“That was superb”: Kate Bush on the album that had a profound impact on music
Some of the best musical connections are made early in life. During those teenage years, most remember their first handful of favourites, the sounds of life when it felt like a swirling concoction of the good, the bad, and the ugly. For some, growing up alongside the weirdly wonderful sounds of Kate Bush not only provided a soundtrack to life’s most precious chapter but also taught the value of individuality and independence.
During her rise to fame, Kate Bush was, to many, an outlier. Remembered by a large portion of a generation as someone who came across as “strange” or “weird”, Bush was an inexplicable music industry anomaly with a propensity to coast the line between unsettling and endearment. Those who got her craft understood the unique creativity and intelligence behind it, while others branded it too niche ever to surpass being a mere fad.
Of course, they were entirely wrong, as Bush was not only one of the most forward-thinking, innovative artists in music history but also someone who wasn’t afraid to spotlight difficult or taboo subjects, even if such conversations were deemed too provocative for mainstream airtime. However, while there were many reasons she got away with such seemingly unkempt artistry, much of Bush’s music, videos, and performances were often abstract and eccentric enough to exude undeniable intrigue.
In other words, she wasn’t someone who raised topics for the sake of it; she weaved her views and personal experiences into her art as a means of platforming life’s more glaring ambiguities, offering insight into her world by pushing outsiders to challenge everything they might have thought they knew. For many, growing up with an idol like Bush wasn’t just a badge of honour for individuality, therefore, it also proved an edge that said challenging the norm was never out of the question.
Bush also had her share of defining sounds growing up, though many were ones so naturally ingrained in the world around her that they became a part of the furniture, even if she knew they were a part of a broader moment that was worth paying attention to. While she would work with Pink Floyd veteran David Gilmour later on her debut, The Kick Inside, Bush’s initial exposure to the band was through a burgeoning allure that later drew her to one of the greatest records in history.
“I was not really aware of much contemporary rock music at that age,” Bush admitted to Steve Newton in 1985. She continued: “I had heard of them, but hadn’t actually heard their music. It wasn’t until later that I got to hear stuff like Dark Side of the Moon. And I just thought that was superb–I mean they really did do some pretty profound stuff.”
In true Bush fashion, however, the moments throughout their discography that would later impact her own art weren’t the typical melodically inclined aspects but the more off-kilter boundary-pushing that challenged the parameters of musical art.
After all, Bush later repurposed the helicopter sound from Pink Floyd’s ‘Another Brick In The Wall’ for her Hounds of Love track ‘Waking The Witch’, her only reasoning being that it “was the best helicopter I’d heard for years for years”, an instinctive move that proved her appreciation and acknowledgement of Pink Floyd’s ability to enhance art with unconventional choices—a move Bush always had a keen eye for.
