Kate Bush’s 10 favourite albums: “I played it to death”
Kate Bush is a mainstay in music history. As a ferocious artist who took the rock genre and blew it up into something bigger, better and more theatrical, from the moment she stepped onto the scene, music was never the same.
Take a moment to think about how many thousands of new artists coming up in the generations following Bush’s breakout in the late 1970s have been described as akin to her. So many musicians look to her as a reference point or an anchoring point when attempting to navigate a world that is not quite pop, not quite rock and not quite so easily labelled by the mainstream scene. Kate Bush become an icon for anyone looking to do stuff a bit differently with a clear artistic vision and performative streak.
But no man is an island, and no inspiration comes from nowhere. Just as artists look up to Bush, she also looks up to her idols or peers. As much of a music fan as she is a musical legend, her own personal tastes are just as great and vast as the songs she makes. When she released her 1980 record Never For Ever, she marked the moment by creating a list of her favourite albums of all time, revealing the influences that coloured her work so far.
One of the most obvious and expected comes in the form of Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Her love for the band is a personal one, as she writes, “It reminds me of last Christmas and open fires, and I wish I’d written it.” As a close friend of David Gilmour’s after he helped get her early demos to the right people and co-produced her debut album, his band might be huge titans in the industry, but they’ll always feel like family friends to Bush.
Another personal choice is The Eagles’ One of These Nights. “I played it to death when studying with Lindsay Kemp, and it reminds me of him,” she said, honouring the teacher who taught her to dance. When she received her first record label advance, she spent some of it in classes with Kemp, a famed modern dance teacher who also instructed David Bowie. Clearly feeling a kind of kinship with the artist, she also picks out his own Young Americans.
One of her choices also reminds her of even earlier years as it soundtracked her childhood home. Bush picked A.L. Lloyd and Eran MacColl’s Blow Boys Blow, writing, “I was brought up with this album.” The fact that Bush was raised on a diet of shanties and traditional folk makes so much sense when considering tracks like ‘Jig Of Life’.
There are a fair few left-field yet traditional or cultural sounds on Bush’s list. She also chooses albums from The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra and German double bass player Eberhard Weber. Showing exactly where her interest in global sounds comes from, her eclectic musical engagement came to fruition across her records.
But she also loves the big names. She picked out Stevie Wonder’s The Secret Life Of Plants as a more soulful choice, deeming it a “modern symphony”. The Beatles naturally make an appearance as she picked out Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Her reasoning is simple as she stated, “It’s an album of excellent songs.” Somewhat bridging the gap between her classic rock tastes and her more unusual choices, she discussed her love for Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart, the resident weird guys of the 1960s and ‘70s. As both artists pushed the sounds of the era to wilder places than their peers, the two figures make total sense as firm favourites of Bush’s.
Kate Bush’s favourite albums of all time:
- Frank Zappa – Over-Nite Sensation
- A.L. Lloyd and Eran MacColl – Blow Boys Blow
- The Eagles – One of These Nights
- David Bowie – Young Americans
- The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Eberhard Weber – Fluid Rustle
- Captain Beefheart – Blue Jeans and Moonbeams
- Stevie Wonder – The Secret Life of Plants
- Pink Floyd – The Wall
- The TV National Iranian Chamber Orchestra – Treasures of the Baroque Era