Kate Bush: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 08:00, 24 December 2006

Revision as of 08:02, 24 December 2006

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During this time, Bush wrote and made demos of close to 200 songs, which today can be found on bootleg recordings (some of the demos are often known as the ''[[Phoenix Recordings]]''). She also performed at various small venues in and near London under the name KT Bush Band.

Her first album, ''[[The Kick Inside]]'', was released in 1978, and featured songs she had written during the previous several years, including the single "Wuthering Heights", which topped the UK and Australian charts and became an international hit. In doing so, Bush became the first woman to reach Number 1 in the UK with a self-penned song. A period of intense work followed. A second album, ''[[Lionheart (album)|Lionheart]]'' was quickly recorded; Bush has often expressed dissatisfaction with it, feeling she needed more time to get it right. {{fact}} Following its release, she was required to undertake heavy promotional work and an exhausting tour, the only one of her career. Bush revolutionized on-stage music performances by beingwas the first ever singer to use a wireless radio microphone on stage, {{fact}} which allowed her to incorporate extensive dance routines into her live shows. However, Bush disliked the exposure and the celebrity lifestyle associated with promotional work, feeling it was taking her away from her main priority: making music. A slow and steady withdrawal from public life began as she moved into producing her own work with ''[[Never for Ever]]'' and developed a perfectionist, painstaking approach to making music which would see her ensconced in the studio for long periods and only needing to face the glare of the press when the subsequent albums were released. Wild rumours would fly while she was engaged in her work — usually that she had ballooned in weight or had gone mad. Then she would re-emerge for a brief period, slim and seemingly sane, before retreating to the studio once more.

[[Image:Kateivy.jpg|160px|thumb|right|<small>Bush during the promotion of album ''[[The Single File]]'' ([[1983 in music|1983]])</small>]]

A pattern began to form in the 1980s, in which Bush would disappear for up to four years while she honed her new material until it was ready for release. After the release of ''[[The Red Shoes (album)|The Red Shoes]]'' in 1993 there was no reason to suppose that she would not reappear in three or four years with another set of songs. But the period of silence that followed her seventh studio album was much longer than anyone had anticipated.