Hear Me Out: ‘The Red Shoes’ is the ultimate Kate Bush album
Kate Bush’s seventh studio album, The Red Shoes, only seems to get better with age. The final release before her 12-year hiatus, you could argue that The Red Shoes was the last true Kate Bush album, the final time the world saw her as the all-singing, all-dancing melodramatic performance artist that made her name.
Released with a full album rollout including a clear aesthetic identity and an extended music video film, The Red Shoes is not just one of Bush’s finest moments but feels like the most realised release in her incredible discography. Looking back, it stands out as her most definitive work.
Before pressing play, The Red Shoes and all the references and images involved, even simply the title of the 1993 release, make it so profoundly connected to Kate Bush and her impact as an artist. Inspired by the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale of the same name and the glamorous yet gothic 1948 film based on the story, The Red Shoes is a tale of beauty, obsession and brutality as a young girl dances herself to death.
Released alongside an extended music video film that delivers some of Bush’s finest dance moments, The Red Shoes stands out as the pinnacle of a significant element of her career. In fact, when she first landed her record deal, Bush used her large advance from EMI to enrol in interpretive dance lessons taught by the infamous dance teacher Lindsay Kemp, who also coached David Bowie. A full circle moment back to her debut album, which opened up with the track ‘Moving’ in homage to Kemp, dance has always been a vital part of Kate Bush’s career.
Throughout each of her prior albums, dance found some way to be involved, whether it be in the music videos for tracks like ‘Sat In Your Lap’, in the lyrics of ‘Jig Of Life’ or in the theatrical contents of works like ‘Wow’. It never feels like a good enough descriptor to label Kate Bush simply a musical artist — she has always been so much more, taking a full-360 approach that incorporated the art forms of movement, theatre, literature and film, and nowhere was that all-encompassing approach more realised than on The Red Shoes.
Beyond the connection to dance, The Red Shoes as a story and as a film connects deeply to topics Kate Bush loved most. Never shying away from horror, Bush’s discography regularly merges the sublime and stunning with scary or uncomfortable moments. Consider Hounds Of Love with its story of a woman hallucinating as she almost drowns in ‘Waking The Witch’ before being rescued and singing of rousing optimism on ‘The Morning Fog’. Or on The Dreaming, where the title track recounts the horrors faced by Australian aboriginals or the harsh look at nuclear warfare on ‘Breathing’. All handled with beauty and care, Kate Bush is beloved for creating rich, vibrant worlds within her songs, and the universe of The Red Shoes is bolder than any.
Tackling topics of religion, lust, love, heartbreak and purpose, each song on The Red Shoes is a mini-epic taking the shape of its own feeling-packed melodrama. The title track especially stands out as one of the most defining Kate Bush songs that deserves more credit for its vitality. Retelling The Red Shoes story, when told by Bush with the retrospective knowledge of the hiatus that was to come, ‘The Red Shoes’ feels like Bush’s ultimate comment on the deception and trappings of fame, singing naively “Oh it’s gonna be the way you always thought it would be”. With a tracklist made up of hit after hit, despite being her most commercial release to date as Bush stripped back the weirdness and complexities of her earlier works, it stands out as her most lyrically and aesthetically profound.
That, in part, is down to the absolutely epic composition of this album. The Red Shoes scales to new and dizzying heights as Bush harnessed and dominated the power ballad genre. Tracks like ‘Top Of The City’, ‘Lily’ and ‘And So Is Love’ especially move towards roaring, euphoric climaxes, while upbeat and danceable cuts like ‘Rubberband Girl’ and ‘Eat The Music’ stay catchy and fun while maintaining the Kate Bush kookiness.
It’s no surprise when you look at the cast of icons that came on board for this record. Previously, Kate Bush kept her circle small. She took the reins on production and had a tight-knit band that included her brother, Paddy Bush, her ex-boyfriend Del Palmer and her husband, Danny McIntosh. But for The Red Shoes, recorded at Abbey Road studios during arguably the height of her fame, musicians on the album include Prince, Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck.
Prince’s work on the album is an especially shining moment. Seeing the two artists unite and combine their incredible strengths, their joint effort ‘Why Should I Love You?’ is undoubtedly one of Kate Bush’s greatest hits. With Prince’s signature guitar playing and skill for building maximalist tracks that never become too much or overdone, combined with Kate Bush’s unique vocal style and penchant for almost religious arrangements, The Red Shoes is the ultimate Kate Bush.
From its lyrical content to its tight visual identity, the epic instrumentation and the involvement of her peers in the form of some of history’s most important figures, The Red Shoes stands out as a crown jewel in Kate Bush’s discography. An album that screams self-assurance in her skills, talent and identity, it has all her signatures done to their very best. Levelling up everything that came before while still paying homage to her teenage self, who studied dance and music tirelessly before launching herself into the artistic world, her 1993 release reaches dizzying heights. Still sounding so rich and vibrant, give it another listen, and you’ll find that The Red Shoes truly stands out as the ultimate Kate Bush album.
