I Put This Moment… Over Here
December 15th, 2005Kate Bush dropped completely off my radar screen shortly after the release of her album The Red Shoes in 1993. It’s not that Red Shoes was bad, but, like The Sensual World before it, Red Shoes was uninspiring, a real snoozer. From anybody else it would have been a good effort, but not from Kate Bush. From Kate Bush you expect brilliance. So I lost interest, and for over a decade I listened to Kate’s older works without giving a second thought to what new albums she was recording.
She was recording, wasn’t she?
Turns out she wasn’t. Last night I stumbled across Aerial, her new double album released just last month. I figured it was probably the latest in a half-dozen Bush albums I had missed. But no, it was in fact her first album since The Red Shoes, her first album in something like twelve years. That’s longer that it takes Boston between albums!
Well, I had sworn off Kate Bush, but I was really desperate for something new to listen to, so desperate I was actually tempted to buy a Dixie Chicks album. After much consideration and consternation I decided to give Kate another try. I paid for the download, copied the tunes to my iPod, and burned a copy to CD for Wendy.
I listened to the album this morning as I hacked my way through a few hundred lines of C++, and I’m really glad I bought it, because what’s been missing in my life is recitations of transcendental numbers and odes to large home appliances. Yes, really: the album includes one song called Pi in which Kate recites a hundred or so digits of the famous number, albeit with some gaps as tantalizing as Nixon’s eighteen minutes. And there’s a song called “Mrs. Bartolozzi” which seems to be an extended metaphor about a washing machine.
But seriously: is Aerial any good? Who knows? I never know what I think about a Kate Bush album until I’ve listened to it a dozen times. By then it either latches itself onto my central nervous system like a viral fever… or it puts me to sleep. So is Aerial ebola, or is it trypanosomiasis? I’ll let you know.
Interesting fact: Aerial in minutes and seconds is 80:06. (It’s a double album, although I’m not sure what that means in the age of CDs and digital downloads.) That’s just six seconds too long to fit on the 700 MB CD-R blanks I keep handy, but I tried burning it anyway. I told my recording software to try overburning, which means “try to cram it all on there no matter what.” And it fit, although even if the end had been chopped off it wouldn’t have mattered because that very last song ends in about twenty seconds of silence.
I know there’s one fan of The Kate who reads this weblog, so let’s see if I can start a fight:
Best Kate Bush song: Wuthering Heights
Best Kate Bush album: The Dreaming (turn it UP!)
Simply the best Kate Bush: The Ninth Wave
(One more thing before I go: I did buy Wide Open Spaces… and it’s fantastic.)
December 15th, 2005 at 11:58 pm
You can’t just use such a simple judging order for Kate Bush. This is Kate Bush. By the way, I don’t know if you remember, but you introduced me to Kate by a tape you made for me once. It was alternating Kate/Elvis Costello songs. Took me forever to sort out the lyrics to Wuthering Heights. I think I gave up and bought the album so I could read the lyrics. Kate Bush categories should be tied to ones fate. For example, if I don’t hear Cloudbusting, The Big Sky, Infant Kiss, Wuthering Heights, The Man With the Child in His Eyes, songs like that every so often, then I become a catatonic lump of goo. That sort of thing. I’m not into downloading music, though i’m sure my daughter will be very soon, so I’d love to get the songs from The Dreaming. Haven’t heard that in years. I’ve just got The Kick Inside, and Hounds of Love. I seem to remember liking a lot of songs from Neverforever.
December 16th, 2005 at 8:45 am
I had forgotten about that tape. It was called EkLaVtIeS, wasn’t it? I also made you a mix tape with a fish skeleton on the tape insert. I don’t suppose you might still have either of those laying around in a drawer somewhere?
December 16th, 2005 at 10:12 am
I don’t think so. Haven’t seen it in years. If I stumble across it, I’ll let you know. It’s a shame too, because it started me on her music.
December 17th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
Yeah, the jury is still out on Aerial for me. It’s cerainly no Dreaming, but I am really digging the second disc. That last (and title) track is the perfect closer. I’m not sure what to make of songs like Pi — they’re either brilliantly creative, or just silly. I’m inclined to say that while Aerial is pretty good, it doesn’t quite live up to the twelve year wait. I do pretty much agree with your best of Kate rundown (The Dreaming and the Ninth Wave blow my mind!), but for best single song I’d have to pick Running Up That Hill or Waking the Witch / Get Out of My House / Rocket’s Tail (I can’t decide) for the vocal work.
December 18th, 2005 at 12:52 am
I’m still learning Aerial’s language, so like all Kate’s efforts, it takes effort from me to get everything out of it. I agree, generally, with your assessment on the years that included The Red Shoes and The Sensual World. I think, at first listen, Aerial is substantially better than those efforts, in my opinion. I will say that I know I appreciate this one more than I would have 12-15 years ago, before being a parent.
As far as your Kate bait:
Best Kate Bush song: Wuthering Heights
Best Kate Bush album: The Dreaming (turn it UP!)
Simply the best Kate Bush: The Ninth Wave
I disagree with your first one; I found the songs from The Kick Inside interesting, but not her best work. Same with Lionheart. Neverforever showed real sparks to me. The Dreaming was definitely her best album overall, in my opinion. Hounds of Love definitely had the best Kate Bush piece (as you indicated) in the second side; The Ninth Wave still is something I listen to only in order. The songs comprising The Ninth Wave are the only ones on my iPod that have been joined so that they play together, in order, and that’s saying something, because I used to be something of an album order freak. I’ve gotten over it, especially with iTunes/iPod’s emphasis on songs rather than albums, but not with The Ninth Wave.
So we agree on your best album and best piece selections, but back to the song…
So, my favorite Kate Bush track? This is very, very tough…
The finalists: Mother Stands For Comfort, Cloudbusting, And Dream Of Sheep, Under Ice, Waking The Witch, Hello Earth, Night Of the Swallow, All The Love
These songs don’t necessarily feature her best vocals, but rather, in my opinion, her most interesting, well-crafted efforts. I appreciate Kate Bush more as a songwriter than anything else, and in the last 12 years, we have definitely been plagued by the singer/non-songwriter genre, which makes me appreciate those who write their own lyrics and music, like Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Ani DiFranco, and many other great songwriters.
I guess between Mother… and All The Love, I’d go with Mother Stands For Comfort.
Had fun with this, thanks!
Jerry