Kate Bush Is Stupidly Cool: A Stupid Tribute To The Coolness Of Kate Bush

There really ain't a whole lot of substance to this post, and the main thrust of my rather unnecessary, slender and broadly unchallenged argument has been made by many people, many times before. Still, it bares repeating - Kate Bush is stupidly cool. This post exists because I was reading an old copy of MOJO at around 2am this morning, stumbled across an interview conducted with Ms Bush from around the release of 'Ariel', and thought, like I have done every time I've read that interview - "yep. She really is stupidly cool."

One sunny morning whilst living in London's Trendy Crouch End I bought three very dog-eared records from a charity shop on the Broadway for 50p each. These records were 'Dark Side Of The Moon' by Pink Floyd, 'Parallel Lines' by Blondie, and 'Hounds Of Love' by Kate Bush. That musta been, like, 8 years ago, and I still consider it my favourite ever charity shopping experience. I've found weirder stuff in charity shops since, more nerd-friendly Record Collector-y stuff, but look at those three albums. A triumvirate of untouchable pop brilliance. They were right next to each other in the crate. It was like God had cleared out his loft and donated his record collection to the Crouch End Broadway branch of the British Heart Foundation.

I was 21 years old when I bought 'em, and people will baulk, but I'd never heard 'Dark Side Of The Moon' until I dropped the needle on it that morning. I'd heard Pink Floyd...lots of Pink Floyd, infact, including 'Echoes' and 'Relics', and treasured my VHS copy of the hilariously overblown 'Live At Pompeii', but for whatever reason had never come into direct contact with 'DSOTM'. It pretty much wigged my mind for the next couple of months. 'Parallel Lines' is practically a perfect package, as neat, vibrant and bright a summation of American pop music from the early 60s to the late 70s as one could hope for. And Bush's 'Hounds Of Love'...is simply as good as any record released during my lifetime. It's pop, but it isn't. It's oddball, I guess, but never alienatingly so. It exists in it's own parallel dimension. Some artists make music so individualistic, so beyond any reference points other than their own, that they become a genre unto themselves. Kate Bush is like that. There's music, and then there's Kate Bush music.

Kate Bush is stupidly cool.