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Kate Bush

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Kate Bush

Kate Bush (born Catherine Bush; 30 July 1958)[2] is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years. Bush was signed by EMI at the age of 16 after being recommended by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour. In 1978, at age 19, she topped the UK Singles Chart for four weeks with her debut song "Wuthering Heights", becoming the first woman to have a UK number-one with a self-written song and was the most photographed woman in the United Kingdom that year.[3]

After her 1979 tour—the only concert tour of her career—Bush released the 1980 album Never for Ever, which made her the first British solo female artist to top the UK album charts and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at No. 1.[4] In 1987, she won a BRIT Award for Best British Female Solo Artist. She has released nine albums, three of which topped the UK Albums Chart, and has had UK Top 10 hit singles with "Wuthering Heights", "Running Up That Hill", "King of the Mountain", "Babooshka", "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" and "Don't Give Up".

In 2002, Bush's songwriting ability was recognised with an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. In 2005 she released Aerial, her first album in 12 years. The album earned her a BRIT Award nomination for Best Album and another for Best Solo Female Artist. During the course of her career, she has also been nominated for three Grammy Awards.

Biography

Early life

Bush was born in Bexleyheath, Kent, to English physician Robert Bush and his Irish wife, Hannah Daly.[5] She was raised in their farmhouse in East Wickham, Kent, with her older brothers, John and Paddy.[6] Bush came from an artistic background: her mother was a former Irish folk dancer, her father was an accomplished pianist, Paddy worked as a musical-instrument maker and John was a poet and photographer. Both brothers were involved in the local folk music scene.[7] John was a karateka at Goldsmiths College karate club and Bush also trained there, becoming known as "Ee-ee" because of her squeaky kiai. One of the instructors, Dave Hazard, later noted in his autobiography that her dance moves seemed to owe something to karate.[8] Her family's musical influence inspired the young Kate to teach herself to play the piano at age 11. She also played the organ in a barn behind her parents' house and studied the violin.[2] She soon began writing her own tunes and eventually added lyrics to them.[9]

Bush attended St Joseph's Convent Grammar School (later the St Joseph's campus of Bexley College) and a Catholic girls' school on Woolwich Road in Abbey Wood, London, in the mid-1970s. During this time her family produced a demo tape with over 50 of her compositions, which was turned down by record labels. David Gilmour of Pink Floyd received the demo from Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of Gilmour and the Bush family. Impressed with what he heard, Gilmour helped Bush get a more professional-sounding demo tape recorded that would be more saleable to the record companies.[10] The tape was produced by Gilmour's friend Andrew Powell, who would go on to produce Bush's first two albums.[9] The tape was sent to EMI executive Terry Slater, who would become famous for signing The Sex Pistols.[11] Slater was impressed by the tape and signed her.[12] At that time Pink Floyd was an important act to EMI.[11] The British record industry was reaching a point of stagnation.[11] Progressive rock was very popular and visually-oriented rock performers were growing in popularity, thus record labels looking for the next big thing were considering experimental acts.[11]

For the first two years of her contract, Bush spent more time on schoolwork than making an album. She left school after doing her mock A-levels and having gained ten GCE O-Level qualifications.[13] In 2005, Bush stated in an interview with Mark Radcliffe on BBC Radio 2 that she believed EMI signed her before she was ready to make an album so that no other record company could offer her a contract. After the contract signing, EMI forwarded her a sizeable advance which she used to enroll in interpretive dance classes taught by Lindsay Kemp, a former teacher of David Bowie,[14] and mime training with Adam Darius.[15]

Bush also wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, a few of which today can be found on bootleg recordings and are known as the Phoenix Recordings.[16] From March to August 1977, she fronted the KT Bush Band at public houses around London – specifically at the Rose of Lee public house (now Dirty South) in Lewisham. The other three band members were Del Palmer (bass), Brian Bath (guitar), and Vic King (drums). She began recording her first album in August 1977,[9] although two tracks had been recorded during the summer of 1975.

Wuthering Heights, The Kick Inside and Lionheart

Kate Bush "Wuthering Heights" (1978)
Sample from Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights".
Problems playing this file? See media help.

As part of her preparation for entering the studio, Bush toured pubs with the KT Bush Band. However, for her debut album The Kick Inside (1978) she was persuaded to use established session musicians, some of whom she would retain even after she had brought her bandmates back on board.[17] Her brother Paddy Bush played the harmonica and mandolin, unlike on later albums where he would play more exotic instruments such as the balalaika and didgeridoo. Stuart Elliott played some of the drums and would become her main percussionist on subsequent albums.[18]

Bush released The Kick Inside when she was 19 years old, but some of the songs had been written when she was as young as 13.[19] EMI originally wanted the more rock-oriented track "James and the Cold Gun" to be her debut single, but Bush insisted that it should be "Wuthering Heights". Even at this early stage of her career, she had gained a reputation for her determination to have a say in decisions affecting her work.[9] "Wuthering Heights" topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. Bush became the first woman to reach number one in the UK charts with a self-penned song.[20] A second single, "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", reached number six on the UK charts.[21] It also made it onto the American Billboard Hot 100 where it reached number 85 in early 1979, but it was Bush's only single to do so for nearly another seven years. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" went on to win her an Ivor Novello Award in 1979 for Outstanding British Lyric.[22]

EMI capitalised on Bush's appearance by promoting the album with a poster of her in a tight pink top that emphasised her breasts. In an interview with NME magazine in 1982, Bush criticised the marketing technique, stating: "People weren't even generally aware that I wrote my own songs or played the piano. The media just promoted me as a female body. It's like I've had to prove that I'm an artist in a female body."[9] In late 1978, EMI persuaded Bush to quickly record a follow-up album, Lionheart, to take advantage of the success of The Kick Inside. Bush has often expressed dissatisfaction with Lionheart, feeling that she needed more time to get it right. The album was rushed out of the studio in Nice on the French Riviera, making this her only album to be wholly recorded outside the UK. The album was produced by Andrew Powell, assisted by Bush. While it has its share of hits, most notably "Wow", it did not garner the same reception as her first album, reaching number six in the UK album charts.[23] Lionheart is the first record on which her then-boyfriend Del Palmer worked as a bassist. Palmer went on to play bass or to engineer and record every album since.

Bush was displeased with being rushed into making the second album. She set up her own publishing company, Kate Bush Music, and her own management company, Novercia, to maintain complete control over her work. The board of directors of these companies was herself and members of her family.[9] Following the album's release, she was required by EMI to undertake heavy promotional work and an exhausting tour, the only one of her career.[24] The tour, named The Tour of Life, began in April 1979 and lasted six weeks. Typical of her determination to have control, she was involved in every aspect of the show's production, choreography, set design, and staff recruitment.[9] The shows were noted for her dancing, complex lighting and her 17 costume changes per show. Because of her intention to dance as she sang, her sound engineers used a wire coat hanger and a radio microphone to fashion the first headset mic to be used by a rock performer, at least since the Swedish group Spotnicks used a very primitive version in the early 1960s.[2][25]

However, Bush disliked the exposure and the celebrity lifestyle associated with promotional work, given that her main priority was making music. As she moved into producing her own work, Bush began a slow and steady withdrawal from public life. It was at this stage of her career that she developed a perfectionist approach; she spent long periods of time in the studio and only met with the media when albums were released. Bush would disappear for up to four years while honing new material, which led to rumours in the media concerning her health or appearance.[26] In the past, stories of weight gain or mental instability have been disproved by Bush's periodic reappearance.[27]

Never For Ever and The Dreaming

Kate Bush "Babooshka" (1980)
Sample from Kate Bush's "Babooshka".
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Released in September 1980, Never for Ever saw Bush's second foray into production, co-producing with Jon Kelly. Her first time as a producer was on her Live On Stage EP, released after her tour the previous year.[19] The first two albums had resulted in a definitive sound evident in every track, with orchestral arrangements supporting the live band sound. The range of styles on Never for Ever is much more diverse, veering from the straightforward rocker "Violin" to the wistful waltz of hit single "Army Dreamers". Never for Ever was the first Kate Bush album to feature synthesizers and drum machines, in particular the Fairlight CMI, to which she was introduced when providing backing vocals on Peter Gabriel's third album in early 1980.[9] It was her first record to reach the top position in the UK album charts, also making her the first female British artist to achieve that status,[13] and the first female artist ever to enter the album chart at the top.[4] The top-selling single from the album was "Babooshka", which reached number five in the UK singles chart.[28] In November 1980, she released the Christmas single "December Will Be Magic Again", which reached number 29 in the UK charts. This was a stand-alone single not featured on any album and was recorded a year earlier, but was not ready in time for the Christmas market.

September 1982 saw the release of The Dreaming, the first album Bush produced entirely by herself. It was also a major departure for Bush, being initially composed on rhythm machine rather than piano, with songs extensively revised and rebuilt in the studio, rather than merely arranged there. With her new-found freedom, she experimented with production techniques, creating an album that features a diverse blend of musical styles and is known for its near-exhaustive use of the Fairlight CMI. The Dreaming received a mixed critical reception in the UK at first. Many were baffled by the dense soundscapes Bush had created, and some critics accused the album of being over-produced. In a 1993 interview with Q, Bush stated: "That was my 'She's gone mad' album."[9] However, the album was hailed as a "masterpiece" and a "musical tour-de-force" by critics in America, and the album became her first to enter the US charts, albeit only reaching number 157.[9] Critical opinion has significantly changed over the years in the UK. where the album is now seen as a seminal and influential work. The album entered the UK album chart at no.3, but is to date her lowest selling album, garnering only a gold disc.[29]

"Sat in Your Lap" was the first single from the album to be released. It pre-dated the album by over a year and peaked at number 11 in the UK. The following singles fared much worse. The album's title track, featuring the talents of Rolf Harris and Percy Edwards, stalled at number 48, while the third single, "There Goes a Tenner", failed to chart, despite promotion from EMI and Bush. The track "Suspended in Gaffa" was released as a single in Europe, but not in the UK.

Bush was in her early twenties when making the album and tended to look outside her own personal experience for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films for "There Goes A Tenner", a documentary about the war in Vietnam for "Pull Out The Pin", and the plight of Indigenous Australians for "The Dreaming". "Houdini" is about the magician's death, and "Get Out Of My House" was inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film of Stephen King's novel The Shining.

Hounds of Love Era and The Whole Story

Considered by many reviewers to be her masterpiece, Hounds of Love (1985) is no less experimental than previous albums from a production standpoint. Because of the high cost of hiring studio space for her previous album, she built a private studio near her home, where she could work at her own pace.[30] Hounds of Love ultimately topped the charts in the UK, knocking Madonna's Like a Virgin from the number one position.[31]

The album takes advantage of the vinyl format with two very different sides. The first side, Hounds of Love, contains five "accessible" pop songs, including the four singles "Running Up That Hill", "Cloudbusting", "Hounds of Love", and "The Big Sky". In August 1985, NME featured Bush in a "Where Are They Now" article. "Running Up That Hill" reached number 3 in the UK charts and also re-introduced Bush to American listeners, climbing to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in November 1985. The second side of the album, The Ninth Wave, takes its name from Tennyson's poem, "Idylls of the King", about the legedary King Arthur's reign, and is one continuous piece of music.[32]

The album earned Bush nominations for Best Female Solo Artist, Best Album, Best Single, and Best Producer at the 1986 BRIT Awards. In the same year, Bush and Peter Gabriel had a UK top ten hit with "Don't Give Up", and EMI released her "greatest hits" album, The Whole Story, for which she recorded the single "Experiment IV" and provided new vocals to "Wuthering Heights". Bush won the award for Best Female Solo Artist at the 1987 BRIT Awards.

The Sensual World and The Red Shoes

The increasingly personal tone of her writing continued on 1989's The Sensual World, with songs about unexpressed and unrequited love ("Love and Anger" and "Never Be Mine", respectively), the pressures on modern relationships ("Between a Man and a Woman"), and self-doubt and how it interfaces with parental comfort ("The Fog"). One of the quirkiest tracks on the album, touched by Bush's black humour, is "Heads We're Dancing", about a woman who dances all night with a charming stranger only to find out in the morning that he is Adolf Hitler.

The title track drew its inspiration from James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Bush realised that the text from Molly Bloom's Soliloquy fitted the music she had created. When the Joyce estate refused to release the text, Bush wrote original lyrics that echo the original passage, as Molly steps from the pages of the book and revels in the real world.[33]

The songs "Deeper Understanding", "Never Be Mine", and "Rocket's Tail" all feature backing vocals by the Bulgarian vocal ensemble the Trio Bulgarka, "Between a man and a woman" features backing vocals by Breton folk-pop singer Alan Stivell, also playing the celtic harp. The Sensual World went on to become her biggest-selling album in the US, receiving an RIAA Gold certification four years after its release for 500,000 copies sold. In the United Kingdom album charts, it reached the number two position.[34]

In 1990 the boxed-set This Woman's Work was released and included all of her albums with their original cover art, as well as two discs of all single B sides recorded from 1978-1990. In 1991, Bush released a cover of Elton John's "Rocket Man", which reached number 12 in the UK singles chart[35] and in 2007 was voted the greatest cover ever by readers of The Observer newspaper.[36] She recorded "Candle in the Wind," as the single's b-side.[37] 1990 also saw the one song Kate produced for another artist, Alan Stivell's "Kimiad," on his album "Again."

The Red Shoes was released in November 1993. The Red Shoes features more high-profile cameo appearances than Bush's previous efforts, including contributions from composer and conductor Michael Kamen, comedian Lenny Henry, Prince, Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker of Procol Harum, Trevor Whittaker, and Jeff Beck also donated their talents to the recording. The album gave Bush her highest chart position in the US, reaching number 28, although the only song from the album to make the US singles chart was "Rubberband Girl", which peaked at number 88 in January 1994. The single fared better in Europe, breaking the top 20 in the UK and Ireland. The album reached number two in the UK.[38] That same year, the film The Line, the Cross & the Curve, written and directed by Bush, and starring Bush and English actress Miranda Richardson,[39] used six of the songs on the album.

The initial plan had been to take the songs out on the road, and so Bush deliberately aimed for a live-band feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums and that would be difficult to recreate on stage.[40] The result alienated some of her fan base, who enjoyed the intricacy of her earlier compositions,[41] but others found a new complexity in the lyrics and the emotions they expressed.[42]

This was a troubled time for Bush. She had suffered a series of bereavements, including the loss of her favoured guitarist Alan Murphy, and, most painfully, her mother Hannah.[13] Many of the people she lost are honoured in the ballad "Moments of Pleasure", including Michael Powell (director of the film The Red Shoes), with whom she had discussed working shortly before his death. Her long-term romantic relationship with Del Palmer had also broken down, although the pair continued to work together.

Return with Aerial and beyond

After the release of The Red Shoes, Bush dropped out of the public eye for many years, although her name occasionally cropped up in the media with rumours of a new album release. Bush had originally intended to take one year off but despite working on material 12 years would pass before her next album release.[43] The press often viewed her as an eccentric recluse, sometimes drawing a comparison with Miss Havisham from Charles Dickens's Great Expectations.[20] In reality, she was trying to give her young son a normal childhood, and needed a quiet place for her creative process to function.[43] In 1998, Bush had given birth to Albert, known as "Bertie", fathered by her guitarist and now-husband Danny McIntosh.[13][44] After living for many years in southeast London, the couple and their son currently have two homes: a £2.5 million house in East Portlemouth on the Devon coast[44] and a mansion on an islet on the Kennet and Avon canal at Sulhamstead in West Berkshire.[45]

Bush's eighth studio album, Aerial, was released on double CD and vinyl in November 2005.[13] The first single from the album was "King of the Mountain", which was played for the first time on BBC Radio 2 on 21 September 2005.[46]

As on Hounds of Love (1985), the album is divided into two sections, each with its own theme and mood. The first disc, subtitled A Sea of Honey, features a set of unrelated themed songs, including "King of the Mountain"; "Bertie", a Renaissance-style ode to her son; and "Joanni", based on the story of Joan of Arc. In the song "π", Bush sings the number to its 137th decimal place, although for an unknown reason she omits the 79th to 100th decimal places. The piano and vocal piece "A Coral Room", which deals with the loss of Bush's mother and the passage of time, was hailed by sections of the British media as one of the most beautiful pieces Bush has recorded.[47] The second disc, subtitled A Sky of Honey, features thematically related songs linked by the presence of bird song. The album's cover art, which seems to show a mountain range at sunset over a sea, is in fact a waveform that represents birdsong. It also features her own "KT" symbol, which appears, slightly hidden, on all of her previous album covers, videos and promotional materials. All the pieces in this suite refer or allude to air or sky in their lyrical content. A Sky of Honey features Rolf Harris playing the didgeridoo on one track, and providing vocals on the track "The Painter's Link". Other artists making guest appearances on the album include Peter Erskine, Eberhard Weber, Lol Creme, and Gary Brooker. Two tracks feature string arrangements by Michael Kamen, performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra.[48] A CD release of the single "King of the Mountain" included a cover of "Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye.[49] "King of the Mountain" entered the UK Downloads Chart at number six on 17 October 2005,[50] and by 30 October it had become Bush's third-highest-charting single ever in the UK, peaking at number four on the full chart. Aerial entered the UK Albums Chart at number three, selling more than 90,000 copies in its first week of release. In the US it entered at number 48 with over 23,000 copies sold. Within five months of its release, the album had sold more than 1.1 million copies worldwide. Bush herself carried out relatively little publicity for the album, only conducting a handful of magazine and radio interviews. Aerial earned Bush two nominations at the 2006 BRIT Awards, for Best British Female Solo Artist and Best British Album.[51]

In an interview with Weekend Australian, published in December 2005, Bush stated that Aerial was not meant to be her last work and that she wished to continue writing and recording music. On 13 March 2006, EMI re-released all Bush's previous albums, including her greatest hits album The Whole Story, on compact disc with cardboard cases made to look like the original vinyl pressings. In 2007, Bush recorded a song for the film adaptation of The Golden Compass entitled "Lyra", played over the end credits of the film.

Musical style

Bush's music is eclectic, using various styles of music even within the same album. Her songs have spanned across genres as diverse as rock, pop, alternative and art rock.[2] Even in her earliest works where the piano was a primary instrument, she wove together many diverse influences, melding classical music, rock, and a wide range of ethnic and folk sources, and this has continued throughout her career.

In an interview with Melody Maker magazine in 1977, she revealed that male artists had more influence on her work than females, stating:

Every female you see at a piano is either Lynsey De Paul, or Carole King. And most male music—not all of it but the good stuff—really lays it on you. It really puts you against the wall and that's what I like to do. I'd like my music to intrude. Not many females succeed with that.[9]

The experimental nature of her music has led it to be described as a later, more technological, and more accessible manifestation of the British progressive rock movement[1][11] Like artists in the prog rock genre, Bush rejects the classic American style of making pop music, which was adopted by most UK pop artists. Bush's vocals contains elements of British, Anglo-Irish and most prominently (southern) English accents.[1] Southern England was the home to the most influential and successful acts of the progressive rock movement.[1] Elements of and Bush's lyrics tend to be more unusual and less clichéd than American-style pop lyrics, often employing historical or literary references.[1] The musical instruments used in her songs and the way instruments are played commonly differs from the American norm.[1]

At least one reviewer has used the term "surreal" to describe her music.[52] Many of her songs have a melodramatic emotional and musical surrealism that defies easy categorisation.[53] It has been observed that even the more joyous pieces are often tinged with traces of melancholy, and even the most sorrowful pieces have elements of vitality struggling against all that would oppress them.[54]

Bush is not afraid to tackle sensitive and taboo subjects.[55] "The Kick Inside" is based on a traditional English folk song (The Ballad of Lucy Wan) about an incestuous pregnancy and a resulting suicide;[56] "Kashka from Baghdad" is a song about a homosexual male couple;[57] Out magazine listed two of her albums in their Top 100 Greatest Gayest albums list.[58][59] "The Infant Kiss" is a song about a haunted, unstable woman's almost paedophile infatuation with a young boy in her care (inspired by Jack Clayton's film The Innocents (1961), which had been based on Henry James's famous novella The Turn of the Screw);[60] and "Breathing" explores the results of nuclear fallout from the perspective of an unborn child in the womb.[61] Her lyrics have referenced a wide array of subject matter, often relatively obscure, as in in "Cloudbusting", which was inspired by Peter Reich's autobiography, "Book of Dreams", about his relationship with his father, Wilhelm Reich, and G. I. Gurdjieff in "Them Heavy People", while "Deeper Understanding", from The Sensual World, portrays a person who stays indoors, obsessively talking to a computer and shunning human contact.

Comedy is also a big influence on her and is a significant component of her work. She has cited Woody Allen,[62] Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, and The Young Ones[26] as particular favourites. Horror movies are another interest of Bush's and have influenced the gothic nature of several of her songs, such as "Get Out of My House", inspired by Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and "Hounds of Love", inspired by the 1957 horror movie Night of the Demon.[63] Her songs have occasionally combined comedy and horror to form dark humour, such as murder by poisoning in "Coffee Homeground", an alcoholic mother in "Ran Tan Waltz" and the upbeat "The Wedding List", a song inspired by François Truffaut's 1967 film of Cornell Woolrich's The Bride Wore Black about the death of a groom and the bride's subsequent revenge against the killer.[64]

Live performances

Further information: The Tour of Life

Bush's only tour took place 2 April – 13 May 1979, after which she gave only the occasional live performance. Several reasons have been suggested as to why she abandoned touring, among them her reputed need to be in total control of the final product, which is incompatible with live stage performance, a rumour of a crippling fear of flying,[33] and the suggestion that the death of 21-year-old Bill Duffield severely affected her. Duffield, her lighting director, was killed in an accident during her 2 April 1979 concert at Poole Arts Centre.[19] Bush held a benefit concert on 12 May 1979, with Peter Gabriel and Steve Harley at London's Hammersmith Odeon for his family. Duffield would be honoured in two later songs: "Blow Away" on Never for Ever and "Moments of Pleasure" on The Red Shoes. Bush explained in a BBC Radio 2 interview with Mark Radcliffe that she actually enjoyed the tour but was consumed with producing her subsequent records.

During the same period as her tour, she made numerous television appearances around the world, including Top of the Pops in the United Kingdom, Bios Bahnhof in Germany, and Saturday Night Live in the United States (with Paul Shaffer on piano).[65] On 28 December 1979 BBC TV aired the Kate Bush Christmas Special. It was recorded in October 1979 at the BBC Studios in Birmingham, England. As well as playing songs from her first two albums, she played "December Will Be Magic Again", and "Violin" from her forthcoming album, Never for Ever. Peter Gabriel made a guest appearance to play "Here Comes the Flood", and a duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day" with Bush.[66]

In 1982 Bush participated in the first benefit concert in aid of The Prince's Trust alongside artists such as Madness, Midge Ure, Phil Collins, Mick Karn and Pete Townshend. On 25 April 1986 Bush performed live for British charity event Comic Relief, singing "Do Bears... ?", a humorous duet with Rowan Atkinson, and a rendition of "Breathing". Later in the year on 28 June 1986 she made a guest appearance to duet with Peter Gabriel on "Don't Give Up" at Earl's Court, London as part of his "So" tour. In March 1987, Bush sang "Running Up That Hill" at The Secret Policeman's Third Ball.

On 17 January 2002, Bush appeared with her longtime champion, David Gilmour, singing the part of the doctor in "Comfortably Numb" at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

Video projects

Bush has appeared in many innovative music videos designed to accompany her singles releases. Among the best known are those for "Running Up That Hill", "Babooshka", "Breathing", "Wuthering Heights", "Army Dreamers", "Them Heavy People", "The Man with the Child in His Eyes", which was the 55th video played on the first day of MTV, and "Cloudbusting", featuring actor Donald Sutherland, who made time during the filming of another project to take part in the video.[67] EMI has released a few collections of her videos, including The Single File, Hair of the Hound, The Whole Story, and The Sensual World, as well as an abridged concert video of her 1979 tour Live at Hammersmith Odeon.

In 1993, she directed and starred in the short film, The Line, the Cross & the Curve, a musical co-starring Miranda Richardson featuring music from Bush's album The Red Shoes, which was inspired by the classic movie of the same name. It was released on VHS in the UK in 1994 and also received a small number of cinema screenings around the world. Overall it was a critical failure. In recent interviews, Bush has said that she considers it a failure, and stated in 2001: "I'm very pleased with four minutes of it, but I'm very disappointed with the rest."[68] In a 2005 interview she went as far as to describe the film as "A load of bollocks."[69]

In 1994, Bush provided the music used in a series of psychedelic-themed television commercials for the soft drink Fruitopia that appeared in the United States. The same company aired the ads in the United Kingdom, but the British version featured Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins instead of Bush.[70]

Several collections of Bush's music videos have been released on VHS, most notably The Single File, which contained videos predating the Hounds of Love album; Hair of the Hound, containing videos concerning that album; and The Whole Story, a career video overview released in conjunction with the 1986 compilation album of the same title. In late 2006, a DVD documentary titled Kate Bush Under Review was released by Sexy Intellectual, which included archival interviews with Bush, along with interviews with a selection of music historians and journalists (including Phil Sutcliffe, Nigel Williamson, and Morris Pert). The DVD also includes clips from several of Bush's music videos.[71] As of 2008, a DVD collection of Bush's videography from 1978 to 2005 had yet to be released.

On 2 December 2008 the DVD collection of the fourth season of Saturday Night Live including her performances was released.[72] A three DVD set of The Secret Policeman's Balls benefit concerts that includes Bush's performance was released on 27 January 2009.[73]

Movie projects

In 1990, Bush starred in the black comedy film Les Dogs, produced by The Comic Strip for BBC television. Aired on 8 March 1990, Bush plays the bride Angela at a wedding set in a post-apocalyptic version of Britain. While Bush's is a silent presence in a wedding dress throughout most of the film, she does have several lines of dialogue with Peter Richardson in two dream sequences. In another Comic Strip Presents film, GLC, she produced the theme song "Ken", which includes a vocal performance by Bush. She also produced all the incidental music, which is synthesiser based.

Bush wrote and performed the song "The Magician", in a fairground-like arrangement, for Menahem Golan's 1979 film The Magician of Lublin.[74] In 1985, Bush contributed a darkly melancholic version of the Ary Barroso song "Brazil" to the soundtrack of the Terry Gilliam film Brazil. The track was scored and arranged by Michael Kamen. In 1986, she wrote and recorded "Be Kind To My Mistakes" for the Nicolas Roeg film Castaway. An edited version of this track was used as the B side to her 1989 single "This Woman's Work". In 1988, the song "This Woman's Work" was featured in the John Hughes film She's Having a Baby, and a slightly remixed version appeared on Bush's album The Sensual World.[75] The song has since appeared on numerous television shows, as well as on a long-running British television advertisement for the charity NSPCC.

In 1999, Bush wrote and recorded a song for the Disney film Dinosaur, but the track was ultimately not included on the soundtrack. According to the winter 1999 issue of HomeGround, a Bush fanzine, it was scrapped when Disney asked her to rewrite the song and she refused. Also in 1999, Bush's song "The Sensual World" was featured prominently in Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan's film "Felicia's Journey".[76] "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" is on the soundtrack for the 2007 British romantic comedy film Starter for 10.[77]

Collaborations

Bush provided vocals on two of Peter Gabriel's albums, including the hits "Games Without Frontiers" and "Don't Give Up", as well as "No Self-Control". Gabriel appeared on Bush's 1979 television special, where they sang a duet of Roy Harper's "Another Day". She has sung on two Roy Harper tracks, "You", on his 1979 album, "The Unknown Soldier", and "Once", the title track of his 1990 album. She has also sung on the title song of the 1986 Big Country album The Seer, the Midge Ure song "Sister and Brother" from his 1988 album Answers to Nothing, Go West's 1987 single "The King Is Dead" and two songs with Prince – "Why Should I Love You?", from her 1993 album The Red Shoes, and in 1996, the song "My Computer" from Prince's album Emancipation. In 1987, she sang a verse on the charity single "Let It Be" by Ferry Aid. She sang a line on the charity single "Spirit of the Forest" by Spirit of the Forest in 1989. In 1995, Bush covered George Gershwin's "The Man I Love" for the tribute album The Glory of Gershwin. In 1996, Bush contributed a version of "Mná na hÉireann" (Irish for Women of Ireland) for the Anglo-Irish folk-rock compilation project Common Ground: The Voices of Modern Irish Music. Bush had to sing the song in Irish, which she learned to do phonetically.[78] Artists who have contributed to Bush's own albums include Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Nigel Kennedy, Gary Brooker, and Prince. Bush provided backing vocals for a song that was recorded during the 1990s titled Wouldn't Change a Thing by Lionel Azulay, the drummer with the original band that was later to become the KT Bush Band. The song, which was engineered and produced by Del Palmer, is available for download and will be on Azulay’s upcoming CD.[79][80]

Bush declined a request by Erasure to produce one of their albums because "she didn’t feel that that was her area".[81]

In 2010 Bush provided vocals for Rolf Harris's cover of a traditional Irish Song entitled "She Moves Through The Fair". Harris who described the collaboration the "best thing I’ve done" is unsure of how to release the track.[82]

Influence

Kate has spawned a number of tribute acts, including the "Dutch Kate Bush" (pictured) and the UK band Never For Ever.

From the 1980s onward it has become almost standard for individualistic female singer-songwriters to be compared to Bush by the media. She has been noted as an influence on female artists such as Tori Amos, Björk,[83] Alison Goldfrapp,[84][85] KT Tunstall,[86] Lily Allen,[87][88] PJ Harvey,[30][89] Little Boots,[90][91][92] and Florence Welch,[93][94] in addition to acts as diverse as Muse,[86] OutKast,[89] and Bloc Party.[95] Paula Cole named Bush as an influence while accepting the Best New Artist Grammy in 1996. Ariel Pink wrote a tribute song for her titled "For Kate I Wait" on the album The Doldrums. The trip-hop artist Tricky has said about Bush, "I don't believe in God, but if I did, her music would be my bible".[13] Punk rocker John Lydon, better known as Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols, declared her work to be "fucking brilliant" and labelled her "a true original". Rotten once wrote a song for her, titled "Bird in Hand" (about exploitation of parrots) that Bush rejected. Rotten theorised that Bush thought the song contained insulting references aimed at her.[96][97] Marc Almond chose "Moments of Pleasure" as one of his 10 favourite songs on Radio 2 in June 2007, saying that the song had a profound influence on him when he was combating drug addiction in New York in the 1990s. OutKast's Big Boi told CNN in July of 2010 that one of his goals was to work with Bush. "Kate Bush -- that's my dream collaboration," he says adamantly. "I'd do a whole album with Kate Bush. I'm looking for her right now." [98] In November 2006, the singer Rufus Wainwright named Bush as one of his top ten gay icons.[99] Outside music, Bush has been an inspiration to several fashion designers, most notably Hussein Chalayan.[100]

Many artists around the world have recorded cover versions of Bush songs, including Charlotte Church, The Futureheads (who had a UK top ten hit with a cover of "Hounds of Love"), Placebo, Pat Benatar, Hayley Westenra, Jane Birkin, Natalie Cole, Ra Ra Riot,[101][102] Maxwell,[103] The Church[104] and Nada Surf.[105] The British dance act Utah Saints sampled a line from "Cloudbusting" for their single, "Something Good", which reached number four on the UK singles chart in 1992. Their remix "Something Good 08" reached number eight on the UK chart in February 2008.[35] Artists such as Tori Amos, Nolwenn Leroy, Patrick Wolf and Happy Rhodes have covered her songs in live performances. Coldplay said their track "Speed of Sound" was originally an attempt to re-create "Running Up That Hill". Suede front-man Brett Anderson has stated that "Wuthering Heights" was the first single he ever bought and mentioned "And Dream of Sheep" in Suede's song "These are the Sad Songs".[106] British folk singer Jim Moray also references "And Dream of Sheep" in his self-penned track "Longing for Lucy".[107] Progressive death metal act Novembre also covered "Cloudbusting" on their album Novembrine Waltz. In 2009, John Forté released a hip hop version of "Running Up That Hill".[108]

Discography

Main article: Kate Bush discography
Studio albums
Compilation albums

See also

References

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Further reading

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