THE WHOLE STORY

Never a fan of nostalgia concerning her own work, Bush was not thrilled with the idea of a career retrospective. She agreed to it to the great pleasure of EMI who saw it as a great opportunity to cash in on the enormous success of "Hound of Love." She felt that she owed some payback to certain individuals who had been helpful to her and the timing could not have been better.

While a commercial success, "The Whole Story" is a completely unnecessary purchase which sells the artist and listener short. First, she destroys her own "Wuthering Heights" track by re-recording the beautiful original vocal, then plastering a heavier drum track over it because she felt the old one was "dated." Actually the old one holds up better. She claimed she would have neutered more of her old songs in this way if she'd had the time, thankfully for us, she did not.

The more crucial issue, and reason for a low rating, is that Bush is not well presented by this kind of compilation. All of her early work was consistently strong, and the personality of the songs best heard in the context of their "siblings." Both the early and later works are cheapened by this presentation and it's a terrible way to experience Kate's magic. There's no reason to buy this sampling of tracks when she only has four or five studio albums to acquire to hear the songs properly. It's not like Zappa with dozens of albums, where a collection could help a newbie dip his/her toe. Further, the early material doesn't sit all that well with the then current Hounds material. The transition to/from "The Man with the Child in his Eyes" with newer material is not pleasant.

Bush recorded "Experiment IV," a flat and truly uninspired piece of work, which EMI used as the bait to get fans to pony up. Were the song anything special I could offer another star, but as it is this collection is for the completionists. I may be hostile to these kinds of pointless collections, but only because I hate to see folks who may have limited funds spending money on this rather than one of her fine, original pieces of work. Occasionally a collection may have some use, but this is not one of those times. Avoid this, and buy the real albums from 1978-1985.

Share this KATE BUSH review

Social review comments () BETA

---

---

Review related links

• Send comments to Finnforest
• Report this review (#314985)
• Buy KATE BUSH music online with PA partners
• Show all KATE BUSH MP3/Stream
• Go to KATE BUSH page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to The Whole Story page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for KATE BUSH related discussions