Kate is a genius, a true original. She is in full control of her art and was the first woman in the UK with a self written #1 song and album. This woman cannot be praised enough, she's wonderful.
She’s awesome, she’s been writing songs in the piano since she was 11. By the third album she was also producing and produced all her records since. I think the thing I love most about her is that she’s just her, there is no compromise to her music. And she cannot be pinned down to a genre because her main focus are the stories. She tells them with the music as a conductor. Depending on the story, she kinda gets possessed and does whatever the song needs. 😂 Love her
she is just the very definition of an artist isnt she, an unstoppable creative force, pretty much nothing else is able to crush or lift my soul like she does. truly one of a kind. Justin, you should listen to 'This Womans Work' by Kate. . .im a 45 year old bloke and it just destroys me everytime I hear it.
She was able to take 12 years off because she writes, performs, produces and 100% owns her entire catalogue. From the start of her career (Kate was signed to EMI at 16) her head was, and remains, firmly screwed on. Kate’s first award was an Ivor Novella for a song she wrote when she was 13! She’s definitely the real deal.
Not many artists can ask Prince, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Elton John, David Gilmore to collaborate on her songs and have them all say 'yes please' before hearing any of the tracks!!
Hi and thanks for what was a really enjoyable reaction video. You mentioned Kate playing the piano on this; it was John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) who once said that Kate Bush sitting at her piano was as natural 'as John Wayne sitting on his horse.' I did like they way you drew attention to her vocal on this and how she chose to use her voice for particular phrases. That has always been part of Kate's singularity (there are very early demo recordings of her, featuring largely unreleased songs, from when she was aged between 13/14 - 16/17 years old and you can already hear even when she was a kid how that very typical KB approach was already evident - as was her skill as a lyricist and writer of melodies). There are songs on every one of her albums where she shows just what a phenomenal vocalist Kate really is. For sheer power, mixed with real inventiveness and imagination you could a lot worse than turn to her 1980 album "Never For Ever' and listen to both 'Violin' and 'Breathing.' They are two of her most towering vocal performances, not just in the sense of showing you what she can do with her voice, but showing how singer can use their voice to make the song everything it could be - not just the sheer power, but the artistry she gives to those songs. But thanks again for a VERY cool reaction video. Kate Bush is a musical genius: songwriter, singer, multi-musician, producer, and even director of many of her own videos. It is great to watch someone speak eloquently when reacting to her music. You are one of the very few. Thanks again.
Definitely one of my very favorite tracks from her. In 1978, her records weren’t readily available in the Detroit area where i lived, and I had to cross the Detroit River to Windsor, ON Canada to get her records. She has been producing her own records since her second album, I believe. She started incredibly young, and most or the tracks on her first album as well as a few from her second, were written when she was 15, 16, and 17 years old! Dave Gilmour was hipped to her then and got EMI involved in London. He was executive producer on her first record.
The Michael she mentions is the legendary film director Michael Powell. One of his films was The Red Shoes. Also the title of the album this track is from.
In a comment to your Kate Bush "Night Of The Swallow" reaction, I said that a characteristic of most of her songs is that the sobgs aren't about her own life experiences, but inspired by other people or other media like books or films . "The Red Shoes" album is different, in that Kate was having a really difficult time in her life, losing musical collaborators, breaking up with her long term partner and the serious illness of her mother, who she was very close to. So there are a number of songs on this album that detail her experience. The album is considered to be her most personal album.
Kate was far beyond Madonna's reckoning and beyond everything we thought we knew about pop music by the time she was 16. She had written over 200 songs by then. EMI just handed her total creative control. She was quite simply, out of their league...
@@glenn20081965 Some average looking Italian brat who suddenly realised that the key to pop success was to buy and sell everything. Frustrated school girls and gay men thought she was awesome.. until 'clawing and climbing' was no longer sexy...
Micheal Kamen did the orchestral arrangement, but the song is actually referencing the British film director Michael Powell, who she met towards the end of his life.
I do like her comeback albums - it's Kate Bush, "so you're not losing" 😁, But her first career of course rose well into the ranks of elite artists and into music history... Also - dont forget she was "discovered" by David Gilmour, and I do think her use of vocals in the song can (in some ways) be compared to Gilmour soloing in a song... Maybe somewhere out there is a music school thesis that does a deep dive into that very comparison (or maybe this comment will inspire such a thesis someday 😙)
There IS a music school thesis that dives deep into the notion of using the singing voice to emulate an instrument...jazz has been doing it for over half a century...Billy Holiday was a soprano saxophone, Ella Fitzgerald, a clarinet. Janis Joplin, electric guitar. Kate Bush was initially a flute, but she shifted into something more in the brass section as she matured, (trumpet, fugal horn??) In this case, yes, Gilmore's metallic, burning Shrapnel sounds are occupying the same tonal area as the smothering voice of Kate that surrounds and assaults from every side on this track.
Yes, this song definitely showcases her vocal abilities...not really down my alley as much as some of her more "arty" type stuff. And Aerial is a really good album IMO.
I always loved Kate Bush’s vocals. So unique. Couldn’t really hear Jeff back on this one. Interesting. I hope someone does a request for don’t give up with Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel.
Yes, Kate is something very special. She did it all - singer, songwriter, composer, pianist, music revolutionary, producer, dancer, mime, choreographer, video director and innovator, visionary. Laughable that it has taken until 2023 for her to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, something she is clearly over qualified for. Debatable whether any other female artist, past or present, has come close to her. Didn’t really do mainstream and only did the one live tour back in 1979. Never toured the US so not surprising she was little known there before Stranger Things reintroduced her.
Among "older" Americans, her song This Woman's Work was in a late 80s film "She's Having A Baby", so she was pretty well known at that time - Running Up that Hill got radio play, and also Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up"...
@@robshaw2639 Yes, loose wording from me. I was aware that Kate had a relatively small but loyal following in America from very early on in her career. But before Running Up That Hill, which I know did enjoy a fair amount of network radio play, I had read that people got to know of her mainly through college radio.
"She's legit." Damn rights sir. When you get to doing full albums you have to give her consideration. Everything from The Dreaming on is fully written and produced by her in her own studio. Genius is not hyperbole when applied to her many talents.
Kate is multi-talented: 📌 Singer/songwriter, 📌 Dancer took lessons from Lindsay Kemp (who taught David Bowie to dance). Kate never told Lindsay that she was also a musician, he only found out when a copy of her debut album "The Kick Inside" which contained a song "Moving" which was dedicated to him. 📌 musician (self taught on the piano, although she did take some lessons to improve her technique, after she was signed by EMI. By the time of "The Dreaming" Kate had also mastered the Fairlight CMI), 📌 record producer (Kate was a co-producer on her 3rd album "Never For Ever", Kate was given an opportunity to produce "Kate Bush On Stage EP" featuring songs from her 1979 "Tour Of Life" concert tour. After that EMI were happy to let Kate Bush be sole producer on her next studio album "The Dreaming" and she has produced her music since then. Even when recording her 1st album, people remarked that Kate was a frequent visitor to the studio control room, so she was always interested in what it took to produce songs. 📌Also a video producer and director of her music videos 📌Plus Kate was very heavily involved in the staging of both her 1979 "Tour of Life" and the 2014 22 date concert residency "Before The Dawn", note all tickets for "Before The Dawn" sold out in under 15 minutes. I was one of very lucky ones I managed to get a ticket to see Kate perform live, what an amazing concert, a multi-media experience. The only concert that approached it, was when I saw Bjork at the London O2, a few years later.
about all the contributors to this album... A-team players invite other A-team players to collaborate - B-team players only invite C-team players because they want to make themselves look good...
Having been bombarded with the A side of Hounds of Love ad nauseum in the 80's, I dismissed the B side but a few months ago got to listen to it by chance and it is beautiful, weird and very progressive, you come away going what was that I just listened to!
Yeah, I think you'll find that one Kate Bush album to the next, often one song to the next, will defy your expectations that one sounds like another. To see more of her variety, I'd look to: "Wuthering Heights", "Rocket's Tail", "This Woman's Work", "Breathing", "Get Out of My House", "A Coral Room". Probably in that order.
I never noticed this before, but the lyric "this sense of humor of mine... it isn't funny at all" - I think we can all agree that is Kate having a Neil Peart moment... except - does the word "funny" ever appear in any Rush lyric ever? 😮🤔
Too bad there was never a Kate Bush + Natalie Merchant collaboration, right? Although in a couple years everyone will have an AI app on their phone that can do that... 🤐
Don’t get me wrong, moments of pleasure is a good song, BUT She has SO many much better songs…like every song on her first five albums. She went too commercial after that and couldn’t quite reach that level of artistic genius which pervaded her earliest albums…She is god, though! Her creativity and originality were only matched my Rush, (my other fave band)but she’s infinitely better looking. 😊
Kate is a genius, a true original. She is in full control of her art and was the first woman in the UK with a self written #1 song and album. This woman cannot be praised enough, she's wonderful.
She’s awesome, she’s been writing songs in the piano since she was 11. By the third album she was also producing and produced all her records since. I think the thing I love most about her is that she’s just her, there is no compromise to her music. And she cannot be pinned down to a genre because her main focus are the stories. She tells them with the music as a conductor. Depending on the story, she kinda gets possessed and does whatever the song needs. 😂
Love her
she is just the very definition of an artist isnt she, an unstoppable creative force, pretty much nothing else is able to crush or lift my soul like she does. truly one of a kind.
Justin, you should listen to 'This Womans Work' by Kate. . .im a 45 year old bloke and it just destroys me everytime I hear it.
She was able to take 12 years off because she writes, performs, produces and 100% owns her entire catalogue. From the start of her career (Kate was signed to EMI at 16) her head was, and remains, firmly screwed on. Kate’s first award was an Ivor Novella for a song she wrote when she was 13! She’s definitely the real deal.
That chorus. Kate's vocal melody and the orchestral arrangement wrapped around it - wow. It's one of her greatest tracks.
Not many artists can ask Prince, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Elton John, David Gilmore to collaborate on her songs and have them all say 'yes please' before hearing any of the tracks!!
Kate writes the songs plays the piano and produces her albums plus she dances and does her own choreography.
Love this song. Kate has always been a bit of a prodigy. So gifted. Thanks Rob for this request.
Hi and thanks for what was a really enjoyable reaction video. You mentioned Kate playing the piano on this; it was John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) who once said that Kate Bush sitting at her piano was as natural 'as John Wayne sitting on his horse.' I did like they way you drew attention to her vocal on this and how she chose to use her voice for particular phrases. That has always been part of Kate's singularity (there are very early demo recordings of her, featuring largely unreleased songs, from when she was aged between 13/14 - 16/17 years old and you can already hear even when she was a kid how that very typical KB approach was already evident - as was her skill as a lyricist and writer of melodies). There are songs on every one of her albums where she shows just what a phenomenal vocalist Kate really is. For sheer power, mixed with real inventiveness and imagination you could a lot worse than turn to her 1980 album "Never For Ever' and listen to both 'Violin' and 'Breathing.' They are two of her most towering vocal performances, not just in the sense of showing you what she can do with her voice, but showing how singer can use their voice to make the song everything it could be - not just the sheer power, but the artistry she gives to those songs.
But thanks again for a VERY cool reaction video. Kate Bush is a musical genius: songwriter, singer, multi-musician, producer, and even director of many of her own videos. It is great to watch someone speak eloquently when reacting to her music. You are one of the very few. Thanks again.
Definitely one of my very favorite tracks from her. In 1978, her records weren’t readily available in the Detroit area where i lived, and I had to cross the Detroit River to Windsor, ON Canada to get her records. She has been producing her own records since her second album, I believe. She started incredibly young, and most or the tracks on her first album as well as a few from her second, were written when she was 15, 16, and 17 years old! Dave Gilmour was hipped to her then and got EMI involved in London. He was executive producer on her first record.
The Michael she mentions is the legendary film director Michael Powell. One of his films was The Red Shoes. Also the title of the album this track is from.
My two favorites: Rush and Kate Bush. She is incredible.
In a comment to your Kate Bush "Night Of The Swallow" reaction, I said that a characteristic of most of her songs is that the sobgs aren't about her own life experiences, but inspired by other people or other media like books or films . "The Red Shoes" album is different, in that Kate was having a really difficult time in her life, losing musical collaborators, breaking up with her long term partner and the serious illness of her mother, who she was very close to.
So there are a number of songs on this album that detail her experience. The album is considered to be her most personal album.
If Madonna is the queen of pop, Kate is the Empress
Oh yes,Kate grew older gracefully unlike Madonna.
Kate was far beyond Madonna's reckoning and beyond everything we thought we knew about pop music by the time she was 16. She had written over 200 songs by then. EMI just handed her total creative control. She was quite simply, out of their league...
Who's Madonna?
@@glenn20081965 Some average looking Italian brat who suddenly realised that the key to pop success was to buy and sell everything.
Frustrated school girls and gay men thought she was awesome.. until 'clawing and climbing' was no longer sexy...
Micheal Kamen did the orchestral arrangement, but the song is actually referencing the British film director Michael Powell, who she met towards the end of his life.
I do like her comeback albums - it's Kate Bush, "so you're not losing" 😁, But her first career of course rose well into the ranks of elite artists and into music history... Also - dont forget she was "discovered" by David Gilmour, and I do think her use of vocals in the song can (in some ways) be compared to Gilmour soloing in a song... Maybe somewhere out there is a music school thesis that does a deep dive into that very comparison (or maybe this comment will inspire such a thesis someday 😙)
If you were that "Rob," thanks for the request. 👃
@@Muckylittleme Yep, I'm Rob the Requestor of this track 😁
There IS a music school thesis that dives deep into the notion of using the singing voice to emulate an instrument...jazz has been doing it for over half a century...Billy Holiday was a soprano saxophone, Ella Fitzgerald, a clarinet. Janis Joplin, electric guitar. Kate Bush was initially a flute, but she shifted into something more in the brass section as she matured, (trumpet, fugal horn??) In this case, yes, Gilmore's metallic, burning
Shrapnel sounds are occupying the same tonal area as the smothering voice of Kate that surrounds and assaults from every side on this track.
If you enjoyed this wonderful song, I strongly suggest you watch the official music video.
Makes me emotional every single time
Yes, this song definitely showcases her vocal abilities...not really down my alley as much as some of her more "arty" type stuff. And Aerial is a really good album IMO.
I always loved Kate Bush’s vocals. So unique. Couldn’t really hear Jeff back on this one. Interesting. I hope someone does a request for don’t give up with Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel.
Yes, Kate is something very special. She did it all - singer, songwriter, composer, pianist, music revolutionary, producer, dancer, mime, choreographer, video director and innovator, visionary. Laughable that it has taken until 2023 for her to be inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, something she is clearly over qualified for. Debatable whether any other female artist, past or present, has come close to her. Didn’t really do mainstream and only did the one live tour back in 1979. Never toured the US so not surprising she was little known there before Stranger Things reintroduced her.
Among "older" Americans, her song This Woman's Work was in a late 80s film "She's Having A Baby", so she was pretty well known at that time - Running Up that Hill got radio play, and also Peter Gabriel's "Don't Give Up"...
@@robshaw2639 Yes, loose wording from me. I was aware that Kate had a relatively small but loyal following in America from very early on in her career. But before Running Up That Hill, which I know did enjoy a fair amount of network radio play, I had read that people got to know of her mainly through college radio.
"She's legit." Damn rights sir. When you get to doing full albums you have to give her consideration. Everything from The Dreaming on is fully written and produced by her in her own studio. Genius is not hyperbole when applied to her many talents.
Kate is multi-talented:
📌 Singer/songwriter,
📌 Dancer took lessons from Lindsay Kemp (who taught David Bowie to dance). Kate never told Lindsay that she was also a musician, he only found out when a copy of her debut album "The Kick Inside" which contained a song "Moving" which was dedicated to him.
📌 musician (self taught on the piano, although she did take some lessons to improve her technique, after she was signed by EMI. By the time of "The Dreaming" Kate had also mastered the Fairlight CMI),
📌 record producer (Kate was a co-producer on her 3rd album "Never For Ever", Kate was given an opportunity to produce "Kate Bush On Stage EP" featuring songs from her 1979 "Tour Of Life" concert tour. After that EMI were happy to let Kate Bush be sole producer on her next studio album "The Dreaming" and she has produced her music since then. Even when recording her 1st album, people remarked that Kate was a frequent visitor to the studio control room, so she was always interested in what it took to produce songs.
📌Also a video producer and director of her music videos
📌Plus Kate was very heavily involved in the staging of both her 1979 "Tour of Life" and the 2014 22 date concert residency "Before The Dawn", note all tickets for "Before The Dawn" sold out in under 15 minutes.
I was one of very lucky ones I managed to get a ticket to see Kate perform live, what an amazing concert, a multi-media experience. The only concert that approached it, was when I saw Bjork at the London O2, a few years later.
about all the contributors to this album... A-team players invite other A-team players to collaborate - B-team players only invite C-team players because they want to make themselves look good...
Thanks for doing this. It is emotionally exhausting every time, which is the calisthenics I do when I want to be happy again.
Kate Bush is an absolute genius, make no mistake she does it all.
I’d recommend Breathing next from never for ever
Beautiful song.
Having been bombarded with the A side of Hounds of Love ad nauseum in the 80's, I dismissed the B side but a few months ago got to listen to it by chance and it is beautiful, weird and very progressive, you come away going what was that I just listened to!
Beautiful
You really needed to do the video with this.
Yeah, I think you'll find that one Kate Bush album to the next, often one song to the next, will defy your expectations that one sounds like another. To see more of her variety, I'd look to: "Wuthering Heights", "Rocket's Tail", "This Woman's Work", "Breathing", "Get Out of My House", "A Coral Room". Probably in that order.
Kate is just a treasure.
Kate is on par with David Bowie as far as I'm concerned.
I consider them both geniuses.
Wish they had collaborated.
Yes - I never noticed that pairing, but it makes alot of sense...
I never noticed this before, but the lyric "this sense of humor of mine... it isn't funny at all" - I think we can all agree that is Kate having a Neil Peart moment... except - does the word "funny" ever appear in any Rush lyric ever? 😮🤔
You should be watching the music video.
Too bad there was never a Kate Bush + Natalie Merchant collaboration, right? Although in a couple years everyone will have an AI app on their phone that can do that... 🤐
Don’t get me wrong, moments of pleasure is a good song, BUT She has SO many much better songs…like every song on her first five albums. She went too commercial after that and couldn’t quite reach that level of artistic genius which pervaded her earliest albums…She is god, though! Her creativity and originality were only matched my Rush, (my other fave band)but she’s infinitely better looking. 😊