Ophelia for the masses ...
Nov. 24th, 2005 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scottishlassSome of you might know that I'm an all time fan of Kate Bush ... My experience and life-long love-story with KT began when one Saturday evening I was allowed to stay up a little longer and watched one of those traditional entertainment shows on German TV. It was 1978, I was 11 years old and suddenly there was this waif-like red-haired 19 year old clad in a white lace dress singing Wuthering Heights which I had just finished reading (after almost a year of reading and re-reading passages as my greatgrandmother had urged me to read it and I had to finish it after she had died). Anyway, there she was, barely older than myself, singing her heart out, dancing like a wild gypsy across the screen and I think I really did fall in love with her voice and herself at that very second.
Needless to say, following Monday, I acquired my first ever album (The Kick Inside) and played it day in day out on the old record player (yes, in those days there were still record players) driving my mother crazy. My greatgrandfather who was living downstairs came up and enjoyed it, he liked her quirkiness very much and helped me understand most of the things she was singing about.
So back in 1978 I got hooked and now 27 years later, I'm sitting here, eyes closed and listening to the first album after a 12 year break and my heart, my soul stumbles all over again and I am in love.
Her voice is not as high pitched as it used to be, that is true, but boy she still packs a punch. The music is both ethereal and earthy - where Enya is ethereal and out of this world, Kate Bush's songs grab you by the collar and don't leave you alone.
There is balm, there is a melodic wind chiming over and under a sprawl of sea and sand. Seasons as bright as autumn, as light as spring and as dreadful as winter are created and float as well as drum their way into your brain. The new album Aerial has it all, the smooth, the quirky, the child-like passion as well as the more mature mother Earth that comes together in dreams and secrecy.
The album is both commercial and yet it retains the full-blown quirkiness that is so Kate Bush, it is messy like all her albums and yet it is orchestrated beautifully and professionally, and I think you either love or hate it ... like with The Red Shoes, This Woman's Work, Hounds Of Love, and all the others that came before. And yet I would have never for one second missed any of it - be it the menstruation in Strange Phenomenom or her full flung motherly pride in Bertie.
I'm really glad I bought it when it came out, didn't even listen King to Of The Mountain, her current single. I guess a lot of ppl had the same idea because it went straight from zero to place 3 in the German billboard charts.
"This is where the shadows come out and play
'Twixt the day
And night
Dancing and skipping
Along a chink of light."
Sunset - Aerial
Needless to say, following Monday, I acquired my first ever album (The Kick Inside) and played it day in day out on the old record player (yes, in those days there were still record players) driving my mother crazy. My greatgrandfather who was living downstairs came up and enjoyed it, he liked her quirkiness very much and helped me understand most of the things she was singing about.
So back in 1978 I got hooked and now 27 years later, I'm sitting here, eyes closed and listening to the first album after a 12 year break and my heart, my soul stumbles all over again and I am in love.
Her voice is not as high pitched as it used to be, that is true, but boy she still packs a punch. The music is both ethereal and earthy - where Enya is ethereal and out of this world, Kate Bush's songs grab you by the collar and don't leave you alone.
There is balm, there is a melodic wind chiming over and under a sprawl of sea and sand. Seasons as bright as autumn, as light as spring and as dreadful as winter are created and float as well as drum their way into your brain. The new album Aerial has it all, the smooth, the quirky, the child-like passion as well as the more mature mother Earth that comes together in dreams and secrecy.
The album is both commercial and yet it retains the full-blown quirkiness that is so Kate Bush, it is messy like all her albums and yet it is orchestrated beautifully and professionally, and I think you either love or hate it ... like with The Red Shoes, This Woman's Work, Hounds Of Love, and all the others that came before. And yet I would have never for one second missed any of it - be it the menstruation in Strange Phenomenom or her full flung motherly pride in Bertie.
I'm really glad I bought it when it came out, didn't even listen King to Of The Mountain, her current single. I guess a lot of ppl had the same idea because it went straight from zero to place 3 in the German billboard charts.
'Twixt the day
And night
Dancing and skipping
Along a chink of light."
Sunset - Aerial
