Rock Star Birthday Blurbs – Kate Bush

Kate Bush has always been a very interesting artist.  The Giant Panther and I don’t always agree on every band, but we are both big Kate Bush fans.  It makes perfect sense for Ryan to be a Kate Bush fan.  He likes most of the esoteric, atmospheric, electronic Indie sound.  It’s not that I don’t, but I just don’t find it nearly as compelling as Ryan does.   I used to do a lot more digesting of new and different sounds, but the last couple of years I have spent trying to get my catalogue digitized.  If Ryan turns me onto something new, such as LCD Soundsystem or The Twilight Sad, I might listen to it a couple of times in a row, file it and move onto the next band I want to get into my database.  It’s not really a good feeling for someone like me who likes to take his time with each new release and pass the word to my fellow music lovers.  I’m not doing very much to promote new music these days and that kind of disappoints me.  However, while I’m working through that issue I have a ton of experience with a wide range of bands that I can remind folks of in the meantime.  I think Kate Bush, who turns 52 today (born July 30, 1958), is one of them.

I first started hearing about Kate Bush in the mid 80′s when I was managing a Compact Disc store.  I was getting a lot of requests for her records The Kick Inside, Lionheart and Never For Ever, but I didn’t know a thing about her.  We’d play her in the store from time to time, but I was a rocker.  I wanted to listen to more energetic stuff.  Then one day I stumbled on her 1985 CD Hounds of Love.   Whoa.  “Running Up That Hill” was getting a lot of airplay on WFNX, our local Alternative Rock station.   I liked it.  It was different.  Then I started playing the CD because, well, I sort of “owned” it when working in a CD store.   One day it turned up in our used CD bin and I pounced on it.  I fell in love with the song “The Big Sky” and became a life long Kate Bush fan.  I also grabbed a copy of The Whole Story, her greatest hits CD, and found her song “Wuthering Heights” from 1978′s The Kick Inside.   I never knew anything could sound so beautiful.  It’s the type of song that has you breaking into tears for no real reason.  I’ve got a handful of those in my own personal repertoire.  You can’t really put your finger on why either.  Lulu’s “To Sir With Love” is one of those for me.   I just start balling like a baby sometimes.   In private of course…

Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter with a faint resemblance to American Actress Mary Steenburgen.  She was allegedly discovered by Pink Floyd honcho David Gilmour and signed to EMI Records as a teenager somewhere around 1975.   She released her debut LP, the previously mentioned The Kick Inside, at 19.  An eclectic artist with a dance background, Bush only toured once in her career in 1979.   The tour lasted six weeks.  It is alleged that Bush has a crippling fear of flying so if that is true I’m sure that factored into her lack of enthusiasm for touring.   It has been said that her second record, 1978′s Lionheart, was a rush job which still bothers Bush to this day.  Ever since that time she has lived an almost reclusive life style, comparatively speaking for a Rock star, and has maniacally maintained artistic control of her records to the point of building her own recording studio.   She has been known to disappear for years at a clip before resurfacing with another release.  Her latest CD, Aerial, was released in 2005 after a twelve year break.   I remember being impressed at the time, but I haven’t listened to it in quite awhile.

I bought 1988′s Sensual World and 1993′s The Red Shoes sight unseen because of having fallen in love with Bush.  Each has a killer single; “Love and Anger” from Sensual World and “Rubberband Girl” from The Red Shoes, but Bush’s records are not going to break any sales records outside the UK.  She is a Goddess there.   She’s just sexy and talented to the rest of the world.  Part of her mystique I think is her reluctance to promote her music with the press.  When you don’t see people for years at a clip sometimes you are even more interested in them for some reason.   Kate always had a performance art type of vibe behind her music and I’ve often wondered what type of music she might have made if she went for a harder edge.  She’s tremendous just as she is, but can you imagine if she vented like, oh I don’t know, Alanis Morissette once in a while?  Maybe then she just wouldn’t be Kate huh?  Regardless, we, at The Giant Panther, want to wish a very Happy Birthday to Kate and we look forward to her next release, whenever that might be.

Kate Bush – Wuthering Heights.mp3

Kate Bush – The Big Sky.mp3

Kate Bush – Love and Anger.mp3

Buy or Download The Whole Story from Amazon here.