My favourite albums is her early three. I know Kate's full artistic control of her own music was not achieved until The Dreaming, but that album is a little dark and dense for me. Similarly, while I like Hounds of Love, this album and later lacks some of that simple, pure and powerful beauty of Kate just singing songs behind her piano which is something she does more on her earlier albums. I also think her later 80s albums suffer a bit from a very 80s production.
This is all relevant though. There's not a weak album here
It's Kate Bush after all, the most interesting female artist ever in the history of popular music. The first time I heard her music and saw her videos, I didn't know how to react. Was it beautiful or silly? Was it brilliant or ridiculous? The brilliant thing about Kate, at least early Kate, is that it's a little bit of both. She's so hard to define, for example how she manages to be a young, potent sex symbol who's completely unafraid of being herself with all her weird (and beautiful) faces while being an incredibly gifted and sophisticated artist and songwriter. The complexity of her personae coupled with the uniqueness and beauty of her voice made me fall in love with her almost instantly as soon as the initial confusion was laid to rest.
One of the most brilliant artists ever!
I see people here typically recommend starting out in the middle of her career. I would say start out with The Kick Inside, her first album, and work yourself up from there. Kate has made one of the most impressive debut albums in history so why not just start with that? To grasp the enormity of this album, she was signed by EMI at the age of 17. A couple of years later, she releases The Kick Inside. Those who are familiar with the album know that for a teenage girl to make such an album is nothing short of amazing.
From there onto Lionheart, but more so Never For Ever, there is a real sense of development. The Dreaming and Hounds of Love are radically different from the early works. There's an interesting stoy underlying all this as, initially, England and the rest of the world doesn't know what Kate is either. Is she a pop singer, sex symbol and a singles maker or is she a serious "album artist"? Why does she make music? So, start from the beginning and see how she develops through her career would be my recommendation
Here's one of my favourites from her debut (done for a TV show) :
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Originally Posted by Goblin Tears
Gaws, I can't stop watching this video. And to think this music Goddess does her own choreography, so young and oh so tender.
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She had a lot of help for the choreography for Wuthering Heights actually .. But yes, she is mesmerizing. Both in this and the "original" video
