I don't understand Kate Bush. And Wuthering Heights really is painful. I remember the first time I heard it - I was listening to London Calling, Paul Gambaccini's weekly report on the UK music scene, and he said, essentially, "here's the next big thing." And I stared at the radio, thinking it was a joke.
No one sounds like Kate Bush (except the artists who came after & imitated her).
Kate Bush sings about stuff no one sang about before. I mean, who in their right mind would risk releasing a pop song about a Bronte novel? With lyrics from the point of view of a demented ghost? Of a woman who in life had been abused by an obsessed, stalking asshole? Wuthering Heights was meant to send chills down the spine. I'd shit myself if I heard a ghost outside MY window shrieking my name up & down three octaves. THIS is the haunting, horrific voice Heathcliff heard before dying alone in a room without food & water, the victim of his own revenge.
Kate Bush experimented, pushed comfort zones, wasn't afraid to sound weird or unrestrained in the tired genres of piano ballads & Adult Contemporary. She used her entire vocal range, growled, whispered, purred, screeched, and crooned her alternate vision of Pop to smack something different into its banalities.
Yeah. All that. Running Up That Hill is one of the bestest things ever. But Wuthering Heights is like nails on a chalk board. (And If she'd looked more like Bob Hoskins and less like, well, Kate Bush, no one would have taken the slightest notice of her.)
I hate raisins in sweets. I hate Kate Bush. I like apples, and once went to a minor league hockey game in Las Vegas (complete with free Village People concert afterward).
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Kate Bush sings about stuff no one sang about before. I mean, who in their right mind would risk releasing a pop song about a Bronte novel? With lyrics from the point of view of a demented ghost? Of a woman who in life had been abused by an obsessed, stalking asshole? Wuthering Heights was meant to send chills down the spine. I'd shit myself if I heard a ghost outside MY window shrieking my name up & down three octaves. THIS is the haunting, horrific voice Heathcliff heard before dying alone in a room without food & water, the victim of his own revenge.
Kate Bush experimented, pushed comfort zones, wasn't afraid to sound weird or unrestrained in the tired genres of piano ballads & Adult Contemporary. She used her entire vocal range, growled, whispered, purred, screeched, and crooned her alternate vision of Pop to smack something different into its banalities.
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But let's not fight!
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You see my point...
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