I like Hounds of Love..... but it's the 2nd side, the Ninth Wave suite of songs, that I absolutely adore......

 

I don't think there's a Kate album I don't adore - even her lowpoint, Red Shoes, has some sparks of genius on there (Song of Solomon especially).

 

As for an absolute fave album...... hmm.... The Dreaming is fantastic, but the drum-heavy production can be a bit much at times - it literally drowns the great songs on there, but I still love it, start to finish, Never For Ever is mostly great.... has Army Dreamers ever been more fitting and apt what with kids getting blown up in Afghanistan every day, Ariel is 50/50 - only A Coral Room from disc one, and all of the far superior disc 2.... but, for genuine genius..... I have to say Hounds of Love, for the Ninth Wave - Waking The Witch, Under Ice, Morning Fog.... it's too great a body of work to even begin to describe - an absolutely essential album, whatever age you are or genre you follow..... :heart:

I don't get much out of Lionheart or Never Forever apart from the singles. I find Aerial to be a complete disaster apart from How To Be Invisible - just dont get any of it.

 

Song of Solomon is amazing and the first half if The Red Shoes is decent enough.

 

Ninth Wave is fantastic.

Edited July 22, 201015 yr by tonyttt31

I find Aerial to be a complete disaster apart from How To Be Invisible - just dont get any of it.

 

Not even Sunset and Nocturn? I find How To Be Invisible a bit of a plodder...

Running Up That Hill is Kate Bush's only top 40 hit in the US and sums up the problems KB had getting a major hit in the US. She could never get any airplay as her music never fitted in with any popular radio genre and so her singles were usually overlooked hence they performed badly on the charts. It took MTV to get her noticed, back in the era when many UK acts could only chart in the US through MTV exposure.

 

Her US chart record:

 

The Man With The Child In His Eyes: #85 4 weeks 1979

Running Up That Hill: #30 20 wks 1985

Don't Give Up: #72 6wks 1987

Rubberband Girl: #88 6 wks 1993

 

The Dreaming: #157

Kate Bush (EP): #148

Hounds Of Love: #30

The Whole Story: #78

The Sensual World: #43

The Red Shoes: #28

Aerial: #48

 

The Kate Bush EP was a US and Canada only release which featured the following tracks:

 

Side One

 

1. "Sat in Your Lap"

2. "James and the Cold Gun" (live, taken from the On Stage EP)

3. "Ne t'enfuis pas" (only on Canadian version)

 

Side two

 

1. "Babooshka"

2. "Suspended in Gaffa"

3. "Un baiser d'enfant"

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_Bush_%28EP%29

Edited July 23, 201015 yr by Robbie

Kate Bush is quintissentially English, I think - she's a little too wordy and dare I say intelligent for the American top 40..... she steadfastly refused to drop the 'A Deal With God' tag at the end of the songtitle, too, which EMI advised for the American release - she relented slightly because originally, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)' was just called 'A Deal With God'.... she's an artist who rarely compromises to satisfy... something, especially in this day and age, that is wholly admirable I think.

Kate Bush is quintissentially English, I think - she's a little too wordy and dare I say intelligent for the American top 40..... she steadfastly refused to drop the 'A Deal With God' tag at the end of the songtitle, too, which EMI advised for the American release - she relented slightly because originally, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)' was just called 'A Deal With God'.... she's an artist who rarely compromises to satisfy... something, especially in this day and age, that is wholly admirable I think.

 

i love that. i love when artists like you say don't do things just to be more popular or get get a higher charting single. shows some integrity and they they only really do it because they just love to rather than to get famous which and that's pretty much what most artists these days are like.

 

my favourite albums are the dreaming and hounds of love. i can't decide which one i like the best..

I find Aerial to be a complete disaster apart from How To Be Invisible - just dont get any of it.

 

Agreed. I don't get it at all and regret buying it. Couple of tracks I like that's all.

Edited July 23, 201015 yr by Common Sense

I gave Sunset and Nocturn a spin today and they are good - but they dont hit the mark like earlier stuff.

The Dreaming is Kate's best album for me, I love it from beginning to end. :wub:

I gave Sunset and Nocturn a spin today and they are good - but they dont hit the mark like earlier stuff.

 

The mess-up on that album was that these 2 tracks should've been released as a double-A side (remember them?? With vinyl now back in fashion, perhaps it could've been possible?). I love these 2 tracks - as well as the title track from Aerial - but there's little doubt it could easily have been a single album - with no reference to her kid or bloody washing machines.... ugh.

 

King of the Mountain was one of her worst ever singles.....

I gave Sunset and Nocturn a spin today and they are good - but they dont hit the mark like earlier stuff.

 

I think you should give Lionheart and Never for Ever another try.

 

Although, for me, Never for Ever has a tendency to go a bit prog at times, The Infant Kiss is one of the strangest songs she has ever recorded. Actually i'm not sure whether the word should be strangest but it is an unforgettable piece of music.

 

I love Kashka (the chorus always has me in goosebumps) and Coffee Homeground is a definite pointer to The Dreaming and beyond.

 

 

As for Aerial, tbh it's only 5 years old so it still has so many glorious secrets to give up. I'm still discovering things in The Dreaming and that took me about 10 years to really rate apart from the singles.

Now it's possibly my favourite overall.

I do like Pi off of Aerial (and I like King of the Mountain)

 

The album that hasn't been mentioned much is The Sensual World - that includes my two favourite Kate songs (Love and Anger & This Woman's Work) and Rocket's Tail is absolutely incredible.

 

 

The mess-up on that album was that these 2 tracks should've been released as a double-A side (remember them?? With vinyl now back in fashion, perhaps it could've been possible?). I love these 2 tracks - as well as the title track from Aerial - but there's little doubt it could easily have been a single album - with no reference to her kid or bloody washing machines.... ugh.

 

King of the Mountain was one of her worst ever singles.....

Mrs Bartolozzi is a great song. An ode to loss (death or divorce?) and a slow descent into OCD hell...

 

And Bertie is gorgeous :P

The Sensual World is my second favourite album - the whole feel of it is warm, soothing and wintry. I remember being livid at the time because bloody Erasure beat it to the top spot....

 

Title track is one of the most gorgeously erotic pieces of music I've ever heard.... The Fog is just so beautiful and the imagery it conjures up - the trust a child puts in its parent whilst learning to swim juxtaposed with letting yourself go in a relationship - it's a reminder of why this lady is so important..... Deeper Understanding, too.... how true her words, now 21 years old, have become - people really have forsaken human contact for their computers.

 

This Woman's Work will always be in my top 5 singles of all time - lyrically, it's genius, and it always reminds me of losing a relative... just one of those records that means so much, without sounding corny. One of the finest songs ever written.

 

Rockets Tail is bonkers - but brilliant..... and Never Be Mine, again, lyrically just perfect.... the story of what might have been in a relationship so brilliantly told - the imagery in this makes you wonder how great a book by this lady could be..... however, Sensual World also includes my least favourite KB song ever - the dreadful Between a Man and a Woman - it's a clunking old mess.... and a day when her lyrical genius was having a break, I think.

 

Love and Anger - love the video, but the song is like The Big Sky for me - the one I always skip. Beautiful video, though, but the song misses the mark for me, don't really know why.

 

I worked in a record shop when this album came out and we went to one of the regional launch parties, in Bristol.... I remember EMF and Jesus Jones, label-mates, were there - very drunk on the free champagne. All raucous and laddy - til they title track started playing with the video on a huge screen - and the room fell silent, everyone caught up in the moment of the song, knowing this was the launch of something very, very special. I have a gorgeous huge card photo of the stunning cover image, too, a window display.... about 3 foot square, no text, just that beautiful photo.... one of my most treasured items, the thing I'd rescue in a housefire. Even before the cat :P

The mess-up on that album was that these 2 tracks should've been released as a double-A side (remember them?? With vinyl now back in fashion, perhaps it could've been possible?). I love these 2 tracks - as well as the title track from Aerial - but there's little doubt it could easily have been a single album - with no reference to her kid or bloody washing machines.... ugh.

 

King of the Mountain was one of her worst ever singles.....

 

 

Agreed about most of that - especially King of the Mountain.

 

I love the opening riff of How to Be Invisible and the vocal hook in the first line boot it does go on a bit too long. I think I'll be digging into The Sensual World, Never Forever and Lionheart in the coming weeks. I find This Woman's Work to be stunning and it's almost more remarkable because it came 10 years into her career.

Hey guys I only have The Whole Story and Aerial but fancy buying another studio album or two as they're less than a fiver online. So which should I order first? Was thinking of The Kick Inside and Hounds Of Love, as Russ speaks so highly of that. I've liked most of her singles.

 

 

EDIT. Why do they have to re-release albums with 6 or 7 extra tracks? I hate that. Fair enough re-master it but release it just as it was when first released. I don't want different versions. :rolleyes: Hounds Of Love was originally a 12 track album but is an 18 track re-issue. :rolleyes:

Edited July 25, 201015 yr by Common Sense

Just ignore all the exta tracks for the first few months of getting no know any remastered/expanded album that you have not owned before. The Hounds of Love does take some time to reveal it's genius because of it's second half - which is experimental in nature. But it is my favourite so I recommend taking the time to get into.

It's definitely worth getting the remastered extended Hounds of Love - basically because it includes a song called 'Under The Ivy', which was the b-side of 'Running Up That Hill' - and it's one of her greatest songs.... really, really brilliant.

 

As an intro to Kate, it's probably the one to go for...... The Sensual World, too, which is excellent. I like the idea of getting one at a time, devouring that one, then getting a new one, much like when you find a new favourite author.

 

If you fancy splashing out a few more spondoolies, the Japanese Kate re-issues are worth a look - the mini LP sleeve replica version - Never For Ever and Lionheart in particular are stunning - perfect replicas of the original artwork, even down to the labels and inner sleeves.

The Sensual World is my second favourite album - the whole feel of it is warm, soothing and wintry. I remember being livid at the time because bloody Erasure beat it to the top spot....

The Sensual World is really quite dull aside from a couple of brilliant moments. Which Erasure album was it? If it was 'Wild!' then it probably does have more highs than The Sensual World tbh. :o

I think it was Wild, yes..... and I can't see any Erasure album having many highs ;)

Haha, I suspected you wouldn't. :D

 

I don't mind Erasure at all, I'm not going to pretend that they were an amazing albums act but their singles were remarkably consistent for a pop act. That said, the Chorus album was really good as was their self titled one.

 

Back on topic, I find The Sensual World incredibly difficult to get and that's primarily down to the production not standing the test of time very well - it's probably far easier to appreciate if you heard it at the time of release but it just misses the variety that makes the other Kate albums so special for me.