Kate Bush "Aerial" (2005)

Aerial
release date: Nov. 4, 2005
format: digital (2 cd)
[album rate: 3 / 5]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

8th studio album by Kate Bush is a double cd released 12 years after The Red Shoes (Nov. 1993). Disc 1 of the album is titled "A Sea of Honey" and disc 2, "A Sky of Honey". Bush has always been reluctant or shy with the press giving rare interviews and never touring with her music, and after her '93 album she concentrated fully on her family life and withdrew from the music scene. Such a lengthy break from making music, almost naturally means something else in terms of styles and inspiration when finally re-appearing, and Aerial is something else.
The album was met by positive reviews, and it sees her demonstrating a new-found blend of folk rock, celtic folk, and singer / songwriter version of in an art pop spectrum. It's quiet, almost ambient, which requires attention, I guess. For my part, I just haven't been able to find my way around it... yet.
[ almusic.com, Rolling Stone 4 / 5, The Guardian, The Observer 5 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "The Red Shoes" (1993)

The Red Shoes
release date: Nov. 2, 1993
format: cd
[album rate: 3 / 5] [3,18]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Rubberband Girl" - 2. "And so Is Love" - 3. "Eat the Music" - 6. "Lily"

7th studio album by Kate Bush released 4 years after The Sensual World (Oct. 1989). Once again Bush comes out with a mainstream pop / rock album, and in my mind, it's not a hugely inspiring album without being bad or mediocre. Like the predecessor, The Red Shoes reached number #2 on the national albums chart list - number #28 in the US making it her highest ranked album there.
The album would prove to be her last studio release for the following 12 years. Privately, Bush had gone through a break-up with Del Palmer in the early '90s and she found together with guitarist Dan McIntosh, whom she married in '92. Personal loss and a difficult life-style as an international pop star had her retire from the spotlight from early '94, after which she led a completely anonymous life paying attention to her family life until she finally released Aerial in 2005.
Apparently, Kate Bush wasn't satisfied with the production and arrangements of especially this album, which resulted in 7 alternate tracks released on her 2011 album Director's Cut.
[ allmusic.com 2 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "Rocket Man" (1991) (single)

Rocket Man, 7'' single
release date: Nov. 22, 1991
format: vinyl
[single rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,38]
producer: Kate Bush
label: Mercury Records - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: A) "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time)" - - B) 1. "Candle in the Wind" (2,5 / 5) - 2. "Candle in the Wind (instr.)" (2 / 5)

Single release by Kate Bush, which was part of the Elton John / Bernie Taupin tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin (1991). I don't recall why or when I purchased this single, and I have never played it much.

Kate Bush "The Sensual World" (1989)

The Sensual World
release date: Oct. 16, 1989
format: digital
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,56]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "The Sensual World" - 2. "Love and Anger" - 5. "Heads We're Dancing" - 10. "This Woman's Work" (4,5 / 5)

6th studio album by Kate Bush follows four years after Hounds of Love (Sep. 1985) and adds another year to the interval in between new albums. This is her so far most mainstream pop / rock-shaped album to date. It was well-received by both the press and by fans making it peak as number #2 on the UK album chart list, but I don't find it up there on the same level as her previous studio albums.
I think, it's a rather transparent album with too little greatness to offer except from repeating some of the arrangements that worked before - the end track is however amazing. It's still obvious that Kate Bush has a gift for writing complex songs and for performing with something rare as pure grace but for the first time, I think Bush has made an album that doesn't live up to the standards, which of course are not for anyone else.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Rolling Stone 4 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "The Whole Story" (1986)

The Whole Story (compilation)
release date: Nov. 10, 1986
format: vinyl / digital
[album rate: 4 / 5]
producer: Kate Bush; Jon Kelly; Andrew Powell
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

A 12-track compilation album by Kate Bush, and a fine best of album with most of her hits. The album went to number #1 on the UK albums chart list.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "Cloudbusting" (1985) (single)

Cloudbusting, 7'' single
release date: Oct. 4, 1985
format: vinyl
[single rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,68]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI Records - nationality: England, UK

Tracklist: A) 1. "Cloudbusting" (4 / 5) - - B) 1. "Burning Bridge" (3 / 5)

2nd single taken from the album Hounds of Love.

Kate Bush "Hounds of Love" (1985)

Hounds of Love
release date: Sep. 16, 1985
format: vinyl / cd
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,08]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: A-side) ['Hounds of Love'] 1. "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)" 2. "Hounds of Love" (5 / 5) - 5. "Cloudbusting" (4 / 5) - - B-side) ['The Ninth Wave'] 2. "Under Ice" - 5. "Jig of Life" - 6. "Hello Earth" - 7. "The Morning Fog"

5th studio album by Kate Bush released three years after The Dreaming (Sep. 1982). After the long and financially difficult studio sessions working on her 82 album Bush built her own studio so she could use whatever time she needed on making new music. The album's style is more mainstream but it still could be categorised as art pop. Where The Dreaming appears as introspective and somewhat angry this comes out as deliberately more positive and open. The A-side on the original vinyl issue is titled 'Hounds of Love', and it encompasses the more evident pop hits, whereas the B-side, titled 'The Ninth Wave' is more of one conceptual progressive composition in several acts. The album contains some of her best single hits and it was her second album to top the albums chart list in the UK. It's by many considered her very best album, which I understand, although, I think you cannot overestimate her magic debut. Hounds of Love is nevertheless enlisted in countless lists comprising all time best albums, which includes "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".
Highly recommended.
[ allmusic.com 4,5 / 5, Sounds, Q Magazine 5 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "The Dreaming" (1982)

The Dreaming
release date: Sep. 13, 1982
format: vinyl / cd (2018 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [4,05]
producer: Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Sat in Your Lap" - 2. "There Goes a Tenner" - 3. "Pull Out the Pin" (4 / 5) - 4. "Suspended in Gaffa" (4 / 5) - 6. "The Dreaming" (4 / 5) - 8. "All the Love" - 9. "Houdini"

4th studio album by Kate Bush follows two years after Never for Ever (Sep. 1980) and it's her first to be exclusively produced by herself, which would prove to be standard from hereon. Nowadays, two years in the making of a new album isn't a strange thing but considering the early 80s when artists often had a record contract obligation to release a new studio album every year, and the fact that Bush already started recording new songs upon her third album's release, then two years was a long time working on an album back then, but it appears that Bush really enjoyed studio work as she had rejected the idea of performing live.
The style is pretty much the continued journey from the predecessor and is mostly seen as pure art pop. The album may lack absolute bangers, as had been her strength beforehand. "Sat in Your Lap" was released as first single and it peaked at number #11 on the singles chart; however, the following two single releases from the album: "The Dreaming" and "There Goes a Tenner" didn't perform as her previous singles had. Outside of the UK, "Suspended in Gaffa" replaced the second UK single and it performed better. More than a year later, "Night of the Swallow" was released in Ireland exclusively without attracting much interest there.
I vividly recall having the title track recored from radio to a mixtape, I played with new music back then, and as fascinationed I was by that track, I never really found it as amazing, as I did many years later. It was as if this very album was more than a decade ahead of its time. Being familiar with her former albums, this was, however, the first vinyl album I ever purchased with music by Kate Bush. I recall it as being less interesting than the predecessor and I didn't play it a great deal. That is, not up until the 90s and again after the new millennium. Listening to The Dreaming today, I understand why artists like Björk and Suzanne Vega list it among their favourites of the 80s. The production and the sound is quite unique of its time and she almost makes use of sampling in the multi-layered sound. The album has an Asian tone both heard on "Pull Out the Pin", "Suspended in Gaffa", on the title track, but also here and there on other tracks. The A-side is aboslutely stunning with the B-side - of course both having "The Dreaming" and "Houdini" - feels more narrative-minded with less focus on traditional pop-music craftmanship. The album made it to number #3 on the UK albums chart list and its deservedly enlisted in "1001 Album You Must Hear Before You Die".
Highly recommended.

Edit 2019:

The 2018 remaster series of her albums is amazing and lifts this album to a level of supreme proportions. It's: Wow!
[ 👎allmusic.com 3,5 / 5, Pitchfork 7,7 / 10, Smash Hits 4 / 5, Mojo 5 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "Never for Ever" (1980)

Never for Ever
release date: Sep. 8, 1980
format: cd / vinyl (2018 remaster) (gatefold)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,94]
producer: Kate Bush, Jon Kelly
label: EMI // Parlophone / Fish People - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Babooshka" (4 / 5) - 2. "Delius (Song of Summer)" - 3. "Blow Away (For Bill)" - 4. "All We Ever Look For" - 10. "Army Dreamers" (5 / 5) - 11. "Breathing" (5 / 5)

3rd studio album by Kate Bush follows two years after Lionheart (Nov. 1978). Bush has now gained control of her music and also as producer. The album is clearly better mixed, perhaps because of being less prog rock and baroque pop-oriented. It doesn't mean that it's without strings or horns but the classical instruments more play a part as an additional back curtain that doesn't steal focus. I have always liked this album quite a lot, although, I find the single "Babooshka" quickly becomes tiring. A track like "Violin" appear one of her lesser successful attempts in producing a new wave track. However, not only does the album have two marvellous album closers, but the its real strength is that the list of good songs is long and the album as such appears without noteworthy fillers making it a more harmonic - or: well-worked colelction of songs when compared to Lionheart. The track "Night Scented Stock" of 50 secs. basically functions as an intro to "Army Dreamers". The first single from the album was "Breathing" followed by "Babooshka" and succeeded by "Army Dreamers". The album was not only her first number #1 on the albums chart list in the UK but it was the first album by a female solo artist to top that list.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]

EDIT 2020:

The 2018 vinyl remaster on Bush' own label Fish People was part of a remastering of all of her albums, and they're all highly recommended.

Kate Bush "Lionheart" (1978)

Lionheart
release date: Nov. 10, 1978
format: cd / cd (2018 remaster)
[album rate: 4 / 5] [3,78]
producer: Andrew Powell with Kate Bush
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Symphony in Blue" (4,5 / 5) - 2. "In Search of Peter Pan" - 3. "Wow" (5 / 5) - 4. "Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake" - 5. "Oh England My Lionheart" - 6. "Fullhouse" - 8. "Kashka From Baghdad" - 9. "Coffee Homeground" - 10. "Hammer Horror"

2nd studio album by Kate Bush released only 9 months after her fantastic debut. The record label quickly understood what a treasure they had signed with and basically wanted to get most of it. Like on most of her works, she has composed all tracks on her own, and here she is credited as assistant to producer Andrew Powell. Musically, the album is close to the debut, only this is generally more quiet with stronger elements from progressive rock.
"Hammer Horror" was chosen as the first single from the album, which I don't really get. "Symphony in Blue", and "Wow" are easily the two most outstanding tracks on an album that fared well in the UK but wasn't released in the US until '84 because her debut album simply didn't sell.
The A-side is quite good and almost on par with the debut, but the B-side simply lacks great songs. It's far from a lesser album, I just find it lesser in comparison with her great masterpiece from earlier this very year. Bush herself has later admitted that she was pursuaded to release the album, although, she didn't have enough time to make it a satisfying follow-up. The experience, however, taught her to gain control of her own music, which in retrospect was the right thing to do at a time when labels only had profit in mind.
Kate Bush initiated her only ever live tour in the spring of '79 to promote her first two albums - the experience on the road apparently was so negative that she never toured again.
[ allmusic.com 3 / 5 stars ]

Kate Bush "The Kick Inside" (1978)

2018 remaster

The Kick Inside [debut]
release date: Feb. 17, 1978
format: vinyl / cd / cd (2018 remaster)
[album rate: 4,5 / 5] [4,36]
producer: Andrew Powell
label: EMI - nationality: England, UK

Track highlights: 1. "Moving" (4 / 5) - 2. "The Saxophone Song" (5 / 5) - 4. "Kite" - 5. "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" (4,5 / 5) - 6. "Wuthering Heights" (5 / 5) - 7. "James and the Cold Gun" - 8. "Feel It" - 9. "Oh to Be in Love" - 11. "Them Heavy People"

Studio album debut by Kate Bush and what a stunning debut, and later that year: Lionheart (Nov. 1978). My gosh, she was so extremely talented, there's hardly words to describe it! She composed and wrote all songs on her own, and she was 19 when the debut was released and she had only just turned 20 as her second album was issued. Only too bad that the punk rock-wave flooded everything and took away focus on progressive, art pop and all the traditional musical styles, and her whole persona came to appear old-fashioned despite the greatness of the songs as well as the arrangements.
After her first two albums, she toured the UK with an extraordinary scene show mixed with theatre, dance and performance art - Bush designed costumes and sceneries for the performances and alledgedly changed her costume 17 times at each occassion. Apparently, the whole experience was so exasperating that she never again made another tour. Another thing that adds to her experience with the press and media is that many saw her music and herself as 'out-of-time' phenomenon - something otherworldly and belong to another time and place. She soon became an object of parody. However, she nevertheless produced 5 great albums in a row - from this, her great debut, to Hounds of Love (1985) - what an amazing release history! After her fifth studio album she slowed down on the musical production - and in my mind never again made another really great album.
The Kick Inside is like a rough diamond. Even if she had never released any music again, she would by this album only forever be remembered as a shining star and unique performer. Many have criticised her theatrical style, which is evident if you watch her early live performance or videos, and it was somewhat out of sync with current time. I guess, some would call it anachronistic referring to experimental ballet from late 1960s and early '70s, and then you could of course argue that she brought other ways of expression to music, which was anything but old fashioned, which instead put her in the forefront of the scene of popular music. Well, she was just so talented and was inspired by many expressions of art. She wrote everything on her own and she played several instruments aside from owing an extremely powerful, well-balanced, and unequalled singing voice. Some of the songs from her debut had been written and composed at age 11! She was the first woman in music history to make an album of her own songs that ended up topping the charts. I have always fancied her music but at times I get sort of full of her style and sound and has to leave it for a while, but only for a period of time, because I always return to these her first albums, which I truly enjoy as musical works of art. Naturally, the album is enlisted in various best of album lists comprising the best albums of all time. This is really an amazing debut.
[ allmusic.com 4 / 5 ]

(4,5 / 5) The Kick Inside (Feb. 1978)	(4 / 5) Lionheart (Nov. 1978)	(4 / 5) Never for Ever (Sep. 1980)	(4 / 5) The Dreaming (Sep. 1982)	(4 / 5) Hounds of Love (Sep. 1985)

Five essential albums by Kate Bush

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This post is part of MyMusicJourney, which enlists key releases that have shaped my musical taste when growing up and until age 14. Most of these releases come from my parents' and / or my older brother's collection.