http://networkawesome.com//show/the-kate-bush-christmas-special/

http://skatebush.tumblr.com/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cfkz

My cousin was a goth and she skirted around the whole punk thing concentrating on the fashion and make-up. I misunderstood the point completely and bought her an Exploited 7″ for her birthday, while all the time she was listening to Phil Spector’s back catalogue and Iggy and the Stooges. Then she phoned me and asked me to buy her Kate Bush’s album for xmas. That’s when I realised she was no more punk than I, but instead something else.

I never really bought into this tribalism thing as a teenager, but I now know that my cousin was one of the first goths, bless her.

There’s something about the female vocal in the latter, that has me thinking surely Kate Bush must have heard this. Also I wonder how might Joe Meek have taken this song and played around with the arrangement?

Maybe producing something a little more Wagnerian perhaps?

Bjork?

No disagreement with the rating on this one, even if wasn’t a brilliant song, it’s fantastic to see such an odd piece of music at the top of the charts. I remember my Dad saying that the moment where the full orchestra stuff comes in halfway through is the best moment in any song ever – he’s not far wrong!

I can’t hear this record without thinking that this is my favourite pop moment of them all.

Naturally, I’m pleased that it’s such a momentous record, even though I obviously can’t claim any credit – it is indeed the first self-penned Number One by a solo female. Technically speaking, we will eventually hit a song from Tapestry, but let’s say no more for the nonce. Oh, and apparently ‘Running Up That Hill’ was Number 30 in the US.
As regards this one, I do feel a bit of distance from it just because I’m a bloke, but I wouldn’t give it less than maybe 9.5 – I deduct half a mark for that guitar solo which never feels like part of the song to me. Mind you, I don’t actually own the proper version of the track, which seems a bit of an omission on my part.

Oh, and I like the Futureheads, who found their own point even if it wasn’t the one originally intended. That China Drum cover is terrible though – meatheaded “Oooh look there’s a slow song let’s play it fast” rubbish.

KB has always struck me as a lot more…performative, I guess, than TA, and far less prone to being inappropriate or crude; thematically, TA is a lot more confrontational, the violence in KB’s work seems to occur most when she’s being overtly theatrical, playing roles and characters which are not her (‘Get Out Of My House’, ‘Houdini’, ‘Wuthering Heights’ too I guess!), and her most cathartic, traditionally confessional tracks are some of her most gentle (‘This Woman’s Work’, ‘Man With The Child In His Eyes’, ‘Moments Of Pleasure’). Whereas TA’s catharsis is often this raging, angry thing (‘Precious Things’, ‘Crucify’, Blood Roses’) which often seems like it’ll spiral out of control, were it not for TA’s songcrafting talents and technical chops; it was actually when I first heard Fleetwood Mac that I thought “oh so that’s where Tori got her inspiration from.

I look forward to discussing Tori in her own right in approx. 20 years’ time!

I quite agree that KB and TA are the products of their respective nationalities, but I think there’s greater aesthetic overlap, particularly musically, than you would suggest. (By the way, most of the students to whom I presented KB thought them kindred spirits.) Kate can be ferociously cathartic in some of her work, and I think it valid to say that she employs the “fractured prism” technique to great effect, particularly in her “concept albums” (if one chooses to see them as such) The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. (I’ve actually lectured on this topic–so I can go on and on. But I’ll spare everyone the long-winded discourse.)

I think what you’re implying is that KB’s subject matter lies more in her imagination and TA’s more in her personal experience. Yes and no. I grant you that KB has never done anything as unnervingly personal as “Me and a Gun,” but there’s no shortage of violence and grittiness in her work, even if it is presented in a more–what?–metaphorical manner. (This, too, could be a US vs UK thing).

This is not to disparage TA by any means. Like KB, she is a genuine eccentric gifted with the extraordinary sort of vision few others possess. But I do think it’s a bit disingenuous to say that there’s no influence there. (TA’s disavowal notwithstanding, KB wasn’t completely unknown in the US–she actually had some chart presence in the 80s.)

It’s interesting to note, though, that when VH1 did their “100 Most Important Women in Rock” programme (or something to that effect) back in the late 1990s), KB placed somewhere in the middle range of the list, despite this being a US-based project. And what artist do you think they interviewed about the significance of her work? TA!

BTW, TA nowadays occasionally sings “Running Up That Hill” in her live shows.

I’ve been proper hooked since Hounds Of Love, of course.

I entry to Kate Bush was via Tori, too – as a teenager I was a Tori obsessive, probably much along the lines of your students, and I think in around 1997 someone nudged me towards the Kate back catalogue – but I’ve never thought their aesthetics overlapped all that much, bar their similar vocal range. To be slightly reductive, I’ve always felt that Kate’s work is situated more in the realm of the imagination (not a million miles from the fantasy genre) whereas Tori focuses on personal experience and catharsis, albeit viewed through a very fractured prism at times. Plus, the work of both is really heavily informed by their nationalities.

(I think Tori’s gone on the record as saying she’d never heard Kate Bush until after she’d written most of Little Earthquakes, as KB never really hit big in the US.)