazing KATSEYE. They are a girl group based in Los Angeles, California. KATSEYE is composed of six members: Sophia, Manon, Daniela, Lara, Megan, and Yoonchae. With members from the Philippines, South Korea, Switzerland, and the United States, the sextet is described as a global girl group. KATSEYE formed in 2023 through the reality show, Dream Academy. Their debut E.P., SIS (Soft Is Strong), was released in August. I will end with a review for that E.P. Before that, I am going to get to some interviews with the K-Pop group. I want to start out with an interview from NME:

“Grinding in the practice room day in, day out also made it clear to the girls that they were on the right path, regardless of where they would finish in the competition. “I really figured out that this is really what I want to do,” 21-year-old Manon shares. “Even through the hard times in the programme, it was always super worth it. I had so much fun – and still do – and was really set in my decision of becoming an artist.”

Leon will help develop KATSEYE’s artistry on the creative side, taking the K-pop scene’s lead and playing a much more hands-on role than creative directors in the Western music industry might. “Whether it’s if the girls can paint their nails this colour or what’s the music video for their launch, I’m involved in every single aspect of it,” he explains. “We’re working very closely together and really trying to hone in on each of their individual styles and cultures and trying to embrace those things while unifying them as a group.”

Unlike Sophia and Yoonchae, the rest of the group weren’t big K-pop fans before they auditioned for Dream Academy. Since being accepted, their bandmates have been teaching them about the scene – something they’ve been taking new inspiration from as they move towards their debut. “K-pop feels like Western music, but just elevated because of how perfect everything is, how fine-tuned the dancing is,” muses 18-year-old Lara. “I feel like that is really gonna be taken into KATSEYE as we merge the Western and K-pop elements. It’s going to be very grand and elevated – and something non-K-pop fans can enjoy.”

“We’ve been training for two years and doing hardcore dancing and training our vocals, and we’re just gonna mash those two together and make something different and something new,” 19-year-old Daniela smiles. “It’s going to be really, really cool.”

During the mission stage of Dream Academy, KATSEYE and their fellow competitors got the chance to see the other side of their inspiration IRL when they headed to Seoul to train. There, they got to rehearse at HYBE, met LE SSERAFIM and had their own fan meeting. “I feel like we all got to take away so much from being there and actually being in the facilities over there with other trainees,” Manon says.

“Seeing the dedication and determination from the peers around us was really, really cool to see,” Megan agrees. For Yoonchae, the trip was particularly special. “Going back to my home country, it was very meaningful to be with these girls and train together,” she says softly. “But I do wish we had more time – I wanted to take them around my favourite spots in Korea!”

Although the Dream Academy process and the resulting group have and continue to take inspiration from the Korean music scene, for Leon, there was also an element of going against the K-pop grain. “I used it as something to push against and say, ‘Okay, well, I see what they’re doing, but how do we make it different? How do we bring something new and fresh from that perspective?’ I want KATSEYE to be part of the history and the future of Western culture – but through the eyes of a global sensibility. We don’t need to reference anything; we can create something from scratch.”

The key to KATSEYE isn’t just K-pop, then, but the melting pot of backgrounds and cultures that each member brings to the group. Alongside Filipina Sophia and Korean Yoonchae, Daniela and Megan were both born in the US but have Venezuelan-Cuban and Singaporean-Chinese heritage, respectively. Manon, too, is Swiss-Ghanaian, while Lara is Indian-American. “We’re all representing a different culture and we’re all very, very passionate about representing where we’re from,” the latter explains. “It’s just so important to tie in elements of our culture into our music, the fashion, the styling – all of it.”

Although the members of the new girl group are young and are just getting a taste of being in the spotlight, they’re aware of the responsibilities they hold as representatives of where they come from. “Sophia is the first Filipino person under HYBE, Manon is the first Black girl, I’m the first brown girl,” Lara continues. “It’s never been done before and we’re very underrepresented so I think there are a lot of eyes on us. It’s so important that we constantly talk about our culture and make it very evident that we’re proud of where we’re from. We want young people growing up to be as proud as we are to be from where we are.”

“We want to let them know that anything is possible – it doesn’t have to be a girl group,” Sophia adds. “If you want to be an astronaut, you just go for it. Doing this confidently is what I feel is gonna make us as inspirational as we can be as artists.”

Being a part of a global girl group means more to KATSEYE than its members hailing from different parts of the planet. It also means sisterhood and the power of music. “It shows that no matter where you come from, music is a way to connect,” Sophia says. “I love K-pop and I barely understand Korean, but it just makes you feel a certain way. No matter where you’re from, anybody can enjoy it and anybody can feel something from it”.

If you do not know about KATSEYE, I would recommend hearing their music on Spotify and reading interviews with the group. They are an incredible six-piece that are primed for big success next year. I will move on to an interview from DAZED from earlier in the year. Every interview reveals fresh layers about the group. I think that they are primed for global domination:

“In mid-September, when KATSEYE – Daniela, Lara, Manon, Yoonchae, Sophia, and Megan (absent from this interview due to injury) – stepped onto a tiny stage set in a multi-storey Manila shopping mall, they were shocked. There were fans, rows deep, crammed against the railings on each floor. “I thought it was going to be the first floor, maybe some people on the second, but the mall turned into a stadium,” says Sophia, the group’s Filipino member. “Growing up, I’d shop there with my mom and grandmother. There wasn’t a single moment of silence. When we tried to talk, they’d start chanting our names. It was crazy.”

In a heady and triumphant year for women in pop, with a welcome avalanche of earworm choruses, viral dances, memes and outfits, record-breaking festival crowds and tours, KATSEYE’s “Touch”, with its sweet stammer of a chorus and an easily replicated finger dance, made its viral mark after its release in late July, blowing up across TikTok.

It was a pivotal, vital moment for the band. A month earlier, they’d released their first track, the catchy and confident “Debut”, seven months (an eternity in the pop-sphere) after being formed via the survival show The Debut: Dream Academy. The brainchild of a partnership between American label Geffen and K-pop mega-corporation HYBE, its executives undertook an expensive risk: no non-K-pop, performance-led pop group had made a dent in the US charts in years. The Debut: Dream Academy would eschew a regular format by airing on only social media and in short form, focusing more on dancing and vocal skills and less on spotlighting big personalities. And though based in Los Angeles, the group was to be multi-national (KATSEYE’s members are Ghanaian-Swiss-Italian, Filipino, Korean, Indian-American, Cuban-American and Chinese-Singaporean-American).

“Debut” deeply divided audiences, many of whom were global K-pop fans who brutally critiqued the labels’ still unfurling creative and marketing strategies. KATSEYE, with hindsight, are equal parts pragmatic and staunch: “That’s always the risk with a song, you never know how they’ll [the public] receive it. We saw a tremendous amount of love for ‘Debut’ so that was amazing for us,” says Manon, and Lara agrees: “Everything was put out for a reason. Everything was very thought through. ‘Debut’ was my fave song off the album, I was like, ‘This is gonna be the one!’ and then it ends up not being the one, and that’s OK.”

But with “Touch”, the group knew something magic was happening when, Daniela says, “Every single scroll through our FYP was just people singing or dancing to it. We were like, ‘Wow, this song is actually doing really well’. It’s really cool to see so many people liking our music.” Sophia adds: “It was even on random videos, like cooking videos, that was crazy. Or influencers I'd been following for a long time, seeing them doing our dance, I was like, ‘Oh, you know our song?!’”

KATSEYE are back Stateside following their successful mini promo tour through South Korea, Japan and the Philippines where they met fans, made TV appearances, did interviews and performances. Onstage, they look powerful, with long limbs and glossy hair moving in flawless, graceful unison. Offstage, KATSEYE, who are all aged between 16 and 22, are joyfully chaotic and loud – in their livestreams and socials they play music, sing, dance, do make-up, show off their pets, often in a bedroom or a studio setting. They do this interview from a nondescript, brightly lit room where they listen carefully and sometimes talk excitedly over one another. They are charming, self-aware and funny. Out in the other world of the internet, the wave of love for “Touch” is seemingly unending.

A version featuring Yeonjun of idol group Tomorrow x Together racked up over 2.4 million Spotify streams in under a week in early October. The original version sailed past 100 million Spotify streams two days after we spoke. “I think when we see the number of streams, that’s when it hits us and we’re like, oh yeah, it’s real,” says Daniela. Manon adds: “We still have days where we’re unsure if this is really happening because, honestly, it’s so surreal. We debuted four months ago and we’re still getting used to it.” Their Spotify monthly unique listeners stand at nearly 12 million. Lara smiles: “The monthlies are really crazy. They’re what sent me.”

The track’s sticking power was amplified by an eight-part Netflix docuseries (Pop Star Academy: KATSEYE), which followed the survival show’s original 20 trainees (whittled down from a staggering 120,000 applicants), and their debut EP, SIS (Soft Is Strong), both released in August. Manon likens making the record to a “collaboration”. “We’re all still very new so we trusted the label a lot,” she says. “They asked us for our stories – I think ‘My Way’ is a beautiful song that really reflects our journeys - that’s how a lot of the songs were formed.”

I saw [vulnerability] as a weakness. Dream Academy was awesome but also so mentally hard. Now we’re in the public [eye], we’re learning how much we can share and what we’re comfortable sharing ... But we also want to show people who we actually are, not just the fine-tuned version

Its overarching message is that it takes strength to be openly vulnerable – “Being vulnerable is super important, it helps us connect with our fans,” says Daniela – but, Lara adds, as a project “SIS was like an experiment. You know what I mean? The EP has a lot of cohesion, but each song has its own vibe. It was us testing the waters, figuring out what our fans wanted and what people would respond to.”

“Each of us has a story,” says Sophia. “Vulnerability is really hard for me as a person. It actually takes a lot more energy than you think, that’s the message I connected with the most in our music. It’s easier for me to put on a front. Us as artists, and as women, especially with that whole journey we went through, a lot of the times you just had to keep it together. Sometimes when people would ask, ‘Are you doing good, what do you need’?, you’d be like, it’s all fine. But that vulnerability, I think we were able to find in each other. We’ve said this a lot, we really only had each other that whole time, so we learned to open up and made each other comfortable [with the process].”

KATSEYE’s positioning as a global pop group trained via K-pop’s gruelling and exacting idol system places them between the clean-cut Korean idol and the West’s grittier, earthier pop stars. So far, they lean more towards the former. They follow K-pop’s marketing strategy of having a prolific TikTok presence (Chartmetric, the platform which tracks artist data across streaming and social sites, ranks them as having ‘explosive growth’), they consistently cross-pollinate their fandom with a variety of other artists and influencers, and use HYBE’s bespoke social platform, WeVerse, to chat with fans.

The middle ground isn’t always the easiest turf on which to stand. Whereas the K-pop methodology is to cultivate deep parasocial relationships – resulting in frequent power tussles between fandoms and entertainment agencies, and the unchecked, ongoing rise of sasaengs (obsessive/stalker fans) – more Western pop artists, women, in particular, are explicitly laying firm boundaries around their time, privacy, and personal space”.

There are a couple of other interviews I want to get to before a review of SIS (Soft Is Strong). It is a wonderful E.P. that everyone needs to listen to. I am moving on to an interview from ELLE. It is clear with every interview that there is this strong connection and chemistry. I think they are primed for a long career together:

“What do you love most about being a "Global Girl Group"?

Sophia: What I cherish most about being a "Global Girl Group" is our ability to connect with a diverse range of people from various backgrounds. Hailing from all corners of the globe, we aspire for our music to resonate with those who see themselves in us. Each of our songs reflects a piece of who we are, and we hope our EYEKONs can find their own stories within our sound and the messages we convey.

What was the most challenging yet fulfilling part of your experience in the Popstar Academy: KATSEYE ?

Megan: The most challenging aspect of the entire experience was undoubtedly keeping everything under wraps for nearly two years. It was incredibly difficult not to share what I was working on with anyone. However, witnessing it all come together and finally being able to unveil it to the world made all that waiting worthwhile. It was a tough journey, but the reward was immense, especially once we entered the competition and I secured my place in the group!

What was the transition like from rehearsing in LA to staging performances in South Korea?

Daniela: Rehearsing in LA provided us with a solid foundation, allowing us to perfect our routines, but performing in South Korea was an entirely different experience. The energy and excitement there were palpable, and it was truly incredible to witness our hard work come to life on stage. The entire experience has been immensely rewarding, and we've gained so much knowledge along the way.

Was the K-pop training/development process what you expected?

Megan: The K-pop training system is undoubtedly challenging, but it truly demonstrates that hard work pays off. During our trainee days, we endured intense sessions focused on singing, dancing, performance, and more, which honed our skills across the board. One of the greatest advantages of this rigorous training is its attention to detail, ensuring that we were polished and prepared for anything by the time we debuted. It’s a demanding process, but that level of dedication has been instrumental in helping us realise our full potential.

What is a genre you would love to try?

Manon: I would one day love to experiment with neo soul or soul in general. I’m also very into bedroom pop.

If you could collaborate with anyone on a song, who would it be, what would the song be called and why?

Lara: A collaboration with LISA, Rosalía, and Pharrell would be an absolute dream come true for me. These artists are incredibly inspiring, and everything they touch seems to turn to gold! I also think teaming up with LE SSERAFIM would be so, so cool. Their track "Pierrot" has been on repeat for me, and I recently discovered it’s called "Sad Clown." I even remixed it with "Touch" during a Weverse Live and sent it to Yunjin!

How was your first fan event with EYEKONS?

Yoonchae: It was really special. I was a bit nervous, but seeing everyone’s support made me so happy and thankful. I could feel a real connection with our fans right away. It’s a moment I’ll always remember.

Do you have any rituals before you go on stage?

Daniela: Totally! Before going on stage, I have a few go-to rituals. I do a quick warm-up to get my energy up and clear my head. I also blast a couple of my favourite songs to get pumped. Plus, take a moment to chill and set my intention for the show. These little things help me feel grounded and ready to go.

PHOTO CREDIT: HYBE AMERICA

If you had to categorise each KATSEYE member according to the "very cutesy, very demure, very mindful" trend, who would fit into each category and why?

Lara: Cutesy ... Yoonchae, Dani, because they are both so cute and my babies even tho Dani is older than me she’s still my baby. Demure ... I'm going to say myself, Manon because we're both calm. Mindful ... Sophia and Megan cuz i feel like they are both very mindful people and are always looking out for everything.

Who is most likely to ...

Sophia: Most likely to go viral would be Manon, without a doubt—she’d definitely start some kind of trend!

Most likely to have their own talk show: Yoonchae and I; we chat so much together, and I think it would be such fun to have a show with her.

Most likely to become a fashion icon: Definitely Lara or Megan; they both have impeccable taste and an incredible eye for fashion that I could never match.

Class Clown: That would be either Megan or me since we always love to play off each other’s jokes and keep the laughter going.

Life of the Party and the funniest: Dani! She’s a ball of energy and has her own unique sense of humour.

What are your favourite activities to do when you’re not in the studio?

Megan: My favourite activities outside the studio are going to the beach with friends and sometimes taking dance classes!”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Morgan Maher

Before getting to an interview from NME, I want to drop in a feature from Interview Magazine from earlier this month. Even though these are early days for KATSEYE, they have the talent and determination to be among the most popular and influential K-Pop groups. I am not sure whether they are purely K-Pop or Pop. However you class the group, they have a clear future and distinct sound:

“Morgan hands Yoonchae, Katseye’s youngest member, a vintage camcorder and gives her instructions on how to film herself, and she takes to this ancient technology like a duck to water. Katseye’s debut EP, SIS (Soft Is Strong), a fivesong, 12-minute run of postmodern Destiny’s Child and Pussycat Doll–style bops, captures that once-in-a-career moment when a new group’s spirit has yet to be polished into oblivion. In Pop Star Academy, you’ll see them endure a kind of emotional and physical pain foreign to most teenagers. I gobbled up Netflix’s (unfortunately dark) Cheer and Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders: Making The Team, and while Pop Star Academy—and before it, Hybe’s Weverse competition show The Debut: Dream Academy, through which Katseye’s members were chosen—follows that same formula, it goes down easier when it’s set to the music of Robyn and Ariana instead of boomer pop-country or schizophrenic Floridian cheerleader music.

“Sing ‘Teenage Dream’!” Morgan says to the girls, who are crammed into the photographer’s Volvo convertible—the kind of car a sensible, dreaming teenager from Maryland might seek out. Megan asks the other Katseye girls to act like LAX hired them to welcome visitors—their version of a Hawaiian lei ceremony but with sounds more screeching than soothing. This’s the easy part. As the girls break for lunch (Mediterranean mezze from Atwater Village’s Dune), they assemble at a long table—cafeteria seating at Euphoria High— while their managers, PR, and legal guardians tap and scroll their way through lunch. Daniela throws her red hoodie over the AirPods Max to disassociate a bit before returning to hair and makeup, while Manon lies on the ground outside, hoping to soak up a few more hits of sunshine before the summer is over.

It’s hard not to compare a new contending pop star group to the existing competition. Blackpink is defragmenting its stars to start projects of their own, and I assume the same for BTS. But Katseye are still small fish in a deep pond. Like so many girl groups before them, they’re singing, dancing, touring, and recording while simultaneously auditioning to be pulled up for a solo career, to be the next Jennie, Lisa, Nicole, or Beyoncé—the final frontier. For now, though, it’s pure sisterhood”.

I will finish off with a review from NME. They provided their take on the debut E.P. from the magnificent KATSEYE. A group that should be on everyone’s radar as we head into 2025. A group that are going to be taking to massive stages around the world:

“Back in 2022, thousands of girls across the globe shared one dream – for a spot in HYBE and Geffen Records’ latest project: an unprecedented girl group that would bridge the West and K-pop. Fast forward two years, and after three months of competing in the YouTube reality series The Debut: Dream Academy, Daniela, Lara, Megan, Yoonchae, Sophia and Manon would emerge as the final line-up of the new girl group KATSEYE.

There’s an unmistakable bond between the members, the kind that transcends borders despite each coming from diverse cultural backgrounds – including the US, Switzerland, the Philippines and South Korea. After all, these were bonds forged through sweat and grit as they survived mission after mission that emulated the notoriously laborious K-idol training structure. Alongside them were 14 other contestants, handpicked from a pool of more than 120,000 hopefuls.

It is precisely from this shared sisterhood that ‘SIS (Soft Is Strong)’ finds its core. As one listens through the EP, its peculiar name starts unravelling itself. From getting over a crush melodramatically in ‘Touch’ – a dreamy dance-pop salute to independence that’s tinged with drum ’n’ bass influences – to brashly singing “Even if I mess it all up and make a million mistakes / At least I can say that I did it my way” on the emotive ballad, ‘My Way’, KATSEYE navigate the complexity of girlhood and all its ups and downs while staying soft in a hard world.

“Ohh We-ee-ee ain’t flexin’ babe we do what we do,” the group boldly declare in their aptly named debut single, ‘Debut’. Beginning their journey in discovering that strength comes in more forms than one, this high-energy pop anthem balances its exciting chorus with sing-talk verses that ooze attitude. Though the slick production manages to capture KATSEYE’s self-assurance despite being newcomers, it falls short as a fully realised arrival of the group – though, follow-up single ‘Touch’ more than makes up for it. 

The shimmery, plucky intro of ‘I’m Pretty’ – the EP’s fourth track and standout – immediately transports us back to pop staples from the late-2000s. “Just when I think it’s too much I dry my tears with makeup / Things I could do with this brush, you’d never know that I hurt,” they sing full of emotion, as the group’s vocal prowess starts to shine through. “But I’m pretty (pretty) pretty (pretty) / Pretty sure that I’m still breathing,” KATSEYE affirm they are stronger than they think with effortless harmonies that masterfully glide through the airy instrumental.

Juxtaposing their hesitation to break free from a cycle of overthinking with an instrumental that dials up the ‘dance’ in dance-pop to an eleven, ‘Tonight I Might’ acts as the perfect closing for the EP. “Do all of the shit I know I didn’t do when I was a kid / Get high on life for somebody’s kiss, Tonight I might,” decide the girls as they playfully let go of their inhibitions, bouncing off a gleeful electronic dance beat that perfectly conjures the image of the end credit scene from a coming-of-age movie – especially during the explosive final chorus.

KATSEYE come out of the gate swinging with ‘SIS (Soft Is Strong)’, a surprisingly cohesive release that largely captures the group’s enormous potential. However, with none of the songs crossing three minutes – in fact, only two barely reach two-and-a-half minutes – it’s hard to shake off the itch you get when a song ends a little bit too early or the feeling that it was just one final chorus away from perfection. Still, this EP proves that they’ve got all the makings of the next big girl group, embellished with the polish and glitter of K-pop”.

I recently discussed how there is a dearth of girl groups and not a big scene like there used to be. Perhaps London-based FLO are the leaders at the moment. There are not too many like them. Perhaps one needs to look to K-Pop to find the best groups. However, KATSEYE combine K-Pop with other genres to create something new. They are going to be massive. With the stunning SIS (Soft Is Strong) out in the world, KATSEYE have produced…

SOMETHING fresh and exciting.

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Follow KATSEYE

PHOTO CREDIT: Alvaro Beamud Cortés for V Magazine

Official:

https://www.katseye.world/

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/katseyeworld

TikTok:

https://www.tiktok.com/@katseyeworld

Twitter:

https://x.com/katseyeworld

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/3c0gDdb9lhnHGFtP4prQpn

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCA61H4fWOMHikLcUFKyQUog

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: Vanilla Swarm: Dissecting a ‘Lost’ 2011 Interview

FEATURE:

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 2005 (this image appears on the front of the latest edition of UNCUT, which features a ‘lost’ 2011 interview with Kate Bush)/PHOTO CREDIT: Trevor Leighton

Vanilla Swarm: Dissecting a ‘Lost’ 2011 Interview

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EVEN if I have quoted…

 IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s 50 Words for Snow/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

parts of this interview in other features before, a new publication of the full interview transcript reveals fresh layers and fascinating quotes. Thanks to UNCUT. The late Andy Gill (who died in 2019) interviewed Kate Bush in 2011 for 50 Words for Snow. I am not going to quote everything, but there are some highlights that I want to explore. If you can buy the magazine then please do. 50 Words for Snow is back in focus, as the Polar Edition is out and would make an ideal Christmas present. Kate Bush’s most recent album remains underrated in my view. We need to appreciate its brilliance and explore interviews with Kate Bush from the time. The full version of the interview between Kate Bush and Andy Gill is fascinating. You would not necessarily be compelled by the UNCUT cover (and a photo from 2005 and not 2011). The quote from Bush, “I never wanted to be famous”, is something that she has said a lot through the years. It is not exactly an exclusive or a tantalising snatch that will compel you to buy a copy. Instead, if you delve deeper into the interview, there are plenty of more original and compelling quotes! The first interesting exchange is when Bush discussed working with Stephen Fry. He provides narration/words on 50 Words for Snow’s title track (as Professor Joseph Yupik). Gill asked Bush if she needed to give Fry much instruction and coaching. She (rightly) responded that Stephen Fry is not someone you really need to give instruction to! He brought his own gravitas and authority to the song. Bush (as producer) knew it was a case of focusing and homing in on the tone of his delivery. The softer he said the fifty words for snow, “the more beautiful they became”. Bush loves the softness and atmosphere of snow. The silence. She noted how snow “puts this great muffler around everything”.

I do love learning more about the recording of the title track. Bush had an initial run of alternate words for snow. Rather than coming out with phrases, she invented words instead. She had quite a few building up in her mind. Some that would come to the front of her brain at random times. However, she was still working on some of the words a few minutes before Stephen Fry arrived! Rather than the title song being recorded in one go, there were sections. Fry listing down those fifty words for snow and Bush interjection with encouraging lines (such as “Let me hear your 50 words for snow!”). After being asked about what it was like working with Elton John (he duets with Bush on Snowed in at Wheeler Street), where she reveals “He was always a big hero of mine when I was younger and started writing songs”, Andy Gill asked Bush about her unorthodox approach to song theme and subject. Wondering why she had a liking for “abstruse fictional strategies” such as fairytales, myths and time-spanning, Bush sort of confirmed that a straight narrative bored her. She stated how she is ”sort of attracted to things being a little quirky”. The imaginative and almost child-like wonder you get through 50 Words for Snow ties back to Bush’s 1978 debut album, The Kick Inside, and further back. Bush has always been inspired by filmmakers, authors, philosophers and less traditional sources. Beyond love and the mundane. She told UNCUT how she had trolls when she was a child. When she was a little girl, she had this enormous imagination and did not have time for imaginary friends. She had too much going on. One of the most startling revelations from the 2011 interview is when Bush almost burned her house down! She had an outdoor party with her trolls and constructed a bonfire on the windowsill. Her parents’ alarm meant that the young Bush never did that again!

The conversation moved to Michael Powell. Part of Powell and Pressburger filmmaking partnership of Michael Powell (1905–1990) and Emeric Pressburger (1902–1988), they inspired Bush for her 1993 album, The Red Shoes (referencing the Powell and Pressburger film of the same name that was released in 1948). Powell wanted Bush to compose music for one of his film. They met in New York in 1989. He is referenced in the song, Moments of Pleasure, which was a single from 1993’s The Red Shoes. Andy Gill asked how inspirational Michael Powell is to her. Bush said how much she admired him and was sad he was ostracised from the film industry after the release of Peeping Tom. Gill noted how he was rescued by American directors like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. Bush discussed how the English have been pretty nasty to their own through history. Where creative spirits have left England and been embraced by America. Only later for critics and people here to sort of say they were alright all along. Sort of trying to walk back their venom and harshness. Andy Gill highlighted Charlie Chaplin as a classic example. Bush then recalled a speech by Elizabeth Taylor and how, when she collected an award, she was surprised as she thought you (critics/the film industry) didn’t like her. Bush recognised how the English have a kind side to them but also we have this side that “doesn’t like success”. There is more to that exchange and conversation point so, if you can get a copy of the new UNCUT, it makes for incredible reading! Before coming to the first interval and diversion, Bush was asked by Andy Gill whether she was bored of Pop. Someone who always had an affinity for World music, Bush noted how Pop songs like The Tracks of My Tears (by The Miracles) are so beautiful and genius. You can get some brilliant Pop moments but some trite ones too. Bush reminded us how she pushed away from conventional Pop from 1982’s The Dreaming onwards. How The Ninth Wave (the second side from 1985’s Hounds of Love) and Aerial (2005) took that even further. 50 Words for Snow was an example of that. Bush stretching these songs into a different territory. Longer songs that can open up and move through different stages.

Before coming back to 50 Words for Snow and more of that full 2011 interview between Kate Bush and Andy Gill, UNCUT have also published words with two people who have very distinct roles in Kate Bush’s life. Paul Simmons (founder of the Timorous Beasties studio) collaborated with Bush for 2014’s Before the Dawn. He worked on the programme and since has designed the logo for Bush’s label, Fish People. He has also created new covers for the Illustrated Editions of The Dreaming, Hounds of Love and 50 Words for Snow. As Simmons’ studio is better known for designing wallpapers, that was the way in. Bush knew about Timorous Beasties’ wallpaper and loved it. She said she couldn’t afford it. Simmons wondered if this was true. In fact, Bush said there was this huge wardrobe on the wall so it didn’t make sense (to buy the wallpaper). Bush initially wanted something more akin to the Timorous Beasties wallpaper for Before the Dawn but they realised that nobody would go to gigs to buy roils of wallpaper! It then transitioned into the ticket, lithograph and programme. Paul Simmons said that, when you work with Kate Bush, you need to be prepared for that – “it’s about having the initial idea and not worrying too much about where it goes from there”. For the 50 Words for Snow reissue, it started with the idea of a yeti eating rhododendrons. Snowflakes and hares were also considered before the final idea. Simmons clarified that it isn’t the case Bush didn’t like working with him. It was more about her not liking a particular idea. How Bush can only make a decision when she sees the physical thing. When designing the Fish People logo, Simmons started drawing lots of fish and Bush responding to his emails. One example of her feedback was, “Oh that squid’s eye is a bit too squinty, can you change that?”. How meticulous and involved she is. Bush doesn’t do nine-to-five, and emails are usually a quicker way of doing things. She would respond at night or over the weekends. A nice insight and behind-the-scenes from a great artist who has created some enduring recent images.

UNCUT spoke with the man behind the illustrations used for the recent Illustrated Editions. They also spoke with the man behind the typography, Jonathan Barnbrook. Someone who worked with artists such as David Bowie, he got a call from Paul Simmons regarding Bush’s plans for a new project. His initial commission was to produce the typography for the Fish People logo. Barnbrook created a fantastical story for each idea. Hidden in Bush’s website is one of the stories that they (Barnbrook and Bush) wrote about the typography. When it came to the reissues, Barnbrook highlighted how Bush is very clear about what she wants. She wanted to put the albums in a more modern context. Typography that was a good fit. Jonathan Barnbrook had to find the right lettering. Something that was “sympathetic with the design and the voice of the artist”. When it came to 50 Words for Snow, Barnbrook recalled seeing a book showing Canadian Inuit lettering. There is a puzzle to the lettering. The playfulness was also important. Bush loves handwriting, so Barnbrook’s handwriting is on the back of the Hounds of Love reissue. Someone else’s is used for The Dreaming. So many different versions were created, because Bush wanted to get it right. The communication with her was direct and clear. Bush knowing what she likes and does not. Exciting and quite rare. Bush chose state51 to manufacture the new reissues. They are quite small and boutique. Something that appealed to Kate Bush. Jonathan Barnbrook noted how Bush even works with the printers. Someone who liaises with people at all levels! Barnbrook also stated how David Bowie and Kate Bush both have this sense of clarity and collaboration. They want ideas from others but are very sure about their vision: “They release the journey is quite important rather than just focusing on the destination”.

I will have another interval later. Let’s go back to that 2011 Andy Gill interview. I love how Gill told Bush her melodies have become more diffuse lately. How she is more likely to be appreciated by an ECM aficionado these days. Bush took that as a compliment! That reference is to ECM Records. Bush loved that comparison as one of her favourite artists, Eberhard Weber – who played on Hounds of Love and featured on Pi from Aerial –, was on that label and released one of her favourite albums, Pendulum. Andy Gill asked Bush why she decided to have playbacks for 50 Words for Snow. She wanted to keep music safe and pure. How there is this movement through culture making music more disposable. The irony was that, for people like him (a journalist), you have to hear it in “some poor-quality form”, or go to some environment that “isn’t conducive to listening”. Bush was frustrated by the way she spends a lot of time making an album sound as good possible, only for people to hear it in download-form or something that is inferior. I can imagine her viewpoint on technology and whether it is detrimental to the album listening experience has heightened. Maybe another reason for the Illustrated Editions of some of her albums. She also cited how people bootleg films and it the opposite of enjoying it in its finished, best form that you can see at a cinema. Whilst agreeing that the digitalisation of music was a bad thing, Bush also stated how it is “still such a  time of transition for us all, on a planetary level”. Like other great transitions through history, you have this bumpy start and then it settles. Bush keenly noted how it is another case of an old structure dying and a new one starting. That was thirteen years ago. I wonder how she feels about the music economy now and how we digest and experience albums. One question I have always wanted to ask Kate Bush – in a hypothetical interview setting – is whether she has considered Classical composition. Andy Gill asked her. Someone I could see scoring films and creating these beautiful wordless songs, she provided an interesting answer.

She had never considered herself to be a Classical composer. If the seven songs on 50 Words for Snow sound almost Classical in their scope and ambition at times, Bush said she tries to emulate Classical music in her work. Bush cannot orchestrate, though she give directions and instructions. Maybe the lack of vocals in Classical music means Bush has never considered it. Bush said, although she is not Classical-minded, 50 Words for Snow has Classical elements.  She remarked how she has heard operas and pieces featuring trained voices. Quite unnatural in her view. I still hold hope Bush will compose a score for a film or T.V. series one day! Bush was also asked about Director’s Cut in the interview. An album released in May 2011, she was questioned why she wanted to approach her older work. One big reason was that she got to work with drummer Steve Gadd. Rather than Director’s Cut being an old album or something cobbled from the past – the album is Bush re-recording and reworking songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes -, she views it as a single piece. Songs reimagined as a modern-day Kate Bush. Andy Gill observed how childhood is a big part of her work. A recurring theme. Bush answered that in many ways she feels people are always stuck in that age between five and eight – and that we just pretend to be grow-ups. “I think that our essence is there in a much more powerful way when we’re children and we’re lucky enough to be treated reasonably well, and can hang on to what we are…”. Bush said how she was lucky enough to have a stable and good childhood. That idea of having that childlike spirit comes with caution: you have to be wary of people. If you have a spirit of trust then that is important. Interesting how there is so much child-like imagination and curiosity through 50 Words for Snow. Bush was asked how motherhood (her son Albert was born in 1998) changed her working approach. Creating in small bursts and having to adapt. Bertie was still quite a young child (thirteen) when 50 Words for Snow was being finished.

One more interval before the final bits of that deep and ‘lost’ interview between Kate Bush and Andy Gill from 2011. Within the interview is a chat with Gayle Martin. The executive producer of Inkubus Animation Studios, she was responsible for bringing to life the Little Shrew (Snowflake) video. Released to raise money and awareness for War Child, Inkubus Animation Studios worked with illustrator Jim Kay’s drawings. Bush directed and wrote the video. Gayle Martin said how Bush is a true workaholic. Finding the studio through a friend of hers, Bush was determined that her vision was followed almost to the letter. Someone who knew what she wanted to see! Martin noted how Bush came up with a “100 per cent idiot-proof concept about war and a fragile creature caught up in something that’s out of our hands”. Bush did not want the Shrew to be Disneyfied and fake. Working with one animator, Nicolette Van Gendt – who did the Felix adverts -, there was this small and dedicated crew. Gayle Martin did a lot of Zoom calls with Bush. Although Bush came into the studio a few times, most of the interaction was online. A line animation was sent to Bush, who would add notes and revisions were made. She would sometimes send emails at three in the morning. Going through every frame and making notes and adding details, Martin and her team wondered if anyone would notice such small issues. However, when looking at the revised animation, they saw what Bush had seen at three in the morning! No doubt working all night on it, it shows she has the same drive and puts in the same hours she did for an album like The Dreaming back in 1982! Bush was very supportive and complementary. Her notes on everything were definitely thorough. Working as part of a team of six, Gayle Martin has kept in touch with Bush and had dinner with here recently. Commenting on how Bush’s positive nature and assertiveness is an effective mix, Martin ended by saying she sent Bush a message saying that she never thought she would say this, but she would miss her notes. Bush responded: “Well I don’t!”.

Let’s get back to the interview and finish off. On the theme of motherhood, Kate Bush told Andy Gill how being a mother has been hugely positive regarding her work. How it feed s creativity. She found it interesting when being at nursery with Bertie and noticing how the girls were much more independent and the boys more fragile. How the girls were independent and strong-willed and how the boys were more unhappy about that sense of independence. Bush said how “you look at things in a different way from feeling protective and wanting to nurture – it’s very interesting”. Andy Gill then talked about boys on a dancefloor trying to pluck up the courage to dance with a girl; thinking how the girls “have the whip hand, emotionally”. Bush countered by saying that girls are much more assertive these days. She explained how she never wanted to be famous and wanted to spend less time promoting and more time in the studios. How she loved working on visual pieces and how she came to prefer standing behind the camera. Bush got a real buzz from that. Gill asked Bush about her career arc. How she has become less visible over time. It is hard for her, as she wants to make interesting work. How she wants to promote the work and not herself. However, Bush needs to be out there talking about the music. Do so without being a “celebrity” or “personality”. So much of today’s music promotion is about personality and that celebrity aspect. Can modern artists exist in the same way as Kate Bush? So many really should!

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in a promotional image for 2011’s Director’s Cut/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

So over-exposed are some artists, things are less about the music and more about branding, imagery and things outside of music. Bush said how she liked making videos and doing things one way. Now, the way she approaches it is to write concepts and envisage something filmic. Like she did with Deeper Understanding (the single released from Director’s Cut, it originally featured on The Sensual World). Bush explained how she did not appear in the video as it would have been “rubbish” – “because I can’t act!”. Bush observed how she was working on something for the new album (50 Words for Snow) but everything is expensive. Unlike film, where you have a big budget because you get returns from film-goers, music is not like that. How actually a smaller budget can be good and not an obstacle. How it can lead to more interesting work. I would advise people to donate to War Child and also read Kate Bush’s words about making the Little Shrew (Snowflake) video. Also, if you can get a copy of the Polar Edition of 50 Words for Snow. It was fascinating reading the full-length interview between Andy Gill and Kate Bush from 2011. Go and get the new copy of UNCUT. It is another nod to an artist who has had a busy year indeed. I guess there will be more magazine features in 2025. Hopefully some other unseen interviews. Some great revelations, insights and observations from Kate Bush. Some excellent questions from Andy Gill. It gives new light and layers to the…

EXTRAORDINARY 50 Words for Snow.

FEATURE: You’ve Sold Us “a Dud” Kate Bush: The Star That Almost Got Away

FEATURE:

 

 

You’ve Sold Us “a Dud”

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in London in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: George Wilkes/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Kate Bush: The Star That Almost Got Away

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IF you have heard…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Gered Mankowitz

Kate Bush’s phenomenal debut album, The Kick Inside, you would imagine that this appeared after full faith from the record label, EMI. It is my favourite album ever and I will always love it. I am writing features around the album as it is coming up for its forty-seventh anniversary. We mark that on 17th February. I will explore it from different sides. Going even further back and discussing the demos and earlier songs from Kate Bush. There was this transition period between Kate Bush signing her record deal and heading into the studio. In 1975, there was this stipulation that she would be an artist for EMI but would need a couple of years to have real-world experience and focus on education and other things. By 1977, Kate Bush was determined to get into the studio. Impatient to prove herself. Someone who you imagine had always dreamed of making an album, Bush knew what she wanted. However, there was almost this moment when EMI got cold feet. Knowing that Bush was definitely distinct and unique. Outside of playing with the KT Bush Band, Bush had enrolled herself into dance classes at Covent Garden. Bush came to Bob Mercer’s office and performed in front of him. Going straight to the label and putting songs in front of them. Many think that it was a case of her having all these songs and she just strolled into the studio and put the chosen thirteen on The Kick Inside, that was not how it worked. In the first case, there was this enormous pile of songs that were cut right down. Producer Andrew Powell listening to a lot of Bush’s early songs and narrowing it down. However, there still needed to be the demos stage. Getting a taste of the songs before they were recorded for the album.

Perhaps it is good that the power of a talent Kate Bush overcame label hesitation. EMI were definitely not completely on board when they heard demos. These demos took place at studios like De Wolfe and Lane Lea in Soho. Rather than EMI giving an emphatic thumbs-up and green-lighting Bush, there was this feeling that she was not up to much. David Gilmour was the one who helped get Bush a record deal and put up the money for her to record professionally. When she stepped into AIR studios in June 1975, Gilmour was the one who made it happen. In 1977, EMI gave some negative feedback to him. They felt that he had sold them “a dud”. I am not sure what they were expecting or what specific songs they heard. However, if you look at decisions EMI were making around the album, they were really not attuned to Kate Bush and how good her music was. Not seeing the potential in Wuthering Heights as a single and preferring James and the Cold Gun. Kate Bush’s tenacity winning the day. Maybe the extraordinarily hot summer of 1976 had done damage to the decision-making portion of Bob Mercer’s brain! David Gilmour, in a 1987 radio interview, recalled how Mercer felt he had sold this dud. Conned them into making one song sound really good. Perhaps they were referring to The Man with the Child in His Eyes. One of a few songs recorded at AIR studios in June 1975. Thinking that all the other songs were substandard, it was a tense situation. They were bereft. Feeling that nothing was going write and this promising star was not quite what they envisaged. It was just a case of matching her with the right producer. Andrew Powell produced Bush in June 1975 and was reunited with her in July 1977. Gilmour always knew Bush was talented and was angry EMI felt Bush was a one-song wonder. With Jon Kelly – who would co-produce Never for Ever (1980) with Kate Bush – at the desk engineering, it was a lot smoother going forward.

The song list was whittled down to a smaller amount. Days before heading into the studio to record her debut, Bush arrived at Andrew Powell’s flat and played him Wuthering Heights. EMI almost made a huge mistake when they felt Kate Bush was a dud. Perhaps with no other artists like her and comparisons, it is almost forgivable they ere a bit nervous. However, the fact that The Kick Inside had no set or restricted budget showed they had faith in her after all. With producer Andrew Powell bringing in some experienced studio players, they and Kate Bush bonded immediately. Bush was always offering tea and bringing the sort of kindness and domesticity from her family into the studio. The more experienced musicians were aware of Kate Bush’s gifts. On one occasion, drummer Stuart Elliott yelled at the other musicians to stop playing because he wanted them to properly hear Bush’s sensitive and beautiful lyrics. Bush inhabited so many characters and was recording songs like nothing else around them. Going on to be a hugely popular album that was among the bestsellers of 1978, it takes me back to those demos recordings and Bob Mercer frustrated at an overrated artist. He did click and fall in line soon enough, though it is hard to believe he was dissatisfied or regretful. Maybe it was the professionalism and experience of Andrew Powell that brought everything into focus. It is amazing that Bush developed so quickly. Even though she was signed a long time before recording began for The Kick Inside, there was that brief bump when the demos were recorded. How magic came when Bush and her musicians started worked in July 1977. EMI quickly understanding what a special artist they had and how consistent she was. Thanks once again to a recent edition of PROG for details and information that have gone into this feature. As they note, once Bush’s debut album sold so well and she was an instant success, there truly was…

NO looking back.