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The London Observer
November 12, 1978
KATE BUSH has the fragile beauty of a gazelle, is 20 years old and a star. EMI, her recording company, are well aware of this and last week jetted her out to a sixteenth century castle, the Ammersoyen Kasteel, near Amsterdam, for the launch of her new album Lionheart.
The next day a private jet zoomed her back to London for a buffet reception where she was given the 'Melody Maker' Readers' award for the best female singer of the year and most outstanding hope for the future, ousting the likes of Elkie Brooks, Joni Mitchell and Patti Smith in the process.
Her first album, The Kick Inside, was a top-seller across Europe this year and her first single, "Wuthering Heights," was top of the charts here for a month.
Most people think of her as the girl 'with the high voice.' It flutes and trills and swoops like some canary scared stiff on a perpetual big dipper. 'Actually, when I was in the school choir l couldn't sing high notes at all. I taught myself as a sort of exercise.'
Her other great distinguishing feature is that she has become a highly accomplished vampish dancer. Her promotional films for television consumption make your average variety show production number look like the Clodhoppers' Ball.
These skills have made it possible for EMI to promote their near-child wonder without the hazards of extensive concert tours. Indeed, she hasn't performed in this country since she was 16, when a few pub appearances led Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour to introduce her to the record company.
'Incredible, 'amazing,' phenomenal,' she says, with the accent of a soap opera shopgirl (which, like much of her effect is contrived: her mum and dad are impeccably middle class), when asked about her success and how it takes her.
No one seems able to decide whether she's a genuine innocent, or a pretty hard nosed cookie. Her face can appear angelic, or throw out a look to give Lady MacBeth the odd shiver.
She shows no side, yet takes to being swanned about in Rolls Royces as a duck to water. In the middle of it all it's easy to forget that she can write very good songs. Young she may be; lacking in self- possession she is not.
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"The pull and the push of it all..." - Kate Bush
Reaching Out
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