Re: Which Kate Album to Listen to First

[finley@lambda.uleth.ca (Kent Finley)]

Well, being a purist, I would recommend The Kick Inside as *the* Kate
Bush album to listen to first, for two reasons:
   1) It's her first album.
   2) It's her most accessible album.

But really, which to listen to first depends on what I like to call your
KT, or Kate-ness Tolerance, which is difficult to measure if you've
never listened to much of her!  (Roughly equivalent would be your
tolerance for weirdness.)  Based on an scale from 1 to 10, I would rank
her albums as follows (1 being the lowest KT or weirdness tolerance
level):
   1 - The Kick Inside    (think Joni Mitchell, Sarah McLachlan)
   3 - Lionheart
   5 - Never for Ever
  10 - The Dreaming       (think Nina Hagen -- well, almost :)
   7 - Hounds of Love
   4 - The Sensual World  (ok, maybe Lionheart *is* weirder)

Of course, these rankings are only approximations and have absolutely
nothing to do whatsoever with my opinions concerning their relative
merits musically, technically, or what-have-you.  I think Never for Ever
is nicely representative, including typical Kate-(weird)ness (Violin,
The Wedding List) as well as more traditional songwriting, albeit uniquely,
beautifully Kate (Night Scented Stock, The Infant Kiss, Breathing).
It's the one I gave my piano teacher after she had shown an interest in 
Kate's music.

--
Kent Finley            | 
P.O.Box 2081           | "...And all this science I don't understand,
Lethbridge, Alberta    |  it's just my job five days a week..." 
CANADA      T1J 4K6    |  
finley@lambda.uleth.ca |                  --Elton John, "Rocket Man"