Why The '80's Didn't Suck: Kate Bush
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Forum Description: Discuss bands and albums classified as Proto-Prog and Prog-Related
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=78290
Printed Date: April 16 2024 at 11:01
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Topic: Why The '80's Didn't Suck: Kate Bush
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Subject: Why The '80's Didn't Suck: Kate Bush
Date Posted: May 13 2011 at 23:02
These four albums forever mark my life. 
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
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Replies:
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: May 13 2011 at 23:17
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The Kick Inside. But of your poll, The Dreaming. IMO those are her two masterpieces. Not Hounds. ------------- |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: May 13 2011 at 23:21
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The Kick was 1978 not bad as the prog giants were starting to wind down. |
Posted By: Atavachron
Date Posted: May 13 2011 at 23:23
Brian check your inbox  |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: May 13 2011 at 23:29
 I had two when I pulled it up. Should report it probably but it's a Friday evening and I don't give a damn.  Cranking up Get Out Of My House, so glad to be out of that damned apartment. After Get Out, I'm Running. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
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Atavachron wrote:Posted By: Vompatti
Date Posted: May 14 2011 at 01:35
| The Dreaming. |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: May 14 2011 at 02:03
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Hounds Of Love. I particularly like the split format of having more accessible music on one side and a suite of tracks on the other. But being Kate ,the accessible stuff is a long way removed from the brain dead drivel that would normally be played on the radio. Running Up That Hill is one of the most atmospheric 'pop' tracks ever recorded while Cloudbusting is one the best songs she ever wrote imo. No bad tracks anywhere to be found. The Dreaming Much more experimental album that made Kate the female equivalent of Peter Gabriel. Very enigmatic stuff and some stunning songs especially Infant Kiss. Never Forever Hopefully this doesn't get NIL votes. Some great songs and wonderfully produced. Sensual World My least favourite of the choices available.Seems very unremarkable compared to earlier releases. Not a bad album but KB was in danger of slipping into mediocrity. Unthinkable. |
Posted By: moe_blunts
Date Posted: June 12 2011 at 16:59
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I voted Never For Ever because it is my current favorite Bush album. Infant Kiss is particularly...well, disturbing. Great stuff.
------------- http://www.last.fm/user/moe_blunts/?chartstyle=minimalDarkRecent"> 
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Posted By: moreitsythanyou
Date Posted: June 12 2011 at 17:02
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I just want to take time to agree with that title. Oh and The Dreaming, the best album of the 80s. -------------  <font color=white>butts, lol[/COLOR] |
Posted By: chopper
Date Posted: June 13 2011 at 06:39
I agree (except for Infant Kiss whic I think is on Never Forever). Hounds of Love is the best by a fair distance.
I think "Seems very unremarkable compared to earlier releases" just about sums up Sensual World. A great album (containing my favourite Kate song This Woman's Work") suffers from comparison to it's predecessors.
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Posted By: Warthur
Date Posted: June 13 2011 at 10:09
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Hounds of Love is absolutely wonderful, it's proof positive that you don't have to sacrifice accessibility, atmosphere and emotion to get experimental at the same time. Cloudbusting is particularly special to me. It was played at a funeral during a particularly hard time in my life (the death of the person concerned being only one of several catastrophic events) and, incongruously, it felt like this sort of brief island of calm in the middle of all this horrendous stuff. It's kind of been a sanctuary for me ever since.
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Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 13 2011 at 10:19
 The song I was thinking of was All The Love which is gorgeous. I listened to Sensual World recently and enjoyed it a great deal. Perhaps I was a little harsh to call it 'unremarkable' although it is not quite as good as its predeccessors there is no shame in that.
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Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 13 2011 at 10:21
pleased to see it get a vote
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Posted By: valravennz
Date Posted: June 14 2011 at 00:16
Never For Ever is in my top 3 Bush favourite albums, so had to vote. -------------  "Music is the Wine that fills the cup of Silence" - Robert Fripp |
Posted By: Harold-The-Barrel
Date Posted: June 15 2011 at 13:03
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Hounds followed by never for ever
------------- You must be joking.....Take a running jump...... |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 02:39
Well my preferred KB albums are from the 70's.... Sooooo the 80's did suck after all !!!
All kidding aside, even if there is the odd good album that was released in that dreaded decade, they are usually the exception that confirms the rule.... ------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 09:21
Odd good album? Nightfly, The Dreaming/Hounds of Love, Synchronicity/Ghosts in a Machine, Moving Pictures/Signals, Fire of Unknown origin, Discipline, Remain in Light, Gaucho, Metal Fatigue...there's no shortage of good albums from the 80s. Yes, it was no match for the 70s (so what!) but I really doubt the conventional wisdom of the 90s being so much better than the 80s these days. Yeah, if you really hate the guts out of all accessible music, then maybe. 80s production values were awful but the albums weren't necessarily so. EDIT: On topic, I love the first three of these chronologically almost equally for different reasons but got to give it to Dreaming for just how mad it is. An incredible and bold metamorphosis of a talented artist. |
Posted By: Chris S
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 11:46
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Hounds of Love is such a powerful work, yet individual albums appeal at different times. Sensual World is incredible too. As usual with such excellent music, none has dated although kick inside is my least favorite :-) ------------- ...As I venture through the slipstream, between the viaducts in your dreams...[/COLOR] |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 12:00
That is exactly right. Her albums appeal for different reasons and yet it's possible to like a good many of her albums too. In spite of Hounds of Love's commercial success, I'd have to say she's somewhat underrated. She has amazing control working within essentially pop form, paints varied and highly evocative textures and writes unusual chord progressions that are still effective and expressive enough to have immediate appeal. And rarer still is she seems to be able to pull a different ace to bank on in different albums, whereas composers typically identify their strengths early on and tap them to the hilt. If the first two albums seem to draw more on the conventional focal points of melody and harmony, Hounds of Love relies more on texture and rhythm and I can't say she is less effective as a composer in either approach. |
Posted By: Sean Trane
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 16:47
Soooorry, but....
from your list, not one of these albums would find its place in my top 200 of the 70's if they had been released in 78 or 79 (prog or not)...
Maybe Script and Brother, and Love Over Gold woud scratch the 200 level... UZed certainly gets in though.
And although you're right that the 90's aren't all that great, I can list quite a bit of albums (certainly more than the 80's) that would find space in my 300.
------------- let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword |
Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 16:56
I expect Andrew Powell has a significant influence on her in the early days before she was able to stand on her own two feet so to speak. The Dreaming and Hounds Of Love seem more 'organic' to me as she was able to fully express her ideas without having to force anything into a specific sound and style. Much of Hounds of Love features the Fairlight which uses sampling techniques and is strong on texture and atmosphere. Perfect tool for someone like Kate and enabled her not to be so reliant on orchestration to paint a picture.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 20:10
You asked about odd good albums and I gave you a bucketful, can easily add several more. Where you rank them in your preference is not my concern, but none of these are drek, whichever way you argue it and for that matter, all of these albums are far more invigorating than that boring Supertramp album which has nothing going for it except that "gosh, they didn't sell out in 1985". I have a couple or more of albums from the 90s like OKC and Grace that I'd put in my top 20 albums but there's really too much confused and tired rock music going nowhere in particular as against that. |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 20:27
Don't know about Powell but certainly evokes the art rock of the time generally in the early albums. The interesting thing there too is that her songs seem to develop momentum without a whole lot of instrumental 'activity'. Just as a comparison, say something like Love Lies Bleeding has so much orchestration and a more rocking tempo to propel it but Kate makes the chorus of say Symphony in Blue throb with mostly just accompaniments to the vocals. Shes uses the guitar very effectively and without it overpowering the piano and keyboards (except on out and out rockers like Violin). |
Posted By: Tapfret
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 21:02
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1 good artist, or even a liberal handful of bands would not save the 80's from sucking. Art as a whole suffered a backlash against thought. ------------- https://www.last.fm/user/Tapfret" rel="nofollow">  https://bandcamp.com/tapfret" rel="nofollow - Bandcamp |
Posted By: stonebeard
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 22:07
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Hounds of Love is the best album of the 80s.
------------- http://soundcloud.com/drewagler" rel="nofollow - My soundcloud. Please give feedback if you want! |
Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 16 2011 at 22:19
There's no denying that a lot of wrong turns were taken in the 80s but in my opinion:
a) Its impact is greatly exagerrated and there's no reason to thumb down the good music that was nevertheless made in that decade merely on account of negative trends in mainstream music of the time. I make no defence of the production values but would also state that I am quite happy to overlook those if the musical substance is interesting...and especially over music that is well produced but fundamentally stale, of which there's much these days.
b) The argument against the 80s also ignores the dull and boring music that was doubtless made in the 60s and the 70s too, like Eagles, Carpenters, Kiss and many others (I can't be bothered to jog my memory because I'd prefer to remember 60s for Beatles and Hendrix and 70s for KC or PF). Or for that matter the 90s too, viz Celine Dion, Mariah Carey. Why then should the 80s be remembered only for bubblegum pop (or whatever pop it's supposed to be!) or hair/glam metal and not for Kate Bush or Rush?
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Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 17 2011 at 01:24
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The 80's didn't suck at all its just that prog took a back seat for a while before it was able to get back on its feet again. Mike Oldfield,Simple Minds,Al Stewart,Tangerine Dream,Vangelis,Marillion,IQ,Iron Maiden,Rush,Peter Gabriel,Steve Hackett etc all released excellent albums. Plenty to enjoy imo.
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Posted By: Warthur
Date Posted: June 17 2011 at 05:54
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I'd also point out that just because prog itself (as it was understood in the 1970s) took a back seat in the 1980s, there was plenty of experimentation and new sounds out there, the post-punk scene in particular taking an avant-garde, experimental approach to things, and the indie scene in general coming up with superb music (even if it wasn't "prog"). The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Fields of the Nephilim, The Smiths, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, The Chameleons - all of them were releasing great albums, none of them are 80s bubblegum pop with 80s pop production values. Basically, I think people tend to assume that all modern music sucks... as soon as they stop keeping up with modern music and discovering new bands and obscure sounds that don't get mainstream airplay. Mainstream radio has sucked hard since the 1980s and continues to suck today, and probably sucked in the 60s and 70s too (though perhaps to a lesser extent, I don't know). The reason so many people think music improved in the 90s or 2000s was that that's when they got the internet and started discovering new bands again...
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Posted By: richardh
Date Posted: June 17 2011 at 14:32
You are right about mainstream radio. I used to listen to Radio Caroline (until the boat sunk!) as they played a lot of prog but also they played decent eighties stuff on occasions as well. China Crisis was another decent eighties band as I remember ,produced by ex Steely Dan members I think.Wishfull Thinking was a classic song of that decade. What annoyed many about the eighties was the rise of MTV and the over importance of music videos but then Live Aid helped redress the balance and show that bands who could actually do it 'live' were much better than those that couldn't.
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Posted By: rogerthat
Date Posted: June 17 2011 at 23:51
| On second thoughts about my vote! Breathing might just be my favourite Kate Bush song and Never For Ever is overall another excellent album. |
Posted By: memowakeman
Date Posted: June 18 2011 at 11:13
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The Dreaming ------------- Follow me on twitter @memowakeman |
Posted By: resurrection
Date Posted: June 19 2011 at 23:14
| The Dreaming. An idiosyncratic and unusual talent, a bit of a wild card. |