FEATURE:
Single File, Double Digits
Charting the Singles of Kate Bush
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ONE thing that I have always found…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980
a bit odd is why Kate Bush’s singles did not chart higher than they did! One can say that she is a unique artist whose sound was not overly-commercial but, when you consider the fact Wuthering Heights hit number one in 1978, no other single flew as high as her debut! I have mused aloud in previous features about her tracks and why they did not sell more. It is definitely nothing to do with Kate as an artist and innovator. I realise there was a moment in her career where she did not promote as heavily but, from 1978-1985, there was a pretty stead and committed promotional cycle for her albums and tracks. Wuthering Heights definitely set a precedence, and one can argue Wuthering Heights is one of Bush’s least orthodox and strange creations. The Man with the Child in His Eyes was the second single from The Kick Inside, and it achieved the highest chart position in the U.K. – it reached number-six. I think one of the big mysteries is why America did not take her to heart! When you consider that artists similar to Kate Bush have managed to do well in America since Bush came through, it is weird that the ‘original’ was not a commercial success. This NPR article from 2011 provides some (rather faulty) explanation:
“She's too weird. During the time that Bush was putting out her best work, we made Cyndi Lauper a feminist icon and transformed Peter Gabriel from a peculiar art-rocker into a superstar with an album that featured cerebral oddball Laurie Anderson, Senegalese singer Youssou N'Dour and Bush herself. There may been a limited number of "weirdo" slots available, but we certainly weren't instinctively turning them away at the door.
She’s too reclusive. That she is. After the aforementioned 1979 tour, she retired from live performance (save for the occasional one-off like the 1987 Secret Policeman’s Ball). She also started taking longer and longer between albums, until the amount of time Bush spent gestating Aerial (her last album of all-new material) was only seven years less than the amount of time she spent gestating her entire career. (She was 19 when “Wuthering Heights” came out.) But while those certainly had their impact, it again doesn’t explain why she was successful in her home country, where Aerial hit #3 and its lone single, “King Of The Mountain,” reached #4. Reclusive though she may be, it didn’t hurt her in England”.
It does take a while for a great artists to make an impact, so I could appreciate how it might have taken a while for a nation like America to latch onto Kate Bush – it took until 1985 before she got proper chart respect! Whilst The Man with the Child in His Eyes did well in the U.K., it only made the top thirty in many European nations, and less of an impact elsewhere – given the fact Wuthering Heights hit number one and was a big success in many territories, I thought the follow-up single would be as successful. If The Kick Inside’s singles were not as celebrated in Europe as they were in the U.K., Lionheart’s singles seemed to do better away from the U.K.
I think Hammer Horror – the first single from the album - is a really underrated track, and Bush definitely winning a big fanbase. Her name was all over the media and, if Lionheart was not as acclaimed and solid as The Kick Inside, I think Hammer Horror’s number forty-four chart position in the U.K. did not do the song justice! Hammer Horror did break the top thirty in Australia and Ireland, but I wonder why U.K. audiences did not give it huge support in 1978. Maybe people were expecting something like Wuthering Heights, but I think Hammer Horror is a more conventional single that would/should have resonated with the masses. Maybe changing musical tastes explain why Bush’s singles were not hitting the top-five. Wow was released in March of 1979, and it was competing against songs like The Real Thing’s Can You Feel the Force?, and Painter Man by Boney M. Wow, to me, is one of the best singles Kate Bush released, because it has all the ingredients you’d want: a catchy and memorable chorus, a brilliant central performance, and something that strays away from the bland of the mainstream. It is another case of her singles not being given the full credit they deserve. From 1978, Bush was releasing singles for specific nations, most notably Japan. Moving reached number one, and Them Heavy People hit number-three, so it seems that the Japanese were ahead of the rest of the world concerning the importance and esteem of Bush’s work!
Perhaps genres like Disco and Punk were affecting Bush’s chart prospects in 1978 and 1979 but, as she headed into the 1980s, the public were not necessarily making up for lost time. Breathing, from 1980’s Never for Ever, was another evolution that concerned nuclear war scare and a post-apocalyptic birth. Again, subject matter-wise, it was not the most commercial, but the sheer size and impressiveness of the song should have, one thought, have put it into the top ten in the U.K. – Breathing only hit sixteen here! Breathing did remain in the U.K. charts for seven weeks but, considering the likes of Madness and UB40 were in the upper echelons of the charts in April 1980, why was Bush confined to the lower rungs of the top-twenty?! Maybe a relatively lack of promotional oomph from Bush can account for lower chart positions, but there are plenty of interviews from her in 1980. In 1979, she completed a massively successful Tour of Life, so that should have added momentum in terms of exposure and wider recognition. By the time Babooshka arrived in June 1980, there was a bit of a correction. It reached the top five in the U.K. and many European nations; it got to number two in Australia. Perhaps it was a magical touch of Fairlight CMI or a time when the competition was weak, but I think singles prior to Babooshka were just as strong, so why was Babooshka one of the few tracks that reached the respectable chart position it deserved?!
It only took until September of 1980 until Bush’s music was being comparatively overlooked when Army Dreamers hit sixteen – maybe the fact it was less bracing than Babooshka or more political meant that it was not as lauded?! I know Bush’s albums were selling well, and there would not have been much concern from EMI and Bush at the time if a single did not make the top ten. I think it is a travesty some of her big songs did not reach the top spot, and it is inexplicable that many other singles languished behind some much weaker tracks (from other artists)! The Dreaming is an album that arrived in a year when bands like Roxy Music and Duran Duran were doing big business. I do not concede that Bush was away from the mainstream and her songs were on the fringes. Every year, less conventional singles climb the charts, but it was only Sat in Your Lap (the first single from The Dreaming, released in 1981) that managed to get inside the top twenty – it got as high as number-eleven. The Dreaming did not make the top forty; There Goes a Tenner, released in November 1982, was Bush's first single to miss the top seventy-five in the U.K., peaking at ninety-three. Whereas There Goes a Tenner was released in the U.K. and Ireland only, the stronger Suspended in Gaffa was put out in Europe, but the single barely troubled the top forty. The Dreaming’s Night of the Swallow was released in 1983 in Ireland only, but it failed to chart.
I can appreciate how The Dreaming pushed boundaries and had mixed success in terms of the charts, but the album did reach number-three in the U.K., so why did the singles falter?! The Dreaming is an album that needs time to bed in, but I would have thought Bush would enjoy greater chart recognition. Whereas albums previous to The Dreaming had some good singles released, maybe The Dreaming’s choice of singles was not quite right. The Kick Inside’s Wuthering Heights, and The Man with the Child in His Eyes were fantastic choices, and Bush battled against EMI who favoured James and the Cold Gun, and Them Heavy People. I do think that a fourth single could have come from Never for Ever, in the form of the excellent The Wedding List – which I feel would have hit the top ten! Look back to Lionheart, and I feel Don't Push Your Foot on the Heartbrake would have been a success if it were a single, as it has a rocking vibe and chart appeal. Bush might have been thinking about the less obvious songs as singles but, again, Wuthering Heights reached the top of the singles charts – maybe a song that was impossible to ignore and just HAD to be a number one! The Dreaming was a case where stronger singles were pushed aside as singles. Sat in Your Lap was a great introduction, but the final three tracks on the album, All the Love, Houdini, and Get Out of My House, I feel, would have charted much higher than The Dreaming, and There Goes a Tenner.
One of the main reasons for writing this was to sort of prepare for the thirty-fifth anniversary of Hounds of Love. I have just written about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and asked why it only reached number-three. Hounds of Love was Bush’s biggest-selling album and her second to hit the top spot (Never for Ever was thew first). One would have thought that, perhaps, the album’s biggest track would have reached number-one in a few nations. It hit three here, and it was a top thirty in the U.S. – seven years after Bush released her debut single, finally, she was getting some credit in the U.S. If the U.S.’s bonding with Bush marked a moment when she combined the commercial with the unique, then that should have translated to better single sales?! In each case, it is impossible to understand why the public were not more generous, but perhaps it was the popularity of Madonna’s Into the Groove that kept Bush’s majestic track off the top spot – one can understand why Into the Groove was a chart-topping single! The formidable Cloudbusting came out in October 1985, and some areas of the press were a little sniffy towards the song. With a big video that saw Donald Sutherland star, it is baffling Cloudbusting only got to twenty in the U.K.
Hounds of Love was already out at this point, so many might have preferred to hear the song on the album and did not want to buy it as a single. Hounds of Love’s title cut was released in 1986, and it barely scarped into the top twenty! It seemed that there was no pleasing the public in 1986, as the unstoppable The Big Sky did not make it into the top ten! Was it the case that, as the album was out, the song was over-familiar?! Everything considered – from accessibility, to originality and scope -, The Big Sky should have at least made it inside the top five! I think it is the best song on Hounds of Love, and the wave of affection that greeted Hounds of Love should have infused the singles and lead to some higher chart positions. Even though Bush’s singles enjoyed mixed success prior to 1986, a greatest hits package, The Whole Story was released that year. One can line up the track on that album and see a progression, but also so much variety and depth. It is angering that only Wuthering Heights made the top spot (and no other single ever would), and some tracks were denied much higher chart positions. Hounds of Love was Bush’s biggest album, and from 1989’s The Sensual World on, Bush would not see many tracks make the top ten. The Sensual World reached twelve in the U.K., whereas This Woman’s Work reached twenty-five here – it made a small dent in the U.K. These are truly excellent songs, and both were worthy of much higher chart positions! The Sensual World was another case of an album selling well and the singles not doing quite as well.
The album peaked at number-two and sold really well, so was it another incident of the wrong songs being selected? I do not think so. I think Deeper Understanding might have been a stronger single than Love and Anger (the third single reached thirty-eight in the U.K.), but the contrast between the album hitting number two and the singles not firing high confuses me! The Red Shoes is seen by many as the weakest album Bush has released and, in 1993, there had been some changes in regard production techniques and the move towards the compact disc. Bush released four singles from the album – five if you include Eat the Music, released in the U.S. only -, but none of them fared as well as they should, again considering the album itself reached number two in the U.K., reaching the top thirty in multiple nations, including the U.S. It was obvious that Bush had cachet in the 1990s, and many people connected with The Red Shoes, despite the fact that it was not as consistent an album as her earlier work. Rubberband Girl is a huge Pop song, and it boasts one of Bush’s best choruses! It only got to twelve in the U.K., and I wonder why the public did not snap it up. I guess Brtitpop was almost here, and artists like PJ Harvey and Björk were putting out these albums that differed hugely to what Kate Bush weas producing.
Even so, Moments of Pleasure is a sumptuous track that deserved better than number twenty-six here; the title song only got to twenty-one, whereas And So Is Love got to twenty-six! I guess the fact Bush appeared on Top of the Pops for the first time in eight years to promote And So Is Love might have explained why singles between then and Hounds of Love were not massive chart successes. Bush was conducting interviews and the albums were selling, but maybe a more intense promotional campaign could have set her singles higher?! King of the Mountain was a strange case of Kate Bush recouping some of the chart swing she had at the peak of her career. Given she had been away since 1993’s The Red Shoes in terms of albums, Aerial’s arrival in 2005 was a delight and surprise! The sole single from that album, King of the Mountain, reached four here, but it did not climb quite as high in other European nations. A top twenty in many nations can be judged as a success, seeing as singles are less important then (2005) than they were in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. Aerial is a brilliant album, but there are few songs that stand out as natural singles. I do feel that Bush could have released Mrs. Bartolozzi, as many reviewers highlighted it as a standout on Aerial, and I think it would have charted well.
Kate Bush has always been an albums artist, so one can say that singles are a way of selling albums, so chart positions are not that important. I am pleased her albums have sold so well, and she remains one of the most revered and treasured artists ever. There has not been a greatest hits collection since The Whole Story in 1986, which might signal a reluctance from Bush to look back, or the feeling that her albums are more important and relevant than individual singles. What bugs me is the fact that, at the time, Kate Bush wanted her singles to do well, and the majority of them deserved to do better in the charts than they did. 2011’s Director’s Cut spawned a reworking of Deeper Understanding from The Sensual World, but it only got to eighty-seven in the U.K. 50 Words for Snow, also released in 2011, had one single taken from it: the excellent and underrated Wild Man was released as a download and only got to seventy-three! That was the second album released solely on Bush’s own Fish People label - and the album got to number five here. Looking back, and Kate Bush’s singles range from the otherworldly (Wuthering Heights), to the propulsive (Sat in Your Lap), to the heavens-reaching (Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), to the sensual (The Sensual World). She is an artist who provides something for everyone, and one can not accuse of being either too weird for the mainstream or lacking in commercial potential! Even her more out-there singles – such as The Dreaming – should have got higher in the charts than they did. I am not sure why her singles did not get higher, but I would urge people to listen to each of them and realise how incredible they are. I kind of hope there is a career-spanning greatest hits album put out in the next few years, as it puts fresh spotlight on her amazing singles; cuts that are much more original and stronger…
THAN what most artists can produce!