Kate Bush, "The Red Shoes" C/D?

I think my hang-up with it is that sense of it being a thematically abandoned concept album. The title track seems completely lost in the middle of the record. The artwork too, lends a sense of some kind of expectation that never exactly gets fulfilled.

That said... if you can ignore that, and the occasionally naff playing of the guest musicians on certain tracks (actually more of a guilty pleasure for me) it's very frequently great. In a much more straightforward way than I suppose some people had been used to from her.

Alternating deliciously light-hearted and outright fun (this song featuring Prince!) numbers, with absolutely burning sad weepies. This album is not short on terrific songs.

I've found myself defending it before. However, if I *have* to place it in my affections alongside her other work it still gets kinda disrespected. I mean I'll take it over "Lionheart" but that's not saying much.

I may be completely incapable of being objective here after all. Iffy bits aside 'The Sensual World' is fantastic.

Right. Back to The Red Shoes then...

Well anyway, The Red Shoes is fine. Nobody's mentioned "Lily," which I like a lot -- witchy funk. The aforementioned ballads really are good. The title track's great. It gets watery toward the end, but not a bad album. And yeah, she's no singles artist. The Whole Story is a great collection, but The Dreaming and Hounds are straight classics, top to bottom.

kyle... poo... you made me spit-laugh muffin all over my laptop at work. :)

seedcake boy, you're not alone on the sex to that record front... ;)

I dunno about that. The Red Shoes is her highest charting album; she's got two gold albums. Outkast's Big Boi has given several interviews wherein he declares his love for Bush and "Wuthering Heights" in particular. Maxwell? I won't mention Tori Amos.

*hides under rock*

And see? These are the people you care about most.

The potential for roffles in this sentence is pretty deep.

And so we come full circle to the Pat Benatar thread. Her cover is a strange strange thing. It should be a showcase for her voice (and it is) but I'm not quite sure what the point is of proving that your pipes are almost-but-not-quite in Kate B's class.

Or maybe Pat and Neil just really like the song, which is possible and kinda sweet.

Smooth way of alluding to other threads, Roger. Doesn't Kate Bush have a four and a half octave range? What's Benatar's?

you're right rogerfrommexico as long as the man likes her that is all that matters... i guess love of depeche and kate can equate a 12 year relationship. :)

-- Alfred Soto (sotoal...), July 28th, 2005.
pat b can sing 5.............5 notes lol and lmao.

Patricia Andrzejewski, born January 10, 1953 in Brooklyn, began studying voice as a child growing up in Lindenhurst, Long Island. Her mother had trained as an opera singer, and Pat eventually developed her own impressive four-and-a-half-octave vocal range.

So the tale of the tape sez it's an even match. In the ring though... almost-but-not-quite.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v93/shatterglas_bleed20/gavin_rossdale_02.jpg

Just what I wanted to see. A giant picture of someone else in a KB thread!

Merely reading the title of the some of the tracks on The Red Shoes gives me goose pimples - "Lily", "Top Of The City"...despite a two or three tracks that fall flat, it's an amazing album. And how the hell a Prince collaboration actually worked, I can't figure out.

Although it did contain a few classics, The Sensual World sounded mostly boring to me. Like trying much too hard to come up with a Hounds of Love II.

Re "Why Should I Love You?" According to the Prince bio "Possession," Bush was disappointed with what Prince had done to her song. After receiving the cassette demo, Prince proceeded to overdub instruments and vocals until the original melody line was lost. Bush had to re-remix it.

I would agree though about the difference in the problems with each album: the weak parts of The Sensual World are weak attempts at "Kate Bush" songs; the weak parts of The Red Shoes are when Kate comes across as just any girl.

i would include "top of the city" in that run.

WTF? Deeper Understanding/Between a Man and A Woman/Never Be Mine???? These are like my three favorite songs in a row

But yeah, my point was more that if you just heard the first three songs you'd think you were in for an utterly amazing album and instead it's just very good. Coming after The Dreaming and The Hounds of Love it really does feel like a shift down a gear.

Speaking of corny and trashy, "Heads We're Dancing" is a marvelous addition to her Corny and Trashy Canon; there aren't many songs about dancing with Hitler.

Tim may be right re. The Sensual World -- I'm still trying to get a grip on the whole thing, but the record opens very strong. On the whole, it still sounds a bit...overstuffed -- the video for "Love and Anger" indicated as much, featuring very LUSH optics, sparkly confetti and Dave Gilmour, who himself looks overstuffed. There's certainly some excellent music on here -- "Rocket's Tail", the She's Having a Baby OST, and the astonishing "The Fog", whose arrangement surely must be the late Michael Kamen's finest moment. And "Deeper Understanding"'s chorus is really compelling despite its dopey premise.

Somehow, it kind of feels like a loopy failure. But that's why we love her, I suppose.

More on The Red Shoes in a bit -- "Lily" I've always liked, though I feel much of the record deepens some of The Sensual World's worst transgressions.

Broadening things up a bit, how do we feel about her deployment of rock guitar on both these records and others?

Jeff Beck's solo on "And So is Love" and Clapton's on "You're the One" are fantastic; she tamed these two tasteful menaces. It makes me wonder: what would a Kate Bush-produced album Clapton album sound like?

NB: Bush's own solo on "Big Stripey Lie" suggests she should play more guitar.

i thought i had commented on this thread?...

so at first i was like TSW, but now... i dunno.

The Red Shoes kicks ASS for these:

1. Moments of Pleasure
2. Constellation of the Heart
3. Why Should I love You?
4. Song of Solomon

2 and 3 are ridiculously amazing, and the "I'll be the rose of sharon for ya" in Song of Solomon makes me weak at the knees.

A little sumpin' sumpin'.

yay! thanks!

Dud. I was so let down when this came out and no matter how hard I tried to like it, it just seemed forced and awkward with some of her worst lyrics. I liked "Rubberband Girl" and nothing else. Long since sold.

it took me a really long time too. but RG is not one of my fave traks. im telling u, Constellation and Why Should I love U are magic.

Wouldn't exactly call it classic although it has its moments. Still her weakest album though.

I remember this one mostly for the real tearjerker ones ("You're the One", "Moments Of Pleasure" [the 'dancing down the aisle of a plane' part gets me every time], "And So Is Love") despite the fact that much of the rest is great as well. Strange that though I like Aerial much more, only one song on all of Aerial does the same kind of thing to me.

But Alfred you had said in your review that with college radio in '93 it was an awkward time and I rather agree with that. I even think there is something undesirable about the production at times on this album (thankfully Aerial comes across much better, more straightforward in this regard). Your review had said "the last time deejays would tolerate the schizophrenic programming of yore" but it wasn't the DJ's who were to blame, it was program directors, major labels getting their sticky fingers into the mess, buyouts of stations by corporations. And hell, I've said before here music itself was in a state of flux. The rot was setting in.

delving back into it!

i think it's the kind of thing: it may be bad, but it's bad for her, which is actually pretty great for someone else

Exactly. Her big personal meltdown record. I'm really sorry more folks can't see why it's so great.

hey there bill

ha

Top Of The City is wonderful, but my brain wishes there was a version arranged in the style of Hounds Of Love era kate.

Coming to this album for the first time after being a huge KB fan since I was 16. Not exactly a revelation on the level of finding another chapter of Ulysses, but more like hearing from an old friend you were really close to but hadn't heard from in a while. She could sing the alphabet in a certain tone of voice and I would listen.

Gonna give Aerial another listen as I kind of dismissed it when it came out as "boring".

"Big Stripey Lie"!

I never warmed to this album for the same reason I never warmed to Talking Heads Speaking in Tongues--the thin, clattery production.

tho i will rep for some of the tracks on this in a huge way, i will never understand what happened to the production here, or on a lot of the sensual world. coming off the heels of the albums previous, i just don't get it. it's like she understood this making aerial, and turned around and produced something in the warmest, least clattering way possible.

"moments of pleasure" is beautiful

i haven't listened to this album in over a decade and don't recall anything else on it :/

not to overly toot my own horn but I'm covering this on OWOB this week.

I can't wait! I adore this record.

What's this?

http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/

i've said this elsewhere but "top of the city" is probably my favorite kate bush song

and this record >>>>>> the sensual world

^^^ my boo

It's as uneven but the ease with which I can jump around and find something for any mood ("Big Stripey Lie" for an old-school Bush fix, "Top of the City" for Side B-HOL intensnity, "Rubberband Girl" for heavenly pop hit) give TRS the nod imo.

don't want your bullshit
just want your sexuality

"and this record >>>>>> the sensual world"

no way. but I do like this album more these days than I did when it came out (or any time since).

omigod
it's a jungle out there

this sense of humor of mine
it isn't funny at all

"uneven" i suppose but i think i love every song on this record at this point

LIKE A POMEGRANATE
INSIDES OUT

currently assembling a queer identity theory of "eat the music"

"constellation of the heart" is i guess poppy and funky but then she has a weird conversation with the choir

the Prince collab is one of the duds.

nah

What one's the Prince collaboration? <3 Constellation so much.

"Why Should I Love You"

i like how ecstatic "why should i love you" is. fun to kinda flail around to

it doesn't live up to the idea of prince/kate but if you ignore that

the Prince song "My Computer" (dedicated to Kate Bush) is sweeter

i was reminded of "my computer" very recently by an incoherent piece about prince and computers in the awl. made the day great

why should I love you might have been better with Prince bothering to do the actual vocals instead of Lenny Henry pretending to be Prince. Maybe not.

promised I wouldn't do this but

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbP-dapt09Q

In Possessed Alex Hahn recounts Prince's conscientious, patient slaughter of Bush's demo.

katherine is killing it: http://oneweekoneband.tumblr.com/tagged/kate_bush/chrono

katherine this is really amazing, holy crap

why should i love you is definitely the takeaway here

this is finished -- and thanks!

having never known about an alternate version until now, that demo is ten times better than what prince did. not sure why she even wanted prince to do anything to that song anyway.

She didn't really want him to do much: http://noisey.vice.com/en_uk/blog/how-prince-met-kate-bush-and-made-why-should-i-love-you.

Bush asked Prince to contribute a few background vocals to a song called “Why Should I Love You”, which she had just recorded in full at Abbey Road Studios. But when Prince received the track, he ignored the intructions and dismantled the entire thing like a crazed mechanic taking apart old cars on his backyard. He wanted to inject himself into the very heart of it, weaving his sound amongst her sound, giving it a new soul entirely. As Koppelman explains, “We essentially created a new song on a new piece of tape and then flew all of Kate's tracks back on top of it… Prince stacked a bunch of keys, guitars, bass, etc, on it, and then went to sing background vocals.”

Maybe she was just too polite to turn it down? (I actually like both versions, even though the Prince one is a little bonkers.)

the timeline of this doesn't really match up, but I wonder whether it was prince or kate who was responsible for the album version not being about sex with jesus

she's no good for you baby
she's no good for you now

my favorite kate bush song

i've said this elsewhere but "top of the city" is probably my favorite kate bush song

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Monday, August 12, 2013 12:53 PM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh look

where just a couple of pigeons are livin'

I really enjoyed that katherine thanks for writing it

absolutely love moments of pleasure

I’ve often thought of doing a poll: This Woman’s Work vs Moments of Pleasure. I would be upset if Moments lost... so no go.

belated, thanks!

my favorite track from this at the moment's probably lily, which says a lot about 2017

album has aged better than I expected; I loved it when it came out then went through a long period of thinking it was really duff. but really the only duff track on this is Constellation of the Heart I think, now.