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Kate Bush

Kate Bush

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Kate Bush: Fire In The Bush

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, August 1980

WHAT'S KATE BUSH doing in ZigZag? It's a fair chance that's the thought flitting through your noggin as you espy our rather tasteful cover. ...

Kate Bush: The Whole Story

Review by John McCready, New Musical Express, 22 November 1986

IT WAS Mark Smith of top pop group The Fall who, in a typical broadcast of dedicated anti-trendiness, announced that vegetarianism helped one leave the ...

Kate Bush: The Sensual World (EMI)

Review by Chris Roberts, Melody Maker, 14 October 1989

"WHEN LAUREN WAS a small girl, she would stand in the field and call the cats. One by one they would come to her through ...

Audio interviews

Kate Bush (1978)

Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages audio, June 1978

Ms. Bush talks about parental concerns over her career; about being objective as a writer; images of childhood in her songs, and about sex as a subject (and being a sex object).

File format: mp3; file size: 5mb, interview length: 5' 24" sound quality: ****

Kate Bush (1980)

Interview by Kris Needs, Rock's Backpages audio, 19 September 1980

Ms Bush talks about her recent (and only) tour – the practice, pleasures and fears of performing live; about her new (third) album Never For Ever; the 'paedophilia' allegations surrounding the song 'The Infant Kiss'; and ruminates on the pressures of success.

File format: mp3; file size: 28.6mb, interview length: 31' 16" sound quality: **

List of articles in the library

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Kate Bush: The Kick Inside (EMI EMC 3223) *

Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 18 February 1978

WHAT IS this supposed to be? Doom-laden, "meaningful" songs (with some of the worst lyrics ever; sample: "Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o/My feet are ...

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside; Karla Bonoff: Karla Bonoff

Review by Bob Woffinden, New Musical Express, 25 February 1978

THOUGH ON the surface just another member of the incestuous West Coast singing/songwriting sisterhood, Karla Bonoff is different in one crucial respect — she isn't ...

Bush Baby

Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 4 March 1978

2002 Prologue: This interview would have come on the back of an MM editorial conference, Ray Coleman at the helm, sarcastic bastards around the table, ...

Interview: Kate Bush (1978)

Interview by Ian Ravendale, Rock's Backpages audio, June 1978

This is a transcript of Ian's audio interview with Kate. Hear it on the site here. ...

Kate Bush: The Kick Inside (Capitol ST 11761)

Review by Kris DiLorenzo, Crawdaddy!, June 1978

MARY HOPKIN meets Emily Bronte, Laura Nyro discovers reggae, Joan Armatrading masquerades as Joni Mitchell — comparisons with other vocalists are inevitable, but Kate Bush ...

Kate Bush: The Kick Outside

Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 3 June 1978

2002 Prologue: I remember this interview with massive warmth. I knew me and Kate were obviously getting onside ‘cos this was done at the family ...

Kate Bush Gets Her Kicks

Profile and Interview by Jon Young, Trouser Press, July 1978

ALL OF A sudden Kate Bush was at the very top of the UK singles charts. 'Wuthering Heights', her first 45, was number one and ...

The Shape of Things To Come: Kate Bush

Column by Simon Frith, Creem, July 1978

NOTE: This formed part of Simon's monthly Creem column "Letter from Britain". ...

Kate Bush: Bringing It Back Home

Interview by James Johnson, The Evening Standard, 26 September 1978

THE feverish quality of the pop world barely intrudes into the calm atmosphere of the large comfortable family house on the edge of the Kent ...

Kate Bush

Interview by Peter Silverton, Sounds, 30 September 1978

AN HOUR or so in the company of Kate Bush is rather like being trapped for the duration as an unwitting participant in a very ...

Kate Bush: Tête a Kate

Interview by Tim Lott, Record Mirror, 7 October 1978

The rock and roll business usually brings up its fair share of prima donnas, ready to grab what they can and cast off their friends ...

Kate Bush: Enigma Variations

Interview by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 11 November 1978

2002 Prologue: KATE IS famous now. WELL famous, right across Europe and to celebrate that, EMI are launching Lionheart, the second album, in a castle ...

Kate Bush: Lionheart

Review by Ian Penman, New Musical Express, 25 November 1978

Grrrrnrrhhhh!!! Repressed reviewer laments a bird and her bush ...

Kate Bush: The Perfumed Garden Of Good And Evil

Live Review by Sandy Robertson, Sounds, 14 April 1979

DID YOU EVER visit some distant relative for tea and cakes, and as a postscript have to sit through the "party piece" of their little ...

Kate Bush: The Palladium, London

Live Review by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 28 April 1979

TWO MEMORIES: recalled first are the days when rock and roll was swamped with failed classical pianists and violinists who knew that they could make ...

Kate Bush: Things Your Mother Never Told You

Interview by Mike Stand, Smash Hits, 18 October 1979

NOW HOW can I put this without being rude? When I first heard 'Wuthering Heights' Kate Bush's voice reminded me of, well...come on, out with ...

Kate Bush: "Wow, Wow, Wow, Amazing, Amazing, Ama—"

Interview by Danny Baker, New Musical Express, 20 October 1979

EMI: THREE LETTERS that have come to represent "the enemy" in rock'n'roll's war games. EMI House rambles like a country home with a thousand warrens ...

Kate Bush Christmas Special: Kate (BBC)

Review by Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 12 January 1980

WITH 1979 over and no Kate Bush album in more than a year, a television special by the lady that introduced six new songs was ...

Kate Bush: The Me Inside

Interview by Deanne Pearson, Smash Hits, 15 May 1980

Kate Bush lets Deanna Pearson in on her secrets ...

Passion Always Wins

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Sounds, 30 August 1980

WHAT THEY say about Kate Bush is that she’s a lisping innocent, a born-with-a-silver-spoon, a too-good-to-be-true, a safe and uncontroversial, soppy, record industry banker. ...

Kate Bush: The Things Kate Doesn't Tell Mother

Interview by James Johnson, The Evening Standard, 5 September 1980

KATE BUSH would be less than human if she did not sometimes marvel at the attention she has received over the last three years. ...

Kate Bush: Paranoia and Passion of the Kate Inside

Report and Interview by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 4 October 1980

Kate Bush talks to Colin Irwin in Munich... ...

Kate Bush: Still Burning

Interview by Chas de Whalley, Record Mirror, 10 January 1981

You ain't seen nuthin' yet reckons CHAS DE WALLEY about KATE BUSH ...

'What I Did On My Holidays' by Kate Bush, As Told To Ian Birch

Interview by Ian Birch, Melody Maker, June 1981

LATE LAST year not even jump leads would have revitalized the Kate Bush batteries. She was so exhausted that she took the only sensible course ...

Kate Bush: The Dreaming

Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 11 September 1982

UNDER THE premise that the Great British Public instinctively turns its nose up at anything that's a little unexpected, or which doesn't meet its carefully ...

Kate Bush: The Dreaming (EMI)

Review by Leyla Sanai, New Musical Express, 11 September 1982

KATE BUSH LPs are not the kind of thing duels are fought over up in the NME office, so when a hopeful-looking Andy Gill handed ...

Kate Bush: Kate Takes Charge

Interview by Mick Brown, The Guardian, 11 September 1982

Mick Brown meets the singer with a new album out on Monday ...

Kate Bush: "My music sophisticated? I'd rather you said that than turdlike!"

Interview by Richard Cook, New Musical Express, 23 October 1982

A modern, multi-media, adult-orientated entertainer or a wild and wuthering heroine who's been dreaming since a brilliant start to her career......Richard Cook plays Heathcliff to ...

Kate Bush: Dream Time in the Bush

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, November 1982

Kris Needs rises with the dawn (Wot?) to talk with the elfin Kate Bush about her new album The Dreaming ...

Kate Bush: The Dreaming (EMI America ST17084)

Review by Jon Young, Trouser Press, February 1983

KATE BUSH'S The Dreaming is a stunning record in more ways than one. Besides being a triumph of inventive songwriting and unpredictable performances, it is ...

Kate Bush: The Barmy Dreamer

Interview by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 15 October 1983

Kate Bush has moulded herself in an icon of pop erotica — so much that suburban couples claim her breasts stimulate their love making. Yet ...

Kate Bush

Interview by Chris Heath, Smash Hits, 28 August 1985

She had a number one single when she was 18, and followed that with a string of hits. Then she vanished. So what happened? Did ...

Kate Bush: Hounds Of Love (EMI)

Review by Jane Solanas, New Musical Express, 21 September 1985

KRUFTS ORIGINAL! ...

Kate Bush: Hounds Of Love (EMI)

Review by Colin Irwin, Melody Maker, 21 September 1985

Girl with stars in her eyes ...

Kate Bush

Interview by Kris Needs, ZigZag, November 1985

"Since time immemorial the great sea has fascinated mankind, even as he is plucked like a lifeless doll from its creaking shores..." (in BBC2 documentary ...

What Kate Bush Did Next

Interview by Max Bell, Sunday Express, Fall 1985

INQUIRIES ABOUT why Kate Bush has been off the recording scene for three years–an age, in pop–met with a chilly and defensive response from her ...

Kate Bush: Hounds of Love (EMI America)

Review by Steve Matteo, Spin, January 1986

IF KATE Bush had been a writer instead of a musician, she might have written something like Alice in Wonderland. She writes children's songs for ...

Kate Bush: Hounds Of Love (EMI America)

Review by Laura Fissinger, Creem, February 1986

IF THEY were going to run a contest for Most Irritating Rock Star, there'd be plenty of candidates. The Smiths, David Lee Roth, Sting, Stevie ...

Kate Bush: The Girl With The Stars In Her Eyes

Comment by Richard Cook, Sounds, 7 June 1986

KATE BUSH remains a mystical if not mythical creature, even after the latest surge in her ten year career. RICHARD COOK peers through the looking ...

Kate Bush: Down At The Old Bul and Bush

Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 12 November 1988

Kate Bush and Yanka Rupkina sit on a bean-bag couch and sing to me, Bulgarian style; Rupkina bleating high and joyous above Bush's harmony. ...

Kate Bush: In The Realm Of The Senses

Interview by Len Brown, New Musical Express, 7 October 1989

The essence of sensuality and child-like wonder or screeching wood nymph? KATE BUSH steps back into the spotlight after four years of reclusive recording and ...

Kate Bush: Bushwacked by Kate

Profile and Interview by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 12 October 1989

THE WOMAN pouring tea in a hotel near EMI records has a wide, warm smile and speaks with such endearing openness that you wonder if ...

Kate Bush: The Sensual World

Review by David Cavanagh, Sounds, 14 October 1989

ISN'T THE SINGLE absolutely without equal? Especially the way the "mmh yes" punctuation gets progressively more urgent as the song unwinds. There is really no ...

Let Them Eat Kate: The Sensual World

Review by David Quantick, New Musical Express, 21 October 1989

FOUR YEARS TO produce one LP works out at ten minutes per year of The Sensual World, with an extra three minutes 48 for cassette ...

Iron Maiden: Kate Bush

Interview by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, November 1989

Although signed at the tender age of 18, Kate Bush stoutly refused to be "the record company's daughter". She's quietly become her own manager, producer, ...

Kate Bush: The Sensual World

Review by Robert Sandall, Q, November 1989

ROMPING HOME a close second to the Blue Nile in the increasingly competitive Studio Marathon stakes, Kate Bush's sixth album has finally arrived almost exactly ...

Kate Bush: Positive Female Energy

Interview by Len Brown, CD Review, December 1989

"I find it extraordinary that people should want to write about me when I do so little. I just pop out and do an album ...

Kate Bush: Follow That!

Interview by Mat Snow, Q, 1990

THIS MONTH adds another blockbuster to record shelves. Presented with the requisite lavishly illustrated booklet, This Woman's Work is the title which gathers together Kate ...

Kate Bush: Who's That Girl?

Profile and Interview by Colin Irwin, Rock World, October 1993

KATE BUSH is back with a sensational new album The Red Shoes, her first of this decade. She's been a major figure for 17 years ...

Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (Columbia)

Review by Jon Young, Musician, November 1993

IF YOU'VE pegged Kate Bush as a dreamy cosmic spirit, don't miss the climax of The Red Shoes, where the stunning 'You're the One' renews ...

Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (EMI)

Review by Andy Gill, Q, November 1993

INITIALLY SOMEWHAT shrill and unimpressive, The Red Shoes improves immeasurably after repeated plays over a long period of time, gaining a solidity at odds with ...

Kate Bush: Daft As A Bush

Interview by Nick Coleman, Time Out, November 1993

Kate Bush – what's she like, eh, with her wailing voice, whimsical words and penchant for throwing wild Terpsichorean shapes? Suitably intrigued by her new ...

Shake Your Booties: Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (EMI)

Review by Stephen Dalton, Vox, November 1993

THINK OF THE most unlikely pop collaborators you can imagine. Now double them. Forget it, because Ms Bush got there before you: Lenny Henry, Prince, ...

Heaven’s Kate: Kate Bush

Interview by Simon Reynolds, Melody Maker, 6 November 1993

ENGLAND MY LION HEART KATE BUSH AN ENGLISH original. In 1978, that wavering, starburst voice seemed to come out of nowhere, but only because it's ...

Plimsoll Asylum: Kate Bush: The Red Shoes (EMI)

Review by Terry Staunton, New Musical Express, 6 November 1993

"WE THINK you'd better wake up captain," suggests the crew of Kate's ship on 'Constellation Of The Heart'. "There's something happenin' up ahead." "What am I ...

Kate Bush

Interview by Simon Reynolds, Pulse!, December 1993

Kate Bush is very... unlikely· A teen prodigy, she rocketed to the pinnacle of the British charts with her 1987 debut, ‘Wuthering Heights’, a very... ...

Kate Bush: Little Miss Can't Be Wrong

Interview by Stuart Maconie, Q, December 1993

She might be a self-confessed power head, prone to control freakery and studio-hermitdom and a total stranger to the nightclub dancefloor... "bit I'm never grumpy, ...

Dear Diary: The Secret World of Kate Bush

Interview by David Sinclair, Rolling Stone, 24 February 1994

CRICKLEWOOD IS not at all the kind of place you would expect to find Kate Bush. Although immortalized long ago in the title of a ...

Frontwoman: Kate Bush

Interview by Jon Young, Musician, March 1994

THE DEDICATION of the album to your mother and songs like 'Moments of Pleasure' lend a strong sense of loss to The Red Shoes. ...

Kate Bush: Hounds of Love

Review by Barney Hoskyns, unpublished, 1997

FEW WOMEN HAVE expanded the vocabulary of rock as bewitchingly as Kate Bush; among male stars, only Prince may have taken as many risks. Hounds ...

Kate Bush: Hounds Of Love

Review by Chris Roberts, Uncut, September 1997

NOTHING COULD be more wrong than to align the wanton, inspired Bush with boring English rock "aristocrats" such as Sting, Collins and Clapton. There's a ...

Eyewitness: The Grooming Of Kate Bush

Retrospective and Interview by Johnny Black, Q, March 1999

It wouldn't happen now. Kate Bush was 16 when Pink Floyd's David Gilmour recommended her to EMI records. Over the next two years, the arty ...

Kate Bush: Season Of The Witch

Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, MOJO, February 2003

It's almost 25 years since 'Wuthering Heights' made Kate Bush into a star, and a decade since she quietly slipped from view. Phil Sutcliffe traces ...

Kate Bush: Return of the Recluse

Profile and Interview by Adam Sweeting, Independent on Sunday, 2 October 2005

PLENTY HAS HAPPENED in the twelve years since Kate Bush last released an album. Tory sleaze has morphed into New Labour; mobile phones and iPods ...

Kate Bush: Finally, Something For The Grown-Ups

Essay by Andy Gill, The Independent, 21 October 2005

EARLY NEXT MONTH, Kate Bush releases Aerial, her first new album since The Red Shoes back in November 1993. Even by the relaxed schedules adopted ...

Kate Bush: Doesn't Tour, Hates Attention, Likes Home

Interview by Will Hermes, The New York Times, 30 October 2005

POP MUSIC has seen a lot of '80s musicians angling for a second act lately — the Pixies, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, among others. Partly ...

Kate Bush: Aerial

Review by Ben Thompson, Daily Telegraph, 6 November 2005

Ben Thompson reviews an album of two halves ...

Kate Bush: Aerial

Review by Nick Southall, Stylus, 8 November 2005

KATE BUSH HAS BEEN CHANGING the world since before I was born. I am now 26 and Kate is comfortably in her 40s; logic, sense ...

Kate Bush: Aerial (EMI)

Review by Jim Irvin, MOJO, December 2005

TO SUM UP: Kate Bush is the greatest living British artist in song and this is her masterpiece. ...

Kate Bush: Stand By Your Mantra

Retrospective by Harry Doherty, Classic Rock, December 2005

An enigma. A recluse. A sensitive artist scared of the limelight. Few people get close enough to get to know the real Kate Bush. But ...

The Kate Bush Collection: An Album By Album Guide

Guide by Terry Staunton, Record Collector, December 2005

THE KICK INSIDE (1978, EMI EMC3223) Much was made at the time of the album's release of the fact that Bush was only 19, but let's ...

Kate Bush: Aerial

Review by Mark Mordue, Neumu, January 2006

IT HARDLY seems to begin or end. Just continue. With Aerial, Kate Bush's first CD in 12 years, we could be anywhere between her first ...

Going for a song: Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush's 'Don't Give Up'

Retrospective by Tom Cox, The Sunday Times, 19 November 2006

I'D HAD WAITING jobs before, and could deal with the £2.56 hourly wage, the slave-driving supervisor who wouldn't stop talking about his masturbation habits, and ...

Kate Bush: The Vanishing Siren

Retrospective and Interview by Graeme Thomson, Daily Telegraph, 12 May 2011

As one of pop's finest and most reclusive talents releases her first album in six years, Graeme Thomson explains her enduring appeal. ...

Double Exposure: Kate Bush: Director's Cut (EMI/Fish People)

Review by Graeme Thomson, The Word, June 2011

Kate Bush re-examines a handful of her own songs. The result? Restoration, radical reinvention and unfettered weirdness… ...

Kate Bush: A Portrait Of The Artist

Interview by Keith Cameron, MOJO, June 2011

Why is Kate Bush re-recording tracks from her most troubled records? Is there really a proper new album in the works? And will the James ...

Kate Bush: 50 Words for Snow

Review by Jude Rogers, bbc.co.uk, November 2011

The sublime and the ridiculous: this is classic Kate. ...

A Demon In The Drift: Kate Bush Interviewed

Interview by John Doran, The Quietus, 10 November 2011

KANGCHENJUNGA was, for a long time, thought to be the highest mountain in the world. It wasn't until the Great Trigonometric Survey of 1849 that ...

Catch Her Drift: Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow (Fish People/EMI) ****

Review and Interview by Pete Paphides, MOJO, December 2011

Snow as a metaphor for the fragility of youth or a woman with "a thing" for snowmen? Kate Bush's second album of the year is ...

Kate Bush: The Mystery Dance

Interview by Dorian Lynskey, The Word, December 2011

A Kate Bush song can be a game, a riddle, a library, a plane ticket, a night at the movies, a love affair, an hallucination, ...

The Frost Report: Kate Bush: 50 Words For Snow (Fish People/EMI)

Review by Jim Irvin, The Word, December 2011

A winter's tale from Kate Bush: low pressure, deep drifts, a cold front moving in — and a crisp cameo from Stephen Fry. ...

Album by album: Kate Bush

Guide by Graeme Thomson, Uncut, January 2012

It would be inadvisable to get carried away, but two album releases in 2011 suggests Kate Bush is returning to a more agreeable rate of ...

Sonic Foam: Kate Bush

Essay by Ian Penman, London Review of Books, 17 April 2014

A DREAM, just before waking. It's a day or two after Kate Bush's unexpected announcement of her return to the concert stage for a series ...

Kate Bush

Retrospective by Phil Sutcliffe, Q, August 2014

YOUNG KATE. I sat across from her in EMI offices and Abbey Road Studios for around seven hours, 1979-89, asking awkward questions and getting awkward, ...

Kate Bush: "They thought she was the stripper"

Retrospective by Graeme Thomson, Daily Telegraph, 9 August 2014

A year before 'Wuthering Heights' made her a star, Kate Bush cut her teeth performing in London's pubs. ...

Kate Bush's Before The Dawn: Eventim Apollo, London

Live Review by John Lewis, Metro, 28 August 2014

IT WAS A comeback that had been hyped up for months. ...

Kate Bush: Before The Dawn: Hammersmith Apollo, London

Live Review by Kate Allen, Disorder, September 2014

THERE'S NO NEED to explain this phenomenon in detail. Kate Bush breaking her 35 years of being conspicuous by absence from the stage is a ...

The Continuing Allure of Kate Bush

Comment by Gillian G. Gaar, Wondering Sound, 26 September 2014

IMMIGRATION AGENTS aren't known for their friendliness. But when my plane touched down at Heathrow Airport in early September, I felt I had a pretty ...

Kate Bush: "I'm not sure you're ever really happy with what you create"

Interview by Andy Gill, The Independent, 24 November 2016

In a rare interview, the reclusive 'Wuthering Heights' singer opens up about her nerves performing live and working with her son on the spectacular visuals for her 2014 shows, ...

Kate Bush: Not Drowning But Waving

Interview by Jim Irvin, MOJO, January 2017

Forty years into her career, Kate Bush is still looking for fresh ways to exhaust herself. Before The Dawn, her run of 22 live shows ...

What joy – 40 years of hitting the heights with Kate Bush

Comment by Barbara Ellen, The Observer, 21 January 2018

THE KATE BUSH song 'Wuthering Heights' is 40 years old this month. One could argue that this has momentous import for Bush, female musicians and ...

When song lyrics become literature

Essay by Jude Rogers, New Statesman, 2 January 2019

From Pet Shop Boys to Kate Bush, pop stars are publishing their songs as books. What do their words reveal about them? ...

"You still have us": how Peter Gabriel's 'Don’t Give Up' became a lifeline for the lonely

Retrospective by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 27 March 2020

IT IS ALMOST eight years since the video clip for 'Don't Give Up' first appeared on YouTube. Written and sung by Peter Gabriel, and featuring ...

The 30 best live concert albums of all time

Guide by Ian Winwood, Daily Telegraph, 22 April 2020

LAST WEEK, A STORY appeared in the New York Times that predicted that live music would not return to the world's stages until the autumn ...

Kate Bush: 'Under the Ivy' on The Tube, 1986

Book Excerpt by Tom Doyle, Nine Eight Books, October 2022

RAMSHACKLE AND FUNNY, chaotic and controversial, Channel 4's live-to-air music show The Tube flew in the face of the glossy pop cultural trends of the ...

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