(extracted from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod" - 366 days/366 tracks/366 artists)
February 14th
Kate Bush-In The Warm Room-Lionheart
It would be
inevitable that somewhere during this year that the iPod would stumble across
one of the handful of artists that are up there. In my stratosphere of
appreciation, there are only a few who tick all boxes. There are some artists
who have released great albums/singles over the years and some who can be
valued because they pursue interesting directions and push at boundaries, but
sometimes flop and can’t keep the quality going. There are those who are
interesting in themselves, but part of that that makes them interesting is that
they are inherently flawed. All of these are worthwhile and good and have
produced music that I have loved over the years. There aren’t many artists who
have consistently released great music and continually do challenging work. Off
the top of my head, and without being a bit listist-Bob Dylan, The Fall,
Flaming Lips.
There’s Bruce Springsteen and Blind Willie McTell.
And Kate Bush.
Where to start
with Kate Bush? I know exactly the moment when the penny dropped for me. It
wasn’t upon the release of “Wuthering Heights” or any of her first few albums. They
kind of passed me by. I thought that they were ok-ish, but only really heard
the singles, and even then only on TOTPs. There was a lot of nonsense about
Kate Bush being only for Dads and her astounding beauty etc. I honestly can say
that this definitely went over my head at the time, and even now I see it a
total red herring. Between “Wuthering
Heights” and “the moment”, I was more preoccupied with post-punk stuff and, in
retrospect, had fairly limited horizons. It would be stuff that John Peel would
play by and large, and tend only to be on indie labels. Major label and commercial
music was out.
Anyway, it was a
Saturday afternoon in September 1985, and I was alone in the shared house I was
renting. I know it was a Saturday afternoon. as I was listening to a Radio 1
magazine-type show, hosted by Richard Skinner. I was cleaning the stairs (oh,
how I lived a rock and roll life back then), when he introduced an item about
Kate Bush’s new forthcoming album, “The Hounds Of Love.” I would have normally
let this waft over me or turned to Radio 4. Because I was busy and had my hands
full-the radio was in another room- I simply couldn’t be bothered. The item was
a fairly lengthy interview with Kate Bush and with clips of the album. I
listened to it with increasing wonder-this sounded brilliant -in all senses of
the word. The sound itself was so clear and sharp, quite unlike the Rough Trade
stuff that was my then current stock-in-trade.
The fact that it was a semi-concept album should have put me off, but it
was intriguing in itself-possibly it was a sign that I was getting a bit bored
with the same old stuff. I shouldn’t have liked this hippy-ish idea, but found
myself doing less and less of the cleaning, and listening more and more
intently to the interview. By the time the item had finished, I was both
convinced and converted. I went into town first thing on the Monday morning and
bought the album. No prevarication-straight to HMV at 9.00 a.m. It is still up
there as one of my all time favourite records-at least in the top ten and
probably the top three. (Looking at the internet for the release date of
“Hounds of Love”, I see it was September 16th 1985. Presuming that
the item ran on the Saturday before then, that must have been the 14th
of September. I do remember it was a warm, sunny afternoon and recall sitting
on the top of the stairs, sunlight streaming across the landing, with a cup of
tea by my side and the duster discarded).
Since then, over
the past twenty-odd years or so, I’ve got hold of all her studio albums, really
early demos and a couple of live shows. Without fault they are on their own,
head and shoulders above most other music, fascinating, brilliant and well,
just different.
Possibly stating
that they are head and shoulders above everything else is a bit much. Maybe
that they are on a whole different plane from most other music would be more apt.
A bit like Kate Bush herself-a whole different
plane(t).
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