This Woman's Work
The Kick Inside (1978)
| LionHeart (1978)
| Never For Ever (1980)
| The Dreaming (1982)
| Hounds of Love (1985)
| The Sensual World (1989)
| The Red Shoes (1993)
| Aerial (2005)
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Kate Bush was born on the 30th July, 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent to a dentist and his wife. Fans on GaffaWeb, my resource call this date "Kate-mas".
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Said to have been discovered by her good friend
David Gilmour, frontman to the space rock group
Pink Floyd, Kate Bush is an artist whose expression translates into both audio and visual forms. Only two years after recording her demos, Kate released her first album
The Kick Inside at the age of twenty. Her
British megahit "
Wuthering Heights", inspired by the
Emily Brontë novel, went straight to number one, persuading music critics that the shrill '
banshee' sounds would always dominate her career. Instead, while a melodious voice and instruments characterise her beginnings, albums such as
Hounds of Love , in particular "
Running Up that Hill (A Deal With God)" progressed into a more rhythmic sound (also c.f. "
Sat in Your Lap",
album: The Dreaming).
Within one album, her lyrics can sway between the expression of a weak, dependent girl
"give me life, please don't let me go" (c.f. "
Moving",
The Kick Inside)
and an empowered, dominating woman.
"let me have it, let me grab your soul away" (c.f. "
Wuthering Heights").
Her song Babooshka from
Never for Ever tells the story of a woman who tests her spouse's fidelity by tricking him into meeting with her own self, dressed 'incognito'. On the other hand
Get out of my House from
The Dreaming exhibits the artist in a total rage, although curiously inspired by a children's cartoon - Walt Disney's adaptation of the story
Pinocchio.
However no album is as two-sided as
Hounds of Love, regardless of whether it is heard on tape or CD. While side one is playful and light, side two presents the dark story of a woman drowning at sea. In a similar manner to
Pink Floyd's concept album
The Wall and
The Dark Side of the Moon,
The Ninth Wave's array of sound samples (c.f.
"Waking the Witch") is basically Kate throwing a psychedelic tantrum. "
All We Ever Look For" from the earlier
Never For Ever is prophetic of such appeals to listeners'
synaesthesia-tendencies.
In 1990, a discography of her work was released in UK, Japan, Canada and France. It was rightly entitled "
This Woman's Work", a name borrowed from a track on
The Sensual World, which speaks of
childbirth.
Over a decade since, her latest album release,
Aerial (
EMI) was made public in November 2005. This double-disc is composed of
A Sky of Honey, which has been described by the author as "just regular Kate Bush songs" and
A Sea of Honey, a beaded collection of tracks, featuring
birdsong. Aerial has earned Kate some of the most positive reviews of her career.
Mp3 rarities and other trinkets are available here.