Background and recording
Having written songs since the age of 11,Kate Bush recorded demos with the assistance of her brothers,who were also musicians. A friend of theirs,Ricky Hopper,brought some of these tapes to various record companies in 1972,when Bush was 13. The tapes were passed over,but Hopper played them for his friend David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. [3] Gilmour was immediately intrigued and went to meet with the Bush family and was impressed with Kate's talent for songwriting. He financed some better-quality demos and while Pink Floyd were recording their album Wish You Were Here (1975) at Abbey Road Studios,Gilmour played the tapes for record company executives. EMI Records was impressed and agreed to sign her,offering her an advance of £3,000. [4] Two of the demos recorded in June 1975 were included on her debut album three years later:"The Man with the Child in His Eyes" and "The Saxophone Song".
In 1976,Bush's contract was finally agreed upon by her family. In preparation for the recording,she embarked on playing with the KT Bush Band around various pubs. According to her brother Paddy,who also played with her on stage,these started out as very small affairs with little public interest but grew to larger audiences over the months. [5] Finally,in July and August 1977,the rest of the songs were recorded at AIR Studios in London,helmed by producer Andrew Powell. Bush was keen to keep the line-up of the KT Bush Band for the recordings,but EMI insisted that she use properly experienced session musicians. Powell engaged Ian Bairnson,Duncan Mackay and Stuart Elliott among others,many of whom he had worked with before.
It was around this time that Bush had started to study dance and movement as a way of presenting the songs. Subsequently,she credited her dance teacher Lindsay Kemp on the album;the song "Moving" was inspired by Kemp. EMI and Bush disagreed over the use of a certain shot,which emphasised her cleavage,on the picture sleeve for the first single. Initially,this was to be "James and the Cold Gun",but Bush insisted on "Wuthering Heights". EMI relented and the single was scheduled for release in November 1977. However,due to the disagreement over the picture sleeve,this date was pushed back to the new year of 1978. The song became a hit and reached number one in the UK Singles Chart in March. [6] It stayed at the top of the charts for four weeks,becoming one of the biggest selling songs of the year and was the first time a female singer-songwriter topped the charts with a self-penned song. [7]
The album,titled The Kick Inside,was released in February 1978 and featured 13 tracks. Bush's cinematic and literary influences,qualities that would later be considered key to her work,were evident in the song "Wuthering Heights". The song was not initially inspired by Emily Brontë's novel but by a television adaptation,although Bush read the novel later in order to (in her own words) "get the research right". [8] Further influences can be found when she references Gurdjieff in "Them Heavy People",while the title song is inspired by the ballad of Lizie Wan. [9] Bush also writes openly about sexuality,particularly on the erotic "Feel It" and "L'Amour Looks Something Like You". "Strange Phenomena" questions unusual coincidences,premonition,and déjàvu.
The album's second single,"The Man with the Child in His Eyes",reached number six in the UK. Three other singles were released around the world during the next two years:"Them Heavy People","Moving" (which reached number one in Japan) and "Strange Phenomena". "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" also charted on the American Billboard Hot 100,Bush's only single to do so until 1985. It peaked at number 85. Bush made an appearance on Saturday Night Live in December 1978. Despite this publicity,The Kick Inside failed to enter the Top 200 of the Billboard albums chart.
The album peaked at number three on the UK Albums Chart and remained on the chart for much of the rest of the year. Eventually clocking up 71 weeks in the chart, [10] it was certified platinum and remains one of Bush's biggest selling records.
Release
The Kick Inside was released in the UK on 17 February 1978. [11] In November 2018,Bush released box sets of remasters of her studio albums,including The Kick Inside.
Seven different versions of the album's cover are known: [12]
- Standard UK cover (Bush holding on to a large Chinese styled kite superimposed on to a drawing of a human eye)
- US cover (Bush in a wooden box),
- Canadian cover (Bush with hands on head),
- Yugoslavian cover (Bush in white dress - upper body)
- Japanese cover (Bush in pink leotard - upper body)
- Swedish cassette edition (Bush in white dress - 'Wuthering Heights' video still shot,full body)
- Uruguayan cover (a black and white facial close up. This cover is the rarest and most valuable due being issued in very limited numbers.
The initial US edition used the same cover image as the standard Canadian issue,but this soon changed to the more familiar 'Kate in wooden box' image used on subsequent American issues. The UK 'kite sleeve' was also chosen as the artwork in various EU and South American countries as well as Australia,New Zealand,Hong Kong and Scandinavia. All the original global vinyl variants (except for Uruguay) feature the same cover art on the reverse of the sleeve.
It was released (twice) as a limited edition picture disc in the 'kite sleeve'. These issues added an extra 'P' to the black vinyl's catalogue number (EMCP 3223) on both the sleeve and the disc itself. Two editions were released:
- The first (released in 1979) for the UK market and has a circular sticker stating that it is a picture disc (usually in the top left hand corner of the sleeve).
- The second pressing (apparently aimed at the US market,where the first pressing had proven popular) has an oval sticker (usually top centre). The second disc also states "manufactured in the UK by EMI Records Ltd." as part of the copyright notice printed on the disc (due to its export status). The first edition does not have this wording.
Critical reception
Contemporary reviews were full of praise for the album. Billboard favoured the songs "Wuthering Heights" and "Them Heavy People" among others and said Bush wrote "evocative lyrics" and delivered them with "smooth and unrestrained vocals". [23] Kris DiLorenzo of Crawdaddy said that "Bush's talent for soul-baring would be frightening were it not so ingenuous;she writes from a well of fantasy and feeling with a patina of experience,her concerns universal and womanly,not the usual wilted kitten yearning or last-rave bathos." [24] Peter Reilly of Stereo Review praised Bush for going against the grain in women's music. He favoured the songs "The Man with the Child in His Eyes" and "Room for the Life" but cared less for "Wuthering Heights" and "James and the Cold Gun". [25]
In later reviews,the album continued to receive universal praise. Pitchfork critic Laura Snapes said of the album,"It is ornate music made in austere times,but unlike the pop sybarites to follow in the next decade,flaunting their wealth while Britain crumbled,Bush spun hers not from material trappings but the infinitely renewable resources of intellect and instinct:Her joyous debut measures the fullness of a woman's life by what's in her head." Snapes spoke highly of every track,but had slight lyrical reservations for "Room for the Life". [19] In a 2008 review for BBC Music,writer Chris Jones said,"Using mainly session musicians,The Kick Inside was the result of a record company actually allowing a young talent to blossom. Some of these songs were written when she was 13! Helmed by Gilmour's friend,Andrew Powell,it's a lush blend of piano grandiosity,vaguely uncomfortable reggae and intricate,intelligent,wonderful songs. All delivered in a voice that had no precedents." He says that the record company wanting to push "James and the Cold Gun" as the first single was a mistake as he labels it the album's "dullest track". [26] AllMusic's Bruce Eder said that the album is "the sound of an impressionable and highly precocious teenager spreading her wings for the first time" and called it "a mightily impressive debut". [13]
Not all reviews were positive. Sandy Robertson,from the now defunct music magazine Sounds ,criticized the lyrics,especially on the song "Kite":"WHAT IS this supposed to be? Doom-laden,'meaningful' songs (with some of the worst lyrics ever;sample:'Beelzebub is aching in my belly-o/My feet are heavy and I'm rooted in my wellios') sung with the most irritatingly yelping voice since Robert Plant". [27]
In an article for Stylus Magazine ,Marcello Carlin wrote that The Kick Inside "probably kicked down more doors than the whole of the first and second waves of punk combined",writing of Bush's unusual subjects,stark voice ("seeming to glide and swoop at will,covering three-and-a-half octaves with minimal apparent effort") and piano chord progressions,saying "their delayed sustain,their unexpected trapdoor modulations,the very fingers which were playing them ... couldn’t be ascribed to any realistic precedent;for one very important thing,they sounded so unambiguously feminine." [28]
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