8. Kate BushHounds Of Love
I loved Kate Bush when she came out, but I never really embraced her. I loved the wackiness and the beauty of ‘Wuthering Heights’ and ‘Army Dreamers’ and the early stuff, but when I heard The Dreaming, I went, “What the fuck is going on here?” This was profound!
She was getting heavier than Joy Division with the drums. I remember we used Nick Launay, the producer that did the early Birthday Party and some early Virgin Prunes stuff, and he had this big fucking drum. Every young band post-Joy Division and Low wanted the biggest drum in the fucking world and he was known for it, so we hired him. He was saying, “I’m working with Kate Bush” and he played me ‘Sat In Your Lap’, and I went, “What the fuck?” The Dreaming is a very brilliant, but very distraught album. And then Hounds Of Love is perfection.
I wasn’t really a prog rocker or into concept albums, but ‘The Ninth Wave’ is just gobsmacking. What she does as a musician, as a vocalist, where she goes… even the idea of someone being shipwrecked, alone, suffering from hyperthermia, and this wakefulness of between sleep and dream, and then she imagines she’s under ice, that she’s a witch. It suddenly it then goes to Ireland with the ‘Jig Of Life’ and you go, “It’s just like a fucking movie!”
And then you look at the other side, which has all the hit singles, like ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)’ or ‘Cloudbusting’ and you can talk about those until the cows come home. They’re wonderful pieces of pop, but the title track, I’ve never heard angst and pop and melody merge so beautifully. The heartbreak of love and the wildness of the animals, and the way it’s captured. And then she just breaks your bollocks in half when it goes to ‘Mother Stands For Comfort’. No one can say bad about a mammy, but like, she just captures that motherly love. I’m blown out by the woman. You know, when the history books are written in Britain about music of the 20th century, it’ll be The Beatles, Bowie and Bush, in my mind. She is a fucking genius. And I don’t care if she’s a bit hippie; I adore her.
