THE RED SHOES

When The Red Shoes was released, I had high expectations after Kate Bush had released two really good albums: Hounds of Love and This Sensual World. For the third time she had taken her time to make an album. About 55 minutes later these expectations were cut down to size. The opening track, Rubberband Girl, shows a rocking Kate and is an average tune. It does not disappoint, but it is not outstanding either. This track is followed by a rather boring tune, And So Is Love. More interesting is the third track, Eat the music. This track has some exotic instrumentation, with instruments like the valiha and the kabossy playing a guest role: first I thought that the valiha was a self-made string instrument named after its player. I was wrong, but that prevented my fantasies from taking a free ride: it is Madagascar´s national instrument, made of strands of bicycle brake cable strings around a bamboo tube. The kabossy is also a string instrument from Madagascar. The trumpets give this song a mariachi sound. A bit exotic, but it does not make me go bananas. Moments of Pleasure is my favourite track on this album and one of my overall favourite Kate Bush songs. It is a slow song on which Kate is accompanied by piano and strings. Song of Solomon does not rise above the level of boredom, but more annoying is Lily. Here she has summoned a certain Lily, apparently the most trusted local witch from her home town, to throw up some paganist spiritual crap; the singing bowls used in this song are also irritating. The Red Shoes, the title track, is a nice, funny rendition of a fairytale I knew from an attraction park and my second favourite track on this album. The next song, Top of the City, is also worth mentioning in a positive way. Hereafter one has to wrestle his way through three songs that mark the nadir of Kate's musical career: the first two songs are just poor compositions; in the third one Prince appears as a guest vocalist and musician and his dominant influence becomes increasingly hearable as the song proceeds: it starts as a Kate Bush song and it ends as a Prince song. I regret to say that I do not count myself among his fans... The last song, You're the One, saves this album from leaving a bad aftertaste, thanks to Gary Brooker's Hammond organ. Having said this, I can recommend this album only to collectors of Kate Bush albums and to anyone else who want to hear how poor compositions cannot be saved by good musicianship. I feel tempted to give this album just one star, but commanded to give two, just because there are some moments of pleasure as well: use a programmable CD player, enter the numbers 1, 4, 7, 8 and 12, and enjoy.