Can we expect a new Kate Bush album in 2025?
Kate Bush might feel like a new phenomenon to the current generation, as evidenced by the Stranger Things-induced resurgence, but a legion of others have long been waiting with bated breath.
It’s been 14 years since her last album and 11 since her last residency, which presents a handful of pressing questions: Will the singer release a new album in 2025? And what will it sound like? At the tail-end of last year, Bush admitted she was “keen” on making new music and has “lots of ideas”.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today, she said she’s “really looking forward to getting back into that creative space,” though also clarified she wasn’t working on anything new “at the moment”, head still stuck in the weeds of “archive work”, a website redesign, and a lyric book. But when she was finished with those, she wanted to start working on a new album.
Things have quietened down since then, but at the time, it seemed like something she’d been thinking about for a long while, especially in light of the unrelenting appetite for her in the current music scene, and that’s not just as a result of soundtracking countless edits on TikTok.
Bush has long been an underlying presence, both as a creative force and a philanthropic figure for good. Her release of Little Shrew in October last year for War Child reimagined 50 Words for Snow‘s ‘Snowflake’ set against a short film about a shrew searching for hope in a war-torn city.
But all things take time, and even the most legendary industry veterans have to apply intense consideration in today’s landscape, not just about what they want to put out and when, but which audience they’re speaking to and how.
While some albums can span a number of months from recording to release, it wouldn’t be a surprise if Bush wanted to take her time with an album set for release in the next few years, making a 2025 release less likely.
But that doesn’t stop her from drip-feeding material as and when she feels like it. In fact, countless artists release standalone singles or snippets before full EPs or LPs are finished and ready to go out to the world. Which brings us on to the next point: what can we expect of Bush’s next release? Will it sound like much of her hit music, or will she veer off in a new direction entirely?
How might a new Kate Bush album sound?
Before we get into it, it’s probably safe to say that anything involving Bush comes heavily with the adage, expect the unexpected. Knowing the countless twists and turns across her discography and then also the twists and turns within the material within her discography, Bush isn’t a stickler for the rules and prefers to write about whatever’s on her mind and in her heart at that specific moment in time.
She also struggles to listen to her older material, mainly because her wiser, more mature mind peers at stuff she did at 19 with a judgmental eye, indicating a discontent that probably rules out any likelihood of new material resembling anything she put out in her early years. She also once said listening to songs like ‘Oh England My Lionheart’ makes her “want to die”. So there’s also that.
And it’d also be seen by many as some sort of commercial-riding cop out if she tried to reinvent the wheel with a ‘Running Up That Hill’ 2.0, though it’s pretty clear she wouldn’t do this anyway, especially if her past commitment to being an independent artist and not capitalising off the cultural zeitgeist no matter how against the grain it is is anything to go by. In Bush, we trust.
This, frustratingly, leaves us with no specific predictions about where Bush will go next. We could predict it’ll sound something like her last record, 50 Words, though that’s already been and gone, and Bush essentially has a world of experience and countless strands of discourse in the current political climate to pull from. But maybe that uncertainty is all part of the fun – Bush could do literally anything, and we’re here, poised, ready to sink our teeth in.
