FEATURE: You Know It's Not for Real, She Just Holds Her Breath: The Unique Way Kate Bush Inhabits Characters

FEATURE:

 

 

You Know It's Not for Real, She Just Holds Her Breath

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1993/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari

The Unique Way Kate Bush Inhabits Characters

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LIKE with so many of my Kate Bush features…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush performing James and the Cold Gun at Poole Arts Centre for The Tour of Life in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris

I am turning to the good book. A Kate Bush bible: that would be Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. As it was updated last year, I have been rereading it and getting all sort of ideas for features. Details I missed the last time I passed through it. One section caught my eye and made me think hard about Bush and her unique talent. It relates to the way Kate Bush inhabits characters. Think about all the great artists and what makes their music special. Many would highlight their voices, lyrics, composition skills or stage presence. There are few that come to mind where their ability to create characters and inhabit multiple worlds is at the top of the list. Maybe David Bowie or Paul McCartney come to mind. Artists that no doubt influenced Kate Bush when she was growing up. Not just doing accents and providing layers of backing vocals. In the sense that Kate Bush’s albums are defined by their variety and nuance. Songs that are all different to one another. How she sees them almost like films, in that there are multiple characters one discovers through her songs. Right from her debut, The Kick Inside, up to and including 2011’s 50 Words for Snow, Bush very much approaches her songs as if she was creating something visual. One might say that this means very little of her music is personal. How many of her tracks are nakedly about her?! You may feel that is a bad thing, though one of Bush’s ultimate strengths is how she can make her music so imaginative. So many major artists are very personal and do not often have other personas or characters through their music. It can make things seem very one-dimensional. Bush has said she doesn’t find herself that interesting.

If all of her songs were about her feelings and life, how engaging would that be for her and the listener?! It made me think about how she approaches the page. Once more coming back to that idea – which I wrote about recently – that films, T.V. and literature enforced her songwriting imagination. How she is fascinated by people. I am going to repeat some details I have included in other features. However, for this piece about Bush modifying and expanding her voice to embody characters and different sides of her personality, it bears repeating. I did write a feature a while ago how it would be cool if there was a book like Alex Pappademas and Joan LeMay’s Quantum Criminals: Ramblers, Wild Gamblers, and Other Sole Survivors from the Songs of Steely Dan - American Music Series. In the book, we get more detail about the characters in Steely Dan’s albums. It is a fascinating angle. Kate Bush was also someone who put so many characters through her albums. Even if the book would not be as deep and long, there is still plenty of ammunition and potential! People do not really discuss the cast of people and voices that Bush weaves through all of her studio albums. It is likely that access to new technology enabled her to unleash and realise all the different characters she had in mind. How she could write in this more ambitious way. It started with 1980’s Never for Ever but hit its first peak for 1982’s The Dreaming. The late Ian Bairnson, who appeared on Sat in Your Lap and Leave It Open from The Dreaming (but had worked with Bush since her debut, The Kick Inside), explained how she was thinking more in terms of production and using unusual sounds. That the Fairlight CMI, drum machine and MIDI made her child-like with wonder and excitement. There is going to be some overlap with a recent feature I published about Kate Bush’s sonic experimentation and layers in her music. At the heart of all of this is the pursuit of the cinematic. Kate Bush seeing herself more as a director or auteur than a songwriter.

On The Dreaming, Kate Bush and Nick Launay worked closely together. He was an engineer at Townhouse Studios when she was recording there. Bush said she wanted her music to come across as experimental and cinematic, so his job was to capture the essence of the films playing over and over in her head. Dissect albums like The Dreaming and they are choked full of characters. Soldiers in the jungle. An escapologist and his wife. A haunted house and spirits possessed and turned into donkeys. Bank robbers and answerphone voices. There are voices and characters mingling together. Like scenes in films. Bush using technology and employing various techniques to get into the guise of multiple characters. As I have written before, she used props like chocolate and milk to give her voice more grit and mucus. Handy when recording songs like Houdini, when she had to achieve that sort of sounds for its chorus. Nick Launay recollected him and Bush working together at the front of the desk and at the other end there were huge bars of chocolate and a huge bag of weed. How to make her imagination real! If Bush used various substances to realise a particular effect or open her mind, she would use the studio and its surroundings so that she could create characters naturally. Nick Launay also told how it was always like making films. Bush as a director and Launay the assistant director. Discussing how to make these scenes and characters come to life. How Bush was so excited. Even though technology like the Fairlight CMI offered all sorts of new possibilities, it was still limited. Bush asking Launay how to make this character real. Whether certain things could be achieved.

I guess this feature should also mention Bush as a producer. How she asked these questions of engineers so that she could learn as a producer. Experimenting with technology, acoustics, chocolate and whatever was at hand to realise this larger vision! For the B-side of Sat in Your Lap (released in 1981), a cover of Donavan’s Lord of the Reedy River, Bush wanted to sound like she was a heroine. Not just herself. She wanted the song to sound authentic and like she was recording a music video. To get the affect she was searching for, she descended to the disused swimming pool in the basement of Townhouse so that her voice would reflect off of the water. That sense of a pre-Raphaelite heroine trapped in a watery painting. Bush was not only working on characters and the foreground. She was also working on the compositions and sounds to flesh out the characters. A sense of plugging in things, tuning this and playing around. At one point Bush did start to get lost. She took a sleeper train to Scotland and visited Loch Ness – whether to search for Nessie or unwind – and she spent the period running up to Christmas 1981 working at home. Working between Abbey Road, Townhouse, Odyssey Studios, and Advison Studios on Gosfeld Street, there was a lot of change and shifting. Whatever studio Bush was working out, she was like this director trying to realise all of these characters. The Dreaming very much like a film with ten distinct scene. The same with Never for Ever. Bush has also blended real-life figures and those imagined in her music. From Houidini, Frederick Delius, Catherine Earnshaw, Wilhelm Reich and Molly Bloom in the ‘real’/non-imagined world to a whole cast of people Kate Bush created, she fully embodied them all.

It takes me back to that thought as to whether any other artist has a larger roster of characters. Bush has also been praised for her empathy and breadth of reference. For example, one reviewer described her persona as an "old strain of English magic”. Tying into and updating a feature I wrote in 2020, it is amazing how Bush was less of a songwriter and producer. More like a novelist or film director. Someone thinking beyond the page. When she was in the vocal booth, Bush projecting like an actor. That quote about an “old strain of English magic had returned” was actually from The Waterboys’ Mike Scott in relation to Wuthering Heights and Kate Bush playing Catherine Earnshaw. There is this incredible resource from 2020 that takes us inside various characters from Kate Bush’s music. Rather than this being me repeating what I wrote in the feature about the vocal layers and sonic details in her songs, or going back to that book idea that should unite all Kate Bush’s characters – I will do a feature in the future where I name and explore every character she has created –, this is more about how Bush inhabited these characters. How she approached writing songs so that she create and realise these characters. Various methods she used as a producer. Whether it was utilising the studio or finding ways to alter her voice, it is fascinating!

Think about the importance of characters in Kate Bush’s music. Her first and most recent singles have a character at the forefront. Wuthering Heights has Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff. 2011’s Wild Man has this Yeti or abominable snowman. Even if you see 2024’s Little Shrew (Snowflake) as her most recent single, that very much has a character at heart. How much time Kate Bush took to realise this shrew. Making the video for it more like a short film. Filmmaking and acting central to everything she does. Before finishing up, I wonder where that dynamic stemmed from. Why Bush was so compelled to create characters and work in a filmic way, when most of her peers were writing and recording in a more traditional manner. Less imaginative. I think Bush’s favourite director was Terry Gilliam (whom she approached to direct the video for Cloudbusting, that was eventually directed by Julian Doyle). The more I research about Kate Bush’s character fascination and her need to embody them fully and realise them wholly, I found archived interviews where she discussed her favourite films and ambitions to go into film (she was offered roles in films, including 1986’s Castaway, but wisely turned them down). Bush is clearly a massive film fan:

“My plans for the future... Well, I want to get into films. And I want to do more on stage. I love staging my own shows, working out the routines, designing the whole package, and using every aspect of my creativity.

What kind of films would she like to make?

My favourite is Don't Look Now. I was incredibly impressed by the tension, the drive and the way that every loose end was tied up. I get so irritated by films which leave ideas hanging. (1982, Company)

Being stuck there could be an idyllic time. I've enjoyed working alone, even as a kid, and I can collect all my thoughts together then. But the prospect of being there with my favorite films is exciting, because I love the cinema and rarely get the chance to visit it because of my work. So I'd go to town on my selection. Kagemusha.

Not a lot of people have heard of this one, but it's by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa. I just happen to think that this is one of his best. It was a toss up between this and his Seven Samurai, which is a tremendously atmospheric picture. However, I think this one wins the day. Psycho.

This is the kind of film that'll be around for years - like the Disney ones. When Terry Gilliam and Michael Palin of the Monty Python team got together on this they must have been inspired, because it appeals to kids and adults alike. The story is so original and seems to incorporate just about everything from pantomime, fairy tales, drama... the whole show. Don't Look Now

Marvellous Hitchcock stuff. Really vintage and one of the classics with Ingrid Bergman and Cary Grant. It's that buildup of mystery that fascinate me. Pinocchio

But more than other pop musicians or authors, miss Bush said movies have inspired her. Among film makers, she said she most admires Alfred Hitchcock, Nicolas Roeg and Terry Gilliam.

Their work has spoken to me as directly as that of any other kind of artist. Many of my songs I think of as very filmic. (1985, The New York Times)

Bush - who also produces her albums and plays piano and synthesizer - came close to going beyond four-minute videos when she flirted with the idea of making a film based on the ninth wave, the intriguing conceptual second side of the hounds of love.

What I wanted to do was turn that into a half-hour film integrating music with visuals. When I was writing it, I was really thinking visually. It was just unfortunate that by the time I had the opportunity to make the film I was just too tired. I did not have the energy. (1990, Los Angeles Times)

So many films touch you,even if it's only the atmosphere you're left with. There was The Innocents (ADAPTED FROM HENRY JAMES'S GHOST STORY The Turn Of The Screw AND DIRECTED IN 1961 BY JACK CLAYTON, STARRING DEBORAH KERR AND MICHAEL REDGRAVE) which I saw when I was a kid. It was so strong, and years later I wrote ``The Infant Kiss'' There's an old horror film called Night Of The Demon (ADAPTED FROM THE M.R. JAMES SHORT STORY ``CASTIN THE RUNES'' AND DIRECTED IN 1957 BY JACQUES TOURNEUR, STARRING DANA ANDREWS AND PEGGY CUMMINS) and that very much inspired `` Hounds Of Love'' (1990, Q Special)”.

There is more to explore when it comes to connecting Kate Bush’s film love and background to the way she approached her songwriting. I don’t think Bush consciously chose to create all these characters to avoid discussing herself. She does write personal songs. However, as she did not want to be famous and did not think people would be interested in her, she instead inhabited these compelling and distinct characters. So fully and enthusiastically involved in getting ‘into her part’. Again, it makes me wonder whether any artist ever had such a filmic approach. Does David Bowie come close? Who else comes to mind? Is Kate Bush the ultimate songwriting auteur and filmic-minded writer?! I have been listening back through all of Bush’s albums and approaching the songs like film scenes. A totally different listening experience! It is amazing how Bush is almost like this versatile actor. Thinking about it simply…

DROPS the jaw.

FEATURE: Daft Punk Is Playing at My House: LCD Soundsystem at Twenty

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Daft Punk Is Playing at My House

LCD Soundsystem at Twenty

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I am going to come to some features…

and reviews about LCD Soundsystem’s extraordinary debut album. One of the best debut albums of the past twenty years and, in fact, one of the best albums of the past twenty years, it does celebrate its twentieth anniversary on 24th January. Because of that, I want to spend some time with an album from a great band. Led by James Murphy, LCD Soundsystem was nominated for the 2006 Grammy Award for Best Electronic/Dance Album. Perhaps its best-known single is Daft Punk Is Playing at My House. I would guide people to features like this. That was published in 2014 and is a track-by-track guide that celebrates ten years of LCD Soundsystem. I want to move to a couple of features about LCD Soundsystem’s amazing debut. Even if this note of caution that says it is not as good as the albums that followed it (their fourth, American Dream, was released in 2017). I want to start out with a 2014 feature from Stereogum, who marked a decade of a classic debut album:

“The reason I use “formal opening salvo” is that LCD, and James Murphy in general, had been kicking around for a few years prior to the release of LCD Soundsystem, and in ways relevant to the early ’00s NYC scene. Having played a key role in the Rapture’s “House Of Jealous Lovers,” Murphy and erstwhile DFA partner Tim Goldsworthy fleshed out the whole “dancepunk” notion that’d run alongside the early ’00s rock resurgence, and also gave us one of the era’s most memorable and iconic songs. LCD, as a more specific project for Murphy, actually debuted in 2002 with “Losing My Edge,” which, of course, is one hell of an opening salvo, one towering song simultaneously showing off and eviscerating all manner of musician/music nerd/hipster tropes. (Given the context that Murphy was living and working in NYC, the whole thing has kind of an unspoken but specific interaction with notions and posturing of NYC cool in general.) And there were a few more amazing singles to follow, my personal favorite being “Yeah (Crass Version),” which is one of those all-encompassing listening experiences that seems to take total control of your being each time you hear it, no matter how many times you’ve heard it before. These singles were collected on a second disc for LCD Soundsystem, which is such a weird thing for a debut album: Here’s essentially a double album, with a bunch of songs that have been released before but could’ve been as totally new as the first disc to a lot of people who bought the record. And, damn, if that was the case for you, this is some overwhelming stuff: Who the hell is this guy who came out of nowhere with this strong debut album and this other disc that functions as its own kind of album, too?

The power of what Murphy had achieved already being re-packaged with his new, full-length debut actually weakened the music on LCD Soundsystem for some critics. At the time, some people argued he still wasn’t an “album” guy, that he was really good at single songs that maybe sort of didn’t necessarily come together into one cohesive whole. People still talked, a lot, about how Murphy wore his influences on his sleeve, but they seemed a bit more forgiving of it for them than they had been for some of his immediate NYC predecessors, because, I guess, this dude is just undeniably good at making sounds, and he’s just undeniably good at tastefully aping those influences. And while there’s a whole other thing to be said about that influences bit (more on that below), the part I’m somewhat more sympathetic to is the idea that Murphy hadn’t totally arrived as an album artist.

This is a hindsight thing, but, yeah, LCD Soundsystem doesn’t reach the heights of Sound Of Silver or This Is Happening; not only because there were still songs like “All My Friends” and “Someone Great” and “Dance Yrself Clean” and “I Can Change” to come, but also because those were proper, brilliantly cohesive albums. That’s not to say the first album doesn’t have its classics and its gems. There is, of course, “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and “Tribulations” and “Movement.” Whenever I hear people talk about one of their favorite lesser-known LCD tracks, the psych-pop exercise “Never As Tired As When I’m Waking Up” is a forerunner. Personally, it’s “Great Release” for me. There is an unsettling power to that song if you listen to it in times of mindless transit: a crowded subway commute, the sterility of passing through a nice airport, the monotony and trance of a drive you’ve taken too many times. There’s this drift to it. In its way, it’s a gorgeous coda to album, a final refrain that does seem a definitive stopping point. But in another way, it feels like it suggests something else to come. It’s not like the lyrics are full of hope and laughs, but musically it sort of ends LCD Soundsystem on a bit of an ellipsis, too.

And that’s the thing: There’s something about LCD’s debut that does feel like a sketch for what came later. In its day, it was plenty powerful. Then we saw what else Murphy was capable of. I was at the last two LCD shows, and in the spring of 2011, six years after the release of LCD Soundsystem, “Tribulations” and “Movement” and “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” were entirely different animals live, flexing new muscles and new textures alike, welcomed into the more fully realized identity of LCD Soundsystem that Murphy had continued to build in those interim years. For every amazingly accomplished and confident early outing like “Yeah” or “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” or “Losing My Edge,” there were tracks like “Thrills” and “Disco Infiltrator” and even “On Repeat” (another LCD deep cut favorite of mine) that seemed a bit half-there in comparison. These were strands that hadn’t yet been totally collected. On the next two records, Murphy would take all his disparate elements and blend them more thoroughly, more deftly, into a fuller sound. In the context of LCD’s career, there is a thinness and unrefined quality to LCD Soundsystem. There might be classic songs littering the LCD canon from 2002-2005, but soon Murphy would come back with two classic albums in a row, and his debut can’t stand up to that stuff at all as an album.

Don’t get me wrong: This is still music I love. This is a great album to have in existence. It’s just hard to remember what it was like when this was the only LCD music out there. It’s so easy to have it overshadowed by what came later, and especially the narrative of this project, steadily rising in quality and popularity until Murphy suddenly just decided that was it — at a point many would call, let’s say, premature. And, to me, another part of that narrative is: LCD Soundsystem is one of the most important artists of the 21st century so far. Conversations of authenticity and derivativeness, of chasing some new sound vs. bearing your influences too clearly: These things are of course always floating in the atmosphere, but how muddled and/or irrelevant do they feel in 2015 vs. 1995 or even 2005? If you look back at those initial LCD reviews, you can tell the writers are still reeling from a million Strokes copycats, copies of a copy of a copy, etc., etc. And that show-off/evisceration balance of Murphy cataloguing his record collection in “Losing My Edge” practically invites a critic to dissect where this or that LCD sound came from.

There’s something different going on with LCD Soundsystem, though. Curation and homage were woven into the very nature of Murphy’s music. LCD’s music raises questions of authenticity and derivativeness, it can lead to interesting conversations about those topics. But it also came along and, if you ask me, obliterated a lot of discussion about it all at a moment where that was a big part of the discourse in the indie rock world. You know, who’s going to stop James Murphy if, after giving us “New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down,” he felt like giving us “Heroes” and calling it “All I Want.” The thing that makes Murphy one of the luminaries of his era is that his music captures the way we think and perceive and consume in the 21st century. I want some of this, some of that, a few of those things, and I’ll carry them all with me, and sometimes it’ll result in some new mix of those things that I hadn’t thought about before, and sometimes it’ll just wind up sounding a lot like a really famous David Bowie song. So it goes”.

I know there will be features and articles around LCD Soundsystem ahead of its twentieth anniversary on 24th January. I want to move to a 2020 feature from CRACK. If some feel their debut did not scale to the same heights as albums that followed, there is no denying the fact LCD Soundsystem hit upon something. A distinct sound and set of lyrics that resonates with people in 2005:

“By the time their self-titled debut arrived via Murphy’s own DFA Records in 2005, LCD Soundsystem were already a formidable live band and the most vital export of a scene that melded dance and rock music from a new, DIY angle. Acknowledging this reputation, the album simply collected some (then) new songs on one disc and a number of live favourites and 12-inch singles on another. It’s an urgent record that feels almost non-canon compared to their ambitious, emotionally rich work later on.

LCD Soundsystem’s best tracks are snotty, tense and feel as indebted to Murphy’s love of The Fall as his later immersion in disco culture. With the stock price of irony, sarcasm and white-male listmaking at an all-time low, LCD Soundsystem could arguably feel even more inaccessible in 2019 than in the mid-noughts, when the band were, at worst, an easy punchline for those keen to wipe the smug look from the face of the emerging wave of Pitchfork hipsters. Even then, few could resist the bassline on Daft Punk Is Playing At My House, nor the refreshingly diverse group of NYC oddballs they revealed themselves to be, as they ripped through clubs and festivals with the sweat and attitude of a genuine punk rock heritage

Murphy, a keen student of popular culture and a sensitive soul, would later wisely balance the band’s more acerbic streak with the likes of Someone Great, Home and All My Friends – vulnerable anthems that now dutifully serve as cathartic tearjerkers at millennial weddings. Back on LCD Soundsystem, it feels as if the band are struggling to decide whether to expel or embrace the acidic tendency. Murphy’s awkward clarification that the trendy ghouls he mocks throughout Losing My Edge are “actually really, really nice” is funny and self-aware in a manner that is exquisitely them.

For all Murphy’s laser-focus disses in the direction of “art-school Brooklynites in little jackets,” LCD Soundsystem finds him mercilessly documenting the underwhelming life he’s about to leave behind. On the underrated and pleasingly lethargic Never As Tired As When I’m Waking Up, he attempts a charmless seduction (“When I was a little boy, I laid down in the grass/ I’m sure you’d feel the same, if I can fuck you here tonight”), whereas the cultural stock take on Movement is far from hopeful. “It seems the punk rock as an experiment, well it pulled up lame,” observes Murphy, a self-appointed “fat guy in a t-shirt doing all the saying”.

These nuggets of self-deprecation are sometimes lost in the live arena, where Movement remains a gnarly, pogo-inducing highlight of the band’s pristine set. Yeah (Crass Mix), a repetitive, escalating jam built around the band half-heartedly intoning the word “yeah” is still a knockout, a timeless classic in the sphere of what we might have once called ‘indie-dance’. It’s pure ecstasy, and revelatory of the amount of energy bubbling throughout a scene that was at least sincere in wanting to see club culture and the ever-present threat of “borrowed nostalgia” in a very different way. Revisiting LCD Soundsystem, you may find yourself glad that Murphy dropped the act. But you’re still reminded that, when administered in the right direction, a little cynicism can go a long way”.

I am going to end with a couple of reviews. The first one is from the BBC. It is quite a positive review, though there is that sense that it was like nothing else. People not quite sure what to make of it. Only in years since has LCD Soundsystem been given the credit it deserves:

“James Murphy, the man who is LCD, has earned himself a tidy reputation in recent years. As one half of production duo DFA he's produced some of the more trendy bands to come out of New York. The Rapture and Radio 4 have both felt the benefit of his disco punk sensibility.

He's probably best known over here for 2002's Losing My Edge, in which an ageing hipster (Murphy, obviously) rants about his cool muso credentials over an addictive and perversely simple bass line. It couldn't help but make you smile.

And what we have here is two CDs of James' own stuff and yes, let's get a little excited over it. He's a generous chap as the second CD sports the Soundsystem's singles so far, including Losing My Edge, Yeah and Give It Up: top tunes for fine art students to do hoovering to.

This leaves the first CD to live and breathe as an album proper. It's the length of an old vinyl record (45 mins), with nine tracks on it. There's even a slow track at the end, the very Eno-like Great Release.

And yes, the hip references are all there. Can, Gang of Four, Prince, The Fall, PiL etc - the cool stuff from the NME Hall of Fame. Murphy is witty and funny and knows what's good about the music he likes. He doesn't sound cynical, just knowing and aware - and he definitely knows how to play the cow bell.

His lyrics are often more spoken than sung, but his voice has an engaging weediness - sort of nerdy and aggressive at the same time. You can't really sing lines like "Daft Punk is playing at my house" anyway, though there is a pleasant lyricism to the druggy melancholy (in a late-period Beatles style) of Never As Tired As When I Wake Up. At one point I even found myself looking for the lyric sheet, but that might be taking things a little too seriously.

So, all in all a toe-tappingly good album and much more engaging than the music he's produced for other people. Pop may have eaten itself, but its s*** can still smell mighty good”.

I am going to end with a review from AllMusic. I am going to be interested to see what sort of articles will come soon as we head towards that twentieth anniversary. How James Murphy sees the album. LCD Soundsystem is a remarkable piece of work:

“If a music-nerd version of Animal House set in 2005 is ever made, "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" -- the boisterous opener of LCD Soundsystem -- would make an ideal theme song for the fraternity on which it is based. The self-conscious, awkward music obsessives pledging into this fraternity would have to pass a complex trivia test, own a compulsory list of records, and, as a hazing ritual, ask to dance with someone in public. If LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy were the least bit open to the concept, he could be the fraternity's advisor. Judging from a handful of singles and this album, he'd be more than qualified. His first A-side, 2002's "Losing My Edge," laid all his cards on the table, name-checking nearly everything that has been branded indispensable by a record store clerk during the past 20 years. This is someone who clearly owns tons of records and cannot escape them when making his own music. Acid house, post-punk, garage rock, psychedelic pop, and at least a dozen other things factor into his songs, and he's not afraid to be obvious. On occasion, he doesn't even allow fellow nerds to play guessing games. This is the case with "Never As Tired As When I'm Waking Up" -- drowsy/dazed John Lennon vibes through and through -- as well as the drifting/uplifting "The Great Release" -- an alternate closer to either of Brian Eno's first two solo records. Otherwise, Murphy's songs cough up references from his subconscious or are put together as if he's thinking more like a DJ, finding ways to combine elements from disparate sources. "Movement" careens into high-energy guitar squall after a pounding beat and cranky synths; "On Repeat" happily replicates the scratches and jabs of guitar heard from A Certain Ratio, PiL, and Gang of Four, but its mechanical pulse and curveball synth effects couldn't be any more distanced from those three groups. Nothing here exceeds the brilliance of "Beat Connection" or "Yeah." Like just about everybody else these days, Murphy's more skilled at creating isolated tracks than making full-lengths, even though this particular full-length has few weak spots and unfolds smoothly as you listen to it from beginning to end. The bonus disc, containing all the stray single tracks, adds a great deal of value”.

On 24th January, it will be twenty years since LCD Soundsystem was released. No doubt an album that has inspired so many other artists, if you have never heard it or not heard it in a while then make sure you check it out. It is a wonderful debut album that deserves to be embraced by a new generation. Even if many critics feel LCD Soundsystem was bettered by future albums, there is no denying the 2005 release was…

A mighty fine start.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: Life at Abbey Road Studios

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Abbey Road Studios whilst working on Never for Ever (1980)

Life at Abbey Road Studios

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WHEN it comes to studios…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in Abbey Road’s Studio Two in 1982/PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Rapport

Kate Bush worked in during her career, I think each contributed in their own meaningful way. AIR was important for her debut album, 1978’s The Kick Inside. A professional studio that was a stable and pleasant environment for that album, Bush found herself at various different studios through her career. People will have their favourites. Perhaps the very best and happiest environment was provided by the home-built studio at East Wickham Farm. Bespoke and the hub for some of her very best work, it is a shame that this studio no longer is being used. In terms of its stature, Abbey Road Studios is at the top. Kate Bush would have wanted to record there from when she was a child. Listening to The Beatles and one day seeing herself being in the same spaces that they were a less than a decade previously. In terms of what Abbey Road provided in terms of technology and space, it was this essential source of inspiration and motivation (which I mentioned in the previous feature about the studios in 2022). One of the biggest issues would have been the cost of recording there. I know Bush would have spent even more time there were it more affordable. EMI aware that her being there for a while was costing them a lot. I think it was one reason why Bush built her own studio and did not have to worry about high bills and being more constrained in terms of time. Perhaps not able to experiment as much as she would have liked. However, in so many ways, Abbey Road ws a dream come true. Despite the fact Kate Bush used home studios from 1985’s Hounds of Love more and more, she still recorded out of Abbey Road. For Aerial and 50 Words for Snow (her most recent album), orchestral sessions were recorded there. Utilising its acoustics, space and atmosphere to enrich her songs. Abbey Road Studios used for most of her albums. Even if it was mostly I suspect for orchestration, it was essential and almost a second home to Kate Bush. She used the studios for The Red Shoes, Hounds of Love, The Dreaming, and Never for Ever.

That final album, her third, was the first where Bush was co-producer. Perhaps a conscious decision by her to get to Abbey Road, Bush knew that she had the sort of technology at her fingertips at this legendary studio. The history and legacy that it had. I am not sure what truly ignited Bush’s love of Abbey Road Studios. She co-produced Never for Ever with Jon Kelly. He has experience there. He worked there for several years with Geoff Emerick. Bush was very excited to have control over her album. She knew that this was in her control now, but there were also risks. Every time something worked out it made her feel so much braver. There were other inspirations alongside Abbey Road Studios. When she started demoing material at Studio Two at Abbey Road in January 1980, Bush appeared on two Peter Gabriel tracks, Games Without Frontiers and No Self Control. What struck her most, and what she started to adopt in her music, was the way Gabriel used drum machine and electronic samplers to create sounds. Bush, mainly relying on piano, drums and also the Fairlight CMI, had her mind opened. Abbey Road also assisted Bush as a songwriter. She was used to having songs all formed and ready to record when working at AIR Studios in London and France for her first two albums. From January 1980 for five months, Bush was now writing and demoing in the studio. At a charge of £90 an hour, it was a luxury that would have made EMI nervous. Over £100,000 in studio bills was wracked up for Never for Ever! However, as it went to number one and is one of her best albums, Abbey Road contributed so much to her music. Opened her imagination and affected everything she did afterwards.

Bush wanted to make Never for Ever a more experimental and open album. She made sure there was more space for musicians and new ideas. Her brother Paddy invaluable when it came to providing so many unusual and interesting instrumental touches. It was not a case of Bush there at Abbey Road and being very focused without much time for relaxation. She appreciated where she was and how lucky she was to be recording at the legendary studio space. She also ensured her musicians were made comfortable. Bush filled the studio with plants and flowers. There was plenty of tea on hand and she also held chair-spinning competitions! There were late-night laughs involving chocolates and alcohol (some of it stolen). Imagining Kate Bush in Abbey Road Studios is one of my favourite things! Songs like December Will Be Magic Again recorded there. The video for Sat in Your Lap – from 1982’s The Dreaming – shot in Abbey Road’s Studio Two (where Bush also had her first taste of directing). I think that the size and gravitas of Abbey Road Studios meant Bush could finally connect her music to something more visual and cinematic. Bush had always wanted her music to be this audio-visual combination that was seamless and spectacular. This was achieved once she was at Abbey Road. Thinking bigger and being inside this iconic studio for months. Even if it was expensive and not ideal to be at for long periods of time, she kept coming back. Although too the studios were used more in a diminished capacity from Hounds of Love onwards, the fact that it was home to these incredible orchestration sessions shows Bush always kept Abbey Road in her heart. She contributed to Mary McCartney’s (daughter of Paul) 2022 documentary, If These Walls Could Sing. Bush recalled her excitement being there. She also mentioned how there was never any decorating or changes made to the walls and studios in case the acoustics were affected! I would love to know exactly what was recorded at Abbey Road for Bush’s albums. To the best of my knowledge, seven of her ten studio albums were either partly recorded there or there were orchestral sessions there. The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Director’s Cut to my mind the only three albums that had no connection to Abbey Road Studios – though there might be a chance something from Director’s Cut was recorded or engineered there.

SamLiddicott · If These Walls Could Sing: Kate Bush

I am going to wrap things up soon. Before that, this article talks about Abbey Road Studios and Kate Bush recording there. Many people do not understand just how much of her music was made there. It is a hugely important part of her career and legacy:

“Kate worked at Abbey Road Studios on the albums Never For Ever, The Dreaming, and Hounds Of Love in Studio 2, and the orchestral parts for the albums The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. On 17 June 1981, the music video for the song Sat In Your Lap was recorded in the cavernous Studio 1, a huge space about half an acre in size. On 12 November 1981, Kate attended a 50th anniversary party for the studio, and cut the birthday cake alongside singer Helen Shapiro. In March 1986, she recorded a performance of the song Under The Ivy for the 100th broadcast of The Tube.

Kate about Abbey Road Studios

Being on your own in Studio 2 is a fascinating experience. I felt like there were at least ten other people there with me… I think it’s a combination of all the people who have performed there over the years and their combined creativity. (Brian Southall, Abbey Road, 2002. ISBN 978-0711991118)”.

I almost forgot that Kate Bush delivered the one and only performance of Under the Ivy at Abbey Road Studios. Her finest B-side’s (the B-side to Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) only outing happened at a very special space for her. From 1980 to 2011, Kate Bush has spent some very important time at Abbey Road Studios. I wonder whether she will work there on a new album. Even if she records most of her material at her home studio, one cannot bet against Abbey Road Studios featuring. Bush was also recently spotted visiting Damon Albarn’s Studio 13 on Latimer Road, London. Whether she was scoping out the space to record in or she is going to feature on a future Gorillaz track, I am not too sure. I do think we will see more of Kate Bush at Abbey Road Studios. Somewhere that was a big leap and this dream come true in 1980, she is in a position where can afford to spend a lot of time there. In fact, she could record an entire album there without much issue! It would be wonderful if she performed live there too. When it comes to Kate Bush and the iconic Abbey Road Studios, it is…

A marriage made in Heaven.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Witch Post

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Parker Love Bowling for The Line of Best Fit

Witch Post

_________

A spectacular duo…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Mishko

that should be on your radar this year are Witch Post. Consisting of Dylan Fraser and Alaska Reid, I am quite new to them. I will come to a couple of interviews from them. This year is going to be one where we will see future greats come through. I think Witch Post have the potential to endure for years to come. Even though they have two singles to their name, what they have put out shows real promise. I am going to get to two recent interviews with them. First, DORK highlighted their debut single, Chill Out, last year:

“The track sees the duo – formed of Scottish musician Dylan Fraser and American musician Alaska Reid, and named after 17th century carvings intended to ward off witches – delivering a hard-hitting nod to the 90s and early 00s.

“Chill out is a crooked teeth, sweaty bar conversation of a song,” the band explain. “We wanted to draw elements from bands such as the Pixies, Sonic Youth, Hole to create this rough round the edges track.

“It’s blood pumping through the veins and outbursts of emotional confusion that flow throughout this song. Diving into the venomous tongue that comes with a relationship breaking down”.

I am interested to see where the duo head this year. With a couple of distinct and brilliant singles under their belt, things are looking very bright. Their fanbase is slowly building and there will be that demand to see them live across the country. Their latest single, Rust, has been compared to something The Replacements might produce (“‘Rust’ is about taking a chance on someone. Dylan and I met under strange circumstances. Both of us have solo careers and plenty of baggage. Neither of us intended on being in a band again. However, the timing was undeniable and we couldn’t help but write together. ‘Rust’ is inspired by the album ‘All Shook Down’ by The Replacements. It’s a combination of heart-aching melancholy cut with the glimmer of change”).

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Mishko

Before closing up, there are two interviews that I want to highlight. Last month, PAPER spoke with a connected and spectacular duo who want to create some magic. If you have not followed the duo yet then make sure you connect with them on social media. They have the sound and potential to go a very long way:

“Dylan Fraser and Alaska Reid were never meant to be in a band. For the two singer-songwriters, their solo endeavors have been the main focus for the past few years. But sometimes between artists, there’s a certain spark — a ‘twin telepathy,’ if you will — that becomes undeniable.

“We want to bring back band music, make it less boring and one-dimensional dude-centric,” Reid tells PAPER. “I miss that real energy and rock star lore that people talk about when they talk about Blur or Fleetwood Mac.” In comes Witch Post, the new project between Reid and Fraser, who hail from Montana and Scotland, respectively. The two met online and came up with the idea for the band a year ago, initially bonding over the shared name of their hometowns Livingston from different sides of the globe.

Both Reid and Fraser bring their own musical baggage to the band, and it’s working in their favor. Reid, a Montana kid with big dreams, cut her teeth on Americana-tinged indie rock (go stream Big Bunny and thank us later), while Fraser’s breakout EP, The Storm, cemented him as Scotland’s brooding alt-pop prince. Together, they’re like a sonic match made in witchy heaven, blending their strengths to create something both nostalgic and now.

For them, it’s all about building lore, the kind of teenage imaginative interest that we all experienced when discovering a new band back in the day. “I think it’d be fun to get people excited about the music in a way that it becomes word of mouth,” Reid says. “‘Oh apparently for that ‘Chill Out’ vocal take, Dylan had just projectile vomited all over the street’ or, ‘Alaska thought up the name Witch Post because she kissed an actual 17th century witch post and got followed around by a black cat.’”

With two songs under their belt, Reid and Fraser are focused on summoning more at the moment. Sometimes witchy undertones make for music magic and given their output so far, Witch Post are sure to become alt-rock wizards in their own right.

We sat down with the two to discuss their inception as a band, how they want to be perceived and what the future holds.

How did you two come together?

Dylan Fraser: It’s September 13th, 2021. I’m on a train from London back to Scotland, a journey I wasn’t unfamiliar with during this time in my life. I’d just finished a tour around the UK and was heading back to my childhood home. My life had rapidly changed in the space of a year. I’d gone from a small town in Scotland to being in London making music and partying. I was having the time of my life but also feeling the pressure of the music industry slowly creeping in. This train ride was the only free time I had with absolutely zero distractions and it was the time where I could discover new music and artists and listen to an album in full. I don’t remember quite how I stumbled upon Alaska Reid but it felt like she just appeared one day on my Spotify. I was intrigued by her album title “Big Bunny,” so I clicked on it. I listened to the album in full and I remember being completely taken by her voice. I had never heard anyone sound the way she did. I decided to reach out and tell her how much I loved the album. She responded to me, gave me thanks and told me she was coming to London in mid-October and that we should write some music together, and we’ve kept doing that ever since.

What references or inspirations do you two most agree on and how have they influenced your vision for Witch Post?

Alaska Reid: Big guitars, emotional vocals, stories. We love rock music, and we love scrappy, romantic-sounding songs. With this band we’ve been making an effort to reference different influences or different elements than we do with our solo projects. I’m always obsessed with The Replacements and being in Witch Post has been a good opportunity to not just think about, “What would Paul [Westerberg] do?” from a songwriting perspective, but also from a production perspective. Dylan loves Sonic Youth and I do too and I think it’s been really fun for us both to use each other's voices when writing, playing with contrast of male/female vocals. We’re both really into The Waterboys and Fleetwood Mac at the moment.

Tell me about “Chill Out” and how that song came to life.

Dylan: It happened really naturally. We were fucking around with guitars and Alaska started playing these chords and I just started singing the verses over the top. The words just sort of came out and have mostly stayed the same since that day. We wanted “Chill Out” to feel like a crooked teeth, sweaty bar conversation of a song. A rough around the edges track. Diving into the venomous tongue that comes with a relationship breaking down. In our heads it’s a couple having a fight in a bar. I almost wanted it to feel like a Fairytale of New York. I love the back and forth in that song. Conversational lyrics are exciting to me.

What space do you envision Witch Post filling in the music landscape, especially given both of your backgrounds as musicians/producers?

Alaska: I want to make music that I’d enjoy listening to. We want to bring back band music, make it less boring and one dimensional dude centric. Sometimes I feel that currently it’s as if all the cool songwriter personality and emotion have just been sucked out of the rock scene and we’re only left with a hipster bro in a “rock n’ roller” outfit. I miss that real energy and rock star lore that people talk about when they talk about Blur or Fleetwood Mac. I think it’d be fun to get people excited about the music in a way that it becomes word of mouth, “Oh apparently for that ‘Chill Out’ vocal take, Dylan had just projectile vomited all over the street” or, “Alaska thought up the name Witch Post because she kissed an actual 17th century witch post and got followed around by a black cat.” When I was a teenager, this was all I cared about, music lore and fantasy books. I guess we’re finally combining the two”.

PHOTO CREDIT: Andrew Mishko

I am going to end with an interview from The Line of Best Fit. They spoke to a dup that were channelling the “blood, sweat and tears of 90s alt-rock into a sound all of their own”; stating that “Kissing a 500-year-old piece of wood in a house in England a few years ago might have been the catalyst that changed Alaska Reid's life”. The more I read about Witch Post, the more they stand out. Definitely an act you will want to follow:

“The witch post.... was meant to deter witches, and people would carve them on the mantels...and this is so weird, but I kissed it," Reid tells me. At this time she was exploring the idea of collaborating with Scottish songwriter Dylan Fraser, and, aside from a black cat following her shortly after, this moment gave her the concept of the band name, and a new chapter for both of their lives.

Fraser and Reid are, for all intents and purposes, two sides of the same coin. Both solo artists and in their mid-twenties, Montana-native Reid initially began in an indie-outfit (Alyeska) before embarking on a solo career driven by narrative-laden indie-rock that delved into country-tinges and electronic elements. Her debut album Big Bunny came in late 2020, and its follow-up Disenchanter three years later. Fraser's start was via a more modern entry into the business – a meme-based website that earned him enough money to start focusing on his real passion for music. After uploading tracks to YouTube, his debut EP The Storm also came out in 2020, its electronic beat under-towing honest reflections of life. While their backgrounds and journeys may differ, there's an inherent similarity that means their partnering up for a project was, in the grandest sense, meant to be.

“I think we're secretly related somehow,” Fraser laughs. “Alaska's second name is Reid, it's very Scottish. She has Scottish descent, somewhere in a past life maybe we lived in a bothy in the highlands, and were eating boiled meat and veg.”

The pair met a few years ago after Fraser heard one of Reid’s songs during one of his five-hour journeys from Scotland to London. After messaging her on Instagram, the pair became fast friends. A planned to meet up in London was pre-empted after they accidentally bumped into each other the night before the rendezvous at a gig at Lafayette in London. “I just remember you had a very distinctive haircut, and I saw it from behind, and I was like, I think that's this person I'm talking to,” Reid laughs.

Reid and Fraser headed to the studio the next day, more for a casual session than real intention, and wound up delivering "Vampire", from Fraser’s 2022 EP, 2030 Revolution. They kept in touch, and after Fraser stopped working with Atlantic Records, he and Reid headed to her home state of Montana to record the sessions that would become Witch Post's first songs (as well as an unnamed second project yet to come).

Reid’s prior experiences had turned her off band work entirely. “I was doing the indie-rock chick thing for the longest time before it became cool," she sighs. "I'm lucky that there's a lot of girls that came in and made it fun and socially acceptable, people like boygenius, that brought about a renaissance of being an indie chick. But, it's been lonely for a long time, and it still is.”

It was a lot of back and forth before Witch Post would see the light of day. Even today the pair are still unsure of what exactly this period of their lives is leading to, but they do know that it came at the right time. "We really had a situationship that lasted many months," she continues. "Of us both at one point being like, Let's do the band and another one be like, No. Finally, I remember we had this moment where, I think Dylan, you offered the ultimatum. You were like, we just need to commit to only this if we're gonna do it," Reid explains.

This was the biggest hurdle for her to ascend: “We're writing these great songs together, and people are kind of being like, Oh, you guys have a vibe together. And in my head, I'm like, Oh, what's the next Alaska Reid solo record? Clearly I'm writing these songs to push this band forward, and I'm not really writing as many Alaska Reid solo songs. And then I'm sitting there being like, Oh, I don't want to do the band.”

As for the band's name? “I almost feel like we're the witches in a way," Reid explains. "In so much of my life – especially in rock music – everyone's been like, Fuck off. You're a girl. So in a way it already feels a bit witchy... It all feels punk in a way, but in our own way."

PHOTO CREDIT: Parker Love Bowling

“It's also scary," Fraser laughs, "I didn't know what the fuck a witch post was, and Alaska was like, let's call the band Witch Post! She explained it to me, and then I Googled 'witch post', and it literally has the St Andrew's Saltire carved into it…it's probably a fuck you to Scots. It's probably not a good thing, but we're reclaiming it!” Fraser beams.

Eventually, the first song they penned together made it out into the world. “Chill Out” leads with ramshackle guitar chords, before a howling Fraser comes in, later joined by the soothing sounds of Reid as the driving track careens with the freedom of the band unleashing their intentions. Fraser’s vocal sounds lived, a rawness that only life can tune in: “I’d projectile vomited on the street before I got into the studio. I was hanging out of my arse. It was awful!”

The pair recognised a space in the musical landscape for the kind of rock band that died out at the turn of the millennium: all dirty-fingernails, grit and restless energy. And while it may be a grand statement to attribute to Witch Post, their appreciation for 90s alt-rock is deep in the duo's DNA; Fraser has an affinity for Sonic Youth, Nine Inch Nails et al, while Reid loved Dinosaur Jr. and The Replacements. They pay tribute to these influences on the cranked-to-eleven single "Rust", released today.

"In my heart, The Replacements the biggest band ever," Reid enthuses. "In a way, I feel like Dylan and I are writing songs in that alternate universe where The Replacements are playing massive arenas and stadiums. We're writing songs for all of the artists that we feel like that about.

"We're bringing back good, cool, rock music. Sometimes I feel like there's not a lot of that out there. There's definitely people doing stuff, but then there's a lot of boring shit, and we're not going to be boring." And if that wasn't enough, she follows this promise up with an even larger one: "We're ambitious, and we're going to make you listen”.

This year is going to be a big one for Witch Post. After releasing two brilliant singles last year, they have the momentum and press acclaim to build on that. For two people who never wanted to be in a band, their distinct spark and chemistry means they will be bonded together for years. It will be exciting to see…

WHAT comes next.

__________

Follow Witch Post

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/witchpostband

Twitter:

https://x.com/witchpostband

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/4TBDzXf9NfvFpqLOAodNYQ

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@WitchPost/videos

FEATURE: Under Ice: Kate Bush’s 1982-1985: Jumping Off the Treadmill

FEATURE:

 

 

Under Ice

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1983/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin

Kate Bush’s 1982-1985: Jumping Off the Treadmill

_________

THERE is this niggling question…

PHOTO CREDIT: Denis Oregan

that has always been on my mind since I became a Kate Bush fan. I would have known about her wider career when I was in school. In the 1990s. I was able to look at her albums and career and see what she had achieved to that point. I am not sure what impressed me most about Kate Bush when I was a child. I think it was the way she could make every album sound different. I had not really discovered another artist like that. It was amazing that she could release an album like The Kick Inside (1978), The Dreaming (1982) and The Sensual World (1989). Each album distinctly that of Kate Bush but sounding completely different! It still amazes me how Bush could create whole new worlds for each of her albums. Aside from that, I think Kate Bush’s work rate and incredible dedication is what gets me. She did not tour after 1979, though she threw herself into the studio. Making albums and producing. With little time for outside projects like acting or live performance, what we got from Kate Bush was this incredible and relentless passion. She was promoting non-stop. It may not be an issue other people have but, as Live Aid is forty on 13th July, there will be a lot of discussion around it. Features written and reflections from artists who terraformed there. Two months after Live Aid was broadcast, Kate Bush released her masterpiece, Hounds of Love (it was released on 16th September, 1985). 1985 was very much her year. Whereas the press were writing her off a matter of weeks before that album came out, she released a masterpiece that nobody could deny! You could not escape its brilliance. Considering that, why was Kate Bush not included in the Live Aid line-up?! Let’s take things back a few years…

1982 was when Kate Bush released The Dreaming. That was in September. It is one of her very best albums, though it is one that was less commercial than previous ones. Less so than Hounds of Love too. It did mean very little radio play and some reviews were quite mixed. The album as a whole is tremendous, through many wrote Kate Bush off and ignored The Dreaming. Back in June 1982,. Bush took a brief break to Jamaica to unwind. Finding the silence deafening, it freaked her out. So used was she to the noise of London and being in a cramped studio, going out to a paradise was too much for her to take! When The Dreaming came out, she engaged in gruelling promotion. She made personal appearances in cities like Glasgow and Newcastle. After some T.V. appearances, Kate Bush stepped off of the treadmill. That is Graeme Thomson’s wording (from his book, Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush). Not that Bush went out of view; through from November 1982 through to September 1985, there as far less of her on the radar. No album and only the odd appearance. Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) arrived on 5th August, 1985. That was really the first sign that Kate Bush had not gone anyway. However, so many artists were invited to perform at Live Aid. Those who did not have the same stature and brilliance as Kate Bush. Maybe Band Aid would have been less appealing to Kate Bush. The charity single, Do They Know It’s Christmas? Bush did appear on a charity single for Ferry Aid. It was a cover of The Beatles’ Let It Be and, honestly, it is a black mark on all of the artists’ résumés.

If Band Aid was intended to raise money for those living through famine in Ethiopia, Ferry Aid was a 1987 supergroup who covered Let It Be following the Zeebrugge Disaster. On 6th March, 1987 the ferry MS Herald of Free Enterprise capsized, killing 193 passengers. Though a tragedy, it did not warranty a charity single! It might have been overdue recognition about the Live Aid oversight. I am sure Bush would have been happy to appear on Band Aid’s single. Even if she was not perhaps as critically acclaimed and commercial successful as she would be later in 1985. Do They Know It’s Christmas? was released on 7th December, 1984. Although there were some huge names on the song like Bono and Boy George, people rarely mention a standout female voice on the song. Kate Bush would have been perfect! Maybe Midge Ure and Bob Geldof did not think of her when they were writing the song, but they would have known who she was. It is a shame that she was not given an invite has said that, if she was asked, she would have said ‘yes’. A cause that she would definitely have given her time and voice to for sure! Given all the work she did to raise money for charities, Bush would have jumped at the chance to be on Do They Know It’s Christmas? The questions around Live Aid is even more intriguing. Consider the fact Hounds of Love was a couple of months away. A perfect opportunity to premier new songs like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), Cloudbusting, Hounds of Love…or she could have performed songs from her previous albums. Perhaps The Dreaming would not have necessarily translated to the Wembley crowd, though there are songs from The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Never for Ever that could have fit. However, it is the prospect of Bush performing three or four new songs from Hounds of Love that would have been perfect! Imagine people thinking she was retired or not coming back, only to step onto the stage in 1985 in front of a global audience. The biggest audience of her career!

Did the reception for 1982’s The Dreaming and Bush ‘stepping off the treadmill’ contribute to a clear oversight from Bob Geldof?! If Hounds of Love has been released earlier, there is no doubt Bush would have been invited to Live Aid. However, you feel she should have been invited regardless. Granted, between 1982 and 1984, there were few flickers of publicity on the radar. Bush was busy recording Hounds of Love in 1983 And 1984. The narrative from the press did seem to contribute to events like Band Aid not including Kate Bush. It is something that bugs me. I would have loved to have seen Kate Bush being part of something historic. As I say, she is someone who has and still does raise awareness of charities and raises money for them. One of the biggest fundraising concerts in history ignored her. One can forgive some ignorance considering The Dreaming was not a big critical smash. However, Bush was already an established and known artist who should have been on the Live Aid radar. And Band Aid. Things would change from 1985. Bush was promoting again and there was this new appreciation for her. The best reviews of her career. A number one album. Hounds of Love silenced those who thought she had disappeared or was a recluse who had quit music. I can imagine Kate Bush watching Live Aid in July 1985 and being moved by it. Also thinking she should have been there. Some have pointed out that more recognised or successful artists in 1984/1985 like Sade and Alison Moyet were not invited to Live Aid. It was a very male-heavy line-up. In a case of poor timing, Bush released new music so soon after Live Aid. She did participate in the Sport Aid mini marathon at Blackheath, South London on 25th May, 1986. That 1987 Ferry Aid involvement. However, that omission. Omissions: Band Aid and Live Aid with no Kate Bush. Such a shame she was not asked. If she was part of the line-up, I have no doubt that she would have delivered…

ONE of the very best sets.

FEATURE: Spotlight: Ceechynaa

FEATURE:

 

 

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Brent McKeever for DAZED

Ceechynaa

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EVEN though she has not…

 PHOTO CREDIT: Daniel Rodgers for British Vogue

put out too much music so far, there are signs to suggest Ceechynaa is going to be a big feature of the U.K. Rap scene. At the moment, I think that a lot of attention is on U.S. Hip-Hop. A huge amount of time was given over to the beef between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. When it came to focusing on women in Hip-Hop, there was very little of that. The U.K. scene not given much spotlight at all. A tremendous rapper and fresh voice how can enliven our Hip-Hop scene, I wanted to spend some time with an incredible talent. I do hope that there are more interviews with Ceechynaa this year. I will focus on quite a detailed one from 2023. First, here is some background detail about the amazing Ceechynaa:

“Ceechynaa, also known as Peggy, is a UK-based rapper and influencer who has quickly established herself as a rising star in the music and entertainment industry. Gaining recognition from British Vogue as one of the most exciting female rappers, she has redefined success through her unique blend of rap and R&B. Her journey reflects resilience, transitioning from adult entertainment to becoming an independent music artist, proving her ability to adapt and thrive in different creative spaces.

Peggy’s music resonates with authenticity and bold storytelling, addressing themes of empowerment, style, and ambition. Known as the First Lady of Juicy Couture, she merges music with a distinct fashion-forward image, creating a brand that appeals to a global audience. Her singles, released independently, reflect her passion for music and her commitment to artistic freedom, allowing her to maintain control over her creative vision. 

Beyond music, Ceechynaa embraces social media as a powerful tool to connect with fans and showcase her personality. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube have become her stages, where she delivers engaging content ranging from viral videos to behind-the-scenes glimpses of her life. Her relatable captions, combined with striking visuals, make her a dynamic figure in both the music and influencer spaces

Ceechynaa’s influence goes beyond entertainment, as she advocates for consistency, confidence, and empowerment. By collaborating with prominent brands like British Vogue and 1XBLUE, she aligns her image with luxury and authenticity. Her goal remains clear: to inspire women to break barriers, embrace their individuality, and carve out their own success stories, just as she has done.

Ceechynaa’s TikTok presence stands out as her strongest platform, with 606.6K followers and an impressive 124.59% engagement rate. By leveraging her music and personality, she creates captivating short-form videos that frequently go viral. Her content often includes behind-the-scenes moments, music previews, and candid interactions, connecting directly with her audience. Videos like her December uploads have amassed millions of views, showcasing her ability to trend organically.

Consistency is key to her success on TikTok, where she uploads 1.9 videos per week, aligning her content with TikTok’s fast-paced algorithm. Posting twice a week at 3 PM ensures that her audience remains engaged at peak scrolling hours. Her content thrives on relatability and high energy, whether it's through lip-syncs, choreography, or emotionally charged snippets of her music. These approaches amplify her visibility and keep her audience invested in her journey.

Ceechynaa also embraces trends and challenges, positioning herself within the viral culture while still maintaining her unique edge. By combining trending audio with her signature style, she bridges the gap between mainstream appeal and personal artistry. Her videos invite conversations, sparking thousands of comments, likes, and shares that solidify her influence among fans and newcomers”.

I am going to move to a Vogue interview from the start of last year. However, with a new single out, there has been fresh attention for Ceechynaa. Peggy is a remarkable cut from one of the brightest and most promising names in U.K. Hip-Hop. A terrific artist that everyone needs to keep an eye out for. Before moving on, GRM Daily wrote a few words about Peggy:

“Ceechynaa is back with a bang, dropping a fiery new song and accompanying video after a period of silence.

Fans have been eagerly awaiting her return and she delivers with a track that’s both controversial and unapologetically raw. Known for her fearless lyricism and bold persona, she doesn’t hold back, addressing hot topics with her trademark sharpness and unfiltered style. This release reaffirms her reputation as an artist unafraid to push boundaries and speak her mind, making it well worth the wait for her fans”.

I am interested to see how British Rap and Hip-Hop unfolds and evolves this year. Among the queens of the scene is Ceechynaa. I do hope that we get more print interviews with her. Before finish up, Vogue spoke with a young and ambitious rappers in U.K. Hip-Hop:

“The 20-year-old rapper is here to give her first published interview since breaking onto the For You Page with a Dickensian “Oi, mate!” back in August. Still an independent artist, Ceechynaa has accrued more than 10 million streams for “Legal Baby” and “Last Laugh”, both of which have been designed with the specific intention of intimidating the sort of men who perceive feminism to be harmful. And so she creates dark and ominous moods, backdropped with sirens and pitch-shifted cackles, her lyrics always teetering on the seductive and sadistic: “Just lead him on / Tease / And scam him”. “There are so many male rappers that just degrade women and so I think we need an artist to come in and talk about them in the same way they do about women,” Ceechynaa says. “I’m all about female empowerment and so I write about things that make women feel in control. Financial domination and stuff. I want women to know that they don’t have to fit into what society tells them to.”

This isn’t a particularly new spirit for a female rapper to inhabit, but the fact that it’s coming from someone like Ceechynaa feels just as salient as it was when Lil’ Kim encouraged women to harness their sexualities in the ’90s. This is someone who first went viral at the age of 15 for removing her wig in protest of beauty standards during a school assembly and someone who made tens of thousands of pounds picking up calls on adult entertainment channels at just 18. She sees both things as a forced reversal in power dynamics – “I just know my pay pigs are probably like, ‘Chynaa what happened!? We can’t see your milkies anymore!’” – which has, of course, been unpopular among traditional fans of UK rap. Particularly those who are not used to being referred to as “bottom of the barrel scraps”.

Below, we catch up with Ceechynaa on her sudden rise to fame, the celebrities that have been sliding into her DMs and her long-term plans to become a fixture on the front rows of London Fashion Week.

Hi Ceechynaa! How would you like to introduce yourself?

“So, my real name is Chelsea Ode, but my artist name is Ceechynaa, and when I was in adult entertainment, I went by the name China’s Milkies, which has kind of become my nickname online. My parents were both born in Nigeria and moved to the UK before they had me. I’m originally from south London, but I live in the home counties at the moment. And the whole music thing started when I was around 14 years old. I was with some friends who were doing a studio session and I jumped in the booth while they went outside just for a laugh. The producer told me that I should pursue music, so I’ve just been writing lyrics ever since then! I was still working in adult entertainment when I first started college. I did quit, though, to concentrate on my studies. But when the success of ‘Last Laugh’ started to become overwhelming, I realised that it would be impossible to pursue both music and education.”

Why did you get into adult entertainment?

“I’ve always wanted to make music and I’ve always known that I wanted to arrive onto the scene with a bang. But the money I had been earning from doing traditional nine-to-fives – working as a waitress but mostly cleaning toilets, scrubbing mould off the floor and washing over 500 dishes a day – was never going to be enough to fund that. I was also very shy at the time and so I wanted to get used to being in front of the camera, communicating with loads of people at once. And you know what? I made a lot of money for someone who had just turned 18. The calls were charged at £5 a minute and so I could make £4,000 just like that. I would have to do a month’s worth of ‘normal’ work to achieve that kind of income. Every single entertainment platform I was on has now shut down, though. I know my pay pigs are probably like, ‘Chyna what happened!? We can’t see your milkies anymore!’”

Did your family know how you were making this money?

“They actually didn’t. It’s funny because it was always in the back of my mind like, ‘Hmmm, what would happen if everyone saw me dangling this phone on live TV?’ It was my worst nightmare, but I never thought I was gonna get caught! And then, this one time, I was on Sky TV when my brother’s friend saw me and told someone. That’s how they found out and it was embarrassing! I used to tease my family, ‘Oh when I turn 18, I’m gonna do this and that!’, and they’d be like, ‘Go on then! We dare you!’ But they were pretty speechless when they actually discovered what I had been doing. Like really, really shocked. They didn’t really know what to say. You know, if I could go back in time, I don’t know if I would have joined adult entertainment. I started getting approached to join companies through social media when I was just 17. But the prospect of making £30,000 a month just felt too good to miss.”

How does it feel to navigate this notoriety all of a sudden?

“When people tell me that I’m famous, I just feel like, ‘Really?’ And then they remind me that I’ve been on the front cover of magazines. There have been so many celebrities that have taken a liking to my music: Chloe Bailey, Amber Rose, Lily Allen. Lily was the first celebrity to show love to my music, always resharing stuff and promoting the songs, giving me advice. It’s weird because now I’m invited to all these events, famous people will come up to me and say, ‘Oh I was watching your Live the other day!’ and I’m like, ‘Oh my God! That means you’ve seen me in my bonnet, cussing people out!’ My supporters go so hard for me – oh that sounded so wrong! – but there are literally Discord servers where people stream my music as a collective. And it’s such a diverse audience – a lot of them are Swifties and BTS fans!?”

If that’s the worst thing to have happened since breaking out, what’s been the most exciting thing?

“Other than British Vogue contacting me? It must have been seeing ‘Last Laugh’ go up by hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube every single day – because I hadn’t paid a single penny for the promo, it was all organic. And then being on the front cover of Dazed was a highlight, too. That was absolutely huge. “I have so much stuff to rap about that I’ve just been recording song after song after song. The next single I release is going to be massive.”

The UK hasn’t really had a breakthrough female rapper. Why do you think that is?

“I genuinely feel like a lot of female rappers in the UK want to sound like all the other female American rappers. You don’t really get women in the music industry – especially in rap – that keep to their British sound. And so I think it’s refreshing that someone like me has come onto the scene and kept the authentic British phrasing. Who else refers to the police as ‘coppers’? I think it’s quite funny. And now I see people in America referring to people as ‘tossers’! It’s one thing to go viral, but it’s another to keep the momentum going. Social media is so advanced these days that anyone can go viral. Even if you’re not dropping music, it’s important to show up on socials and I don’t think people know how to do that. People don’t know their audience and what kind of music their audience wants to listen to.”

So how are you going to spin these viral moments into a sustainable career?

“I don’t want to put myself in a box and I want to try out different things, which is why I’m moving towards the fashion side of things, too. I’ve worked with a few designers, like Dion Lee, 1XBlue, Poster Girl and Mowalola, whose show I was going to walk but I couldn’t get my hair done in time! I’ve always been interested in Y2K stuff, because I grew up looking up to Paris Hilton and all her Juicy Couture moments. But it’s always been about the bikini for me. Ever since I wore my first bikini, it’s literally all I’ve worn – anything that makes my milkies look good! Recently I’ve started taking a liking to vintage, though. My stylist has introduced me to Christian Dior, Prada, Chantal Thomas, Roberto Cavalli and I’ve fallen in love. I’m quite well spoken, so I think the classy vibe suits me? Oh and I’m actually thinking of releasing my own brand soon…

Who, or what, have been the biggest influences on your music?

“If we’re talking about female rap, I have to give it to Nicki Minaj. I couldn’t name another musician that’s had as much impact on me. But, really, anger is the biggest influence. When I make music I have to make myself mad, because I can’t write if I’m not fuming about something. The first thing I do is open up my pink notebook and I remember all the times I’ve been pissed off. There are so many male rappers that just degrade women, and so I think we need an artist to come in and talk about these male rappers in the same way they do about women! I’m all about female empowerment and so I write about things that make women feel in control. Taking men’s money, financial domination and stuff. Oh, and I really, really love witch house music and I’m actually about to release a track in that style. Did you know I wanted to be a singer before? People are gonna see more of that this year, as well.”

If men are positioned as “bottom of the barrel scraps”, what do you want women to take away from your music?

“I want women to know that they don’t have to fit into what society tells them they need to fit into. You shouldn’t aim to be like everyone else. I get loads of people talking about my body online, because they expect female rappers to have the same plastic-surgeried, BBL look. There’s nothing wrong with that if that’s what you want to do, but I’ve decided to embrace my natural body. Like, I’m walking around Oxford Circus with my belly hanging out! I want people to know that you don’t have to have the ‘perfect’ body in order to be taken seriously.”

You’ve got quite a nonchalant, if not low-effort presence on stage, which people love. Has that been a deliberate choice?

“I mean, I’ve mostly not had time to rehearse! Everything has happened so quickly. My first proper performance was at Reading when Tion Wayne bought me out. As soon as I got there, I was due on stage. I was like, ‘I can’t do this? I can’t go on stage!’ and they just passed me the mic. I pretty much smashed it. There were about 50,000 people there, so every performance I’ve given since then feels so light lift.”

There must be lots of record labels trying to sign you. Is that a goal of yours?

“I’ve sat down by myself, an independent artist, and thought, ‘There must be something special about you, because not a single penny has been invested into promo and you’ve done over 10 million streams online’. What would be the point in signing? There are signed artists that have huge marketing budgets with less momentum on social media as I do. Anything I’d want from a label is already happening organically. Not only that, but, because I'm still so new to all of this, people try to give me a cheap deal. When I feel like I have more leverage, then we can start discussing some big money! But yeah, I’ve been bombarded by nearly every single label you could possibly think of. When ‘Last Laugh’ came out, my emails, DMs, comments and TikTok Lives, even my friends were flooded with requests. But it’s a journey and people wanna feel like they’re growing with you. If my videos were filmed in some big-ass location, it would feel inauthentic. It needs to feel relatable”.

@chynasmilkies

IM ON THE BILLBOARDS🥳🇬🇧

♬ Peggy - Ceechynaa

I am going to finish with this feature that celebrated Ceechynaa. When it comes to women in Hip-Hop, people often pit them against one another. They are rarely boosted and respected in the same way male artists are. Here is an artist who wants to change that. There is not a lot of discussion about women in U.K. Rap and Hip-Hop. That should change very soon:

“Highlighting a broader challenge: how difficult it has been for UK female rappers to break into the mainstream. As we know, male rappers have long dominated the music charts, and for me, the last reason for this is the idea that they are more talented. It’s a reflection of the deep-rooted misogyny within the UK music scene—where male voices are amplified, and female voices are often sidelined or scrutinised more harshly. We must look at the mistakes of the past and ensure we don’t carry them into our future.

Having seen countless trends and artists come and go through Mixtape Madness, I’ve always been drawn to the anomalies—the moments when something unexpected breaks through. Ceechynaa’s rise with “Peggy” is exactly that. This moment is made even more significant when we consider the difference between the UK and the US in how female rap is received. In the US, artists like Lil Kim, Cardi B, Megan Thee Stallion, and Nicki Minaj have paved the way for women to embrace bold, explicit lyrics without facing backlash. However, in the UK, female rappers often face more scrutiny when they adopt a similar approach, with audiences less accepting of explicit content from women.

Being from Tottenham, I take immense pride in our Black musical legacy. I’m showing my age here, but if I think back to the ’80s with groups like The Demon Boys, through to the Grime and Garage eras with names like Boy Better Know, Wretch 32, and Chip, and then moving into the Drill era with the rise of artists like Headie One, it’s clear that the area has a rich, vibrant history of Black music. But the harsh reality is that the only platform truly acknowledging this history is Tim Westwood TV, we all know how that story played out, but that platform played a significant role in amplifying the voices of Tottenham and the wider Black musical culture.

Now, as we move forward, it’s essential that we not only empower female artists but also support the platforms that amplify their stories. There’s real power in ensuring that women, especially in the genres where they’ve been historically overlooked, are given the same respect, opportunities, and platforms to tell their/our stories.

We’ve seen how male-dominated narratives have played out in the past, and it’s time to build something that recognises and celebrates the full spectrum of talent, history, and culture—one that includes and uplifts women just as much as men.

Ceechynaa might not be your cup of tea but BXKS, Chy Cartier (deservedly MOBO Best Newcomer Nominated) and Vienna1 illustrate the diverse range sounds, flows, cadence, narratives and more that the new generation of female artists are bringing to the table. Let’s not TeeZandos and Cristale’s PluggedIn is arguably one of the best UK freestyles to drop in the last 2 years.

For me, watching Ceechynaa’s rise is a reminder that we’re living through a moment of change in the music industry. It’s not just about seeing more women on the charts; it’s about seeing women take control of their own narratives and redefine what it means to be a woman in music.

As Ceechynaa continues to make her mark, it’s clear that she’s leading this charge, and I’m excited to see where she—and the many other women following in her footsteps—will go next”.

I think this year will be a promising and exciting one for Ceechynaa. An artist that is primed for success, do make sure that you follow her. Even if she has released only three singles since 2022, I think the average will change this year as more focus comes her way. A possible album in future years. People will want her to perform live, so there are interesting and exciting possibilities ahead. I will watch closely to see what comes next…

FOR the sensational Ceechynaa.

___________

Follow Ceechynaa

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/ceechynaa

TikTok:

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

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/artist/0K71lFgGGmekeFSUrWaRhg

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@CEECHYNAA

FEATURE: The Digital Mixtape: Blondie’s Chris Stein at Seventy-Five

FEATURE:

 

The Digital Mixtape

PHOTO CREDIT: Axel Dupeux for The Wall Street Journal

Blondie’s Chris Stein at Seventy-Five

_________

PERHAPS an artist…

IN THIS PHOTO: Deborah Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie on their rooftop in New York City on 28th November, 1980/PHOTO CREDIT Allan Tannenbaum

that some people do not know about, the legendary Chris Stein turns seventy-five on 5th January. As guitarist for Blondie. He is an integral part of a hugely influential band. Someone who was also influential in shaping and defining the group’s sound, I will end with a Blondie playlist that showcases Chris Stein’s incredible talent. Before getting there, I want to turn to AllMusic and their biographical study of the wonderful Chris Stein:

“Debbie Harry received the lion's share of attention during Blondie's reign during the late '70s and early '80s, but guitarist Chris Stein is often credited with helping to shape the group's sound, as he penned (or co-penned) most of the group's best-known songs. Born in Brooklyn, NY on January 5, 1950, Stein's first career goals were non-musical, as he wanted to be an Egyptologist as a youngster. But when his parents bought him his first guitar at the age of 11, his focus eventually shifted to music. Stein's ensuing teenaged years were not without turbulence, however, as he was kicked out of school due to the length of his hair and suffered a nervous breakdown, and his father passed away due to a heart attack. By the early '70s, New York was swept up in a glam rock scene spearheaded by the New York Dolls, and Stein took note -- looking to join a similarly styled band. He didn't have to wait long, as he happened to stumble upon a local group called the Stilettos, which included Debbie Harry as one of their singers. Stein soon joined the group as their guitarist, and soon developed a romantic relationship with Harry.

When the group broke up in the mid-'70s, Stein and Harry looked to form a new band together, which led to the formation of Blondie soon after. Blondie became affiliated with the burgeoning CBGB's scene (which also included the Ramones, the Talking Heads, etc.), and released an independently issued self-titled debut in 1976. After signing with Chrysalis, Blondie honed their new wave pop hooks with each subsequent release, as evidenced by 1977's Plastic Letters (which Stein also played bass on) and 1978's Parallel Lines, the latter of which scored Blondie their big breakthrough hit, with the disco smash "Heart of Glass." Further hit albums (1979's Eat to the Beat and 1980's Autoamerican) and singles ("Call Me," "The Tide Is High," "Rapture") followed, but with 1982's The Hunter, the group's popularity began to rapidly decline.

It was right around this time also that Stein developed a rare skin disease, Pemphigus, which caused the guitarist to break out in blisters all over his body. While Stein was being treated for an elongated period in an N.Y.C. hospital (he would eventually recover fully), Blondie quietly disbanded. Prior to battling the illness, Stein founded his own record company, Animal Records -- releasing Iggy Pop's Zombie Birdhouse (which Stein also produced and played on), as well as the Gun Club's sophomore outing, Miami. But as a result of his illness, Stein had to shut down the label soon after. He and Harry eventually split up as a couple as well, but remained good friends, as Stein contributed to such solo Harry albums as 1981's Kookoo, 1986's Rockbird, 1988's Once More into the Bleach, and 1989's Def, Dumb, & Blonde.

By the late '90s, Stein and Harry launched a Blondie reunion tour with two other of its original members (keyboardist Jimmy Destri and drummer Clem Burke), releasing a new studio album and live set in 1999 -- No Exit and Live in New York. Stein has also guested on other artist's recordings over the years, including Dee Dee Ramone's lone release under his rap alter ego, Dee Dee King (1988's best-forgotten Standing in the Spotlight), and has composed music for such movies/TV shows as Tales from the Darkside, Wild Style, Intimate Stranger, Polyester, and Union City. A longtime photographer, some of Stein's images have been used as album artwork by Dramarama and Lydia Lunch”.

To celebrate the upcoming seventy-fifth birthday of one of the all-time great guitarists and someone who is key to Blondie’s success and brilliance, below is a selection of Blondie hits and deep cuts with Chris Stein firmly in the mix. I think that a new Blondie album is being worked on. Hopefully we will hear an update this year. There has never been a Blondie biopic. I hope that appears one day. Or a film where Blondie feature. Who would play a young Chris Stein? Maybe Finn Wolfhard? Who would play Debbie Harry? Even though Harry said Michelle Pfeiffer is someone she would like to play her, maybe it would be better if Florence Pugh, Sydney Sweeny or Saoirse Ronan played her (Kirsten Dunst was suggested for a planned Blondie biopic (that never happened) and, whilst that casting was criticised by many, Debbie Harry defended it. A T.V. movie, Debbie Harry: Atomic Blondie, was released in 2018). That is me going off on a tangent. Anyway. As the sensational Chris Stein is seventy-five on 5th January, this ids a salute to…

A music great.

FEATURE: Someone Lost at Sea Hoping Someone in a Plane Will Find Them: Kate Bush the Artist

FEATURE:

 

 

Someone Lost at Sea Hoping Someone in a Plane Will Find Them

ART CREDIT: Matt Hemming Studio

Kate Bush the Artist

_________

I am going to return to…

IN THIS PHOTO: David Bowie in 1975

Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love for various features this year. I will also come back to an idea I had a for a filmed version of the album’s second side, The Ninth Wave. Connected to The Ninth Wave is artwork. Specifically, I wanted to start this feature off by mentioning an event from 1994 where David Bowie was at the centre. It also connects to artwork by Kate Bush. Let’s untangle things a bit. Thanks to Tom Doyle and his excellent book, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, for the inspiration. Kate Bush fans know that one of her music idols was David Bowie. On 8th January, the late icon would have turned seventy-eight. Two days later, it will be nine years since he died. He is in the minds of a lot of music fans. What an absence his death left. How important he was. For now, rather than mourn, I am using him as a jumping-off point. In 1994, there was a charity auction to raise money for War Child. David Bowie admired some artwork from Kate Bush. Bush had always wanted to meet David Bowie. She was in the audience, at the age of fourteen, for the final Ziggy Stardust gig on 3rd July, 1973. Someone who inspired her music and stage work, it is a tragedy that the two never worked together. I might explore this for another feature. Elements of David Bowie’s music in Bush’s work. How various albums, such as Lodger and Young Americans, can be detected in some of Kate Bush’s songs. Bush mentioned in an interview that Young Americans (1975) was her favourite Bowie album. Released the same year she recorded her first songs professionally, the timing makes sense. You can imagine a young Kate Bush listening to David Bowie (this article references a MOJO interview where Bush mentioned being struck by an iconic Bowie song (Starman): “Speaking to Mojo in 2007, Bush remembered being in the “bath, submerged by bubbles” the first time she heard Bowie’s music. “There’s a starman waiting in the sky,'” she quoted. “I thought it was such an interesting song and that he had a really unusual voice. Soon, I was to hear that track everywhere, and Bowie’s music became a part of my life”).

I will focus more on Kate Bush soon. David Bowie’s influence is important to keep mentioning. Last year, PROG published an article with quotes from Kate Bush through the years where she explored her love of David Bowie and why he was so special to her:

“Adding how the legendary vocalist soon became a favourite, rivalling her other heroes at the time, Bush added: "His picture found itself on my bedroom wall next to the sacred space reserved solely for my greatest love - Elton John".

"A fantastic songwriter with a voice to match, Bowie had everything. He was just the right amount of weird, obviously intelligent and, of course, very sexy."

Luckily for the Wuthering Heights singer, she managed to attend Bowie's final show as Ziggy Stardust, which took place on July 3, 1973, at London's Hammersmith Odeon.

Bush recalled: "Ziggy played guitar. And I was there to see his last show as Ziggy Stardust with The Spiders From Mars. The atmosphere was just so charged that at the end, when he cried, we all cried with him."

Speaking of the moment she got to meet him properly for the first time in real life, she wrote: "Working at Abbey Road studios some years later, I popped in to see a friend on another session....I was stopped in my tracks."

"Standing elegantly poised behind the console was David Bowie. He was lit from above and smoking a cigarette. He said, 'Hello Kate. "I froze on the spot and said, 'Er...Hello,' and then left the room, caught my breath outside the door and didn't dare to go back in again."

"We've met many times since then and I don’t have to leave the room any more....or do I?".

Following his death in 2016, Bush wrote a tribute in The Guardian, which read: "David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.

"I’m struck by how the whole country has been flung into mourning and shock. Shock, because someone who had already transcended into immortality could actually die. He was ours. Wonderfully eccentric in a way that only an Englishman could be”.

This provides context and background. I think about that occasion in the 1980s when Bush first met Bowie. She could only utter a few words and had to leave the room. Bowie, in the studio smoking and looking cool; Bush entering the room at Abbey Road Studios seeing one of her idols. Fast forward to 1994 when Bowie was on T.V. discussing some artwork by Kate Bush. Treated to a private viewing at the Flowers East gallery in Hackney, London. This was an exhibition of unique art from celebrities raising money for War Child. Included were works from Paul McCartney (a driftwood carving), Charlie Watts (a sketch of a hotel telephone) and Bowie himself (seventeen computer-generated prints). Bush’s, to my mind, only public artwork harked back to The Ninth Wave from Hounds of Love. The seven-by-six-inch twin pieces were entitled Someone Lost at Sea Hoping Someone in a Plane Will Find Them and Someone in a Plane Hoping to Find Someone Lost at Sea. In the centre of these works of art was black velvet, which depicted the night sky. A red light was projected from a battery-powered diode. It sort of connects to the Boxes of Lost at Sea Hounds of Love reissue from 2023 (which has been nominated for a GRAMMY). Kate Bush had signed both at the back using a gold pen. Even if it was an embarrassing piece of television, just after eight the following morning, David Bowie and Brian Eno were filmed at the gallery for GMTV, where they were interviewed by Anthea Turner. The pieces of art were quite small, so Turner had a hard time reading the titles of each. David Bowie raised his eyebrows and had to read them. It was awkward viewing, through what remains is his appreciation of Kate Bush’s prowess and natural talent as an artist.

I am surprised there was not a collaboration between the two after that 1994 T.V. spot. A tragedy that Bowie and Bush did not step into the studio to record something together. One of music’s greatest what-if scenarios! Bowie told Anthea Turner how he would like the pieces even without Kate Bush’s name attached, as he felt they were lovely and romantic. He said he would bid for them. As Tom Doyle writes, the previous evening, a David Bowie fan, Neville Judd, waited outside the Flowers East gallery as Bush entered and enquired about the artwork she donated. She said they were about the sea…and about her. Once Bowie and Bush left the gallery, Judd was allowed in the gallery. He spotted filmmaker Nicholas Roeg – who cast Bowie in the 1976 film, The Man Who Fell to Earth – and there was a brief exchange. Roeg told Judd that one of them needed to buy Bush’s art. Judd did and spent £1,150 at the auction held at the Royal College of Art. Bowie was asked why he did not bid on the artwork. He said they were the loveliest things but something came up. I would love to know what prevented Bowie from owning a piece of Kate Bush history! Bush met Bowie several times. When he died in 2016, she mentioned Blackstar and how wonderful that album was. It was not a coincidence that, when she reissued her studio albums remastered in 2018, she included a very special song on a rarities collection, The Other Sides. Her 1975 recording of Humming – the same session where she recorded The Kick Inside’s The Saxophone Song and The Man with the Child in His Eyes -, which was a song about David Bowie, was finally released.

This 1994 love-fest for Kate Bush by David Bowie connects to her recent Christmas message. Where she talks about being at a Monet exhibition in London. It made me think about art and why Kate Bush did not continue. She has designed album covers and sketched the characters and storyboards for her Little Shrew (Snowflake) video. She has also no doubt enjoyed art exhibitions and been to many galleries through the years. I wonder why Kate Bush the musician did not also become Kate Bush the artist. Kate Bush has been hailed as the Queen of Art Pop more than once. Never the Queen of Pop Art. Or any other genre. I guess, as it is unlikely Bush will ever appear on one of her album covers again, that artwork will be a focal point for her next work. I do wonder if she will design it. I would like to think that Kate Bush’s love of artists such as Claude Monet might inspire her to pick up some oils, watercolours or chalk. Someone who loves gardening and knows how inspiring that can be, I’d like to think that she picks up a canvas and palette now and then. On Aerial’s second side, A Sky of Honey, there is a song on the suite called A Painter’s Link. Unfortunately, the 2005 original featured vocals from Rolf Harris. His voice was replaced by her son Albert’s when Aerial was reissued in 2018. It is clear that the influence of art and its importance was in her mind when she created this beautiful suite for Aerial. I would love to see more artwork from Kate Bush. Know who her favourite painters are. She is someone who I think could have had a future in various mediums. A great and varied actor. A novelist and a director (outside of music videos). Possibly a composer for film or T.V. scores (that possibility is still there). Kate Bush the artist has a good ring to it! Maybe something she does privately, I would be fascinated to know more about the artists who influence Kate Bush. Someone who I see as artist. Her music more as paintings than traditional songs. Over thirty years ago, David Bowie took a shine to two wonderful and charming pieces by Kate Bush. Has she been inspired since to produce more artwork for charity? Maybe something to look forward to from a woman who can…

DO almost anything!

FEATURE: Silent No Longer: The Case of Gisele Pelicot and Why Men Need to Be Part of An Important Conversation

FEATURE:

 

 

Silent No Longer

IN THIS PHOTO: Gisele Pelicot/PHOTO CREDIT: Alex Hambis//Getty Images

The Case of Gisele Pelicot and Why Men Need to Be Part of An Important Conversation

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THINKING back to last year…

IN THIS PHOTO: Gisele Pelicot arrives at the courthouse with her lawyer Antoine Camus, right, to hear the verdict/PHOTO CREDIT: Clement Mahoudeau/AFP/Getty Images

and one of the standout events/news stories was the case of Gisele Pelicot, who was raped by her husband and fifty other men. All of those accused were found guilty and sentenced to years in jail. Even if the sentences were ridiculously low and lenient, it was a victory that arrived after a real ordeal. The superhuman bravery of Gisele Pelicot defies anything we may ever see again. In terms of how hard it must have been for her having to relive such trauma. She stood strong, waived her anonymity and put the conversation into the public. Not only is she now a feminist icon; Pelicot has left this legacy. The need to ensure that we never live to see a day where her story and experiences are repeated. For anyone who says that this is an extreme case and things are getting better when it comes to the way women are treated and the misogynistic climate, it really isn’t! Gisele Pelicot’s bravery and remarkable strength needs to stay in the heads and hearts of everyone. To ensure that a light is shone on violence women face in society. This incredibly inspiring and strong heroine is not going away. I will come to an argument as to why men need to do more. Whilst there needs to be more conversation and action. However, before that, I want to bring in a couple of BBC articles around the outcome and aftermath of the trial. I will start out with this one:

“Dominique Pelicot stood accused alongside 50 other men, 46 of whom were found guilty of rape, two of attempted rape and two of sexual assault.

Several of them have already spent years in jail as they were arrested when police conducted their initial investigation in 2021, and will therefore be free relatively soon.

Most of the men on trial had denied that what they did was rape.

They argued they did not realise Ms Pelicot was unconscious and therefore did not "know" they were raping her. It is an argument that sparked a nationwide discussion about France's legal definition of rape.

The defendants' jail terms range from between three and 15 years”.

Everyone hopes that, going forward, something positive comes out of what Gisele Pelicot had to endure. That society changes. At the very least, that we never have to read of another case as disturbing. I want to move onto this BBC article discussing the outcome of the recent trial:

“After 16 weeks, the Pelicot trial is over.

This morning's session was shorter than many had anticipated, with the court president, Roger Arata, whizzing through the guilty verdicts he and four other judges handed down to the 51 defendants, and then separately spelling out the sentencing for each of them.

Before midday, this trial - which has captured people in France and beyond - was over.

Gisèle Pelicot was just an anonymous retired French grandmother when she first walked into the door of the Avignon tribunal. Few journalists were waiting for her then.

Today, when she descended the steps of the courthouse for the last time, she was a feminist icon.

Well over a hundred journalists followed her every move as she put her hand to her heart and smiled wordlessly, thanking the crowds of supporters who chanted out her name.

When her car drove off, supporters wiped off their tears. Their gratitude for this diminutive but extraordinary woman was palpable.

She will be remembered for a long time”.

It was shocking and horrifying following the details of the trial. It seemed to get more depraved and disturbing by the week. Against it all, Gisele Pelicot showed fearlessness and fortitude. So strong and resilient in the face of the atrocities she faced. As Cosmopolitan wrote last month, now that the dust of a truly heinous case has settled, Gisele Pelicot bravery and legacy cannot be ignored:

“Rape culture is infused into the very veins of society, a blood-borne disease that must be called out at every single opportunity until we are red in the face. It has a home in our schools, in our universities, in our police force, fire departments, health service. It is normalised to such a degree that a man standing trial for rape and trafficking women (charges that he denies) is one of the most followed on X (Twitter) and that another, convicted of one sexual assault and accused of numerous others is once again to be leader of the free world. Whether butcher, baker or candlestick maker, sexual predators have repeatedly been shown to be enabled, tolerated and excused. We only have to look at the recent allegations of police and doctors colluding with Mohammad Al-Fayed to aide his abuse of over 60 alleged victims to see that.

It is for this reason that this remarkable grandmother chose to flip the script and waive her right to anonymity in this case. Uttering the now famous words: “When you’re raped there is shame and it’s not for us to have shame, it’s for them.” Instead of allowing the trial to take place behind closed doors, in an astonishing act of bravery, Mme Pelicot decided to prioritise, as she said in her closing statement, her belief that “society at this point need to look at how we trivialise rape” over saving the remaining scraps of her dignity. She described how she is unlikely to “ever feel peace until the end of my life”, and how she will have to live knowing what happened to her. After months of harrowing evidence, Gisèle said “I admit that today I can feel the tiredness”, and we all feel tired with — and for her.

Pelicot’s decision to press the judge to allow videos of her abuse to be shown in open court means we are once again having an international conversation about rape and attitudes to women more widely. On the coattails of this trial, France’s legal definition of rape, which does not include consent, is being questioned.

What we must reflect on in the wake of this case is not its uniquely monstrous details, but how society has created a culture in which forums exist for abusers to gather, organise and act out their sordid fantasies. How 1 in 4 women have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16, and how 98% of perpetrators are male. A culture in which disbelieving women often feels the norm, and where becoming victim to revenge or deepfake porn are legitimate everyday fears for women.

In a message to women everywhere, Pelicot’s son David said: “please, please don’t be afraid to speak out. The omertà is over. We have to speak out.” And while the onus should never be on the victim to speak out, we can hope that, rather than being singled out as a freak incident, awareness is raised that this is one hideous thread in a global tapestry of endemic violence against women.

Indeed, while this case has made headlines for its shocking nature, even here we have seen many of the same old victim-blaming tropes women everywhere face, being repeated. In particular, when Dominique’s defence lawyer questioned during cross-examination why Gisèle hadn’t cried more and challenged her on her choice to retain her marital name. A woman, betrayed by a duplicitous husband without her knowledge for the pleasure of a group of total strangers, expected to carefully curate or consider her own emotional response. The suggestion was further proof of the clichéd idea of the ‘perfect’ victim, reminding us how women are expected to behave in the face of abuse as opposed to the complex reality of trauma. Reminding us that women are expected to assume a man’s name — his identity — in marriage and then, after half a century of it being hers, too, to cast it aside if that man sullies it. To the absurdity of this question, Gisèle had the perfect response: “My name is known across the world now,” she said. “Today we will remember Gisèle Pelicot.” Whatever the enduring impact of this shocking case, that, at least, will always remain true.

If you or anyone you know has been impacted by the details of this article, visit: Rape Crisis England & Wales, Rape Crisis Scotland, or 
The Rowan (for Northern Ireland). RASASC provides emotional and practical support for survivors, families and friends. For additional support with mental health, visit Mind”.

One of the most frustrating takeaways from the discussion and discourse around the rape trial was men jumping in to defend themselves. To say that not all men are like this. It happens with every case of a women being raped, abused, assaulted or subjected to misogyny. Rather than there being compassion for Gisele Pelicot and anger at how she was treated, there is this instinct to make it all about them!

Very few high-profile figures spoke out against the rapists. I follow a few men on social media who were showing support for Gisele Pelicot and calling for change. However, there was a notable silence from those in the public eye. When it came to men, there was a lot of people saying they were not like the rapists. That this is only a very small number of people compared to the good men out there. However, the vast majority of people calling for change, highlighting the levels of violence and misogyny against women were women. This year needs to be one where things change. That Gisele Pelicot’s experiences need to wake men up. I run a music blog, and I did not read or hear from any men in music who shared their outrage and disgust. 2024 was a year when we heard of multiple cases of sexual assault and violence against women in music. Sadly, this year we will see even more. Things have not changed or improved. Men need to do a lot more. Rather than merely salute and admire Gisele Pelicot, we need to examine why such a sickening case would exist in the modern world. Such barbarism and evil. Looking at the music industry, there was a general silence and ignorance from men in 2024. Women who bravely came forward to tell their stories and bring their abusers to justice. Every year, we are seeing so much violence and abuse against women. We live in a hugely misogynistic world. This year needs to be the start of change. Men need to do more and have conversations. Speak out against those accused of abuse and violence rather than being silent or defending men in general. Gisele Pelicot is a heroine whose experiences and bravery should not be for nothing. So many women have spoken out and opened up discussion. Very few men did. This has to change. Writing as a music journalist, I did think about the multiple cases of abuse against women last year. We cannot keep seeing this happen. Men need to do a lot more. There needs to be massive changes, not just in the wider world, but also…

IN the music industry.

FEATURE: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes: Madonna’s Material Girl at Forty

FEATURE:

 

 

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

Madonna’s Material Girl at Forty

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THIS is one of the…

divisive songs in Madonna’s catalogue. However, I think that it is very important in terms of her legacy. It is the first song of hers that I remember hearing. Seeing its amazing video. Material Girl was included on her second studio album, Like a Virgin (1984). After the title track, Material Girl was the second single released. I am going to explore its impact. Reaching three in the U.K. and three in the U.S., it was a huge hit. Even if Madonna has been dismissive of the song, it is one of her defining tracks. I shall end by linking to a few features where Material Girl is ranked highly among Madonna’s best songs. Before that, here is a feature that talked about the beginning of filming the Material Girl video on 10th January, 1985. The single was released on 23rd January, 1985:

“On January 10 1985, Madonna began filming the Material Girl music video in Los Angeles, California.  The video was directed by Mary Lambert. Madonna met Sean Penn on the set.

In a 1987 interview with New York Daily News, Madonna talked about the concept for the video:

“My favorite scene in all of Marilyn Monroe’s movies is when she does that dance sequence for ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend’. And when it came time to do the video for the song Material Girl, I said, I can just redo that whole scene and it will be perfect. Marilyn was made into something not human in a way, and I can relate to that. Her sexuality was something everyone was obsessed with and that I can relate to. And there were certain things about her vulnerability that I’m curious about and attracted to.”

Reflecting on the song, Madonna told author J. Randy Taraborrelli:

“I can’t completely disdain the song and the video, because they certainly were important to my career. But talk about the media hanging on a phrase and misinterpreting the damn thing as well. I didn’t write that song, you know, and the video was about how the girl rejected diamonds and money. But God forbid irony should be understood. So when I’m ninety, I’ll still be the Material Girl. I guess it’s not so bad. Lana Turner was the Sweater Girl until the day she died”.

I am surprised more has not been written about Material Girl. Because it is almost forty years since Madonna began shooting the video for the track, I want to mark that fortieth anniversary of an iconic song. I want to start by bringing in an article from Dig! who celebrated Madonna’s richly satirical song. One that defined the 1980s but was not as it seemed:

“Nile Rodgers, the Chic genius who had recently worked with David Bowie on his commercial pinnacle, Let’s Dance, and was cannily drafted in by Madonna to work his magic on her second album, had wanted Material Girl to launch the record. Of course, his protégé – already securing a reputation for knowing her own mind – considered Like A Virgin’s title song a more certain bet. Unsurprisingly, Madonna won that battle and, once released, Like A Virgin topped the US charts for six weeks.

With Material Girl lined up for release as album’s the second single, on 30 November 1984, no expense was spared on a lavish promo video. Its iconic restaging of the Marilyn Monroe performance of Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend, from the 1953 classic Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, cast Madonna as a charismatic star unmoved by her suitor’s flashy advances. Demanding authenticity, she is ultimately seduced by a simple bouquet and a ride in an old car.

This juxtaposition of contradictory motivations, an empowering life mantra and the slickest of presentations is in many ways a metaphor for Madonna’s lasting appeal. Here, there’s a blindingly compelling hook – in this case, a bass-anchored, catchy synth-pop hit created by songwriters Peter Brown and Robert Rans – a high-energy video, directed by Mary Lambert (who had already helmed the clips for Borderline and Like A Virgin), and a whole heap of more subtle messaging going on a layer below – for those that cared to dig a bit deeper…

Inevitably, Material Girl was an enormous hit, reaching No.2 in the US and No.3 in the UK, and Madonna would perform it on many of her tours, including her inaugural The Virgin Tour, in the US, later that year. She would revisit the song on global dates for her Who’s That Girl shows, in 1987; the iconic Blond Ambition concerts of 1990; and 2004’s Re-Invention World Tour. On the Like A Virgin and Who’s That Girl dates, she even threw out fake paper Madonna money at the end of the song (good luck trying to get hold of one today without mortgaging your home). It’s classic Madonna – if only commentators had been able to keep up. Regardless, her vocal delivery should have been enough to get the joke across – Madonna sings Material Girl with real exaggeration. This song was never meant to be taken seriously.

It’s hard to imagine Madonna’s career without this critical song, whose cultural impact arguably far outreached its notable commercial success. As one of the best Madonna songs of all time, there’s no doubt Material Girl fuelled the Madonna-mania of 1985, revealing, possibly for the first time, the “Queen Of Pop” as an artist with a chameleon-like ability to build ever-more intriguing personas. The performance-art side really starts here”.

There is always that debate as to whether Material Girl empowers or belittles women. Whether it is about materialism and its fakeness or it is a satire and tongue-in-cheek song. I think it is fiction and Madonna is portraying a fictional version of herself. Someone who was never materialistic, perhaps she is inhabiting a character. It is interesting to have the conversation and go into depth. I found this website and an interesting take on one of Madonna’s defining tracks:

“Something that always caught my attention was the fact that the video made for Material Girl totally contradicted the original lyrics of the song. As we all know in the video, although Madonna is shown obsessed with material things and money, we later realize that all this was only in appearance since in real life she was a woman who valued simple things and romance ( although I can't imagine someone in real life who prefers an insignificant bouquet of roses to an elegant and expensive jewel as seen in the video)

This "happy ending" is not mentioned in the original lyrics of the song, which rather talks about a woman who prefers to relate to men with money, always speaking of them in the plural, implying that she is not looking for a formal relationship (marrying a millionaire ) but relationships as brief and fleeting as possible (hinted further by the final phrase “Experience has made me rich…” where I think “Experience” refers to multiple relationships with several different men.

That is why I see that it goes against the empowerment of women since it contradicts the ideal that women should not depend on men and fend for themselves without the need to use their bodies or their beauty to seduce rich men and get material things or economic stability, thus becoming sexual objects.

On the other hand, I also feel that the song empowers them in a certain way by showing that in the end it is they, the material girls, who have the power to decide whether or not to be with someone despite having a lot of money and these men will have to submit to the final decision of the woman who, thanks to her beauty, has power in her hands. Two opposite thoughts to each other but that are found in an apparently simple song but whose lyrics contain a lot of complexity. Perhaps it was for this reason that Madonna decided to make a video that changed the original and controversial meaning of the song for something more digestible and romantic, although this would not prevent the public from identifying her as a material and ambitious girl, an image that apparently will follow her until the end of her days”.

When placing Madonna’s songs and singles, Material Girl features quite high in some. It is a track that is very important and has a lot of weight to it. When The Guardian ranked her singles in 2018, Material Girl placed in twenty-fifth (“Credit and interest are reappropriated playfully as metaphors in Madonna’s career-changing hit. Till-ringing pop hooks were never so much fun to play with again”). In 2016, Rolling Stone named Madonna’s fifty-best songs. Material Girl came in thirteenth (“Madonna didn’t write the song and in time didn’t feel it represented her (“I am not a materialistic person…[things] are not mandatory for my happiness,” she told Rolling Stone in 2009). But she liked its gawky swagger, which, combined with producer Nile Rodgers’ clipped, New Wave robo-funk sheen, equaled another major chart hit. “I didn’t think ‘Like a Virgin’ was going to be the song that did it for us,” recalled Rodgers. “I thought it was going to be ‘Material Girl.’ ‘Material Girl’ to me was cool, and to this day what do people call Madonna? They call her the Material Girl. They don’t call her the Virgin”). Billboard ranked Madonna’s forty-biggest Billboard hits earlier this year. Material Girl came fifteenth. At the end of 2023, BBC Radio 2 listeners decided which Madonna song was her ultimate moment. Even if Like a Prayer was the winner, Material Girl came in tenth. In 2023, The Standard placed Material Girl fourth in their list of best fifteen Madonna songs (“The song that spawned a thousand lazy headlines. Not long after Madonna released this song in 1985, ‘Material Girl’ had become her go-to moniker in many parts of the press. It’s ironic, really, seeing as Madonna claimed to be anything but. She later said in an interview that she decided to present this version of herself, unbothered by true romance but obsessed with anything diamond-encrusted, as a provocation — it’s a tactic that has rarely been left out of the Madonna playbook, so you’d be inclined to believe her. Whether the song is a deceptively simple satire or simply a reflection of the world she saw around her is up for debate, but one thing is for sure: it’s a ridiculously catchy tune. That chorus lands with one of the best known hooks of the Eighties, and Nile Rodgers’ production is pneumatically bouncy. JE”). In 2022, Entertainment Weekly decided on the best sixty Madonna best singles. Material Girl came fifteenth. It is clear that, despite some reservations from Madonna and those who feel it is not representative of her, it is loved and respected. One of her most popular songs. On 10th January, 1985, filming began for the video. I wanted to mark that anniversary. The single’s fortieth anniversary occurs on 23rd January. My introduction to the Queen of Pop, I will always have so much respect and affection…

FOR the brilliant Material Girl.

FEATURE: On the Road: Kate Bush and The Tour of Life

FEATURE:

 

 

On the Road

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed performing at Carre, Amsterdam on 29th April, 1979 for The Tour of Life PHOTO CREDIT: Rob Verhorst/Redferns

Kate Bush and The Tour of Life

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I wanted to write this feature…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush during The Tour of Life in 1979/PHOTO CREDIT: Max Browne

so that I can briefly return to The Tour of Life from 1979 and also a particular reason. I wanted to talk a bit about the wireless stage microphone that was developed for the tour. I am not sure whether anything was fashioned beforehand that was used in theatre however, when it came to Pop concerts and live music for artists, Kate Bush was responsible for popularising them. Something often credited with Madonna, Kate Bush’s wireless microphone was used in 1979. So that she could dance and perform her high-energy set without being lumbered with holding a microphone. I shall come to that soon. Prior to that, it is worth speaking about The Tour of Life. I will dive deeper into The Tour of Life closer to its anniversary. The warm-up date was on 2nd April, 1979 in Poole. Whilst it was called The Kate Bush Tour, it was later renamed The Tour of Life. I will keep that name for this feature. Prior to taking a glimpse into the tour and life on the road, here is some background information that gives us some context:

“Consisting of 24 performances from Bush’s first two studio albums The Kick Inside and Lionheart, it was acclaimed for its incorporation of mime, magic, and readings during costume changes. The simple staging also involved rear-screen projection and the accompaniment of two male dancers. The tour was a critical and commercial success, with most dates selling out and additional shows being added due to high demand. Members of the Kate Bush Club were provided with a guaranteed ticket.

Rehearsals

The tour was to become not only a concert, but also incorporating dance, poetry, mime, burlesque, magic and theatre. The dance element was co-ordinated by Bush in conjunction with Anthony Van Laast – who later choreographed the Mamma Mia! movie and several West End smashes – and two young dancers, Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst. They held morning rehearsals for the tour at The Place in Euston, after which Bush spent afternoons in Greenwich drilling her band. Off stage, she was calling the shots on everything from the set design to the programme art.

Band

The band playing with Kate Bush on stage consisted of Preston Heyman (drums), Paddy Bush (mandolin. various strange instruments and vocal harmonies), Del Palmer (bass), Brian Bath (electric guitar, acoustic mandolin and vocal harmonies), Kevin McAlea (piano, keyboards, saxophone, 12 string guitar), Ben Barson (synthesizer and acoustic guitar), Al Murphy (electric guitar and whistles) and backing vocalists Liz Pearson and Glenys Groves”.

As we are in a new year, I wanted to spend some time with one of my favourite parts of Kate Bush’s career. Her one and only tour. I am going to move on to the wireless microphone that helped to revolutionise live music. If you were in the crowd for one of the dates, you were in for a treat. A large gauze curtain cast a large shadow of Kate Bush as she entered the stage via a ramp. The whale song of Moving was played as Bush entered the stage as waves were played on the screens. Thanks to Rob Jovanovic and his book, Kate Bush: The Biography. There is a terrific section on The Tour of Life. It was understandable that Bush would open her set with a run of songs from The Kick Inside. Her debut album, its opening track, Moving, opened things. Played fairly straight by Bush, I often wonder how hard it was to compile the setlist. If Act I was mainly all about The Kick Inside and Act II more about Lionheart, the first act featured two new songs. Ones that would appear on 1980’s Never for Ever. Violin and Egypt were introduced to excited crowds in 1979. The third act saw an equal balance of The Kick Inside/Lionheart (three songs each) whilst the encore took one from each album: Oh England My Lionheart (Lionheart) and Wuthering Heights (The Kick Inside). It is also amazing how the costume changes flowed and each song had its own life. A different aesthetic. Like when Room for the Life, when Simon Drake was on stage with a Carmen Miranda outfit with fruity headgear. Some of the highlights from Act I included L'Amour Looks Something Like You where Bush danced in front of a mirror. Simon Drake once more appeared. Violin found two dancers in human-sized violin costumes stood either aside of Kate Bush. Simon Drake played the part of a frenzied fiddler who played faster and faster until his instrument produced smoke. It was a blend of the magical, unusual and theatrical. Bush, dashing off stage between some numbers to change, had mounted an impressive first act with a combination of familiar songs and two new cuts. The lyrics for Violin not quite settled on until it appeared on Never for Ever.

Like 2014’s Before the Dawn where the acts had a different feel and mood, that was the case back in 1979. Half of Lionheart (fives songs) was played in Act II. The first act had a combination of tones and moods. It was more eclectic. Act II focused more on love and sex. Tracks like In the Warm Room being a standout from that act. The tour started with Bush playing at the piano solo but, as the dates wracked up, she had Kevin McAlea play piano so she could move around the stage and give the performance more physicality. One of the most impressive aspects of Kate Bush’s live performances are her vocals. So controlled and strong through each date, even when she came down with a cold whilst performing in Europe, she was still very strong and professional. If Before the Dawn brought the band closer to the front of the stage, they were very much in the background for The Tour of Life. Tightly focused and very well-rehearsed, there was very little improvisation or flexibility in that sense. The songs had been worked by Bush in rehearsals. They held morning rehearsals for the tour at The Place in Euston, after which Kate Bush spent afternoons in Greenwich drilling her band. Before moving through the setlist, MOJO spoke with Simon Drake earlier this year about his involvement in The Tour of Life. It caught my eye:

“REHEARSING KATE BUSH’S Tour Of Life was nearly the end of then budding illusionist Simon Drake. He was emerging from under a walkway at the back of the stage, when a section of plywood slid loose and cracked him on the head.  “I was knocked right out,” he recalls today. “And I came to with Kate sort of holding me in her lap. I was sick for a couple of days.”

Drake was lucky. If one of the section’s metal braces had hit him. he might not have lived to tell the tale. It was, sadly, one of several instances where the ambition of Bush’s staging for her single tour as a star outstripped the experience of the team lashing it together, a situation that ended in tragedy after the warm-up show at Poole Arts Centre, with the fatal fall of young lighting engineer Bill Duffield.

It was an outcome unthinkable in the innocent pre-dawn of Drake’s involvement with the tour, which had begun the moment he first heard Wuthering Heights on the radio in January ’78. Bowled over, Drake – a former plugger at Decca and EMI – sent a note to Bush through Capital Radio producer Eddie Puma.

“I knew Eddie was seeing her that night. I just wrote that the record was amazing and if she ever toured, I wanted to be a part of it.”

Later, Drake invited Bush to a magic show he was performing at J Arthur’s, a club at the “wrong end” of the King’s Road, Chelsea, a party for Roxy Music. “I was on a little half-circle stage. And I distinctly remember her sitting there watching me, sat on her own.”

Subsequently, Drake was invited to tea-fuelled meetings at Bush’s flat in Lewisham. He watched the singer scribbling designs for the ankh-shaped set that later clobbered him (“she’s very aware of esoteric matters”) as the pair swapped ideas for bringing Bush’s already theatrical songs to the stage.

“She was a pioneer,” says Drake. “There wasn’t anyone doing anything quite that ambitious then. Maybe Peter Gabriel with Genesis. Certainly not with that amount of dance. Now it’s normal.”

Drake’s key scenes with Bush included two ‘dancing cane’ demonstrations on L’Amour Looks Something Like You and Strange Phenomena, and a spidery turn as a crazed fiddler during Violin.

“The violin was Kate’s own from when she was a kid. I cut out a bit of the back and put homemade pyro in it. The idea being I’d play the violin so fast, it would start smoking.” For the paranoid murder fantasies of Coffee Homeground, Drake had two liquids – one pink, another yellow – that turned black when mixed: “You know, like a poison. Then I’d come up behind her and try to strangle her. They were all these rather ‘panto’ attempts at assassination.”

Drake and Bush dubbed the assassin ‘Hugo’. The vibe was Berlin ’30s cabaret, Paris Moulin Rouge. “He’s partly based on ‘Valentin The Boneless One’ who you see in a couple of paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec with this very big, pointy chin, pointy nose and cheekbones.”

The tour itself – 24 shows between April 2 and May 14, 1979 – was a roller coaster: traumatic for Bush on account of Duffield’s death and the exposure to her own mounting fame. “I mean, fans would almost throw themselves in front of the coach,” says Drake. “It was scary.”

Factor in the demands of the show – its athletic challenges, the costume changes – and it’s miraculous that only one health scare (Bush lost her voice temporarily in Sweden) threatened to end the tour prematurely. “She was amazing every night for two and a half hours,” says Drake. “I mean, extraordinary. She created this whole massive world”.

Whilst most of the vocals were performed live, Hammer Horror was a different case. Performing a more complicated dance routine, a pre-recorded tracks was played. Bush was not even miming to the song. Instead, the focus was on her movement around the stage. Perhaps a chance for her to rest her vocal for a song. Kashka from Baghdad preceded Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake. Stewart Avon Arnold and Gary Hurst appeared on stage with electric torches. As Bush came to the stage with all three dressed in leather jackets, the set took a turn in terms of its aesthetics. Bush performing behind a wire-mesh fence. I shall come to the encore soon. The final act was that mix of songs from her first two albums. Wow stuck fairly close to the video in terms of its choreography. Bush was at the piano for the beautiful Feel It. Once more, there were costumer changes and sonic shifts. Kite was a highlight from the third act. An extended instrumental introduction allowed Bush time to come down the ramp onto the stage. Bush appearing with her dancers. James and the Cold Gun was a perfect finale. Bush wielding a gun and firing off imaginary bullets. With the lighting red and green, Bush looked authoritative and splendid in a black body suit and gold trimming. With gold collaring, the star sort of looked like a space cowgirl (as Rob Jovanovic writes) or this assassin. It was a perfect finale number that saw Bush mow down some dancers and then go to the top of the ramp. If today that sort of celebration of violence would be frowned upon and not encouraged in live music, things were different in 1979. However, this is also Kate Bush. She was not promoting gun violence. Instead, this was Bush putting together something theatrical and hugely exciting. Few Pop concerts before The Tour of Life spliced dance, mime, theatre and poetry. It was an extravaganza.

There were really only two songs that could feature in the encore. Even though there was no spontaneity to the encore, it was a perfect combination of Oh England My Lionheart and Wuthering Heights. The former found Bush in pilot’s gear remembering fallen heroes form the past. It was another costumer change that, at this stage of the set, must have been exhausting! Her best-known song to that date finished things. Many people came to see Kate Bush perform to see Wuthering Heights brought to life on the stage. Even if the performance was not one of the absolute highlights, it did not matter to fans. She was a triumph! As the tour moved up and down the country, crowds queued around the block to get in to venues. The crew were in a tour bus with a state-of-the-art video recorder and cassette deck. Kate Bush barely got chance to rest. Photographed between shows alongside Prime Minister James Callaghan, the first leg of the tour culminated in five nights at the London Palladium. From 16th-20th April, 1979 inclusive, the reviews for the shows were incredibly positive. After rapture from crowds and approval from critics, Bush should have victoriously stormed her first European show. However, a sore throat (that could have been because of strain or a cold) threatened the 24th April gig in Stockholm. Bush got the sore throat whilst flying out. With some vocal rest and some trimmed shows for the night few nights or so, Bush was back on top. Her parents flew out to catch her Paris show on 6th May, 1979. The Tour of Life ended on 14th May. Whilst there were some setlist changes for some of the dates, for the most part, the order was static. This, together with voiceovers and the blend of theatre, mime, poetry and music put some people off. Bush did not speak between songs but she explained it would have been out of place. She was trying to create a mood on stage.

Perhaps a lack of spontaneity means The Tour of Life is not something that some would herald as one of the best live shows ever. However, it was a spectacle that clearly wowed crowds and gathered a raft of awed critical reviews! I am one of those people that loves The Tour of Life and feels it is groundbreaking. Rather than it being a standard Pop show, what was mounted in 1979 was a show that was more of a performance. Cinematic; theatrical. So different to anything else. One of the most notable elements of the tour was how Bush was able to perform live and dance and move freely. The physicality she was able to express during songs made The Tour of Life one for the ages. Few people talk about the wireless head microphone that Bush adapted and adopted in 1979. One that changed live music forever. Gordon ‘Gungi’ Patterson was the sound engineer on The Tour of Life and fashioned a wireless mic out of a wire clothes hanger. You can read recollections and tour diaries from 1979’s The Tour of Life. There is very little audio where the headset is discussed. In 1979, it might have been like a solution to a bit of an irritating issue. However, in years since, it has transformed live music. Artists do not have to remain static or around a microphone stand. A wireless microphone means performers can incorporate dance and a lot more physical elements into their sets. Among all the highlights from The Tour of Life, I think the invention of the microphone used by Kate Bush was the one with the biggest legacy. Even if the wireless microphone pre-dates Gordon Patterson’s adaptation, Bush is regarded as the first artist to use it on stage. A breakthrough that meant Bush could realise her visions for a multi-discipline tour, influencing far behind The Tour of Life, the wireless head microphone….

CHANGED live music forever.

FEATURE: When the Smog Begins to Clear… Reacting to Kate Bush Christmas 2024 Message

FEATURE:

 

 

When the Smog Begins to Clear…

Reacting to Kate Bush Christmas 2024 Message

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I am not sure about other people…

LITTLE SHREW DESIGN/CONCEPT: Kate Bush/LITTLE SHREW ANIMATION: Nicolette Van Gendt

but I have never been interested in the Queen’s Christmas speech. Or the King now. It seems to fill some with traditional and hope but, for the most part, what you are watching is a very privileged human being who really has not worked hard or sacrificed much giving this sermon. Something quite dry. Sure, uplifting and wise at times, but it does come off as quite tasteless considering they are usually delivering their speech from a lavish and plush setting. We have to endure that this year. I always make sure I watch something else when that is on! For us Fish People our queen, Kate Bush, posts her Christmas message this time of the year. In fact, yesterday afternoon she provided us with a Christmas Eve treat. Her most in-depth, moving, brilliant and best Christmas message. It was a combination of reflecting on the year just gone but also looking ahead. A couple of tantalising possibilities to chew. Hope that there will be new activity in 2025. In a post entitled A Monet Christmas Eve to All!, there was a lot to unpack and luxuriate in. Now more than ever, Kate Bush really writing in depth and detail. Her 2023 Christmas message was wonderful, yet there were notes of caution and fear. How the world was changing and getting worse. This year has some of that though it is, for the most part, a more encouraging one. Maybe Bush, who has cleared a path, archived her work and created a beautiful video for War Child – Little Shrew (Snowflake) was a video written and directed by her that helped raise funds for a brilliant charity -, is looking ahead and has done a lot of what she set out to do. Now she has the space to look around her. Let’s look at the first part of the message:

“It’s been really exciting to see the wonderfully positive feedback to the Little Shrew animation. Thank you so much to all of you who made a donation to War Child. They have been absolutely delighted with the response.

Little Shrew will be getting a bowl of especially delicious earthworms this Christmas morning.

It’s been another year of exceptionally dark news. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?

The wars keep raging. We helplessly stand and watch as those poor people are caught up in the horrors of it all and of course there are the children…

PHOTO CREDIT: Heiner/Pexels

It’s hard not to focus on the worry we all feel about these conflicts and the massive changes that are happening around us, but I’d like to try to find something positive to say for this Christmas message:

Happy Christmas Eve! My favourite day of the year. When I was a child, it used to have a special feeling. It even had a sort of Christmas Eve smell… a mixture of smoking coal fires and damp leaves, all bundled up in a drizzly English frozen fog. If I really work on it, I can still summon it up on the day. I’m working on it now…”.

Starting out with that stark yet true realisation: the world is getting worse. Bush lovingly recognising her Little Shrew creation and how well it has done. Raising necessary money for War Child. Something to be very proud of! If 2023’s message had some darkness and fear but also pleasure in the mundane and everyday we take for granted, Bush has started her 2024 message with the pragmatic and inescapable. Then moving on to the positives. It is this warm-hearted person recognising the deficit and harsh realities of war. Her thoughts and mind always with those afflicted. This year has seen Kate Bush very much doing all she can to raise awareness. To get money to War Child. Spending so much time and effort getting that Little Shrew (Snowflake) video complete and out to the world. The start of that next paragraph. Bush delighting in Christmas Eve. I guess it is perhaps more exciting than Christmas Day as there is that anticipation. Especially as a child, that giddiness of knowing what tomorrow holds. But never quite knowing exactly what! Do we lose that as adults?! Bush, now sixty-six, still taking comfort and delight in Christmas Eve. Being with her family and being appreciative for all that she has. If this Christmas Eve was quite warm, I cast my mind back and try to imagine Bush in the 1960s as a girl revelling in the smell of Christmas and the cold weather. Perhaps not romantic to all but definitely to her! The English frozen fog. So evocative! I can imagine the emotions coursing through Kate Bush as she typed the words. That quite stately and dignified opening puts me in mind of the Queen perhaps. Though much more relatable somehow. Then mixing in some reflections on the season.

One might find it odd to analyse or overthink a Christmas message. But, if it was a few words and that was it, maybe I would let it go. However, this is Kate Bush and I do pretty much react to everything she posts and does at the moment! Also, there is a lot of detail in it. Her wording and the images she summons. Painting a scenery and picture. A work of art with little details here and there. One cannot simply let a Kate Bush Christmas message sit or be limited to social media sharing and some brief comment! This is her taking stock of her year but also thinking about others around the world. Also, if you can donate to War Child this year then you can do so here. I like that Kate Bush can be personal. Always thinking of others and conscious that she wants to use her platform to speak about those who are in need around the world, you always get some great personal stories and quirks. Whether it was last year, where she wrote how she stands on awe of running water. That you can turn on a tap and hot water is dispended. That thing we all take for granted is something many others do not have. Appreciating the little things in life. Here, we have something else that is a small detail that may seem ordinary but actually is thought-provoking and distinctly Kate Bush:

“I went to see the Monet exhibition. Twenty one paintings in two rooms – all featuring the Thames in the smog. They were incredibly atmospheric. The fact that they were all of the same environment made you feel like you were there yourself, wrapped up in a mysterious smog of muddy sulphurous yellows, sun-starved pinks, car-sick greens.

You could only make out vague, blurred shapes through the etherial, swirling veils…a majestic bridge here, a wispy boat there… these paintings were completely mesmerising. They transported you to London at the turn of the last century.

Monet thought that the smog was beautiful and that London would’ve looked utterly uninteresting without it. For him it was the smog that created the magic of the place.

I imagined him ready at first light, stood at his easel spluttering and coughing as he peered through the polluted air, with no choice but to gasp at its beauty”.

IN THIS IMAGE: Claude Monet’s Houses of Parliament, sunset, 1900-1903

For those who call Kate Bush a recluse – every article from the press seems to lead with that and I even saw one refer to as a “hermit” recently! -, it does good to realise that she goes out and about. She has never been nor ever will be reclusive or hermit-like! She goes out like normal people but not in the same attention-seeking and often gaudy way many high-profile people do. It is her relatability and normalness that makes her so lovable. 2025 is a year when people need to stop labelling Kate Bush and do their research before lazily parroting the same insulting and stupid words. In their supercilious snootiness, they seem to look down on her whilst lifting her at the same time. Anyway, I digress! That description of her being at an exhibition. The exhibition is in London and runs until January. You should go along if you can and stand in the same spot Bush did (here is a great feature about it). I wonder why she went to the exhibition and why it made such an impact. Not living in London anymore, maybe she is thinking about a time when our capital was quite deprived. Perhaps trying to imagine a time when we were experiencing something quite brutal or depressing. Trying to emphasis with those in today’s world that face that. Maybe the romanticism. In a strange way. I have always wondered whether Bush would turn her hand to art of paint something herself. I feel that art, in addition to film, T.V. and literature, inspires her mind and music, though she does not mention it much. She has produced art herself for a War Child auction in the 1990s but it is not something that has been a big aspect of her life.

 IN THIS IMAGE: Claude Monet’s Waterloo Bridge, 1903

Her words sort of transport you to the exhibit. I am interested to go now. I also think that Bush might be, subconsciously, getting ideas and visions for music. Inspiration from artwork. Maybe a song that is smog-filled but has this beauty. Many reacted to this part of the Christmas message and related it to symbolism. Bush looking at smog to clear her own path. A new phase and stage. I also someone suggest Bush is touring next year but that is pure fantasy and hyperbolic lust. Whilst she has not ruled out live work, there definitely has not been any word that she is gearing up to hit the stage once more. I will end by suggesting why next year is one where she will release a new album. It was lovely to spend a moment standing alongside Kate Bush as she was enveloped by and lost in these Monet paintings: “Less known is the fact that some of Monet’s most remarkable Impressionist paintings were made not in France but in London. They depict extraordinary views of the Thames as it had never been seen before, full of evocative atmosphere, mysterious light and radiant colour. Begun during three stays in the capital between 1899 and 1901, the series — depicting Charing Cross Bridge, Waterloo Bridge and the Houses of Parliament — was unveiled in Paris in 1904. Monet fervently wanted to show them in London the following year, but plans fell through. To this day, they have never been the subject of a UK exhibition”.

IN THIS IMAGE: Claude Monet’s Charing Cross Bridge, 1902

“It made me smile to read that although he sketched them while he was in London, he took them home and finished them off in France. Ha ha! So all is not as it seems – that sun-starved pink was actually lavish Giverny pink.

Is that us? Standing in awe at the dawn of AI, the symbol of modernity, as smog was for Monet at that time in the newly industrial London? Do we only see the twinkling light of the new invention, which so often catches the eye of our imagination… and what are those vague, dark sardonic shapes we can see in the background, behind the theatrical gauze?”

Bush talking of Monet starting his work in London and finishing it off in France. I got images of her maybe starting work in one place and finishing it in another. Relating it to her creative process. That perception we get from the paintings is not all that it seems. It is not a purely London-created painting. These paintings started their life in London but they were enhanced and modified in France. Adding an artificial layer to the paintings. Bush thinking about A.I. That use of the word ‘awe’. I think Bush is fearful of what A.I. can do. As an artist protective of her own work and how someone might steal it. Use her song and, through A.I., turn it into something different. Someone using A.I. to replicate her voice maybe. It is a concern all artists have. This dawn of something that can be quite powerful but also reckless and frightening. However, maybe there is a note of caution. If Monet looked at the smog and saw that it was from industry and knew that it was a beginning of an industrious age and something positive, it was also toxic and blackened the sky. The light and purity of a city draped in something odorous and depressing.

I love how Bush made the connection between Monet and his observations on the multiple meanings of smog. What it presented. Why he was compelled to paint these near-identical scenes. Bush finding humour in the way Monet creating this sense of deception with his palette. Some artificialness or inauthenticity. Using colours from France to convey London. How there is this glean and sheen with A.I. that suggests it is a positive thing. That is it advancement and polish. However, like the smog observed in London between the end of the nineteenth century and the very start of the twentieth, something more malevolent and damaging. Rather than attack A.I., Bush can see how it would appeal and entice. However, she knows that it is something that can take from people. That it is perhaps an unknown and something we cannot control. Maybe quite a frightening and foreboding future. However, this being Kate Bush, her use of language and imagery makes it somehow poetic! I do wonder, when a new album arrives, whether Bush will revive her take on technology and its impact on the world. How she did with Deeper Understanding for 1989’s The Sensual World (and for 2011’s Director’s Cut), will A.I.’s lure and potential damage be something addressed soon?! Let’s hope so, as that would be really intriguing to hear!

Before she signed off, Kate Bush perhaps dropped a hint that all this talk of Monet was about her. Maybe how she has seen the fog and smog in the world and is hoping for some answers and clarity. The smog and ash of war perhaps. Hoping for something brighter. Perhaps she is waiting for the smog to clear so that she can move forward. Consider these words:

“It’s hard to make them out, but could they be our human pods, like those from the Matrix, being readied for us by eager, playful digits? Or maybe they are freshly painted bridges – robust, and lovingly built to carry us all into a much longed-for new age of healthy thinking?

All will be revealed when the smog begins to clear”.

Remember the previous sentence: “and what are those vague, dark sardonic shapes we can see in the background, behind the theatrical gauze”. Referring to A.I. and this front cover and shadow of something nice, bright and theatrical. However, peel it away and there could be something murkier and more malevolent. She summons images of a new reality and world. One where we are more puppets or props. A.I. could be this force for bad where we are in its control or we have no control over it and what it could mean for artists’ intellectual rights and music in general. However, Bush also feels we could see a technology working for good. If we harness it correctly and realise its potential then it could change the way we think. Expand our minds, horizons and view of the world. Make a massive change. That idea of ‘healthy’ thinking seems to be the opposite of a lot of the toxicity on social media. We have control of A.I. and the future and need to make the right choice. That sense that all will be revealed once the smog has cleared. In the same way industrial Britain was shrouded in fog and smoke but, once cleared, there was this change that was not always apparently good – when you are breathing in the thick air it seems only poisonous and bad -, we could see something constructive and beneficial when we know more about A.I. This feeling that it is new and seemingly hostile and suffocating.

PHOTO CREDIT: ThisIsEngineering/Pexels

Our perceptions will sharpen when this technological fog clears. It is a very clever and startling way Bush bonds Monet and the modern-day! Rather than weaving traditional Christmas scenes and talking about something quite cliché, she has used her message to largely discuss A.I. and modern technology. The parallels between this and a Monet exhibit. I feel, the more I read her words, the more there is something deeper at work. Almost discussing herself and clearing a path. That might be us being selfish and hoping for a new album. The more Bush highlights A.I. and fears that it could be something negative, I feel that drives her to write and record music her way. Release it on vinyl and record it without the crutch of A.I. “All will be revealed when the smog begins to clear”. That smog of hatred and violence in the world. Bush maybe referencing things to come from her. When she feels that things are in a better place or she is happier about the world, she will then grace us with something new. She does sign off with the perfect and wonderful “Merry Christmas everyone. I hope it’s a really joyful one for you all”. It is a perfect way to sign off 2024. A year that has seen Bush deal with some tragedy – the loss of Del Palmer in January – and, like all of us, have to see images of violence afflicts communities and children. How she has felt compelled to help and highlight the atrocities. She is also not sure of A.I. and its future. Whether it is a positive or negative thing. A Little Shrew, warfare, Monet exhibit, smog, A.I., potential bright futures and what could come when the smog clears. Bush gave us a lot to ponder. A thought-provoking, heartfelt, poetic, details, deep, intriguing and cliff-hanger-like…this is her best Christmas message yet. She has the same excitement for Christmas Eve now as she did as a child. The morning after, she will spend time with her family and also look ahead to the year to come. Just what presents from the wonderful Kate Bush…

WILL we see in 2025?

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: Never Forever: Rotating the Band

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Lichfield

Never Forever: Rotating the Band

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PEOPLE might not know…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

how songs come together in the studio. Many assume that artists have a set group of musicians that play on every song and every take. That is the case with some. However, there is a lot of trial and error too. Maybe not to the say standard as a band like Steely Dan. They would cast musicians and go through quite a few players. Switching it up between albums. Even other big artists change musicians between albums and often rotate musicians during the same album. If a take is not working then another player will be called in. Maybe not common on Kate Bush’s albums before she became a producer, one of the most notably aspects of her production is how she would do multiple takes and rotate her band. If a player was not working out during a particular take then she would bring in someone else. Maybe get the musician to sit this one out. Perhaps Kate Bush’s band, who she was friends with and close, felt they would be immune. However, Bush knew what her songs needed. She had a particular sound in her head and it was nothing personal. If someone was not quite right then she would need to make a necessary substitution. When stepping into AIR at the half of 1979 to record for Never for Ever, things got off to a good start. The initial sessions saw Bush employ much of her Tour of Life band for cuts like Violin, Egypt, Blow Away (For Bill) and The Wedding List. The band had just come off of tour and there was this close kinship and energy. Brian Bath recalled how the songs were slightly different for the album. Even if they had performed songs like Egypt on tour, numbers took on a different shape for Never for Ever. Bath also noted how Steely Dan’s influence came into the tracks. Not just in terms of the sounds. I think Bush’s working method might have been inspired by The Dan. Perhaps influenced by their recent album, Aja (1977), Bush was not afraid to test and rotate her band members.

Recording at Abbey Road was productive and would go through the evenings and into the early hours. Even if it was a busy and creative time, Bush did admit she was still struggling when it came to properly articulating her thoughts. Translating what she had in her mind and making that understandable and easy for the musicians. Thanks to Tom Doyle and his book, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, for a lot of the facts and information in this feature. Kate Bush knew her songs had personalities. She wanted to make sure they were given the best performances. Choosing sounds, she said in a newsletter that it “is so like trying to be a psychic”. Seeing into the future to how things would pan out. In the first five months of 1980 in Studio 2 at Abbey Road, songs were taking shape. Bush, as co-producer (with Jon Kelly), was trying out different musicians for her songs. Going through a procession of musicians, sometimes their work was kept, though it was often erased. It may seem brutal but, and nodding to Steely Dan again, it was a case of experimentation and refinement. Songs more complex and layered than her first two albums, Bush was very close to the musicians but she knew that the music had to be just right. Rather than letting sentimentality or emotions cloud her judgement, Bush was trying to find that perfect sound. It did mean players thought they would be kept on a take to find their part was not used. It was never a cruel process. Instead, Bush was trying to get Never for Ever to take shape. After a quick and productive start to recording, there was a sense that things were slowing. Bush, as a new producer and twenty-one/two-year-old (she turned twenty-two on 30th July, 1980), this was still quite new. A producer who had skills but was still picking up a lot. With new technology such as the Fairlight CMI offering a world of possibilities but complexities, it was a challenge wrestling with technology and also trying to connect with her musicians in terms of what she was looking for.

Friend Stuart Elliott knew what Kate Bush wanted. He had been replaced a few times and often replaced other musicians on takes. Bush’s boyfriend Del Palmer was pulled from the odd take or two. Quite shocked by that, Palmer would often let his emotions out. Including quite a bit of swearing! It was never Kate Bush this stern and emotionless producer mechanically working through artists. She could see the worth and value in every take and musicians and it was not an easy decision. It was part of the process. Bush was relaxed and patient. She created these layered songs, so it was only natural she would use various players and cut other so that everything fitted together and sounded natural. A whole host of bass players for Breathing and Babooshka. Perhaps trying to find a sound that didn’t exist, it must have been quite a sight seeing a lot of different musicians passing through Abbey Road and Bush having to cut their part. Like an audition process! There would be a long list of people said Brian Bath. If it didn’t work then people would sit it out. Bush seeing her songs cinematically. Casting the part and rotating the band. When it came to Breathing and Babooshka, The Tour of Life’s drummer Preston Heyman was subbed by Stuart Elliott (who played on The Kick Inside and Lionheart). Bush explained that you have to ”break your back before you even start to speak the emotion”. Stuart Elliott would occasionally offer a suggestion to Kate Bush and she would gently smile but then get on with things. It was not a blinkered or rude approach. She had her method and knew that she had to find the truth. Bush would bring in a bunch of musicians and, if that didn’t work, she would introduce another group of musicians. If she was protective and wanted to use her small band for 1978’s Lionheart, Bush was more flexible and ambitious on her third studio album. Various bass players had tried out for Breathing, but it was John Giblin and his fretless part that opened up the song. It was a revelation. Bush has been listening to Pink Floyd’s The Wall a lot and had seen her creativity stall. Breathing broke her out of that. A single that raised a few eyebrows at EMI. Thinking her “in-out, in-out” vocal part was sexual and pornographic, rather than a foetus in the womb trying to breathe against the harshness of impending nuclear destruction (“Breathing my mother in/Breathing my beloved in”).

Bush was always looking for her music to have this visual quality. The music conveying images and scenes unfolding. She successfully achieved this synchronicity for Never for Ever. I recently wrote a feature where I talked about the vocal and sonic layers that go into Kate Bush’s songs. I forgot to mention a few highlights from Never for Ever. The sound of buzzing bees that go from speaker to speaker on Delius (Song of Summer); a drill sergeant shouting commands during Army Dreamers; footsteps moving from left to right speakers on All We Ever Look for, then there being this sound of a door opening; the faux radio report that can be heard on Breathing. Again, thanks to Tom Doyle for his words! Not only was Bush bringing in more characters, sound effects, colours and layers to her music. She was also someone who was not confined to a rigid band or the same players. This would continue through her next two albums, The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. However, perhaps there was more instinct and new disciplines learned by the time she produced those albums. Never for Ever was about self-discovery as much as anything. Kate Bush still learning the studio and the technology. Finding ways to convey her visions to musicians. It did mean that players were cut and others drafted in. As I have said, the band rotated for particular songs. A long list of bass players of drummers tried for various numbers. It seems tracks like Breathing were especially tough to gel when it came to finding the right musicians to get the sound just so. Bush always making these changes and cuts professionally and kindly. Musicians could not take things to heart or feel like they were singled out. It was what needed to be done. This young and ambitious producer crafting and searching all the time. What emerged from the process was a number one album and one of her finest releases. Even if her method of rotating musicians might have been quite costly and a struggle at times, when you think what she released in September of 1980, Kate Bush was clearly…

ON the right course!

FEATURE: All She Ever Looks For: The Sonic Layers, Unique Worlds and Details in Kate Bush’s Music

FEATURE:

 

 

All She Ever Looks For

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in August 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix

The Sonic Layers, Unique Worlds and Details in Kate Bush’s Music

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I have recently published…

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1982

an article about Kate Bush’s demos. Early recordings that date back to 1973 and 1974. Whilst extraordinary, they were defined by musical simplicity. Not in terms of the richness of the composition but the fact it was largely Bush and her piano. The more her career developed, you could feel Bush building up layers. There was always that layered effect. In terms of the vocals on The Kick Inside and Lionheart from 1978. When Bush took on production duties, you could feel the music starting to expand. Not something afforded under Andrew Powell’s watch, albums like Never for Ever and The Dreaming are dense with different sounds and sights. Much busier and more physical albums. I am going to return to Tom Doyle’s book, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush, for this feature. There is a section where he explores the characters and sonic waves, layers and details through her albums. Something that struck my eye and made me think more deeply about her role as a producer and gift as an artist. Think about how Bush adds so much texture and detail to her music. A song like Experiment IV. A single that was the only new song on her only greatest hits collection, The Whole Story, this 1986 song has styled violin stabs; this feeling of a Horror soundtrack. Echoes, as Tom Doyle writes, of the cut-up vocal sound of Hounds of Love’s Waking the Witch. I don’t think any Kate Bush song or album is straightforward or basic. Even the more romantic songs on The Kick Inside feature these fascinating backing vocals and interesting inflections from Kate Bush. Always wants to make her music as arresting as possible. Think about the reworked version of This Woman’s Work that appeared on 2011’s Director’s Cut. The original was written for the 1987 film, She’s Having a Baby. Director John Hughes had Bush in mind when it came to writing a song for the climatic scene where Kevin Bacon’s Jake faced losing his wife, Kristy (Elizabeth McGovern), and unborn child due to a traumatic labour. Bush felt it was a very moving scene. She watched it on a screen in the studio whilst sat at the piano and wrote This Woman’s Work quite quickly. Del Palmer convinced her to include the song in her next album, 1989’s The Sensual World.

I can understand why Kate Bush reapproached this song for Director’s Cut. Giving it a new twist and sound, she expanded the song to over six minutes and played it on a Fender Rhodes. There was boys’ choir-like oohs and ahhs. The vocal dynamics were scaled back. Bush can add to a song but also subtract. Changing it and updating. Making it sound new but familiar. Some artists can overload their tracks or miss opportunities. I don’t think Bush is like that. Definitely as a producer, she utilises technology as much as possible but only adds what is truly necessary. The track Why Should I Love You? from 1993’s The Red Shoes was Prince taking this track and overloading it. I think Bush did not want to repeat this. Having songs that had too much on them and it was too intense. I will come back to albums like Never for Ever (1980), The Dreaming (1982) and Hounds of Love (1985). Even though the well-considered details and layers on her albums is something to marvel, Bush did admit that sometimes she overdid things. Her view and not other people’s. Bush told Tom Doyle, when he interviewed her in 2005, that she wants to be adventurous and loves having the studio at her fingers. However, maybe things can go a bit far at times. There are not conflicts with musicians or anyone around her. It is an internal conflict. Bush said how hard it is to write something interesting. How nothing is original. Everything has been done before in some way. In 1987, when in a studio setting things up to record for The Sensual World, Bush felt suffocated. With all this technology at East Wickham Farm, she struggled to keep control of everything. She could not really go further. It was clear that something had to change. If the first song she attempted for the album, Love and Anger, was an issue and too much was thrown at it, the other songs eventually began to flow. Maybe Bush at her best when she is not trying to push songs to the limit. That fine balance between making something fresh and interesting and not making it too crowded and full.

It is not only layers of sound that Bush puts into music. She draws from film, literature and history. Unlike any other artist ion my view, she has this rich arsenal of sounds and lyrics. Maybe Bowie is a comparison. How both could reinvent themselves between albums and were anything but ordinary. The first couple of albums from Kate Bush were defined by the vocal brilliance. The wonderful banks of backing vocals and the nuances in her piano playing. These rich sonic details and layers that elevated these songs to new heights. From Never for Ever onwards, machinery and technology would play a bigger role. The Fairlight CMI particularly important. Whether it was sound effects like breaking glass or a cocked gun, Bush’s songs had so much colour and emotions. That album particularly is a perfect balance between ambition and economy. Not overdoing things. The vocal conversions and crowd sounds on All We Ever Look For. The vocal blends and sound on Delius (Song of Summer). The epic Breathing and the exceptional production on that. A beautiful segue/vignette like Night Scented Stock. The details and different effects on a song such as Army Dreamers. Bush adding layers to a story. Many people might have different views, though I think Bush’s songs are rife with curious little details and these wonderful additions. A perfect cocktail and brew. I want to come to a couple of articles that discuss Bush’s sonic gifts. Well, one paper that argues Bush is a conceptual artist rather than a traditional songwriter. I am not sure how useful it is to my point, but Bush creates songs and layers sounds much like an artist would approach a work. How she uses technology and what she wants to create for the listener. This publication from 2017 raises some interesting observations:

“Kate Bush is, in the foremost sense, a conceptual artist. Her work, in itself, presents theoretical arguments that are useful for understanding the limitations and creative thresholds of contemporary popular music cultures. Across her career, Bush has consistently elaborated concepts, told stories and communicated ideas. Her work harbours intellectual aspirations, in the spirit of much progressive rock music. We need look no further than the elaborate song cycle of ‘The Ninth Wave’ from Hounds of Love (1985) or ‘Sky of Honey’ from Aerial (2005) to witness the execution of conceptual forms that invite what Ron Moy calls ‘critical connections between influences, works and weighty matters of epistemological analysis’ (Moy 2007, p. 39-40). Yet Bush’s recent work, I want to suggest, exists in tension with the ‘contemporary structure of listening’ that sanctions ‘specific technical mediations of listening as subjectively normative’ (Mowitt 1987 p. 214-217).

Her work, in other words, is at deliberate odds with the contemporary structure of the digital, which is normatively perceived to engender shuffle-based, discontinuous listening. To counter this tendency Bush seeks to recreate the creative and listening processes associated with analogue technology. Through this she remains ‘conceptually analogue,’ 1 primarily in the temporal sense, because her conceptual work relies on the attentive, unfolding of the listeners’ consciousness. Such temporalaesthetic unity is compromised by contemporary structures of listening that have been characterized as an unstable ‘technological ecology’ (Roy 2015, p. 1), within which the consumption of popular music has become multiple, heterogeneous and fragmented (Nowak 2015). Bush’s career straddles many different technological eras. In the 1980s she was at the forefront of innovations driving creativity in the music industry. She was a pioneer user of the Fairlight sampling synthesizer, and effectively mobilized the promotional video to publicise her music at the height of MTV’s popularity. Yet when it comes to contemporary digital technologies, and how they shape listeners’ engagements with her music, there is discernible hesitancy. In her characteristically selective promotion of 2011’s Director’s Cut, such feelings were expressed as a preference for analogue formats: 1 Wolfgang Ernst (2014, my italics) explains that ‘when the transfer techniques of audio carriers changes from technically extended writing such as analog[ue] phonography to calculation (digitization), this is not just another version of the materialities of tradition, but a conceptual change […] material tradition is not just function of a linear time base any more.’ 3 The great thing about vinyl is that if you wanted to get a decent-sounding cut, you could really only have 20 minutes max on each side. So you had a strict boundary, and that was something I’d grown up with as well. Also, you were able to have different moods on each side, which was nice […] There was something about having this 12” disc—it even smelled nice (Bush quoted in Domball 2011). The dis-ease is further elaborated in the special edition booklet accompanying Director’s Cut. Here she reflects on the process of creating 1993’s The Red Shoes, an album that straddled the transition from analogue to digital production methods: ‘everyone was under so much pressure back then [i.e., the late 1980s and early 1990s] to work in the digital domain as it promised so much with the lack of tape hiss and its supposed clarity.

I remain a devoted lover of analogue’ (Bush 2011). These statements reveal two important points. Firstly, that analogue was formative for Kate Bush; it was something she’d ‘grown up with’. Here we can point to certain kinds of studio techniques but also, crucially, how analogue formats—and Bush is explicit in naming the ‘nice smelling’ analogue record—delimited how creative possibilities were embedded within the popular music artefact. The value of a strict temporal boundary—20 minutes maximum each side—profoundly shaped how concepts were formed, lending the artist a technique for structural-aesthetic consistency inherent to the format. This, in turn, shaped the listening experience for the ‘consumer’. The second point to note is that the digital, at the cutting edge of late 1980s early adoption, felt to Bush an imposition. ‘Everyone was under so much pressure back then,’ and under such pressures it is presumably hard to make aesthetic decisions based on preferences for recording techniques rapidly moving ‘out of fashion’, as analogue methods were at that juncture. Bush’s analogue fidelity was therefore informed by her experience as both listener of analogue-borne music and as creative artist working within the enabling constraint of analogue affordances. The sequential/ durational temporalities of analogue forms profoundly shaped her experience and idea(l) of what music ‘is’. The strategic provocation of temporal relationships within Director’s Cut and 50 Words for Snow are then examples of ‘conceptually analogue’ practices created by Bush that respond to the normative lack of duration within the early 21st century’s social-technical milieu”.

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

I am going to quickly look inside a few of her studio albums and the various layers and sounds. In 2014, this feature was published. It notes how Bush took risks with her on some albums. Even if the writer found some of her later work a bit simple and less risk-taking, they also highlight wonderful details that made their way into some of her songs. Sound effects and sonic diversions that are delightful. How Bush’s voice is one of the best instruments in her arsenal. How it impacts her music and how it has changed through the years:

“If you go back to Hounds of Love, the first thing you notice is that in those days she took far more risks with her voice: there was far more higher register and far more lower register, far more affectation (in a good way), far more play. It often sounds like she is obeying the pulse of a very personal ceremony, with its time signatures and textures all over the place. These days she relies more on default settings: there are too many songs with just Kate and her rainy-day piano. ‘We become panoramic,’ she sings, but the music never does, quite; it’s mostly ‘qualidy rock’ that’s a smidge too smooth, predictable, homogeneous. All her guest artistes are men of a certain age, from either Saturdays-gone-by light entertainment telly, or 1970s rock. If you can gauge someone’s taste for artistic risk by consulting their visitor’s book, then – well, let’s take a look: Lenny Henry, Dave Gilmour, Nigel Kennedy, Jeff Beck, Eric Clapton, Lol Creme, Gary Brooker, Andy Fairweather Low ... I can’t be the only Kate fan who puts their fingers in their ears when Rolf Harris and Stephen Fry come in as guest vocalists.

‘Hounds of Love’, though, is quite simply one of the most beautiful songs pop music has ever produced. It’s not just a song about abandon, but one that embodies feelings of anxiety and abandon, smallness and bigness, in its dizzying drive and texture and in Bush’s joyously unhinged singing. Her keening vocals suggest adult poise on the verge of helpless childhood fall. The whole song, but especially the line ‘his little heart, it beats so fast,’ still automatically reduces me to tears. The arc she makes of ‘hold’ in the yelp of ‘hold me down’ is truly overwhelming: at once pained and lost and powerfully erotic. Listen to the closing minutes of ‘Running Up That Hill’, with its muted chorus of multi-tracked Kates: screaming, grieving, witchy, shattered, a sonic foam rising above the song’s jagged tribunal. It’s a very odd song indeed. At the very least, it claws and rubs at the dissolute line between ecstasy and abjection in a way that was, shall we say, uncommon in mainstream 1980s pop: ‘Tearing you asunder ... do you want to know it doesn’t hurt me?’ Or listen to the way she enunciates the line ‘you never understood me’ in ‘The Big Sky’, her voice somewhere between a caress and a storm warning. Listen to the bizarre chorus she makes of her voice, how it conveys utter exhilaration at its own just glimpsed possibilities. Such wayward joys begin to explain why some of us were so entranced by her to begin with. (I clearly remember hearing ‘Running up That Hill’ for the first time, on the radio in 1985, on what happened to be my birthday. I immediately rang several people to tell – or maybe warn – them about it.)

We don’t necessarily expect artists to keep taking such giant leaps throughout a long career; but the wild glee and panic play seem to have all but evaporated lately. At the end of a long, gently rocky sequence on side two of Aerial there’s a brief, silvery glint of multi-tracked Kates, but they’re promptly flattened by some awful, hackneyed ‘rock out’ guitar. Then right upon Aerial’s crest and end, she unexpectedly bursts into joyful, pealing, baffled laughter, apparently away with the birds and their morning song. ‘What kind of language is this!?’ It’s one of the only times in late-period Kate with the same gawky, light-headed charm and strangeness of the early days. A small thing, easy to overlook, but on the tiny sticker attached to the CD of Aerial it’s referred to as ‘the new double album’ – as if we were still in the gatefold 1970s, not the digital download 2000s. The Bush home studio, far from being a safe place for risky play, seems to have become a playhouse for her roster of greying rock chums and light entertainment panjandrums. All deeply nice blokes and everything, I’m sure, but maybe a certain fluffy-slipper retreat behind ‘nice blokeness’ is one of the problems here.

There’s an odd thing about both Aerial and Snow, though: under that chummy, soft rock exterior a lot of her new songs sound mournful, even desolate – full of characters middle-aged or older looking back with wistful disappointment and regret at what might have been. They’re figures who can’t come together or stay together or who just missed staying together: adrift, vainly searched for, trapped between or beyond worlds. There’s a sense of lost or frozen time: of double-sided or divided people, who at some point let their more reasonable selves take control, and lost inestimable treasure through the deal. ‘A sense of nostalgia for what never was,’ as Pessoa put it, ‘the desire for what could have been; regret over not being someone else.’ And, just maybe, the ambiguous cue for her own return to the spotlight”.

It is clear from these two sources is that Kate Bush takes risks. I would disagree that her later albums are less fascinating. Each of them has so much detail and brilliant layers. Even 50 Words for Snow. The Kick Inside has those vocal harmonies and subtle instrumental touches. How beer bottles, a clavinet, celeste and boobam feature. A range of vocals. From Bush’s more high-range vocals to deeper tones from Ian Bairnson and Paddy Bush. Similarly on Lionheart. Recorders, a strumento de porco (psaltery) and a range of different percussion and guitars adding their own shades and contours to various songs. How Bush created entire moods and emotions with her voice. Few people talk about the way her vocals were so important. Not only the lead vocal. How she would multitrack herself and there were so many different accents and sounds she made with her voice. Never for Ever has a few great backing vocalists – including Gary Hurst and Andrew Bryant – and some wonderful esoteric instruments like the balalaika, koto, strumento de porco, musical saw and banshee (all played by Paddy Bush). It was not a case of Kate Bush raiding the sonic toybox and throwing everything onto the floor. Each instrument, voice and element was deployed perfectly to give her songs their distinct sound. Bush utilising technology more for The Dreaming. How the Fairlight CMI and its almost limitless range of sounds expanded Kate Bush’s horizons. Her voice more physical, masculine and primal. How it is a rawer album than its predecessors but the songs are dense but not suffocating. Think about how she utilises instruments like the penny whistle, uilleann pipes, bouzuki and Fairlight CMI trumpet section. Hounds of Love and The Sensual World perhaps gentler or more feminine albums.

That said, Hounds of Love is still a physical album. One that has a masculine energy but there is less darkness - and you can feel the influence of the natural world. Bush creating these songs that were almost like suites. The way she used her voice so effectively. Whether it was the way she projected a line or various inflections, these additions are key to the brilliance of the whole. Her production flawless throughout. A whole range of instruments and players adding to the magic. I will finish soon. It is clear that Bush creates this magic and mystery that has inspired so many other artists. How she puts so much emphasis on the sound and feel of songs. Someone who loves the process of making an album. Wanting it to impact the listener. This 2022 feature from the BBC goes inside Kate Bush’s alternative universe:

“Bush's uncommonly risky decision to retire from touring at the age of 20 enabled her to concentrate on record-making, taking on the role of co-producer with 1980's Never for Ever and experimenting with the latest technology. Her spectacularly weird and wild self-produced follow-up, The Dreaming, was a slate-wiper that made anything possible. "Going into the studio every day with her was like entering a fantasy land," according to engineer Nick Launay. She developed a similar taste for creative control when it came to making music videos. For female artists who are used to seeing the credit for half their work go to male collaborators, her autonomy is an inspiration. "It's so great," St Vincent has said of The Dreaming. "She totally went for it."

Her influence, however, has been constant, with disciples including Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, Lady Gaga, Bat for Lashes, Goldfrapp, Florence Welch, Joanna Newsom, Tricky and Outkast. Some artists open the door to a new room in the house of music; Bush is one of a handful whose imagination revealed the existence of a whole new wing. For her, anything can be the germ of a song (inspirations on Aerial include laundry, bird song and the number Pi) and any perspective is legitimate: a child, a foetus, a cockney bank robber, a Himalayan explorer, a man watching his wife give birth, a ghost. She is an adventurer and an alchemist; a perfectionist and a dreamer”.

This 2021 feature tells how Hounds of Love took Electronic music to new places. It was a bit of a revolution. It definitely evolved the genre. I want to quote from this feature. Artists explaining why they love Kate Bush. I will highlight those who talk about her vocal effects and the way she can keep her music busy and layered but also quite sparse and accessible. Sharon Van Etten highlighted the almost cinematic nature of Bush’s voice: “As a singer, the thing that has directly affected me is her circular style of melodies; one comes into the other and they never exactly repeat in the same way. I don’t think it’s ever very strict verse-chorus. The wrong person could make what she does sound really cheesy. In isolation the ideas might not make sense, whereas she can push it to this other place: her choices are really beautiful and massive and dramatic. It feels very much like cinema to me”. Brian Molko (Placebo) admires how “Kate created her own emotional universe”. This is what Rae Morris observed: “Her music is all about combining small details with spiritual, otherworldly, wider cinemascape stuff: a really grand, imaginative to-the-moon-and-back scale, but also the sound of the blood running through your veins”. These words from Hayden Thorpe resonated with me: “It has almost become a subgenre, that form of hyperbolic expression – so singular and so uniquely English. It is as if it’s from English mythology: Maid Marian, good against evil, the woods. I think the thing she maybe isn’t given enough credit for is the sonic mastery of her records: they are pioneering, at times experimental and at times harmonically bizarre, but it just always seems to work. The Morning Fog, the last song on Hounds of Love, is a kind of symphony-in-micro – it takes you on this really compelling journey and transports you”.

Barry Hyde of The Futureheads highlighted how “Her music is entirely idiosyncratic. Every song is a different world with its own voice – she’s like an actor in how she uses her voice”. He noted too how “Even after covering one of her songs, I find that when I listen to her music there is still a lot of mystery in it for me; often, I really don’t know what she’s doing. That’s not something that happens very often any more because I’m a music lecturer now, so I listen to music in a very analytical way. Hers is an incredible art: so unpredictable, deeply beautiful and at times very silly”. Russell Mael of Sparks said this: “Literate. Sophisticated. Not fitting in. Musically challenging, yet not proclaiming that you are musically challenging. Not being part of a movement. Creating your own movement. Not part of a past musical model. Establishing your own world. Staying true to that world”. In 2023, this is what St. Vincent (Annie Clark) said of Kate Bush: “Kate Bush. First heard her song ‘This Woman’s Work” in the pivotal scene in the 1988 film She’s Having A Baby. And though I was 7 or 8 and too young to understand much of anything, I wept. “Then around age 16 I went to CD World in Dallas and saw a copy of ‘The Sensual World’ on the racks. And I was so taken with her. Her expression. The flower to her lips. I hadn’t put the pieces together yet that this was the woman who sang THAT song. But I took it home and it was her. That woman who could soar so high into the ether and reach so deep into your soul. The entire album is a masterpiece, but I still cannot listen to ‘This Woman’s Work’ without weeping. “Then I was working on my first record and an engineer friend played me ‘Hounds of Love.’ It was everything. So urgent. So emotional. An entire sonic world. Deeply catchy and deeply bizarre. ART. Kate. Singular. Inimitable. Then the early records. For me: ‘The Kick Inside’. ‘The dreaming’. And later, still pushing soaring on ‘Aerial’. How could someone be this genius and pure and completely free? Vocally, musically, physically?”. It is that Kate Bush, through vocals, instruments or technology, creates these sonic worlds, wonderful universes and details. Layers and depths to her songs. Standing her music aside from anything any other artist has done. Whether the vocal layering from her earliest albums or the more technology-driven details that worked their way through her albums in the 1980s, Bush always stood aside from her peers. Creating something original, rich and cinematic. That is all she…

EVER looks for.

FEATURE: Heavy People and Helpful Friends: Why Kate Bush’s 1978 Must Rival The Beatles’ 1967 in Terms of Workload

FEATURE:

 

 

Heavy People and Helpful Friends

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush promoting The Kick Inside in Holland on 4th April, 1978

Why Kate Bush’s 1978 Must Rival The Beatles’ 1967 in Terms of Workload

_________

I might have covered this before…

IN THIS PHOTO: The Beatles in 1967

but it is amazing thinking what Kate Bush achieved in 1978. As we are at the start of a new year, I wanted to think back forty-seven years. On 20th January, 1978, Kate Bush released her debut single, Wuthering Heights. Things did not begin there. Even before the single came out, Bush was pretty busy. I am going to drop in a timeline of her activities in 1978. I think back to The Beatles. A band Kate Bush adored, I think she especially loved their output in 1967. A year when they released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Magical Mystery Tour, it was a year where they released albums, singles and a film. That film, Magical Mystery Tour, would have been packed into their schedule. The quartet had an amazingly busy 1967! Maybe 1964 was more hectic and strange for The Beatles. In terms of relentless touring and output. However, I think that 1967 is their busiest year. Two albums and a film together with the usual promotional circuit. Spending weeks in the studio creating some of their finest work. The band were starting to fray in 1967. By 1968, it was clear they were pulling apart. One can say that it was nobody’s fault. It was this non-stop touring and promoting. The band being in close quarters for years. I can only imagine how The Beatles got through 1967. You can read more about the band’s activity from 1967. I know that Kate Bush, consciously or not, followed The Beatles’ example and ethos. When it came to spending time in the studio and pushing technology to the limits. Influenced by their music and their experimental nature, you could tell that she admired their prolificacy and workmate. Perhaps not the extremes of touring. How they dedicated so much time in the studio and stopped touring after 1966. Maybe that was a reason Bush only did one tour. She looked at a band like The Beatles and could see the downsides of touring. Too much time away from the studio. The strain it had on relationships. Even though she was flying solo for the most part, she still had musicians and crew around her.

It was only natural there would be certain demands around Kate Bush in 1978. She released The Kick Inside in February. The success of Wuthering Heights changed everything. In terms of the countries she visited. That alone was exhausting. Visiting, the U.S., Australia and Europe, she was pulled back and forth. In an age where artists had no Internet or convenient way to promote their music, travel a big part of promotion. Appearing in magazines and T.V. shows around the world. However, few artists had such a hectic and busy time as Kate Bush (with only one album out). Wuthering Heights reached number one. There were so many T.V. appearances to promote the song. Multiple slots on Top of the Pops. Promotion in nations such as Germany and Ireland. A tonne of print and radio interviews. A second studio album, Lionheart, released in the November. Bush writing and recording more or less whilst she was still promoting The Kick Inside! Even though The Beatles’ path and lives were different to that of Kate Bush, I compare their 1967 to Kate Bush’s 1978. Different projects on the go. Barely a time to rest. Whereas The Beatles ended 1967 more fractured than before and knew that they were heading in different directions, Kate Bush was just starting out. No albums were released in 1979. Instead, she knew that she could not have another year like 1978. Two albums where she wasn’t producing and did not feel in control of her music. Too much promotion and travel! The Tour of Life did involve travel but it was a way for Bush to regain some control and do a project that was more in her vision. The last bits of Lionheart promotion were finished. Just think about all the different photos taken of Kate Bush in 1978. Becoming one of the most photographed and seen artists in the world.

I am not sure whether there was a big conversation between Kate Bush and EMI at the end of 1978. They probably would have asked for a third studio album or more singles. Even though they also wanted her to tour, it would have been more profitable for them to have her release an album. If she had another year like 1978 then I think Bush would have had to step away. It would have done a lot of damage. Granted, she did fit a lot in to 1979. Beyond The Tour of Life, there were photoshoots and music released. Wow was released in March 1979. She began recording for her third studio album, Never for Ever. However, one feels 1979 was a happier one. She co-produced that album with Jon Kelly and made sure her tour had her visions and concepts at the fore. Still a teenager when 1978 begun, she grew up in public incredible fast. Whilst many loved Wuthering Heights, there were many who did not. Kate Bush parodied and ridiculed. I shall come back to The Beatles at the end. Let’s take a look at Kate Bush’s 1978 and the key events. Thanks to Gaffaweb for their tireless chronicling of Kate Bush’s career. All the events, interviews and bits of news:

“January 1978

At a three-day sales conference for EMI International delegates, Kate sings live [song or songs unidentified], and Bob Mercer predicts that she will be one of the major talents of the future.

January 20, 1978

Wuthering Heights is finally released. Kate does her first live radio interview on Tony Myatt's Late Show.

Airplay for the single rapidly builds on British commercial radio, on Radio Luxemburg, and on BBC Radio 1.

February 7, 1978

Wuthering Heights enters the "official" BMRB chart at number 42.

That declaration from EMI at the start of 1978. Predicting that Kate Bush would be a massive success! Wuthering Heights came out, reached number one and already set her on that path. January, February and March 1978 were about Wuthering Heights climbing the chart and the impact that this had. It was a really intense period. Whilst Kate Bush would have been excited to see her debut single do so well, she could not have predicted how her life would change and the demands put upon her. Someone whose aim was to make an album and not be famous, there was this tussle and conflict between her dream and the realities of being a popular artist.

February and March 1978 were possibly the two busiest months of that year. Her debut album released and Wuthering Heights reaching number one. The explosion and instant success of that single and a debut album that was the recipient of huge critical acclaim, Still nineteen, this success and chart glory naturally was met with a demand for her to travel and perform live:

February 9, 1978

Kate makes her first-ever television appearance in a disused tram depot in West Germany, for the famous Bio's Bahnhof on WDR-TV. She sings Kite live, backed effectively by the KT Bush Band, and Wuthering Heights to a backing tape. The backdrop, which is supposed to represent the Yorkshire moors, includes a volcano. Following her performance the host, Dr. Alfred Biolek, carries on an entirely one-sided onstage conversation with Kate--in German.

February 14, 1978

The single moves up to number 27. Having cracked the magic "top forty", the gates open and Kate appears on...

February 16, 1978

Top of the Pops. She performs in high heels and slacks. Kate says later, "It was like watching myself die...a bloody awful performance."

February 17, 1978

Kate's first album, The Kick Inside, is released, and a huge promotional campaign is unleashed.

February 21, 1978

The single moves up to number 13.

February 25, 1978

Kate performs live on BBC TV's Saturday Nights at the Mill, singing Moving and Them Heavy People and giving a brief interview. She also appears on the programme Magpie.

The first major interviews appear in the music press, and Kate is the subject of intense media attention. She begins preparing for a live tour, projected for mid-year.

February 28, 1978

The single moves up to number 5. Kate is said to be the most photographed woman in the U.K.

March 2, 1978

The Keith ("Keef") MacMillan-directed video for Wuthering Heights is shown on Top of the Pops. It is the second video for the song. The first, made by Rockflix in an [unidentified] outdoor setting, is rejected for British promotional use, although it is used in other territories.

March 7, 1978

Wuthering Heights is number 1 on the British singles chart, displacing Abba. The press turn it into a nationalistic celebration. EMI celebrate with a champagne reception for Kate, and dinner in Paris. She celebrates by buying a 7,000-Pound Steinway piano. The single celebrates by going silver in the U.K. (250,000 sales).

The single remains at number 1 for four weeks.

March 16, 1978

On the same evening as her second "number 1" appearance on Top of the Pops, Kate is interviewed on the BBC TV current-affairs programme, Tonight.

Mickie Most asks Kate to appear in the pilot edition of his new pop-rock television programme Revolver. She is introduced by Peter Cook and sings Them Heavy People (which EMI want to release as the follow-up single) live. The programme is screened on May 20, 1978. [This is not the performance included in the video compilation The Single File.]

March 25, 1978

Kate starts a four-day promotional trip to Eire, appearing on the top show in the Irish ratings, The Late Late Show.

[The Kick Inside is released in the U.S.A., unchanged except for an inappropriate U.S.- and Canada-only front-cover design, not authorized by Kate. This is sometimes known as the "mirror" cover. To this day the cover continues to be used by Harvest, EMI's distributor for Kate's recordings in Canada, but it was discontinued in the U.S. in July 1978 when Kate's contract was transferred to the newly launched EMI-America label.]

The album's reception in the U.S. is somewhat quieter than in Europe and England. [To put it mildly!] Capitol-EMI wait for FM radio-play to determine a likely single.

April and May were pretty intense too. Now that Wuthering Heights was a sensation, Bush was promoting relentlessly! Her album was a success too, yet you feel EMI were looking to album two already. It would not be long until Bush was dispatched to France to record Lionheart. So much promotion in 1978. How could she possibly concentrate and focus on new material at the same time as promoting her debut album?! It was a mad time:

April 4, 1978

Wuthering Heights moves down to number 3. The Kick Inside reaches its chart peak at number 3.

Kate is off to Europe to promote single and album in the Netherlands, West Germany (a second time) and France. In The Netherlands, Kate makes a 25-minute promotional film of six tracks [Peter inexplicably writes "seven", though only six tracks were filmed] at De Efteling is in Kaatsheuvel, a gothic horror theme-park. Her visit is commemorated by a new gravestone. She performs on the Voor De Vuist Weg television programme. In Germany Kate appears on the television programmes Scene '78 and Top Pop, performing Wuthering Heights on both shows. Other guests on the former programme include Dr. Feelgood and The Boomtown Rats.

During this month Kate also makes a brief trip to the United States for promotional purposes, arriving back in the U.K. by April 21st.

Tour plans are put back to the end of the year.

May, 1978

Kate makes her first promotional trip to the U.S.A. and Canada (although she gives no performances and makes no U.S. television appearances), and then takes a short holiday. [This must be the same trip which is mentioned immediately above, for April. The U.S.-made interview album Self Portrait may have been cut during this trip.]

Wuthering Heights goes gold in the U.K. (500,000 sales). Kate presents the disk to Tony Myatt. For four years it hangs in the foyer of Capitol Radio's London base.

The fact that there were tour plans for 1978. No time or space to do that in a year when she was promoting her debut album around the world. In the U.S. and Canada in May, Kate Bush headed to Japan in June. It was a brutal start to the summer! Full marks for Bush’s professionalism throughout that year. You get the impression her enthusiasm was starting to wane by June. She would have wanted to work on a tour or spend proper time writing new music. Instead, Bush was this international success whose wellbeing was probably not at the forefront.

EMI allow Kate to have her way over the choice of the follow-up single in the U.K. It is to be The Man With the Child in His Eyes, which Kate had always wanted to be a single, as she felt it showcased her real songwriting talent. It is less of a novelty, and more of a standard. Dave Gilmour (executive producer on the track, which actually dates from the June, 1975 demo-sessions) is also pleased. In Japan, the U.S. and elsewhere the follow-up later in the year will be EMI's first choice, Them Heavy People.

May 28, 1978

The second single is released in the U.K. Airplay and sales are very good.

June, 1978

Kate goes to Japan to participate in the 7th Tokyo Song Festival. On June 18 she performs Moving (which is the debut single in Japan) live before an audience of 11,000 at the Nippon Budokan. The television audience is nearer 35 million. The single is boosted on its way to number 1 in the Japanese chart. Kate wins the Silver Prize jointly with American group The Emotions [!].

During her visit, on June 23, Kate performs abridged versions of two Beatles songs, The Long and Winding Road and She's Leaving Home, on the Japanese television programme Sound in S, taped at Tokyo's TBS G Studio.

Also during her visit to Japan Kate makes her only television advertisement, and her only endorsement for a commercial product--a spot for Seiko watches.

On her return to Britain Kate has under four weeks to get material together for her second album. She does not like being under such pressure. In the time available, three new songs are written, and a number of old ones are revamped. These songs, making up the basic material for Lionheart, are demoed in a studio designed by Paddy Bush and built out of the royalties from Wuthering Heights.

From that strange whirlwind trip to Japan where she was hocking watches and performing in front of thousands, Bush was given that impossibly short deadline. Artists today would not be given a month to write and album’s worth of material! EMI should have given Bush until 1979 to write new material. She wrote those three new songs but had to rely on revisiting her archives. Something she did for The Kick Inside, the hope would have been for a fresh start. Lionheart could have been this big step and new sound. Instead, there is an awkward tangle. Some new musical and lyrical touches but many similarities with The Kick Inside.

July 1978

Kate is the best selling female albums artist in the U.K. for the first quarter of 1978. Wuthering Heights has been number 1 in the Netherlands, Belgium, New Zealand (five weeks), and Australia; and "top-ten" in Germany, France, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden and Finland.

July 4, 1978

The Man With the Child in His Eyes reaches its chart peak in the U.K. at number 6.

The Kick Inside is re-released in the U.S.A. on a new label--EMI-America [and with a different but equally inappropriate cover, now sometimes referred to as the "country-western" or "Tammy Wynette" cover.] Wuthering Heights is finally released as a single in the U.S. There are some good notices, but Kate is considered by radio programmers to be "too bizarre" for the American market.

July 7, 1978

Kate travels to Superbear Studios in Nice, France to record her second album. She had had good reports of this studio from Dave Gilmour, who recorded his first solo album there. The recording is a much-needed break for Kate. In the sunshine and the mountain air she recovers from almost six months of solid promotion, and pursues her real vocation, making music.

August, 1978

It takes ten weeks at Superbear to record twelve tracks, of which ten are used for the new album. [These two unreleased tracks have never been identified.] Kate has definite aims for this album. She sees her first album as having affected the senses. Lionheart is to be aimed at the guts. In this she comes into some conflict with Andrew Powell, who is again acting as producer. She is allowed more of her own way in the studio, and after applying some pressure, she is able to bring the KT Bush Band in to play on some of the tracks. Kate is credited as assistant producer, but Lionheart is the end of the road for the Bush-Powell partnership

That tension in the studio. Bush’s band playing on a few tracks but Andrew Powell’s players performing on most of the tracks. It was a very stressful and upsetting time for such a new artist. I think one of those two new tracks was Never For Ever. The title song for her third studio album that was never included. I would love to know what that other track was. The Kick Inside had thirteen tracks and Bush had so many song choices. Things were more rushed and difficult for Lionheart. Going through the autumn, there was this crossover between The Kick inside and Lionheart. No real break or distinction between the albums!

September 5, 1978

Kate debuts one of the tracks from Lionheart on a U.K. children's television programme, Ask Aspel. She later explains that she wanted to sing In the Warm Room, but felt that it was too risque for a children's show. She sings Kashka From Baghdad, a song about two gay lovers, instead.

As the album takes longer than expected, Kate is recalled to London by EMI to do some prior promotion. At her own request, Kate is interviewed by a diverse collection of publications ranging from The Sun, to Vegetarian and Vogue (the last featuring Kate in photographs by David Bailey).

October 11, 1978

From completing the final mix of the album, Kate is straight on a plane for Australia, where she is to preside with that month's teen pop sensation Leif Garrett over the Tenth annual TV Week King of Pop Awards before a live audience of 1,000 in a circus tent, and a television audience of two million on the Nine Network.

The next day Kate also performs live on the television programme Countdown, debuting the routine for Hammer Horror, devised in her hotel room. Hammer Horror is planned as the first single from the new album.

October 17, 1978

Kate moves on to New Zealand, specifically Christchurch, for a television special. There she again performs Hammer Horror.

The live tour is put back to February 1979.

November, 1978

Julie Covington, who has known Kate and her family for many years, releases an album including her own cover version of The Kick Inside.

Kate promotes Lionheart in the Netherlands, German and France [although I have no record of any television appearances dating from the trip].

Even before Lionheart is released, Bush is sent over to Australia to promote it! It was a case of EMI doing whatever they could to ensure that her music stayed in people’s mind. The impact that this had. If Bush was hoping for a quieter end to the year then she was not afforded one! Her diary was pretty full until December. With her second album released on 10th November, 1978, Bush knew she could not relax or find any time for reflection. She did have a busy final two months of the year.

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

November 7, 1978

Hammer Horror enters the British singles chart at the unexpectedly low place of number 73. [Contrary to usual record-company theory, saturation of the market place with new, rushed product nearly immediately after the success of a debut album is more often than not a poor business move, and usually does as much damage as good to the artist's budding popularity. The commercially mediocre sales of Lionheart should not have surprised anyone.]

Lionheart has its international launch at the 14th-century Ammersoyen Castel, two hours' drive from Amsterdam. 120 guests, from EMI Europe, Canada and the UK, and including disk jockeys Tony Myatt and Kenny Everett, as well as Dr. and Mrs. Bush, attend the reception. After dinner, in the grounds of the castle, Leo Bouderwijas, the President of the Association of Dutch Phonographical Industries, presents Kate with the prestigious Edison Award for the best single of 1978. Kate is also presented with a platinum disc for sales of the album in Holland.

November 8, 1978

Kate flies back to the U.K. for a private buffet at The Venue for the presentation of the Melody Maker 1978 Poll Awards. In the first year of her public career Kate has been voted Best Female Vocalist and Brightest Hope of 1978.

November 10, 1978

The international release of Lionheart.

November 17, 1978

Kate performs Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake on The Leo Sayer Show, on BBC TV. She is off on a personal appearance tour of British record shops.

November 21, 1978

Hammer Horror reaches its chart peak, number 44. Lionheart enters the album chart at number 36.

December, 1978

Kate is off to promote in the U.S.A. for the release there of The Man With the Child in His Eyes.

Kate Bush promoting The Kick Inside and Lionheart at the same time. Though her U.S. T.V. debut (and sole appearance on U.S. T.V.) was big, you get the impression it was all a bit too much. Barely rested after coming back from Australia, Bush was put on a plane again! It was such an intense and scary year. Bush had not had any experience of this level of promotion and travel. I am not sure whether she had another year as big and busy as 1978.

December 9, 1978

Most importantly, she performs two songs on the U.S. NBC-TV programme, Saturday Night Live. [This is the only live entertainment programme on U.S. television, and is the most influential programme for the pop music market, as well the most important American showcase for "alternative" music. Kate performs The Man With the Child in His Eyes, seated on a piano, to the accompaniment of veteran rock keyboardist Paul Shaffer; and Them Heavy People, in a raincoat and Fedora hat. Nothing remotely like it has ever been seen on American television before.]

She is invited by Eric Idle, who is host of that edition; and she is visited by Mick Jagger. Paul Simon drops in to watch her performance.

Kate does press and radio promotion and moves on to Canada for more of the same. She is known to have made no other North American television appearances during this trip, however.

Back in England the Kate Bush Club, the official fan club, is formed”.

It is nice that the Kate Bush Club was formed at the end of the year. From, in January, EMI proclaiming that Kate Bush would be a big success to her fan club being set up in the December, so much was covered. Traveling to the U.S., Australia, Japan and Europe. Releasing several singles and two albums. Countless chats and interviews. T.V. exposure and chart success. Some new songs written, though not as many as she would have liked! Who knows what Kate Bush was thinking during Christmas 1978. She had a lot to reflect on and be happy with. She must have feared another year of travel and promotion. However, in 1979, things did change. Her tour was the big event. Even if there was a lot of travel, it was around the U.K. and Europe. Bush able to perform her music using her own concepts. Not chatting to journalists or appearing on T.V. shows. Bush would have busy years after 1978, though I don’t think any matches the effort and time she spent traveling in her first professional year.

People say how busy The Beatles were. I think 1967 was a good example. The fact that there were two albums out and a film. Singles and lots of interviews. Whilst they stopped touring the year before and wanted to spend more time in the studio, Bush started touring the year after 1978 and also wanted to spend more time in the studio. The band had support and each other to fall back on, but there was also that inter-band fraying and the tension of four artists spending so much time together. For Bush, she had to shoulder so much of the energy and burden. Rather than crumble or retire or suffer any huge setbacks, instead she made some decisions. She knew she did not want to work with another producer. Well, not Andrew Powell! She needed to be more in charge of her music. Not wanting to have so little time to create another album, The Tour of Life was a way of creating this gap. She was eager to get back into the studio when the tour was over. Forty-seven years ago, EMI heralded this exciting young artist. From there, this was this insane trip around the world. It is almost impossible to believe how much she was asked to do in 1978. I think of The Beatles. Maybe their 1964. But 1967 was one where they had this superhuman push! If The Beatles’ relationships and career did take a hit after 1967. For Bush, there were positives that came after 1978 closed. Her first tour. A new album being started. Some big changes in terms of who she had in the studio and how her music would be produced and directed. When Kate Bush woke up on 1st January, 1979 she would begin…

THE next (exciting) phase of her career.

FEATURE: Saturday Night Live at Fifty: Selections from the Best Musical Guests

FEATURE:

 

 

Saturday Night Live at Fifty

Selections from the Best Musical Guests

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ONE of the…

 PHOTO ILLUSTRATION CREDIT: Matthew Cooley, Images in illustration by Will Heath/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images, 3; Alan Singer/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal, 3

longest-running shows in T.V. history is celebrating fifty years. Saturday Night Live is hosted by a celebrity guest and features sketches and musical numbers. With nearly a thousand episodes broadcast since it first aired on 11th October, 1975, there has been a lot of celebration around this terrific series. There is also a new documentary coming up that shines a spotlight on the music guests. Before getting to that, here is some background and history of the iconic Saturday Night Live:

“Saturday Night Live (SNL) is an American late-night live sketch comedy variety show created by Lorne Michaels and developed by Michaels and Dick Ebersol that airs on NBC. The show's premiere was hosted by George Carlin on NBC on October 11, 1975, under the original title NBC's Saturday Night. The show's comedy sketches, which often parody contemporary American culture and politics, are performed by a large and varying cast of repertory and newer cast members. Each episode is hosted by a celebrity guest, who usually delivers the opening monologue and performs in sketches with the cast, with featured performances by a musical guest. An episode normally begins with a cold open sketch that is usually based on political events and ends with someone breaking character and proclaiming, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!", properly beginning the show”.

It is not only about the musical guests. However, Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music does have a particular focus on those great musical spots. I am really interested to see what comes from it. Billboard reported on an upcoming documentary that fans of Saturday Night Live and those who are casual viewers will enjoy:

“Saturday Night Live is currently celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the festivities continue with a brand new documentary NBC announced on Thursday (Dec. 19).

Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music will feature interviews with artists, cast members, writers and producers who have contributed to SNL‘s iconic legacy. The three-hour documentary will also “feature untold stories behind the culture-defining, groundbreaking and newsmaking musical performances, sketches and cameos of the past 50 years,” per a press release description.

The broadcast is directed by Questlove and Oz Rodriguez, and produced by Two One Five Entertainment, RadicalMedia and Broadway Video. Questlove also serves as executive producer alongside Lorne Michaels, Zarah Zohlman, Erin David, Dave Sirulnick, Jon Kamen, Meredith Bennett, Alexander H. Browne, Shawn Gee and Tariq Trotter. Rodriguez serves as producer. 

Bad Bunny, DJ Breakout, Elvis Costello, Miley Cyrus, Billie Eilish and Finneas, Dave Grohl, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein, Mick Jagger, Dua Lipa, Darryl DMC McDaniels, Tom Morello, Kacey Musgraves, Olivia Rodrigo, MC Sha-Rack, Paul Simon, Chris Stapleton, Justin Timberlake, Lee Ving and Jack White are all the musicians set to appear in the documentary. The show will also feature cast members including Jimmy Fallon, Bowen Yang, Fred Armisen, Conan O’Brien, Bill Hader, Eddie Murphy, Andy Samberg, Kenan Thompson, Maya Rudolph and many more.

“Everyone knows the most famous SNL appearances, whether it’s Elvis Costello, Prince or the Beastie Boys, but they’re the tip of a huge iceberg,” Questlove said in a press statement. “The process of going back through the incredible archival footage was like being in a time machine, DeLorean or other. I’m so happy I went on the trip and now get to share it with everyone.”

Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music will premiere Jan. 27 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on NBC and stream the next day on Peacock. The documentary is part of a collection of celebratory programming, including a four-part SNL50: Beyond Saturday Night Peacock docuseries on Jan. 16 and a live primetime special on Feb. 16 on NBC and Peacock”.

In November, Rolling Stone ranked the fifty-best musical performances on SNL. There is some tough competition! From Radiohead through to Taylor Swift and a great combination of George Harrison and Paul Simon, there have been some wonderful and scene-stealing performances from a variety of artists. Even though Saturday Night Live is a comedy show, the musicians add something different to the mix. Based on Rolling Stone’s top fifty ranking, I have selected artists from that list. Songs that they performed on Saturday Night Live. I have chosen the versions that were on the original studio albums. This is a musical guests mix to celebrate…

AN American institution at fifty.

FEATURE: Keep the Customer Satisfied: Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water at Fifty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

Keep the Customer Satisfied

Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge over Troubled Water at Fifty-Five

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THERE are a couple of…

good reasons to talk about Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth and final studio album, Bridge Over Trouble Water. Released on 26th January, 1970, it followed the duo’s soundtrack for The Graduate. Whilst Art Garfunkel was acting and had a role in Catch-22, Paul Simon wrote the soundtrack songs for The Graduate. Alongside producer Roy Halee, a masterpiece was released in 1970 with Bridge Over Troubled Water. Following similar musical ground to Bookends (1968), there were different genres and musical elements added. If the duo were more Folk/Folk Rock on previous albums, they introduced Rock, Pop, R&B and Gospel into their final album together. As it is coming up to its fifty-fifth anniversary, I wanted to spend some time with Bridge Over Troubled Water. With the title track, Cecilia,  So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright, The Boxer and The Only Living Boy in New York, this was a magnificent swansong for the duo. Paul Simon wrote all tracks bar Bye Bye Love (the best-known version is from the Everly Brothers). After the album came out, both artists took a more independent route. Art Garfunkel continued acting whilst Paul Simon continued songwriting. His 1972 eponymous album was the first solo release after Bridge Over Troubled Water. I will come to a feature that highlights the impact and political roots of Bridge Over Trouble Water’s title track. This feature is also worth reading. I want to start with a feature from Consequence from 2020. They write why it is one of the most poetic music farewells ever. A perfect way to sign off their recorded partnership:

“By the time Bridge Over Troubled Water arrived on January 26, 1970, Simon & Garfunkel had cemented themselves as arguably the supreme pairing in American popular music. After all, their prior four studio albums contained a multitude of enduring pieces — “A Hazy Shade of Winter”, “Bookends Theme”, “The Sounds of Silence”, “Mrs. Robinson”, and one of the chief compositions of the last century, “Scarborough Fair/Canticle “, among them —that demonstrated virtually unmatched songwriting, singing, social consciousness, and eclectic instrumentation. Although they’ve undoubtedly inspired countless proteges in their wake, there has never been and will never be another Simon & Garfunkel, and their last studio effort together is perhaps the greatest goodbye they could’ve delivered.

To be fair, they didn’t go into the studio with producer Roy Halee knowing that it’d be there swan song; still, it seemed the inevitable outcome considering how tense their partnership had become since 1968’s Bookends. A primary catalyst was Garfunkel’s role in Mike Nicholas’ adaptation of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, which took longer to film than expected. As the making-of-documentary The Harmony Game reveals, Simon was a bit frustrated by that — especially since he was supposed to be in it, too — and with other creative frustrations mounting behind the scenes, it was almost inevitable that they’d break up by 1971.  Nevertheless, Bridge Over Troubled Water, like many other finales from influential artists (namely, The Beatles’ Let It Be), symbolized the end of both the group and a large part of the cultural and political zeitgeists they represented.

As usual, Simon & Garfunkel enlisted plenty of noteworthy Wrecking Crew musicians to flesh out the LP, including bassist Joe Osborn, guitarist Fred Carter, Jr., drummer Hal Blaine, and keyboardist Larry Knechtel. In addition, Los Incas provided Peruvian instruments, Charlie McCoy added bass harmonica, Buddy Harman filled in other percussive roles, and Jon Faddis, Randy Brecker, Lew Soloff, and Alan Rubin bolstered some brass. Thus, Simon & Garfunkel had possibly their largest and most diverse arsenal of musicians yet to complement their already exquisite voices, complex guitar playing (at least from Simon), and internal sense of melody and structure. Together, they created an immensely varied sequence in terms of both arrangements and tonal shifts, infusing their folk-rock base with many other styles.

Honestly, there’s not much to say about the creation of Peter Powell’s front and back photos. However, there’s plenty to analyze when they’re taken in context and retrospection. Whereas the prior Simon & Garfunkel records featured the duo looking straight at the camera — and thus, at the listener — in various degrees of whimsical welcoming, Bridge Over Trouble Water finds them more world weary and disconnected. Specifically, Simon no longer looks boyish and innocent; instead, he seems more matured, unkempt, and disinterested, looking past the camera to imply that he’s already prepared to carry on with other ventures. While Garfunkel remains focused on the viewer, it’s only his eyes that convey any expression, and frankly, he looks deadly serious, if not a bit sullen. As for the imagery on the back, it’s an interesting parallel to the front of Sounds of Silence in that both feature them walking somewhere. Yet, they seem united and eager on Sounds of Silence, inviting us to tag along on their journey. On the other hand, Simon is literally slumped and pushing Garfunkel out of frame on the blue back of Bridge Over Troubled Water, perhaps implying that they’re both already “over it.”

In any case, the album was a critical and commercial triumph upon release. It peaked on nearly a dozen charts internationally — including ones in the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Norway, and Germany — and dominated as the best-selling album of 1970, 1971, and 1972. Concerning America’s Billboard 200, it hung on for nearly 100 weeks; curiously, it stayed CBS Records’ top seller for over a decade, too, only to be overthrown by Michael Jackson’s seminal Thriller in 1982. Eventually, it was awarded 8 x Platinum by the RIAA and has since sold over 30 million copies. By and large, it was received positively by the press, too, although some publications (such as Melody Maker) expressed criticism as well. It won two Grammy Awards in 1971 (for Album of the Year and Best Engineered Record), with the title track also winning for Record of the Year, Song of the Year, Instrumental Arrangement of the Year, and Contemporary Song of the Year. Of course, countless major magazines have since extolled its merits, with Rolling Stone and The Times rightfully including it on their modern lists of the best albums of all time.

Speaking of Bridge Over Troubled Water’s subsequent treatment, it’s been reissued countless times over the years and across the globe. Sadly, the only way to hear one of its most famous rejected tunes, “Cuba Si, Nixon No” (a Chuck Berry-esque rocker), is through miscellaneous bootlegs. In a 2016 article for Rolling Stone, Andy Greene called it a “lighthearted take on Cuba’s political situation” before referring to an interview with Simon from 1972, in which he states, “Art didn’t want to do it … We even cut the track for it. Artie wouldn’t sing on it. And Artie wanted to do a Bach chorale thing, which I didn’t want to do.” That “Bach chorale thing” turned out to be “Feuilles-O”, a short but sweet and harmonious ode sung in French and with minimal accompaniment from acoustic guitar. Thankfully, it’s available on few newer versions of the sequence.

Unquestionably, it houses some of the pair’s most joyous and lively compositions. Its third selection, “Cecilla”, offers a hooky, bouncy, and slightly sophomoric account of romantic misbehavior that virtually all listeners can empathize with. (Reportedly, Simon also penned it about his deeper issues with the limelight and songwriting.) Its natural percussion and assorted backing vocals also point to the World music influence he’d later explore. Likewise, their take on Felice and Boudleaux Bryant’s “Bye Bye Love” is simple and tasteful, evoking The Everly Brothers’ more well-known interpretation and while calling back to their days as Tom & Jerry. Elsewhere, “Keep the Customer Satisfied” is a purposeful regression into Big Band and rockabilly that’s quite fun and light, whereas “Baby Driver” focuses its airy rock and roll atmosphere on a youth who desires sexual adventure after being raised in a conservative home. There’s even a faint Reggae edge to the carefree folk of “Why Don’t You Write me?”

As strong as those are, it’s Bridge’s ballads and more serious staples that reign supreme and cement Simon’s legacy as a master of relatable and evocative songwriting. With its gospel proclivities and focus on orchestral embellishments, sobering piano chords, and Garfunkel’s angelic lone voice, the opening title track is like their version of “Let It Be” in that it’s a hopeful yet bittersweet recognition of the enchantment they shared with fans. (Outside of that, it was inspired by Simon’s then-wife, Peggy, and the racial tensions that plagued America at the time.) It’s an absolutely gorgeous and gratifying statement whose agelessness and universality has been celebrated through covers by Fiona Apple, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, and Willie Nelson, among others.

Fifty years later, Bridge Over Troubled Water is every bit as impactful, endearing, prophetic, and daring. It signifies everything that made Simon & Garfunkel such a special and significant act while also ranking as one of the most long-lasting and culturally resonant musical statements of its period. From its softest and emptiest segments to its most full-bodied and daring moments, Bridge Over Troubled Water still overflows with one-of-a-kind brilliance”.

Prior to moving on to a couple of reviews for the 1970 masterpiece, I want to highlight a feature from the BBC. It is about the superb and emotional title track from Bridge Over Trouble Water. It is an amazing song that many people do not talk about in terms of deeper roots. Often associated with being this ballad that is a little saccharine. Bridge Over Troubled Water deserves more:

“On the evening of 30 November 1969, the silver-haired actor Robert Ryan introduced CBS viewers in the US to a buzzkill of historic proportions: Simon and Garfunkel’s first ever TV special. “These two young men have attracted a tremendous following among the youth of America with their lyrical interpretation of the world we live in,” said Ryan, who was a genuine fan. “We think you will find the next hour both entertaining and stimulating.”

Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel certainly hoped so. According to executive producer Robert Drew, Simon talked about using the primetime opportunity as a Trojan horse for “a home movie about where he thought the nation was”. Directed by actor Charles Grodin, Songs of America used the duo’s hits to soundtrack footage of riots, marches and the war in Vietnam, much to the horror of sponsors AT&T, who demanded their $600,000 investment back. Even more sympathetic viewers found the movie’s earnest sermonising hard to swallow.

We first meet Simon and Garfunkel in the back of a car. Coming off the back of four hit albums and two number one singles in four years, the 27-year-old superstars are not overburdened with humility. When Garfunkel brings up the subject of America’s imminent bicentennial, a camera-conscious Simon gazes into the distance and asks solemnly: “Think it’s gonna make it?” This mood of pensive pomposity comes to dominate the film, as Simon frets: “What’s the point of this album? The world is crumbling”, and Garfunkel less coherently ponders “the chaos of what the hell is the whole thing about”.

They did have a point. Songs of America was screened on the eve of the country’s first draft lottery since World War Two, amid the years of the My Lai massacre, the Manson murders, the Days of Rage demonstrations in Chicago and the anti-Vietnam War March Against Death in Washington DC. But the average CBS viewer didn’t want to see the world crumbling. The heaviest sequence was a dark twist on the film’s travelogue theme, juxtaposing clips of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King on the campaign trail with footage of mourners watching Bobby Kennedy’s funeral train go by. The musical accompaniment was unfamiliar: a kind of white gospel song, stately and hymn-like, building to a shattering climax as the long black train sped through America’s broken heart. One million viewers responded by turning the dial and watching the figure skating on NBC instead. Some sent hate mail. Songs of America wouldn’t be seen again for over 40 years. This was the US public’s inauspicious introduction to what would become one of the defining songs of the 1970s and beyond: Bridge Over Troubled Water.

‘My greatest song’

While writing songs for the duo’s fifth album in the spring of 1969, Simon had borrowed an old Swan Silvertones album from the musician Al Kooper. Listening to the gospel group’s version of the 19th-Century spiritual Oh Mary Don’t You Weep over and over again in his Upper East Side apartment, Simon was thunderstruck by a line improvised by lead singer Claude Jeter: “I’ll be your bridge over deep water if you trust in my name.” Simon grabbed his guitar, sketched out some gospel chords, and began writing his own song around that image. (Two years later, he was introduced to Jeter and wrote him a cheque on the spot.) Actually, it didn’t feel like he was actively writing it, more that it was flowing through him. Something about the sturdy grace of the melody and the Biblical register of “I will lay me down” made it seem as if the song had been around forever.

The melody and lyrics weren’t quite right yet but Simon knew that Bridge Over Troubled Waters (as it was then called) was “exceptional” even as he wondered if the words were “too simple”. On songs such as The Sound of Silence, Mrs Robinson and America, he used characters, narratives and vividly precise imagery to map national unease onto personal anxiety. The uncharacteristically timeless, universal language of Bridge Over Troubled Water really does seem to hail from somewhere else. The celebrated New Orleans musician Allen Toussaint liked to say: “That song had two writers: Paul Simon and God.” Fortunately, God wasn’t registered with the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

The opening line about feeling weary and small was personal. While Simon was in New York writing songs, Garfunkel was off in Mexico appearing in Mike Nichols’ movie Catch-22 with his new Hollywood friends, including Charles Grodin. Simon felt abandoned, taken for granted. He was therefore feeling hypersensitive when Garfunkel finally reconnected with him in Los Angeles in June and heard the demo. Paul thought that only Artie’s choirboy voice could do justice to the song but Artie liked the sound of Paul’s falsetto and hesitated before agreeing to front the song. Garfunkel meant it as a compliment; Simon took it as a snub. Such was the state of their partnership in 1969. When Robert Drew first sat down with the duo he came away thinking that the film would be “Simon and Garfunkel’s last stand”.

Recording the song began in August 1969 in Hollywood, where producer Roy Halee gathered the elite session musicians known as the Hollywood Golden Trio: drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Joe Osborn and keyboardist Larry Knechtel. It was Knechtel’s challenging job to translate the music from guitar to piano according to Simon’s paradoxical brief: “Paul wanted it to be gospel but not gospel,” he recalled. Simon imagined that Bridge Over Troubled Water would be a “little hymn” but Garfunkel and Halee insisted that the song needed to be immense. It therefore needed a third verse, which Simon dashed off in the studio. It opened with a message to his wife-to-be Peggy Harper, who had recently fretted about finding her first grey hairs: “Sail on, silver girl.”

Garfunkel wanted the song to start quietly and gradually build to a transcendent finale in the vein of Phil Spector’s work with The Righteous Brothers — “like an airplane taking off”. Simon wasn’t sure about the bombastic strings (nor the fact that arranger Ernie Freeman had paid so little attention to the lyrics that the sheet music was titled Like a Pitcher of Water) but he had to admit that it sounded undeniable. Once the music was wrapped, Garfunkel recorded his showstopping vocal in New York in November. Simon, at Garfunkel’s insistence, wasn’t in the room.

Several songs from the Bridge Over Troubled Water album were debuted on a short tour that autumn and Bridge Over Troubled Water left audiences breathless. It may feel overfamiliar now but imagine being in the crowd one night in November 1969, hearing Garfunkel say: “This is also one of our new songs. It’s called Bridge Over Troubled Water,” and then hearing that for the first time. And imagine being Paul Simon, waiting in the wings with a cigarette while the other guy got all the applause for his song. That shouldn’t have bugged him – it was his idea – but it did. “He felt like I should have done it,” Simon grumbled to Rolling Stone magazine four bitter years later. “And many times I’m sorry I didn’t do it.”

An instant classic

Despite the song’s warm reception, Simon and Garfunkel had absorbed the industry wisdom that long, stately ballads weren’t radio-friendly and proposed the jaunty Cecilia as the album’s taster single. But after the first album playback, Columbia Records president Clive Davis was adamant that this was no ordinary ballad. “I felt Cecilia would be a hit but Bridge was something more,” he told Simon’s biographer Robert Hilburn. “It was a landmark record.”

Davis was right. The song’s slow-burning arc became a virtue. Most hits made sense in snatches, overheard from a passing car radio, but Bridge Over Troubled Water held the listener spellbound: you had to hear the whole thing or else you’d miss the payoff. Released on 20 January 1970, it held the top spot for six weeks in the US and three in the UK. Hard on the single’s heels, the album was a goliath: 10 weeks at number one; six Grammy awards; 25 million sales worldwide. In the UK, it occupied the top of the charts for an astonishing 35 weeks over an 18-month period. It just kept coming back”.

I am going to round off with a couple of reviews. The first is from Pitchfork. In 2011, they reviewed a reissue of Bridge Over Troubled Water:

“This diverse album contains the roots of Paul Simon's subsequent incorporation of African and South American rhythms into astute pop songs, especially "El Condor Pasa (If I Could)". The tune is hundreds of years old, but Simon came to it via a contemporary Peruvian group called Los Incas. He wrote new English lyrics about the rural versus the urban, and he and Garfunkel sang them over the original instrumental track. Especially coming after the grandiose gospel of the title track, the song sounds both exotic and humble. Later, "Keep the Customer Satisfied" swells with gargantuan blasts of brass, "Baby Driver" revs up some R&B sax, and "Cecilia" sounds impossibly infectious with its pennywhistle solo and handclap/thighslap percussion. Despite the breadth of sound-- and despite the splintering of their relationship-- Bridge sounds like a unified statement enlivened by styles and rhythms not often heard on pop radio at the juncture of those two decades.

The album cuts on Bridge hold up arguably better than the singles-- or maybe it's just that we've all heard the title track and side-two opener "The Boxer" so many times, while songs like "Keep the Customer Satisfied" and "Baby Driver" still sound less familiar, and therefore full of surprises. Especially on this subtle remastering, Bridge reveals a surfeit of strange, exciting sonic details, as Simon, Garfunkel, and co-producer Roy Halee insert small flourishes of sound, such as the disruptive skiffle beat on "Why Don't You Write Me" or the audience rhythm section on the live version of "Bye Bye Love". The title track derives its outsize drama not only from Garfunkel's intense, measured vocals but also from the resonating percussion, which mimics the echoing crack of sound against a cathedral wall. Thanks to the echo-chambered vocals, disembodied organ, and Joe Osborn's melodically prominent bass, "The Only Living Boy in New York" sounds practically weightless, as if Manhattan were as lonely and desolate as the moon. Even after it's been Zach Braff'ed, the song still retains its considerable evocative power and remains one of the most natural and surprising juxtapositions of sonics and sentiment in Simon's catalog.

"The Only Living Boy in New York" conjures a very specific sense of melancholy abandonment, which makes it a companion to the title track's pledge of steady friendship and devotion. In some ways, Bridge sounds like a chronicle of Simon and Garfunkel's career and collaboration over the years, especially the album-ending send-off. The live "Bye Bye Love" reveals a greater kinship with the Everly Brothers than with Dylan, and an even stronger engagement with their audience; clapping a massive backbeat and yelling along with the song, that rambunctious crowd in Ames, Iowa, remains one of their most intuitive collaborators. As the noise dies down, the quiet "Song for the Asking" adds a brief epilogue that reveals their simple mission "to make you smile." It's a modest close to both the album and the musical collaboration between these two old friends.

Instead of non-album cuts from those same sessions (some of which have been compiled previously), this edition adds a DVD with a television special from 1969 and a new making-of, which emphasize the duo's social awareness and sonic innovations, respectively. Directed by Garfunkel's Catch-22 co-star Charles Grodin and airing on CBS in 1969, "Songs of America" mixes live footage with political rallies and American landscapes, depicting Bridge as a response to the heavily politicized turmoil of the preceding decade. Simon & Garfunkel ponder the ramifications of Vietnam and Woodstock, MLK and RFK, Cesar Chavez and the Poor People's March. At that time such political images were extremely controversial, especially coming from such seemingly nonthreatening folkies as Simon & Garfunkel, and the show was a commercial failure, beaten in the ratings by a Peggy Fleming ice-skating special. But today it plays as a highly instructive time capsule, offering entrée into that era and a valuable glimpse at the duo's chemistry while hinting at their conflicts.

This edition presents Bridge as an end-of-an-era document, that era being both the 1960s and their career together. Instead of acrimony, however, we get devotion and bonhomie, as Simon gives Garfunkel good songs to sing and Garfunkel sings them so well. Perhaps because it never addresses their restlessness or any particular social issue too directly, the album proves both visionary and revisionary, as the two ponder both their own and their country's past while looking ahead to new musical adventures. That Simon & Garfunkel split up shortly after recording this album only makes the sentiments more fleeting and the songs more affecting, lending them a timeless quality that transcends genre and generation”.

I will end with a review from AllMusic. One of the greatest albums of all time, it is worth considering and evaluating as it turns fifty-five on 26th January. A whole new generation should pick it up. For those who have not heard the album in a while, you need to pick it up:

“Bridge Over Troubled Water was one of the biggest-selling albums of its decade, and it hasn't fallen too far down on the list in years since. Apart from the gospel-flavored title track, which took some evolution to get to what it finally became, however, much of Bridge Over Troubled Water also constitutes a stepping back from the music that Simon & Garfunkel had made on Bookends -- this was mostly because the creative partnership that had formed the body and the motivation for the duo's four prior albums literally consumed itself in the making of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The overall effect was perhaps the most delicately textured album to close out the 1960s from any major rock act. Bridge Over Troubled Water, at its most ambitious and bold, on its title track, was a quietly reassuring album; at other times, it was personal yet soothing; and at other times, it was just plain fun. The public in 1970 -- a very unsettled time politically, socially, and culturally -- embraced it; and whatever mood they captured, the songs matched the standard of craftsmanship that had been established on the duo's two prior albums. Between the record's overall quality and its four hits, the album held the number one position for two and a half months and spent years on the charts, racking up sales in excess of five million copies. The irony was that for all of the record's and the music's appeal, the duo's partnership ended in the course of creating and completing the album”.

Recently, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel seem to have reunited. After years of silence, they appear to have built a bridge. It would be amazing if they performed together and revisited songs from their final album. Whilst some would argue Bookends is a more consistent and stronger album, there is this weight and significance to Bridge Over Troubled Water. The incredible songs on Simon & Garfunkel’s fifth and final studio album still sounds relevant and powerful…

AFTER all of these years.

FEATURE: Kate Bush: The Tour of Life: Something Like a Song: Inside Her Extraordinary Early Demos

FEATURE:

 

 

Kate Bush: The Tour of Life

PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush

Something Like a Song: Inside Her Extraordinary Early Demos

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I have discussed…

Kate Bush’s demos before. I wanted to revisit them because I wonder whether they will ever be made available on streaming sites. There are YouTube versions of many of her demos, though it would be great hear remastered versions of these songs. Kate Bush has reissued and remastered her studio albums. The live album for 2014’s Before the Dawn. She has also revisited songs from 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes for 2011’s Director’s Cut. I do wonder whether Bush holds much affection for her demos. Whether she considers them worthwhile. It would be great for fans to hear a compilation of them. Even if some are pale compared to songs that appeared on her 1978’s debut album, The Kick Inside, they are valuable and essential. Part of her history and story. So many fans do not know about the demos. Whether you have heard of The Cathy Demos and know about the songs (some I will highlight later), there does need to be a wider release. This Early Demos compilation is perhaps the most expansive. There are articles that examine and discuss these amazing demos and this very young talent who would soon go on to become a hugely successful and adored artist. I would love to own this compilation of recordings primarily made in 1974 at Kate Bush’s family home. This amazing glimpse into some of her earliest songs. With Bush still a teenager, these are some of the first glimpses into her remarkable, once-in-a-generation talent. I think that there should be some sort of revival and excavation of these demos. They show what a prodigious talent the young Kate Bush was. Her piano playing superb. Having learnt from her father and developed a bond with the instrument as a young child, that combination of her playing, developing (yet sublime) voice and mature songwriting really stands out.

Whilst a song like Atlantis might sound a little high-pitched or wild, others such as Cussi Cussi are more level-headed and grounded. You Were the Star and Something Like a Song are two of my favourite Kate Bush early demos. Passing Through Air ended up as a B-side of Army Dreamers in 1980. It is an astonishing song where Bush shows so much command. Not only are the 1974 demos recordings worth listening to. During 1976 and the early part of 1977, Bush was recording a new batch of demos. At least two tapes were made. Many of the songs have leaked out. The largest collection of such recordings (and thanks to Rob Jovanovic’s Kate Bush biography) came from the Phoenix Broadcast. In 1982, a radio station in Phoenix, Arizona, KTSM, aired twenty-two Kate Bush demos. The D.J. on the show was John Dixon. He worked at EMI when Bush was working on her debut album. Songs he played were taken from several different sources. He played numbers that were taken from her first two albums, 1978’s The Kick Inside and Lionheart, plus seventeen unreleased songs. Some of the songs played were from 1973. Tracks Bush was still considering when she signed with EMI. These tracks made their way onto The Cathy Demos that were released as vinyl E.P.s in 1989. Among the demos are Rinfey the Gypsy (a.k.a. Playing Canasta in a Cold Room) and Snow. Something Like a Song allows Bush to show more variation in her piano player. If a lot of the tracks were quite similar and would not have hugely appealed to record labels, other demos showed more depth and different shades. Earlier versions of Kite and Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake were circulated. These songs, backed by a band, showed how she had matured and extended her musical range. The early version of Don’t Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake sound like a live take. Another song on the demo tape, Scares Me Silly (a.k.a. Really Gets Me Going), is a gem that should have appeared on The Kick Inside.

One listens to the demos – whether from 1973/1974 or 1976/1977 – and wonders which artist inspired her. Maybe childhood heroes like Elton John. As a child, she grew up around various musical influences. Her mother’s Irish side. Summers at Dungarvan. County Waterford, where the family would take the ferry and then drive by car to Bush’s (Cathy as she was known then) grandparents’ cottage. Uncles who would be playing accordions and fiddles. At the family home, East Wickham Farm, Bush loved artists like A.L. Lloyd. He specialised in drinking songs and sea shanties. Her brothers, especially Paddy, introducing their sister to Folk music and music from around the world. A mix of English and the unconventional. Bands like King Crimson, The Beatles and T.Rex. Her favourite album Elton John’s Madman Across the Water, arrived in 1971. Her brother Jay (John) was a great poet and opened up his sister’s mind to new themes and realms. Paddy’s love of the more esoteric and unusual. A family home filled with so much diverse music, literature and art. Think about the early songs. An art harmonium, manufactured in Paris by Victor Mustel, was in the barn at East Wickham Farm. It was this Mustel pump organ that gave a young Bush the opportunity to develop and experiment with chord progression. Even if Bush couldn’t read music and didn’t want to learn – and she was not particularly skilled at maths -, she practised endless, had this incredibly curious mind and was very dedicated. Thanks too to Tom Doyle and his Kate Bush biography, Running Up That Hill: 50 Visions of Kate Bush. All of these early experiences and influences led to her demos. By age nine, Bush was intensely curious and wanted to create. It heightened by the age of eleven. Feeling misunderstood or thinking more like an adult than child, this sense of frustration and alienation saw the young Kate/Cathy Bush escape into songwriting.

You can hear this imagination and passion in her earliest demos. Whilst she was not particularly happy at school, she did develop a love and interest in poetry. Five or six hours a day, seven days a week, Bush would shut herself away and play piano. Her first song would have been written about the age of eleven. Bush felt it was terrible and overdone. By thirteen or fourteen, she developed a real interest in songwriting and advanced in terms of quality and concision. Remember Bush wrote The Man with the Child in His Eyes at the age of thirteen! Bush approached songwriting like poetry. A pivotal moment was when Elton John’s Your Song was released in 1970. Something that had always been brewing inside of her was released to the surface. Her musical hero opened her heart and eyes. I will discuss the piano more for another feature. How few artists around the time Bush started were idolised because they played piano. Bush’s father Robert marvelled at how his young daughter could summon songs from nowhere. He invested in an expensive AKAI reel-to-reel recorder. Songs were copyrighted by her and her father as they would post songs back to themselves with a time and date stamp from Royal Mail. By aged sixteen, Bush felt she was on a mission from God. Her positivity and ambition can be heard in the early demos. Bush’s brother Paddy would often accompany her on mandolin. Brian Bath (a family fiend who was part of the KT Bush Band) recalled his diary entries from 1972 how he would witness Paddy playing on Kate’s songs. He was even invited to play guitar on various occasions. Bath recalled how beautiful the songs were. Chord progressions that were like nothing else. Songs that were worlds of their own. By 1972, Kate Bush had amassed over fifty songs. She was writing about two songs a day. She reckoned she might have had a couple of hundred stacked away.

Tom Doyle highlights a few standout demos from the early years. Ones more formed such as Sunsi, and ones that were promising but a little flawed (Cussi Cussi as an example). In the 1980s, a West German record company, Wild Wind, announced the release of a ten-track demo album, The Early Years. White label vinyl copies were pressed up. When Bush and EMI caught wind of this release, they issued a cease and desist. By 1997, these demos were online. Maybe Bush feels it is not worth officially releasing the home demos because they have been out there and she has passed that stage in life. Songs not studio-made and incomplete in a way, she puts emphasis on mastering her studio recordings and ensuring that her recorded work sounds as good as possible. These sketches and demos might be the opposite of all that. However, as historical artefacts, they are incredibly important and striking. This blog post looks at some of those early demos. So much fascinating and revealing context:

“The act of performing a critical analysis of the Cathy demos has a tinge of historical revisionism. It inherently goes against how these songs were meant to be heard. These are home demos which became audition tapes—recordings which were circulated to impress record labels (and for a while didn’t.) These songs weren’t recorded with thoughts of royalties and press eventually coming into the picture. Cathy wasn’t writing for an audience (arguably, she never has been), although the praise of her family was welcome. While the tapes were shared for the purpose of getting an audience, they weren’t written with this in mind. These songs give us a snapshot of the mind of a young creative finding her voice. So what did Cathy sing about at home?

Let’s listen to “Cussi Cussi,” which demonstrates that these songs are a learning experience for their creator. “Cussi Cussi” is a sprawling thing, less coherent than the songs we’ve previously covered. It’s a schizoid song, afraid of losing someone—is the singer trying to keep their identity in the face of adversity? Rather than pitch straight empathy, “Cussi Cussi” has a slightly despairing tone — its melody is tumultuous and complex, never committing to a single mood and always in conflict. The singer is begging the subject not to leave them, not to waste their life. “And I’ve noticed in your eyes/a sadness I don’t like/to recognize/you are feeling a heavy side of your ecstasy” is suggestive of a star being eaten away by their commitment to excess.

Yet the song itself also gets caught up in excess in messy ways which don’t quite land, albeit the tone remains pleasantly bemusing. The “cussi cussi” of its refrain is a bit hard to decipher. “Cussì” appears to be a word in the Romantic language Friulian for “so” (perhaps bringing the song’s title close to Spanish’s “así- así” for “so-so”?) It’s an interesting, obscure little track, but it’s not hard to see why it doesn’t have a second take in the Phoenix sessions. To be sure, it’s not boring—it’s an intriguing hot mess, and melodically it’s astonishing. If your weaker compositions at 15 sounded like this, you were in good shape.

It remains astonishing that we have 31 of Cathy Bush’s demos. This is the happy product of some tapes changing hands several times. The first person to circulate these songs was music publicist Ricky Hopper, a friend of Cathy’s brother Jay, who was given between twenty and thirty songs to send to record companies. No luck was had attracting labels, although Bush would eventually get lucky via other avenues. None of Bush’s demos were publicly available for years until tapes made their way into the hands of DJ John Dixon, who had acquired them at EMI around the time Bush signed to the label in 1976. Six years later, he broadcast twenty-two of the songs from his Phoenix-based KSTM radio station (this was around the time Bush was putting out The Dreaming. For David Bowie fans, this would be like hearing “The Laughing Gnome” when Scary Monsters came out). Gradually, the earliest demos were released, with the Cathy demos surfacing in 1997. So there’s our point of origin.

There is no First Kate Bush song. We established off the bat that “Wuthering Heights” is not the beginning of the Kate Bush story by choosing to begin the blog with “Something Like a Song.” This is designed to give a fuller picture of her music. In its beginnings, the Bush story is tumultuous and malleable. It’s reasonably well-documented for what it is, but still trying to shape itself like any young person trying to express themselves for the first time. Recording dates are uncertain — we have a small handful of demos recorded in 1973 called the Cathy Demos, and several more dating from around 1976 dubbed the Phoenix Demos (after the aforementioned broadcast). There’s an overlap in material from the two sessions, leading to us having two demos each for some songs that were never professionally recorded. Even the titles of the songs were applied retroactively, and not by Bush herself. To navigate this labyrinth of obscure music, the Bushologist must choose a trajectory and follow it. I chose “Something Like a Song” for the first post because of its relative malleability and accessibility; there’s not a lot to unpack in it, which allowed me to sketch out the approach of the blog. With “Queen Eddie” (or “The Gay Farewell,” whatever you wish to call it), another early Cathy song from both the Cathy and Phoenix sessions, we’re free to play around a little with ideas.

“Queen Eddie” is a surprisingly sharp and melancholy song. It’s multifaceted in its thematic concerns and has a grasp of rhythm and melody that “Something Like a Song” doesn’t quite. In “Something,” we had a singer who admired someone from a distance, who they didn’t quite understand. “Queen Eddie” is more mature: it’s about the singer finding out that someone they already know is more complex than they previously realized. In short, it’s a song about learning to empathize.

And Eddie in dire need of empathy. “I’ve never seen/such a sad queen as Eddie,” ponders the singer. “I’ve seen him raving/maybe even in pain/but never weeping like a baby.” Eddie isn’t some macho hero to sweep the damsel off her feet (indeed, he may not even swing that way). He’s a frightened young person whose life is falling apart for reasons not specified in the song. He’s a person who’s noticeably pretty, and on Saturday evening transforms into a drag queen. Bush’s music often displays a strong interest in the feminine side of men, and this is the earliest musical manifestation of her concern. Eddie is someone with no time for masculinity. Everything from the effeminate adjective of “pretty” to the fact he’s saying goodbye to “his boy” points to that (who’s his boy? Is he breaking up with a boyfriend, or is he transitioning?) Even the song’s varying titles, in all probability not penned by Bush, point to a queer reading of the song (“The Gay Farewell” is a pretty wretched pun even by my standards). There’s an element of fetishization here — Eddie is denied an identity outside of his gender and sexuality in a way that’s genuinely harmful. For all that the empathy on display is genuine, so is the singer’s privilege”.

I wanted to spend some time with Kate Bush extraordinary early demos. Where things began. Those who might know Kate Bush from The Kick Inside onwards might not be aware of these demos. Whilst some show Bush still finding her feet, there are some gems that many people have not heard. I would love for them to either appear on streaming sites or for there to be a new official album with a selection of twenty or twenty-five of these amazing demos. Bush’s reluctance to release outtakes, demos and rarities sets her aside from other artists. It is all about the new from here on perhaps. However, she should consider giving new light and lease to these…

BEAUTIFUL and engrossing demos.

FEATURE: The Root: D’Angelo’s Voodoo at Twenty-Five

FEATURE:

 

 

The Root

D’Angelo’s Voodoo at Twenty-Five

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ONE of the first classic albums…

of the twenty-first century arrived on 25th January, 2000. A new millennium welcomed in different sounds and scenes. 2000 was a remarkable year for music. Perhaps the finest album from that year came from D’Angelo. His second studio album, Voddoo, was a commercial and critical success. A number one in the U.S., in 2001, Voodoo won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards. D'Angelo recorded the album between 1997 and 1999 at the legendary Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Voodoo features is defined by a looser, groove-focused Funk sound. It is a bit of a change from his 1995 debut album, Brown Sugar. An astonishing and deep album whose lyrics explore themes of spirituality, love, sexuality, maturation, and fatherhood. I want to come to a few features about Voodoo prior to ending with some reviews. In 2020, to mark twenty years of a classic, NPR spoke with engineer Russell Elevado about making Voodoo sound timeless:

“Black radio was changing quickly at the end of the 1990s, as artists like Jill Scott, Maxwell and Lauryn Hill melded R&B with slick hip-hop production and a coffee-shop poetry-night sheen. But D'Angelo had spent the past few years indoors, away from the vanguard. As part of The Soulquarians, a collective that also included superstar drummer Questlove, keyboardist James Poyser and heady, trippy producer J Dilla, he had logged countless hours holed up in Greenwich Village's Electric Lady studios, whose vintage equipment had previously helped artists like Stevie Wonder, The Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix make their masterpieces. As Nate Chinen of NPR's Jazz Night in America described in The New York Times, The Soulquarians were in their own world — jamming out to old Prince and Stevie bootlegs, transporting themselves and the music they made there to the past, not the future.

Russell Elevado was there, too. A rising producer and engineer, Elevado had been tapped a few years earlier to finish mixing D'Angelo's 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, after the original engineer left the project. As he got to know the artist, he introduced him to his favorite '60s and '70s rock records and grittier, more stylized production methods, and the two began enthusiastically plotting their next venture together.

"I grew up on classic rock and soul — like, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, that's really where my roots are," Elevado says. "My whole concept was, hey, people are sampling these records. I can create those sounds — using the microphones they were using, using the consoles they were using, the same techniques — and make it our own thing organically."

Elevado recorded and mixed Voodoo with D'Angelo and his band over the course of three years, going to great lengths to ensure everything about the album and all its influences melded seamlessly. When it finally arrived in 2000, it came as a stealth throwback at a moment when R&B and soul felt caught up in something new. But while many today think of it as a masterpiece, it seems we still haven't figured out how to make sense of Voodoo: what box to place it in, how to pay it the respect it deserves, all the nuance and depth of a young black artist making a previous generation's black music.

Voodoo is so many things. It is jazz, soul and funk all at once. You can hear hip-hop's footprint in some of the songs, but it never dominates. While the influence of Prince and Funkadelic and Marvin Gaye is there on every track, it draws just as much inspiration from Hendrix and The Beatles. And for the artist, it was such an important statement that he waited nearly 15 years to follow it up. If it took time to see that Voodoo didn't live in the same music world as its peers in 2000, by now it has stopped feeling vintage — and started feeling timeless. I spoke with Russell Elevado about what it took to make Voodoo sound the way it does, and the legacy it maintains on its 20th birthday.

Sam Sanders: You had been working in studios for over a decade when you were hired to engineer Voodoo, but it took a while for you to move into R&B and soul. Why do you think those artists eventually started to notice you?

Russell Elevado: When I first started engineering I was doing a lot of house music, with Frankie Knuckles and David Morales. I first started getting my feet wet with that, and doing hip-hop remixes with this producer Clark Kent. From there, more R&B people started recognizing what I was doing, and I started going through the R&B circuit.

Later on, I realized how much it was like the work I was doing on house music. Because the bass has to be right. And the kick drum should have its own presence to not get in the way of the bass. Striving to get that in my early part of my career, think I intuitively started to know how to make the bass pump without being too large, and get the impact of the drums. House music is all about the bass and drums, and I guess that filters into everything else I did.

When did D'Angelo come into your orbit, and how?

I had been working on an album for Angie Stone, who was managed by the same manager as D'Angelo, Kedar Massenburg; he also managed Erykah Badu at the time. They were looking for another engineer to finish Brown Sugar. He'd heard what I was doing, saw my mixes were sounding good. He played me the songs that were finished so far, and I was like, "Yeah, get me on this album. I'll do whatever — I love it." So he introduced me to D'Angelo.

How was that first meeting?

When we met, he introduced himself as Michael — and I thought this was just Angie's boyfriend. They were dating at the time, and he was coming in to visit Angie a lot.

Do you think it's fair to call Voodoo a neo-soul album?

No, I don't think so. Brown Sugar, I would call neo-soul. Voodoo, I think, stands on its own: It's really a soul and funk album, versus an R&B album. I consider it like how we would call a soul album back in the day, like Sly Stone, or even Sam Cooke. And I'm starting to recognize over the years that there's a lot of fusion on that album, too, where we were fusing a lot of rock elements.

Which songs? Give me an example.

"The Root" has sort of a Jimi Hendrix guitar lick, but it also reminds you of Curtis Mayfield — so, blending this psychedelic rock thing on top of funk-soul. "Playa Playa" is another good example: It's really funky, but there's a lot of these psychedelic elements. It was kind of like he was schooling me on a lot of funk music, and I was schooling him more on the rock side.

What kind of rock were you showing him?

Like, Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles. Because he grew up in a black community and was not exposed to a lot of quote-unquote "white music," which would have been rock or pop. He knew "Purple Haze," but he had no idea. Once he got it, it was like an epiphany: "Wow, I can't believe it — everybody was influenced by Jimi Hendrix." Prince was heavily influenced by Hendrix. Even Sly Stone, and especially Funkadelic and Parliament, they were all about Jimi, and if anything they were continuing what Jimi was doing after he died.

What song on Voodoo has the most spirit of Jimi in it?

I would have to say "The Root" — and in fact, that song grew out of a Hendrix jam at Electric Lady. It was Charlie Hunter and Questlove and D'Angelo, and they had just covered two or three Hendrix tunes: I think they played the actual song "Electric Ladyland," and maybe "Castles Made of Sand," something from Axis. "The Root" came from those jams, for sure”.

I want to move on to a brilliant and in-depth feature from Stereogum. Published in 2020, it argues that Voodoo is possibly the greatest album of the twenty-first century. A bold claim, but one that is backed up by real detail and passion:

“Twenty years after its release Voodoo remains the greatest album-length synthesis of hip-hop and R&B ever made, as well as a work saddled with one of music’s more fraught and complicated legacies. Voodoo sold 320,000 copies in its first week of release and debuted at #1, a startling feat for a dense and challenging work from an artist who’d released one previous studio LP that hadn’t cracked the top 20 and was nearly five years old. (It’s hard to believe, but five years actually once felt like a really long time to wait for a new D’Angelo album.) There are a number of reasons for this — Virgin promoted the hell out of it; D’s fans were cultishly devoted and ravenous for new stuff — but the biggest was probably “Untitled (How Does It Feel?),” a song that had first appeared in October of 1999 as the B-side to “Left & Right” and had been officially released as a single on the auspicious date of January 1, 2000.

D’Angelo’s physique did not naturally look like that — no one’s does — and was the result of prolonged work with a personal trainer in the run-up to Voodoo’s release. Touring life is unconducive to such regimens; Questlove recalled that D would sometimes postpone shows in order to frantically do stomach crunches. Delays and cancellations abounded, until D’Angelo retired from the road and public life for over a decade, turning a man who was briefly pop music’s greatest sex symbol into its most mysterious and, at times, troubled recluse.

It’s worth emphasizing here that “Untitled” is an incredible recording and performance, a slow-burning ballad that channels a tradition running from Ray Charles to James Brown to Al Green to Prince. Since his emergence as a prodigy out of Richmond in the mid 1990s, D’Angelo had been seen as one of the leading lights of the movement/subgenre dubbed “neo-soul,” and for much of his early career, he didn’t shy away from this. He was an obvious student of musical history, and his renown as a singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist invited obvious comparisons to Stevie Wonder and Prince. He’d covered Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin'” on his debut, Brown Sugar, and had taken on Marvin Gaye, Eddie Kendricks, Howard Tate, and Prince himself on various soundtrack albums and compilations. In early 2000, “Untitled” seemed to fit snugly within this lineage, provided you ignored its subtle hints of refusal: the false start; the cut-the-tape ending; the very title itself.

As anyone who bought Voodoo in January of 2000 can tell you, it took only a few moments into the album to realize that “Untitled” was far more outlier than forerunner. Voodoo has sometimes been described as the apotheosis of the neo-soul movement, a superlative that strikes me as entirely wrong. It was an utter break from that movement, a resignation letter that doubled as a prophecy. If neo-soul had been a back-to-roots movement that largely stemmed from the too-slick production and performance styles of much of mainstream 1990s R&B, Voodoo was something else entirely, the sound of an artist grabbing an entire, illustrious tradition of American music and declaring, “Now we’re going here.”

In fact, “Untitled” itself had been something of a false “beginning.” Voodoo’s actual first single, released well over a year before the album came out, was a far better indicator of what D’Angelo had in store, had anyone bothered to notice. First released on the soundtrack to Belly, the DJ Premier-produced “Devil’s Pie” was a rattling and pummeling work of profane, gospel-inflected boom-bap, like Curtis Mayfield’s “(Don’t Worry) If There’s Hell Below, We’re All Gonna Go” reimagined through an MPC powered by pure premillennial dread. “Fuck the slice, want the pie/ Why ask why, till we fry” were the song’s opening lyrics, half-spit, half-slurred by a multi-tracked D’Angelo, his voice split between registers, teetering on atonality.

There had been nothing on Brown Sugar like this; the apocalyptic imagery, the sonic abrasiveness, Premier’s signature cuts and scratches on the bridge. “Devil’s Pie” was an audacious and completely extraordinary piece of music; it was also a flop. An almost violent departure from his prior work that was buried on a soundtrack to a movie that bombed, promoting an allegedly forthcoming album that wouldn’t arrive for 15 more months, the song evaporated into the void until it resurfaced as Voodoo’s second track.

Still, in retrospect “Devil’s Pie,” much more than “Untitled,” was the harbinger of Voodoo. The album opens with the ambient and foggy murmurings of a crowd, recalling the beginnings of soul classics like “We’re A Winner” and “What’s Going On” but augmented by the sound of a drum, distinctly ritual in character. As musicologist Loren Kajikawa notes, the sound connotes the album’s title, “suggesting that some mystical power is being invoked, a power that will be made manifest as the introduction gives way to D’Angelo and his band.” After about 15 seconds these mysterious, beguiling sounds — which will recur periodically throughout the album — bleed into Voodoo’s first track, “Playa Playa.” The song begins in spare and atmospheric fashion, as a slowly repeating, three-note riff is increasingly augmented by light drums, finger snaps, backwards cymbals, bass, ever-growing layers of vocal, guitar, keys.

The opening minute or so of “Playa Playa” is a rhythmic mission statement for the rest of the album to follow: flamboyantly unhurried, irrefutably funky but also distinctly off-kilter, the constituent parts never completely lining up and instead creating an ever-creeping, hypnotic soundscape of uneven strokes, microscopic archipelagos of sound and space bound by slink and slippage. For a group of people to play like this, at this tempo, for any prolonged period of time is almost impossibly difficult, and requires a virtuosity that both entails and exceeds the mastery of practice and technique and history. Musicians — particularly those who ply their trade in rhythm sections — often speak in vaguely mystical tones of the concept of “feel,” a word that collapses the individual and group into a particular sort of sensual experience that underlies (in my opinion, at least) music-making in its highest form, and R&B music in particular.

This particular feel that we hear at the outset (and throughout) “Playa Playa” — which, despite the paragraph above, is entirely indescribable, but you absolutely know it as soon as you hear it — is the defining sound of Voodoo, heard on tracks like “The Line,” “One Mo ‘Gin,” “The Root,” “Greatdayindamornin’,” and elsewhere. The musical brain trust around Voodoo was a loosely-knit collective known as the Soulquarians. Founded by Questlove, D’Angelo, keyboardist James Poyser, and hip-hop production maestro J Dilla, the Soulquarians soon included Welsh bassist Pino Palladino and jazz trumpeter Roy Hargrove. Throw in guitar virtuoso Charlie Hunter on several tracks and Voodoo featured some of the best players of their generation doing some of the finest work of their careers.

And yet the skeleton key to Voodoo’s rhythmic magic is Dilla, whose influence over the album is massive even if he’s never credited as a producer. In his great book Playing Changes, Nate Chinen writes that “[e]ach of the principal musicians on Voodoo traces this revolution in rhythm back to J Dilla.” Questlove in particular has repeatedly invoked Dilla, telling writer Jason King, “The thing that really attracted me to D’Angelo’s music was this inebriated execution thing that he had, which we both got from J Dilla.” Dilla, who passed away in 2006, was one of the great musical geniuses of hip-hop, a producer whose brilliant ear for sampling coupled with his stubborn refusal to use quantization — a tool that allows beatmakers to snap their sounds into “proper” rhythmic place at the push of a button — led to one of the most unique and influential sensibilities in modern music, forging digital worlds that were nonetheless shot through with tactile intimacy and idiosyncratic humanity.

The sound of Voodoo is the sound of some of the world’s finest instrumentalists setting out to replicate the sound of deliberate glitch and willful technological misuse, a virtuoso rhythm section in Questlove and Palladino whose point of spiritual departure was a sample-based musician who programmed like a percussionist in some altered state. (In a 2013 Red Bull Music Academy interview, Questlove recalled hearing Dilla for the first time as “the most life-changing moment I ever had… It sounded like the kick drum was played by a drunk three-year-old.”) That sound is, in many ways, the collision of the two centuries, an intoxicating mobius strip of analog into digital into analog, human into machine and back, round and round and back again”.

I am going to end with a couple of reviews. The first is from 2015 and is by The Line of Best Fit. Reviewing the reissued edition of Voodoo, it is a towering album that still has this incredible power and genius. One of the greatest albums of all time, if you have never heard it, I would advise you to do so now:

“D’Angelo made those comments some time in 2000, when he was promoting what we now know to be his magnum opus, Voodoo (recently given a long-overdue vinyl reissue). The lay-off of five years between that record and its predecessor, 1995’s Brown Sugar, looks positively paltry in retrospect, set against the fourteen years the world was made to wait for the album that was originally known as James River and would eventually become the fiery Black Messiah. If ever the term ‘rush-release’ has been used with scything irony, it was in relation to D’Angelo’s decision to drop that third LP in the no-man’s-land of mid-December - in response to ongoing racial unrest in America - rather than stick with the already-slated date of early 2015.

There’s certainly no shortage of entirely feasible explanations for those wilderness years that followed Voodoo; disillusionment with the music industry, drug and alcohol issues and D’Angelo’s well-documented track record of perfectionism to a fault are all amongst them. The question of whether the passage of more time than his two-year tour for Brown Sugar constituted was necessary for the thematic material that makes up Voodoo itself, though, is another matter entirely, and one worth saving for a little later; after all, this album’s strength lies primarily - but by no means exclusively - in the sheer virtuosity of the musicianship on show.

D’Angelo is a man of prodigious talent, and on Brown Sugar, he demonstrated as such; he recorded the vast majority of the instrumentation himself, sprinkled in clever guitar licks and smartly considered orchestral flourishes with a wisdom beyond his years, and applied real intelligence in keeping the entire piece so unremittingly economical. Accordingly, the album is a study in restraint and minimalism, but there was perhaps always the sneaking feeling that he might have been underselling himself. Sure, that approach was far preferable to him throwing everything he could at the record for the sake of it - bringing in every possible big-hitting guest, attaching bells and whistles to every aspect of his instrumental repertoire, and putting his inimitable falsetto very much front and centre - but at the same time, Brown Sugar felt in some respects as if it only represented the tip of the man’s talent.

And so, on Voodoo, it would prove. This is a record that has few, if any, points of genuinely valid comparison. Brown Sugar was easy enough to pick apart; R&B with flecks of soul, jazz and hip hop. Voodoo is a different beast entirely. It by no means does away with those points of genre reference; instead, it expands upon them tenfold. Across thirteen tracks, the complexity of the stylistic construction takes the breath away. This is no longer an R&B record with nods to other genres; D’Angelo brings in his soul influences wholesale, pitching the album halfway between them and something else entirely, something that, in many ways, provides the genuine lifeblood of the record - funk.

On “The Line” or “Chicken Grease”, you’ve got a veritable chorus of D’Angelos singing at you - these multi-layered, harmonic vocals, a new development post-Brown Sugar, seem to have held the key all along to him having uncovered his true soul man. In anybody else’s hands, you suspect that this kind of delivery wouldn’t work when set against an instrumental backdrop concerned mainly with groove and texture, but it comes off spectacularly. The ultimate result is that whilst D’Angelo sounded aggressively focused on Brown Sugar, he absolutely strolls through Voodoo. More than that, he positively swaggers; this was one of the last huge records of the pre-digital era, of a time when artists on majors could take as long as they needed to find their stride - the confidence that oozes out of every proverbial pore here suggests D’Angelo did just that.

After making Brown Sugar with limited outside involvement - especially surprising in terms of the lack of collaborations, which were staples of the R&B genre at the time - he was more open to the idea on Voodoo, especially given that both Common’s Like Water for Chocolate and Erykah Badu’s Mama Gun were being recorded at Electric Lady in New York at the same time. A loosely collaborative atmosphere ensued at the studio, with Questlove - on production duty on both Common and Badu’s albums - quickly taking his rightful place behind the kit on most of Voodoo. Those three records would quickly come to form the crux of the finest output from the Soulquarians, the soul and hip hop movement that counted those artists as members alongside the likes of Mos Def, Q-Tip and the late J Dilla.

When D’Angelo gave a lecture at the Red Bull Music Academy last year, he said, “I never claimed I do neo-soul. I always said I do black music.” His more relaxed attitude to the idea of working with his peers held the key to the complex, intelligent and ultimately, more visible way in which he referenced his black influences on Voodoo (funnily enough, the biggest obstacle faced early on in sessions for album number three was that he wanted to go back to doing everything himself, an indicator of his ongoing fixation with Prince.) “Left & Right”, with a well-judged guest turn from Method Man and Redman, didn’t just nod to hip hop - it incorporated it. "Devil’s Pie" chops up no fewer than six samples from the likes of Fat Joe, Raekwon and Teddy Pendergrass; having master sampler DJ Premier behind the desk on that track couldn’t have hurt, either. The verses on “One Mo’gin”, meanwhile, are straight-up delta blues, and whilst he’d tackled a quiet storm-style blues cover before with “Cruisin’”, his take on Roberta Flack’s “Feel Like Makin’ Love” has been moulded unmistakably into his own style - in fact, it was originally intended as another collaborative effort, with Lauryn Hill, in the early stages of production.

Questlove told Spin that the fluid nature of the album’s personnel made Voodoo’s recording sessions feel like “a left-of-center black music renaissance”; you kind of get the impression that it wasn’t until years later that those involved realised the degree to which they’d captured lightning in a bottle. This was a special kind of alchemy in instrumental terms. Questlove, on drums, worked with Dilla to put together programmed rhythm tracks that, by design, couldn’t be distinguished from a live kit; in one of the record’s many ingenious instrumental turns, they would deliberately fuck with the inch-perfect programmed tracks to lend them a human feel, resulting in the languid - almost sloppy - percussion that stands up as one of Voodoo’s hallmarks. Another of those is Pino Palladino’s contribution; his basslines are of monstrous importance to the album’s sound, particularly on “Devil’s Pie” and during the so-called “virtuoso part of the record” - Questlove again - that comprises “The Root”, “Spanish Joint” and “Greatdayindamornin”. All three were recorded totally live and are riddled with the kind of elaborate twists and turns that you can get totally lost in - however many times you hear them, you always come out the other side feeling like you’ve picked up on something new. Of particular note on that hat-trick are Charlie Hunter’s smartly considered guitar lines, as well as D’Angelo’s gravitation towards Latin jazz on “Spanish Joint”.

In 2015, with the benefit of hindsight on Voodoo and Black Messiah, there’s no question that D’Angelo is a genuine intellectual; his take on America’s recent civil unrest along racial lines on the latter record, for example, was clearly born of both deep thought and real soul. Listen to Brown Sugar, though, and the themes feel relatively rudimentary; a bunch of love songs in a classic style. Voodoo saw a wholesale expansion in conceptual terms; lyrically, he ruminates upon faith with real depth, as well as studying maturity (“Send It On”), psychological challenges (“The Line”) and, quite prominently, his then-recent entry into fatherhood - closer “Africa” deals both with that and his heritage in general. On top of that, he cherry-picks ideas from his favourite genres to suit both his own tastes and the album’s cerebral approach; “Playa Playa”, for instance, embraces the traditional competitiveness of hip hop, but “Devil’s Pie” is an out-and-out dismissal of its obsession with material wealth. The fact that the lyrics are actually difficult to discern on first listen for the most part, thanks to the heavy, Let’s Get It On style vocal multi-tracking, is one of many excuses to less give Voodoo repeat listens than approach it with the same meticulous ear for detail that D’Angelo himself lent to it in the studio.

And then, of course, there’s the penultimate track, and his most famous. “Untitled (How Does It Feel)” is ultimately better-known in the popular imagination for extracurricular reasons; the video, which features nothing but an apparently nude and by no means gym-shy D’Angelo against a black background, turned him into an unlikely - and reluctant - sex symbol. Both the track and the video utilise a sledgehammer touch that contrasts jarringly with the album’s otherwise largely subtle approach to sexuality, and the ensuing attention at live shows - with feverish female fans packing shows more in the hope that he’d flaunt his torso than deliver a musical tour-de-force - was a major factor in forcing D’Angelo into the reclusion - and substance abuse - that kept LP number three on the back burner for so long. That shouldn’t, though, detract from the quality of the song itself; if you’re going to shoot for unabashed sensuality, at least do it like this. Prince, again, apparently provided the inspirational blueprint for “Untitled”, but Gaye, White, Wonder and Summer are all in spiritual attendance, too, in a manner that made the likes of Boyz II Men and Ginuwine sound trite by way of comparison. “Untitled” was released as a single on January 1st, 2000. The next millennia of R&B songwriters have plenty of time to top it, but I still wouldn’t hold my breath; it’s hard to imagine anybody absolutely nailing sensuality like D’Angelo did with this cut. It’s brazen, but still nuanced.

Like the reissue of Brown Sugar, this new press of Voodoo isn’t a remaster, and again, why would it be? It often feels as if D’Angelo was walking a bit of a tightrope by making the album so unrelentingly complex - there are so many deft touches, and so much going on at all times, that to go back and tamper with either the mix or the masters would surely detract from what makes Voodoo truly great. It’s an album scored through with tiny intricacies; the little instrumental turns of phrase and carefully woven textures make this a masterful construction project, but the scarcely-there spoken word snippets that wax and wane in and out of the intros and outros mean that it’s a human one - you can feel Electric Lady circa 1999 living and breathing on this LP. It is at once both intimate and monolithic. In terms of twenty-first century soul, R&B and funk - even blues - it is utterly without compare”.

I am going to end things there I think. You can read more about the album here. The accolades it received Ahead of its twenty-fifth anniversary on 25th January, I wanted to spend some time with D’Angelo’s staggering second studio album. It still sounds fresh to this day. One that artists should be listening to. It has doubtless inspired many, though it is hard to point at an artist today that reminds you of D’Angelo. His latest studio album, 2014’s Black Messiah, is another masterpiece. Let’s hope we get more material from him soon. This amazing artist is in a league of his own! After the brilliant Brown Sugar in 1995, D’Angelo took another big step and created…

A timeless work of brilliance.

FEATURE: I’ve Come Home: Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Seven

FEATURE:

 

 

I’ve Come Home

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

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights at Forty-Seven

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LET’S start out…

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

with some background behind the writing of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. There is some mystery around the date of its creation. Bush wrote it around midnight when there was a full moon in March of 1977. Many say the date is 5th March, 1977. It was a song that almost did not make it onto her debut album, The Kick Inside. The last song written for that album, Wuthering Heights reached number one. Bush became the first female artist to achieve a U.K. number one with a fully self-written song. Bush got inspiration to write her debut single having watched the final ten minutes of a 1967 BBC miniseries adaptation of Wuthering Heights. I have seen that adaptation and it seems like maybe Bush caught the last fifteen or twenty minutes. A powerful scene where the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw Linton appears at the window as this ghost. Filmmaker Emerald Fennell is adapting Wuthering Heights for a new film out this year. Although the casting has raised eyebrows, it is another chance for people to discover the novel. I hope people do go to the source. The only novel written by Emily Brontë, it was published in 1847. One-hundred-and-thirty years later, Bush was inspired to write a song based on the novel. Although she didn’t read the book until a while after the single was released, it is incredible that this amazing and iconic artist would launch into the world with a song that was so original and unusual. I will end by writing as to why people need to read Wuthering Heights and how important that source is. I want to bring in a few features about Wuthering Heights. The first is from the Kate Bush Encyclopedia:

“The song was recorded with Andrew Powell producing. According to him, the vocal performance was done in one take, “a complete perfomance” with no overdubs. “There was no compiling,” engineer Kelly said. “We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us… we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning.” The guitar solo that fades away with the track in the outro was recorded by Edinburgh musician Ian Bairnson, a session guitarist.

Originally, record company EMI’s Bob Mercer had chosen another track, James And The Cold Gun as the lead single, but Kate Bush was determined that ‘Wuthering Heights’ would be her first release.  She won out eventually in a surprising show of determination for a young musician against a major record company, and this would not be the only time she took a stand against them to control her career.

The release date for the single was initially scheduled to be 4 November 1977. However, Bush was unhappy with the picture being used for the single’s cover and insisted it be replaced. Some copies of the single had already been sent out to radio stations, but EMI relented and put back the single’s launch until the New Year. Ultimately, this proved to be a wise choice, as the earlier release would have had to compete with Wings’ latest release, ‘Mull of Kintyre’, which became the biggest-selling single in UK history up to this point in December 1977.

‘Wuthering Heights’ was finally released on 20 January 1978, was immediately playlisted by Capital Radio and entered their chart at no. 39 on 27 January. It crept into the national Top 50 in week ending 11 February at No.42. The following week it rose to No.27 and Bush made her first appearance on Top of the Pops (“It was like watching myself die”, recalls Bush), The song was finally added to Radio One’s playlist the following week and became one of the most played records on radio. When the song reached number 1, it was the first UK number 1 written and performed by a female artist”.

Kate performed ‘Wuthering Heights’ numerous times in TV programmes.

9 February 1978: Bio’s Bahnhof (Germany)
[unknown date] 1978: Magpie
16 February 1978: Top of the Pops
2 March 1978: Top of the Pops
23 March 1978: Top of the Pops
25 March 1978: The Late Late Show
25 March 1978: Toppop (Netherlands)
7 May 1978: Rendez-vous Du Dimanche (France)
12 May 1978: Efteling TV special (Netherlands)
19 May 1978: Szene (Germany)
9 September 1978: Festivalbar (Italy)

I wrote in my flat, sitting at the upright piano one night in March at about midnight. There was a full moon and the curtains were open, and every time I looked up for ideas, I looked at the moon. Actually, it came quite easily. I couldn’t seem to get out of the chorus – it had a really circular feel to it, which is why it repeats. I had originally written something more complicated, but I couldn’t link it up, so I kept the first bit and repeated it. I was really pleased, because it was the first song I had written for a while, as I’d been busy rehearsing with the KT Band.

I felt a particular want to write it, and had wanted to write it for quite a while. I remember my brother John talking about the story, but I couldn’t relate to it enough. So I borrowed the book and read a few pages, picking out a few lines. So I actually wrote the song before I had read the book right through. The name Cathy helped, and made it easier to project my own feelings of want for someone so much that you hate them. I could understand how Cathy felt.

It’s funny, but I heard a radio programme about a woman who was writing a book in Old English, and she found she was using words she didn’t know, but when she looked them up she found they were correct. A similar thing happened with ‘Wuthering Heights’: I put lines in the song that I found in the book when I read it later.

I’ve never been to Wuthering Heights, the place, though I would like to, and someone sent me a photo of where it’s supposed to be.

One thing that really pleases me is the amount of positive feedback I’ve had from the song, though I’ve heard that the Bronte Society think it’s a disgrace. A lot of people have read the book because of the song and liked it, which I think is the best thing about it for me. I didn’t know the book would be on the GCE syllabus in the year I had the hit, but lots of people have written to say how the song helped them. I’m really happy about that.

There are a couple of synchronicities involved with the song. When Emily Bronte wrote the book she was in the terminal stages of consumption, and I had a bad cold when I wrote the song. Also, when I was in Canada I found out that Lindsay Kemp, my dance teacher, was in town, only ten minutes away by car, so I went to see him. When I came back I had this urge to switch on the TV – it was about one in the morning – because I knew the film of Wuthering Heights would be on. I tuned in to a thirties gangster film, then flicked through the channels, playing channel roulette, until I found it. I came in at the moment Cathy was dying, so that’s all I saw of the film. It was an amazing coincidence.

Kate Bush Club Newsletter, January 1979”.

In 2015, Uncut published a feature around the making of Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. Some words from those who recall how the song came together and why it is resonant. Forty-seven years after its release, this song still creates shivers. It is a remarkable debut single that catapulted Kate Bush to the forefront. She was an instant star:

“The fact that Bush shared her childhood name (Catherine) with Earnshaw, and a birthday (July 30) with Bronte, fostered a sense of cosmic kinship with the subject of “Wuthering Heights”, a bond acted out when she recorded the song with members of the Alan Parsons Project. “She seemed to adopt different personas when she was singing,” recalls guitarist Ian Bairnson. “Suddenly there was another person there.”

Aided by a wildly eccentric video and some choice publicity photos, “Wuthering Heights” was instantly impactful, and later spoofed by everyone from Pamela Stephenson to Alan Partridge. These days Bush may regard its unbridled romanticism with mixed feelings (it was nowhere to be heard in Before The Dawn), but it remains one of music’s boldest opening statements of artistic intent, and an unforgettable exploration of obsessive love, supernatural imagining and powerful femininity.

“ANDREW POWELL (Producer, Arranger, Bass): In 1975 I got a call from David Gilmour, saying he’d got this artist and he just thought she was something really special. This was substantially prior to Kate signing to EMI. Initially he said he was going to produce her, but in the end Dave put up money for some sessions. These were really superior demos, and I ended up producing them, including “The Man With The Child In His Eyes”. A couple of years later I went in to do the album. She had so many songs. I’ve still got some of the cassettes. I must have 100 songs here, still, written pre-The Kick Inside.

BRIAN BATH (Guitarist in KT Bush Band): She wrote “Wuthering Heights” at her flat at Wickham Road in Brockley when she was living with [KT Bush Band bassist] Del Palmer there. At the time [their relationship] was all a bit hush-hush, a bit keep it careful.

POWELL: My memory is that “Wuthering Heights” was written very close to us going into the studio. I think it was only a matter of a few days before. Kate came around to where I was living and said, “What about this one?” She sat down at my piano and out it came. It was obvious to me immediately that it was something extraordinary.

DAVID PATON (12-string guitar): Andrew gave us a brief outline as to what Kate was all about, Dave Gilmour nurturing her and all that. He said, “She’s very young but EMI are really excited about her, she’s really special.” I remember him saying the music was a bit wild, a bit wacky even. We arrived at the studio, Kate introduced herself, and Andrew just said, “Sit down and play them the song,” and that’s how it was done. She sat down at the piano, said, “It goes like this,” and just played. We were all gathered around the piano with our jaws dropped, because it was a stunning performance. Faultless, absolutely faultless, and she could do that time and time again. It sounded fantastic, there was just a great vibe in the studio.

IAN BAIRNSON (Guitar): She sat and played the piano and sang the guide vocal. We wrapped ourselves around her, looking for ways to embellish it or give it direction. For us it was a very refreshing thing, because it was wide open.

PATON: Talking about Cathy and Heathcliff was so clever. I didn’t like to ask her, “What’s this song really about?” That book must have had a huge impact on her to influence her in that way, but she kept her vision to herself. A lot of artists you work with you usually find that they’re besotted with themselves – like Freddie Mercury, all he could do was talk about himself all the time. She wasn’t like that at all. She didn’t say, ‘”I want to do this and that, me, me, me, me.” She wasn’t that kind of person at all and that in itself was very refreshing.

BAIRNSON: I didn’t pay a lot of notice to the lyrics. It was only about a year ago when I read the lyrics and appreciated them so much more.

PATON: Her influences were pretty unique, pretty stylised. And that high–pitched voice. It wasn’t until I was listening to “Wuthering Heights” on the radio that I really realised, Woah, that’s really high pitched! When she sat and sang live for us I didn’t really notice anything unusual about it, I just felt her style was very unique.

POWELL: I loved it, I was very much in favour of it. She was doing some very interesting things with her voice. She was experimenting more and more in all sorts of directions – vocally, lyrically and musically.

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

GERED MANKOWITZ (Photographer): I took the infamous ‘leotard’ photo in my Great Windmill Street studio in Soho in early 1978. I was doing a lot of work for EMI, and they called me and said, “We’ve got this extraordinary young woman called Kate Bush, she sounds like nobody else, she’s wonderful to look at, but we don’t know what to do with her. We need some photographs, we need an image.” I always found the clothes that dancers used during rehearsals a very attractive look, and I thought it was a natural fit for Kate because she was so into dance and movement. I simply suggested we got leotards and woollen working socks and all that gear, and they put it to her and she seemed to like it. When the pictures were processed, the advertising agency EMI had employed to promote “Wuthering Heights” came up with the campaign of putting the posters on buses, and selected the one in the pink leotard – famously showing her nipples – and the rest is history. She certainly wasn’t uncomfortable with it. She was perfectly aware of how she looked, because she had spent two hours in the dressing room during the shoot. It was her choice, done with her full participation and knowledge. She was very comfortable with her body. The pictures were a huge commercial success and I think they had a great deal to do with putting Kate on the map.

KELLY: I can remember saying to Kate, “You’re going to be so famous you’re not going to be able to walk down the street.” I said that to her after the first week of recording, though she wouldn’t have believed it.

POWELL: The unusualness was key, this strange girl. As soon as she did “Wuthering Heights” on Top Of The Tops, that made a difference, too, because it wasn’t a conventional performance.

BAIRNSON: It was quite a shock when I saw her first on Top Of The Pops, because the Kate that we knew in the studio and the one that turned up on TV was a completely different persona.

BATH: She was just a bag of nerves her first time on Top Of The Pops. Unfortunately it’s not a great performance. It wasn’t ideal. The KT Bush Band all went along expecting to play, and at the BBC they said, “Oh no, we use our own musicians.” We were all upset not to be included in it, and so was she. All we could do was stand in front of her and say, “Come on Kate, go for it.” But she was very nervous. I think if we had been on stage with her it would have been better, but it didn’t matter. The song was already massive by then. I think the video helped”.

There are a couple of other features that I want to introduce. Dreams of Orgonon wrote a wonderful feature about Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights. It was so different to everything that was around at the time. Released on 20th January, 1978, it is amazing that the public connected with the song and made it a success. Bush was right to fight for this song. She instinctively knew that Wuthering Heights would be taken to heart:

“In accordance with this liberty, Bush carries off “Wuthering Heights” with such ease. Her singing is offbeat and non-conventional but blatantly works. She phrases her lyrics with dramatic pauses and breaks in odd gaps. Her emphasis on “you had a temper” followed by the rapid concession of “like my jealousy” is terribly in character for Cathy. She knows how to be coy and how to express fear (“turn down that road in the night” sounds genuinely panicked, as if she’s ready to lunge headfirst through Heathcliff’s window.) These turns would sound jarring from any other singer (covers struggle with the song’s tonal shifts), but Bush anchors it all with a mercurial gravity that takes the material dead seriously. Who else would handle placing the first syllable of “Heathcliff” in the pre-chorus and using the second to land the chorus this well?

Bush has total command of the song’s melody. “Wuthering Heights” has a concise structure of intro/verse/pre-chorus/chorus/verse/pre-chorus/chorus/bridge/chorus/outro which keeps the song moving and indulges in its pleasures without overstaying its welcome. The song appears to begin in A major but quickly reveals itself to be in F sharp minor, a conspicuous choice of key change signaled by the two keys’ use of three sharps, creating a fascinating mix of tension and uplift. As Cathy experiences her “bad dreams in the night,” the song creeps into B flat minor, before explosively modulating into D flat major for the chorus. While these key changes dazzle, the time signature is just as malleable. The first verse moves forward in 4/4 while the pre-chorus dips into 2/4, before the chorus pulls a series of time signature shifts from 4/4 (“it’s me, Cathy”) to 3/4 (“I’m so cold”) down to 2/4 (“let me in-a your window”) before settling on 3/4 for “window.” The second verse then slows down to 2/4, the time signature of the pre-chorus which is retained for the bridge. The chorus repeats and the outro carries on in 4/4, led by Iain Bairnson’s legendary guitar solo. There’s not a bum note in “Wuthering Heights.” As a song, it’s a masterpiece.

To sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee

And one can’t imagine a more fitting visual rendering of “Wuthering Heights” than the music videos produced for it. The first video directed by Nick Abson filmed on location at Salisbury Plain is probably more iconic as it’s the more literal video. Bush’s red dress and the use of an actual moor has to many people become the definitive image for Wuthering Heights as well as “Wuthering Heights.” The second video shot by Bush mainstay Keef Macmillan is perhaps more in tune with the atmosphere of the song, with its black room and echo-visual-effect placed on a glowing Bush, but it’s stodgier and less satisfying. But perhaps even more iconic than either video is the dance. Bush had been learning dance from legendary mime Lindsay Kemp for a time, and it shows. Bush’s choreography is less classical and more representative — she’s intent on capturing a character. “When I needed to possess you” is expressed poignantly by early Bush’s signature glance directly into the camera, while she directly holds her hands out for the pre-chorus. The precise spinning of “Heathcliff, it’s me, Cathy” is, of course, the highlight, right next to the farewell wave of the outro. “Wuthering Heights” is not only sung but danced.

The solitary neighbour

The spectacle of a 19-year-old auteur pulling this off was astonishing to record label EMI. Indeed it seems like they didn’t realize they had a hit on their hands. Executive Bob Mercer wanted “James and the Cold Gun” for lead single on The Kick Inside, but Bush was tearfully resolute on making “Wuthering Heights” her thesis statement. She got her wish, and handled the market better than the experts did. EMI did, however, make the wise decision to not bill their new star right before Christmas (and rightfully so — Paul McCartney and Wings were hijacking the charts with “Mull of Kintyre,” the bestselling single in UK history at that time). Unfortunately for EMI (or perhaps rather fortunately), copies of the single had been sent out prior to the delay, and radio stations loved “Wuthering Heights” enough to play it prior to its release. The ghost was making its way into audience’s ears.

And then it exploded. “Wuthering Heights” debuted on the 20th of January 1978, lingering for a month before moving comfortably into the Top 40 on the 14th of February. Two days later Bush was on Top of the Pops, making an unprepared performance of the song and looking appropriately ready for death. But the appearance caught enough people’s attention that by the 21st “Wuthering Heights” was at #13 on the charts. As Bush got more press attention and did scads of interviews, the song rose to #5 on the 28th. On the 2nd of March, the Macmillan video was showed on Top of the Pops and insured that “Wuthering Heights” wasn’t going away. Finally, on the 7th of March, Kate Bush’s debut single, recorded and released when she was 19, topped the charts, less than two months after its release. EMI were appropriately gracious, holding a champagne reception for Bush and giving her dinner in Paris. To celebrate, Bush used some of her royalties to buy a £7000 Steinway piano. Her success made her confident she wouldn’t stop there.

And she didn’t. The Kick Inside peaked on the albums charts at #3. In the same year, Bush would release her second album and begin planning her one and only concert tour. This was the most promising start to a career Bush could have asked for, and she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. In 1986, she cut a new vocal for the song to appear as the opening track of her compilation The Whole Story. Yet the story of “Wuthering Heights” had a life beyond that.

In 2018, Kate Bush made a rare public appearance to pay tribute to her old muse, Emily Brontë. As part of the Bradford Literature Festival, Bush was one of numerous writers to write a poem set in stone in Brontë’s honor:

She stands outside
A book in her hands
“Her name is Cathy,” she says
“I have carried her so far, so far
Along the unmarked road from our graves
I cannot reach this window
Open it, I pray.”
But his window is a door to a lonely world
That longs to play.
Ah, Emily. Come in, come in and stay.”

Perhaps the years has shifted Kate Bush’s perspective on Cathy and Heathcliff. But her respect for Emily Brontë and her creation has never gone. “Cathy will live on as a force. I was lucky she stopped in me long enough to write a song,” Bush mused in a 1980 book of sheet music. The ghost of Cathy hasn’t stopped haunting Kate Bush. She gave Bush a career. And Bush hasn’t left us alone either. May she haunt us for years to come”.

In many ways, Kate Bush brought Wuthering Heights to life. Made it more accessible to people. How the song is almost a lesson. Together with the extraordinary videos for the song – the first video of her in the red dress or the white dress version that followed -, this incredible novel was given this extraordinary and unforgettable interpretation. This feature from 2019 is must-read. Even though I have featured this article before, I wanted bring it in again:

“I’m not alone in hearing echoes of Kate Bush’s voice echoing across the culture. Though she has always been much better known in the UK, her American fans make up in ardor what they lack in numbers. To celebrate the November release of a career-spanning Rhino Records boxed set, Margaret Talbot unpacked her decades-long connection to the songs of Kate Bush, whom she identifies as a forerunner to Perfume Genius, St. Vincent, and Mitski. Earlier in the year, Wesley Morris lovingly deconstructed the use of “Running Up That Hill” in the FX series Pose.

So if a consideration of Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” briefly leads the class away from discussions of the uncanny in Wuthering Heights or the othering of Heathcliff or the tricks that Brontë plays with the reader’s complicity, the song is well positioned to open up a host of other, equally valuable, conversations that have nothing to do with my inclination toward post-punk British music. A close look at the video puts us only a cartwheel away from conversations about art, where it comes from, who it ignores, and who gets to make it.

According to the lore that surrounds the song, Kate Bush’s first encounter with Wuthering Heights came in 1977 when she caught the closing minutes of the BBC miniseries. She wrote the song in a single night, mining lyrics directly from the dialogue of Catherine Earnshaw Linton, one of the star-crossed lovers at the heart of the novel.

But as Bush borrowed from the dialogue, she made a crucial transposition in the point of view. When she sings, “You had a temper, like my jealousy / too hot too greedy,” the my refers to Cathy and the you to Heathcliff, the novel’s brooding protagonist/antagonist/antihero/villain (depending on your point of view). But the novel itself never inhabits Cathy’s consciousness: she is seen and heard, her rages and threats vividly reported, but everything we know about her comes from either Nelly Dean, a longtime housekeeper for the Earnshaw and Linton families, or through Lockwood, a hapless visitor to the Yorkshire moorlands and the principle first-person narrator of the novel (most of the novel consists of Nelly’s quoted speech to Lockwood, who is eager to hear the complete history of the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights and its neighboring property, Thrushcross Grange). Although the novel spans decades and multiple generations of Earnshaws and Lintons, Kate Bush’s shift into Cathy’s point of view centers the song entirely on Cathy and Heathcliff—which is fittingly how Cathy, in the novel, views the world. She and Heathcliff share one soul, she claims; everyone else, including her husband Edgar, is little more than scenery.

With this choice, Bush gives voice to a female character who—though an electric presence in the novel—is denied the agency of self-narrating, or even of being narrated through a close third person. Nelly may be presented to us by Lockwood as a simple, transparently objective narrator, but the novel is littered with moments where Nelly complicates the lives of those around her by revealing or concealing what she knows. Bush’s musical interpretation of the novel makes visible the questions that surround point of view: who does the telling? What is their agenda? Who can we really trust?

By opening up these questions, the song situates itself in the tradition of other so-called “parallel texts” that respond to or reinvent earlier, often canonical works of literature: think Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, or Kamel Daoud’s The Meursault Investigation and Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In each pairing of “parallel” and “source” text, the later work privileges characters narrated about, but never before narrated from within.

Like the novels by Rhys and Daoud, Bush’s song demonstrates how art can respond to art, and points to the ways in which crucial reevaluations of past works take place not only in scholarly articles but in one artist grappling with the erasures and silences of an earlier age. Rhys and Daoud both insist on a voice for a silenced, maligned, or dismissed colonial subject. Their aim is not to create a work that merely amends (or acts as a footnote to) the earlier text, but to produce a narrative that calls into question the primacy, and even the authority, of the earlier text.

Kate Bush’s shift into Cathy’s point of view centers the song entirely on Cathy and Heathcliff—which is fittingly how Cathy, in the novel, views the world.

Kate Bush may not have been aiming to supplant Emily Brontë, but just as the song itself points to issues within the novel, Bush’s role as its creator exposes the straitened public personae of the Brontë sisters in 1840s England. Remember that the Brontës—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—published their own work under vaguely male pseudonyms: their first joint publication, in 1846, was The Poems of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Jane Eyre appeared a year later, attributed to Currer Bell, and a year after that Ellis Bell’s name appeared on the title page of Wuthering Heights.

It was unthinkable at the time that young, unmarried women would circulate their names so freely on books that portrayed the love between a wealthy man and his hired governess, or the flare-ups of passion and cruelty that marked the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff. The sisters also knew that women authors were routinely dismissed or pilloried by the all-male fraternity of critics, and they hoped that the Bell names would offer protection and a fair shake from reviewers. Still, one early review blasted the incidents in Wuthering Heights for being “too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive,” while even a more positive review called it “a strange book. It is not without evidences of considerable power: but, as a whole, it is wild, confused, disjointed, and improbable.” Two years after Emily’s death in 1848, an edition of Wuthering Heights was published under her own name, with a preface and biographical note by Charlotte defending her sister’s moral character against the aspersions cast on her. 

IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in March 1978/PHOTO CREDIT: Mirrorpix

Fast forward to the late 1970’s and Kate Bush finds herself a young female artist in a culture industry still dominated by men. Her record company, EMI, pushed for another song, “James and the Cold Gun,” to be her first single, but Bush insisted that her debut had to be “Wuthering Heights.” After winning that argument, she delayed the release of the single in a dispute over the cover art, and later referred to herself as “the shyest megalomaniac you’ll ever meet.” When the single was finally released in early 1978, it needed only a few weeks and a performance by Bush on Top of the Pops to claim the #1 spot on the UK charts, displacing ABBA’s “Take a Chance on Me.” Only 19, Bush became the first female singer to make it to #1 with a song that she herself had written. At a time when women were viewed primarily as interpreters of others’ lyrics—as instruments rather than creators—Kate Bush upended the narrative with her first piercing notes. She would narrate from within, and in her own words.

The song’s connections to debates about cultural literacy, art-as-critique, and the fraught space of the female artist are enough to earn the video its place in the classroom. But I also count on “Wuthering Heights” to speak directly to my students about some of life’s other, bigger questions. My students, like teenagers everywhere, often wonder when their real lives will begin: when their ideas will matter to the wider world; when the art they make will feel like more than another assignment to be graded. But if high school students campaigning across the country against gun violence can illustrate the political power of the young, then Kate Bush argues that your artistic impulses also matter, that they’re valid, and that there’s no reason to wait.

And, it’s important to add, Kate Bush doesn’t care if you’re laughing. Because she is all-in, all the time. To watch the “Wuthering Heights” video is to see an artist consumed by a sense of personal vision. She isn’t aiming for the mainstream. She’s singing about a 19th-century novel known to most of her peers from their A-Levels cram sessions. Her voice soars and rumbles, and her dancing is a mix of pirouettes, leaps, and contortions. She even mimes sleepwalking. The video also uses every trick in the 1970’s A/V club handbook: gauzy filters, freeze frames, lighting gels, multiple exposures, a fog machine. It’s completely over the top, but Bush seems to know that holding back or winking at the camera will break the spell and cause the entire project to collapse into a cheap parody. If nothing else, Kate Bush is authentically herself”.

Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights has this strong legacy. Each year, there is The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever. It is an event held at locations around the world where participants recreate the music video (of her in the red dress). Last year’s event took place in Margate on 28th July. In 2018, Kate Bush paid tribute to the Brontë sisters in a new memorial on the Yorkshire Moors on the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth. In 2013, three-hundred Kates gathered in a park in Brighton to break the record for most lookalikes in one place at one time. Steve Coogan performed Wuthering Heights as part of a medley sung by Alan Partridge for his stage show (he did it again for Comic Relief in 1999). Kate Bush popped out for the evening and caught the final performance of Coogan’s run and told him after the show that “it was nice to hear those songs again”. Noel Fielding danced to the song in 2011 for Let's Dance for Comic Relief. Bush sent him a message wishing him good luck. With the Emerald Fennell film out soon, I do hope that many people read Emily Brontë’s novelistic masterpiece. I am reading it at the moment. Whilst Kate Bush was inspired by the final parts of a 1967 BBC adaptation, she did read the novel and loved it. Wuthering Heights is fascinating. Forty-seven years after it was released as a single, I would urge people to read the novel. It is beautifully written and endlessly fascinating. You quickly become invested in this story of destructive power of love, revenge, and obsession.  We follow the passionate love between Catherine Earnshaw (Linton) and Heathcliff, a poor orphan taken in by Catherine's father. You can read a fascinating summary here. I would suggest you invest in the novel as, in some ways, it brings you closer to Kate Bush’s masterpiece song. I imagine Bush reading Wuthering Heights for the first time and her reactions. How stirring it must have been. When thinking about the song, I wonder what it would have been like hearing it for the first time. The strangeness, beauty and originality of the song. It endures to this very day. Wuthering Heights remains one of the greatest and most important debut singles…

EVER released.