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From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Date: Mon Aug 26 02:57:04 1985
Subject: Melody Maker 24th August 1985 (extracts)
Strange but true, the magazine that only two weeks ago told us that Kate Bush must have phony nipples and should be burned at the stake now tells us in the August 24th issue:
Just like the phoenix really. Once every two years she rises out of the ashes to once more bestow a touch of mysticism, a hint of myth, and a copious supply of inspired vision upon the burned-out landscape we call the charts.
This is the opening paragraph to a feature article on her and interview with her. (I'll tell you some of the interesting things that are said, soon). In general the writer raves about how wonderful she is.
Also, the letter section of this issue of Melody Maker is literally half-filled with hate mail to Helen Fitzgerald regarding her "review" of "Running Up That Hill", including a collage of Kate shooting Fitzgerald with her bow. (You don't mess around with Kate Bush fans!) Three of the four signatures are female too.
Not only that, but only two weeks after release, RUTH is at #4 on Melody Maker's chart! Madonna holds at #1 and #2 though. Go get 'em Kate!w Show Madonna and the brain-washed masses what *real* music is.
Strangely, after the initial wave (of 3) bad reviews for RUTH (none of them on the basis of the music! One was because, though the guy liked the music, he didn't like the picture sleeve! Which is laughable because the picture sleeve is perfect for the song! Kate is aiming a bow, which in the context of the song and the album, is clearly symbolic of Cupid's bow, but this is no cute little Cupid's bow she is aiming! This is a longbow. The kind that is used for killing things! So the bow becomes a symbol of a love/hate relationship. ("Is there so much hate for the ones we love?") Just another example of how wonderfully and perfectly thought-out everything Kate Bush does is!)
What was I saying... Oh yeah, strangely, after the initial wave of bad reviews for RUTH, there have been nothing but rave reviews: Melody Maker changed its mind (via changing reviewers) apparently and drooled. The reviewer for Smash Hits reviewed it 5 times in one column! (Needless to say, he thinks it is great! He named it Single of The Fortnight.) "No. 1" said it is "fab". The reviewer for Sounds was "seduced by the sheer strangeness" of it. The Face said "Not quite a solid state symphony, but certainly a prelude to it from this engagingly perverse songstress." Billboard (U.S., not British) recomends it, but strangely enough put it under their Black music section.... (I guess Kate's got soul!)
So, is all this really just a cruel trick they are playing on me. Right after they convince me that the British music press has no redeeming value and their opinions are worthless, they turn around and say Kate Bush is great? So what does this mean, if their opinions are worthless? It's too bad that I don't like "Running Up That Hill" as much as some of these reviewers seem to.....
In any case, I want to include some interesting quotes from the article / interview in Melody Maker. (I'd almost like the guy, except that he describes Pink Floyd in the article as being "chronic boredom"! So who is he to be a Kate Bush fan!):
....
"Oh yes, and I've met *you* too before as well," she smiles.
I try to explain that this is not the case. Mistaken identity perhaps? I'm damn sure I'd remember. But she's adament.
"Perhaps it was in another life," cries a whimsical voice from the room.
"Yes," she stares at me, considering the matter thoroughly. "It *must* have been in another life."
...
Once more she has created an album to besot and bewitch the coldest of hearts.
Once more she has come out of her isolated refuge with the charm of a siren, and the innocence of a child. Ms Bush is incapable of growing old, she has merely grown up.
...
"I didn't want to produce it ["Hounds of Love"] in the wake of 'The Dreaming'."
...
"I found an inspirational new dance teacher," Kate replies with growing enthusiasm. "The teacher's energy made me really enthusiastic about writing again."
...
"Yes, I wanted something new, and to begin with it was extremely difficult. All the songs I seemed to write sounded too much like the last album. I've never seen any point in repeating things you've already done before. I think it's a dangerous thing not to search for new ways of approaching songs.
Oh, Kate, you are tearing me asunder! The thought that have written more songs like those on "The Dreaming" and are throwing them away! My poor little heart.... Yes, everyone should grow and change, but if you've discovered perfection, maybe it wouldn't be such a waste to mull over it a little more.... "Running Up That Hill" is flawed (as everything that's commercial is! If you are trying to compete with Madonna, well... But why?). Then again, if "Under The Ivy" is one of the directions you are moving in, go for it! (But why was it relegated to a single B-side and not put on the album?)
"There are always so many voices telling me what to do that you just can't listen to them. All I ever do is listen to the little voices inside me. I don't want to disappoint the little voices that have been so good to me."
Of course not. The finely-tuned songs that have made the final selection on the album differ greatly from the diversions of previous albums. They are all love songs (sigh) using elemental imagery that form a cogent and cohesive panoply of emotion. A search and a struggle to secure some sort of meaning. The discovery that although you can strip away everything from a person, there will always be a residue of love awaiting resurrection.
...
Phantasmogorical voices tilt the rose-coloured world off its trite axis with jagged eerie phrases. Outside observations are slanted metaphors revealing states of mind. No longer are we presented with the eclectic collage of "The Dreaming" whose continual shifts and spirals allowed an escape with diversity. No longer is the entire history of Houdini crammed into three minutes, until a new fable takes up the torch. Now the texture is more subtle, the production more adroit, and the mesmerism unrelenting.
"The last album contained a lot of different energies. It did take people to lots of different places very quickly and some people found that difficult to take.
"I think this album has more of a positive energy. It's a great deal more optimistic."
...
The album is divided into two sections, the A-side and the B-side. The A-side is entitled "Hounds Of Love" and the B-side is entitled "The Ninth Wave".
Regarding "The Ninth Wave":
"It's about someone who comes off a ship and they've been in the water all night by themselves, and it's about that person re-evaluating their life from a point which they've never been before. It's about waking up from things and being reborn --going through something and coming out the other side very different."
...
"I don't really know why people think my songs are strange. Perhaps because I bath in goat's milk!! It's not something you should really ask me. My mum could probably help you more. It's probably something to do with my childhood."
...
"I would want to be Breugal, definitely".
...
"His work is so real, and yet depicted in a fantastic way.
"It's so beautiful and elemental. And his faces are *so* haunting."
...
"My most striking visions of reality always seem to come to me when I'm in such a strange situation I feel 'this isn't real'. It's very simple really. Simplicity is a thing few people dare to go for. They think it's too easy. In fact, it's the hardest thing to do.
"I like the hypnotic quality of nursery rhyme repetition.
"A lot of traditional music has that as a basis -- that something tumbling, rolling, droning throughout the piece. It's very primeval really. Getting back to when we were creatures of the earth rather than cement.
...
"I'm sure we'll see each other again very soon."
Yes Kate I'm sure we will. I hope we will. Probably in another life.
We exited, floating through the nearest wall.
So, Mu, what does it all mean?
"Ooh I remember
That rich windy weather"
Doug Alan
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the Reaching Out (Interviews) Table of Contents
"The pull and the push of it all..." - Kate Bush
Reaching Out
is a
Marvick - Hill
Willker -
Mapes
Fitzgerald-Morris
Grepel - Love-Hounds
Presentation