Post by sniperforlife on Feb 25, 2007 10:58:39 GMT
I remember being first exposed to Kate Bush through Beavis and Butt-head in the mid '90s. In one episode, they showed the entire music video of Love and Anger with Beavis and Butt-head making fun of it while it played, saying that she "sucked." I agreed and laughed along with them. I had never heard of this nobody and believed that she must be crap. I never heard of her again for a few years.
In 2002, the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released. I managed to borrow a copy of the game from a friend not too long after its release. For those that are not familiar with the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, this game had a nifty feature which allowed the player to listen to the radio of the car which their character was riding in. Anyway, one day, I was playing the game and having some fun. My character, named Tommy Vercetti, had just stolen a car from some poor sucker and was using it to run over some people and perform drive-by shootings with. While Mr. Vercetti was pumping an unlucky pedestrian with a rain of bullets from his Uzi submachine gun, a strange voice emanated from the virtual radio speakers of the virtual car that he was driving. It had an ethereal quality which I found very alluring. I quickly grabbed the game manual and browsed the game's song list section in an attempt to figure out who was singing. As it turned out, that song was titled Wow; it was sung by one Kate Bush. That was only the second Kate Bush song I had heard since first hearing Love and Anger on Beavis and Butt-head. After briefly checking the manual, I quickly went back to playing. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Vercetti's misadventures had attracted the attention of the local law enforcement officers who then prompted to fill him with several dozens of bullets, promptly ending his rampage, but I digress. I shut off my Playstation 2 and thought about Kate Bush. I quite liked Wow, I thought to myself. It didn't turn me into a fan but I got to thinking that maybe Beavis and Butt-head didn't know what the hell they were talking about when they heckled Kate Bush after all.
I didn't seek out any Kate Bush songs afterwards. However, throughout the next couple of years, I had read about and heard various musical artists citing Kate Bush as a major influence in their work. And these didn't just come from just one type of musician but rather a motley assortment of artists. Everyone from Tupac Shakur to Sarah McLachlan to John Lydon were in love with her work. It seemed that every singer and their uncles were fans of Ms. Bush. Still, I paid no mind to these Kate Bush praises.
About a year ago, I really got into Feist (the most brilliant musician to come out ofCanada North America). Before that, I never listened to many female vocalists. Maybe a little Stevie Nicks here and there with some Sarah McLachlan thrown in for good measure. But no, most of the stuff I listened to were Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Frampton, Oasis, etc. But after being subjected to Feist's phenomenal album Let It Die, I realized that I it may have been wise to broaden my horizons and seek out more female artists. Kate Bush sprang into my mind. I had been reminded of her thanks to a then recently-viewed KT Tunstall interview where she complimented Kate Bush and also thanks to a then recently-read Internet message board forum topic in which someone stated they listened to Kate Bush's music.
Youtube seemed like a good place to start searching for music. I went there and searched for a Kate Bush video. A song called Wuthering Heights was listed as one of the video search results. I clicked on it and proceeded to watch. The beginning of the video showed a woman wearing a white dress. She was kneeling down on the ground, surrounded by what looked like mist or fog; an upside down reflection of her was displayed in the bottom half of the video display. She looked angelic positioned in front of the black backdrop. Intrigued, I continued to watch...
OUT IN THE WILEY WINDY, M-
I covered my bleeding ears.
Is this a freakin' joke? You must be ****ting me!
Her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice, her dancing, and the cheesiness of the video's setting totally turned me off from the song. But it was so bad that I just had to watch it a second time. And so I did...
Eh... The chorus is pretty catchy... The rest of the song still sucks though.
I then played it again just so I could hear the chorus once more...
Hot ****! This is my new favorite song ever!
And it has been for about a year. I still listen to this song regularly and have yet to grow tired of it. Since then, I've bought a few of her albums, so, yes, I listen to her music in the legal way now.
Looking back, I was pretty ignorant for ignoring Kate Bush's genius for as long as I did. Knowing the fact that I had been aware of her existence since the mid '90s and had heard of her name numerous times for many years after that but only started listening to her last year, it's kind of sad. But as the old saying goes, it's better late than never.
So that's the story of how I discovered Kate Bush. You didn't read all of that, did you? You should have something better to do with your time.
In 2002, the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was released. I managed to borrow a copy of the game from a friend not too long after its release. For those that are not familiar with the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, this game had a nifty feature which allowed the player to listen to the radio of the car which their character was riding in. Anyway, one day, I was playing the game and having some fun. My character, named Tommy Vercetti, had just stolen a car from some poor sucker and was using it to run over some people and perform drive-by shootings with. While Mr. Vercetti was pumping an unlucky pedestrian with a rain of bullets from his Uzi submachine gun, a strange voice emanated from the virtual radio speakers of the virtual car that he was driving. It had an ethereal quality which I found very alluring. I quickly grabbed the game manual and browsed the game's song list section in an attempt to figure out who was singing. As it turned out, that song was titled Wow; it was sung by one Kate Bush. That was only the second Kate Bush song I had heard since first hearing Love and Anger on Beavis and Butt-head. After briefly checking the manual, I quickly went back to playing. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Vercetti's misadventures had attracted the attention of the local law enforcement officers who then prompted to fill him with several dozens of bullets, promptly ending his rampage, but I digress. I shut off my Playstation 2 and thought about Kate Bush. I quite liked Wow, I thought to myself. It didn't turn me into a fan but I got to thinking that maybe Beavis and Butt-head didn't know what the hell they were talking about when they heckled Kate Bush after all.
I didn't seek out any Kate Bush songs afterwards. However, throughout the next couple of years, I had read about and heard various musical artists citing Kate Bush as a major influence in their work. And these didn't just come from just one type of musician but rather a motley assortment of artists. Everyone from Tupac Shakur to Sarah McLachlan to John Lydon were in love with her work. It seemed that every singer and their uncles were fans of Ms. Bush. Still, I paid no mind to these Kate Bush praises.
About a year ago, I really got into Feist (the most brilliant musician to come out of
Youtube seemed like a good place to start searching for music. I went there and searched for a Kate Bush video. A song called Wuthering Heights was listed as one of the video search results. I clicked on it and proceeded to watch. The beginning of the video showed a woman wearing a white dress. She was kneeling down on the ground, surrounded by what looked like mist or fog; an upside down reflection of her was displayed in the bottom half of the video display. She looked angelic positioned in front of the black backdrop. Intrigued, I continued to watch...
OUT IN THE WILEY WINDY, M-
I covered my bleeding ears.
Is this a freakin' joke? You must be ****ting me!
Her nails-on-a-chalkboard voice, her dancing, and the cheesiness of the video's setting totally turned me off from the song. But it was so bad that I just had to watch it a second time. And so I did...
Eh... The chorus is pretty catchy... The rest of the song still sucks though.
I then played it again just so I could hear the chorus once more...
Hot ****! This is my new favorite song ever!
And it has been for about a year. I still listen to this song regularly and have yet to grow tired of it. Since then, I've bought a few of her albums, so, yes, I listen to her music in the legal way now.
Looking back, I was pretty ignorant for ignoring Kate Bush's genius for as long as I did. Knowing the fact that I had been aware of her existence since the mid '90s and had heard of her name numerous times for many years after that but only started listening to her last year, it's kind of sad. But as the old saying goes, it's better late than never.
So that's the story of how I discovered Kate Bush. You didn't read all of that, did you? You should have something better to do with your time.
The only song I've heard from that album is Family, which is a good rock song. If that song is indicative of how the rest of the album sounds, then it's not anything like her later work in Let It Die, which is a lot more mellow-sounding than Monarch.