FEATURE:
Kate Bush and 2022: Part One
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
The Deal with God…
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I will break this into two features…
PHOTO CREDIT: ZIK Images/United Archive
as it is hard to combine everything that has happened to Kate Bush this year into one! The second feature will look at books and magazine features about her, in addition to a rare interview and new fans and musicians discovering her work. This one is about Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) and how it has almost brought her out of some sort of hibernation. Most people know about the classic from 1985’s Hounds of Love, but there was an audience that discovered it through its appearance on Netflix’s Stranger Things. There have been other things that have got Bush’s music back to the fore and in the spotlight. One cannot underestimate how this one song going to number one and setting records has transformed things. It has meant other songs have come to people’s attention. I think the whole ‘Kate Bush Effect’ is a thing that other artists hope to achieve. It would be insulting and unfair to say that Stranger Things resurrected her career or brought her to a younger audience. I think she is already widely known and extremely relevant, but this one track captured the imagination and gave her a deserved number one (it originally reached three in the U.K.). Named the U.K.’s Song of the Summer, and with Bush understanding how mad things are, the impact this classic song has made in 2022 is wonderful to see:
“Kate Bush has scored an improbable and inspiring No 1 in the UK singles chart, with Running Up That Hill reaching the top 37 years after the song was released.
The 1985 track has stormed domestic and global charts after its inclusion in the hit Netflix series Stranger Things last month, introducing it to a new generation of fans.
Bush has broken three UK chart records with her No 1 placing. She is the oldest woman to top the chart, while 37 years is the longest time a song has taken to get to No 1, beating Wham!, whose Last Christmas finally made it in January 2021.
Bush also has the longest gap between No 1 singles, with 44 years elapsed since her debut, Wuthering Heights (Tom Jones was the previous record holder at 42 years). Running Up That Hill reached No 3 when it was originally released.
“It’s hard to take in the speed at which this has all been happening,” Bush, 63, said in a statement on her website earlier this week. “So many young people who love the show [are] discovering the song for the first time.
“The response to Running Up That Hill is something that has had its own energy and volition. A direct relationship between the shows and their audience and one that has stood completely outside of the music business. We’ve all been astounded to watch the track explode!” The song is currently at No 4 in the US, her highest-ever placing there.
The UK chart success of Running Up That Hill – currently achieving about 575,000 plays a day on Spotify in the UK and more than 6m a day on the platform globally – was aided by the waiver last weekend of a rule that determines how streams for older songs are tallied, sparking speculation that Bush has opened the gates for more vintage songs to return.
“Running Up That Hill has itself changed things as we know it,” pop chart analyst James Masterton told the Guardian. “This is the first time in the streaming era that a back-catalogue track has not only been spontaneously resurrected but has maintained its popularity over an extended period.
While football anthem Three Lions hit No 1 again during 2018’s European Championship, “it was gone from our lives a week later as a passing fad”, Masterton added.
“The Kate Bush song has become a genuine sustained smash hit, and for that reason it is appropriate that the rules are waived so it joins contemporary releases on a level playing field. That’s the true game-changer, as it lays down a precedent for other classics to do the same if circumstances merit”.
PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
This feature is about the resonance and endurance not only of Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God), but of Kate Bush’s music. It is not confined to decades or movements. There is a timelessness and adaptability that means it is being played and adored all these years later. NPR wrote why Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) is a success now, despite it first being released in 1985:
“What the "Running Up That Hill" resurgence demonstrates, beyond the timelessness and craft of the song itself, is the extreme power of familiarity. For those of us who were kids in 1985, its return evokes childhood nostalgia. But it's not as if the song had been fully consigned to the distant past: It played a prominent role in the closing ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics, and Meg Myers' faithful 2019 cover has been a persistent presence in its own right. The original's return doesn't feel like a discovery, so much as a reminder.
The return of "Running Up That Hill" has a lot to say about the way songs help form our shared cultural language, even as we're siloed in a thousand other ways. The barriers to entry are low with songs, which require only access to a device on which to play them; we don't have to subscribe to Netflix, the way we do with Stranger Things, and we don't have to pay to sit in a movie theater, the way we do with, say, Top Gun: Maverick.
Songs live on the wind in ways other forms of entertainment simply can't”.
It is hard to put into words what it means for Kate Bush fans to see her doing so well. In the second part of this feature, I will look at her Woman’s Hour, in addition to the articles dedicated to her – plus a brilliant new book from Tom Doyle. If some feel that resurgence like this mean Kate Bush and other big acts take attention from smaller and newer acts, I will say that she has not orchestrated this. Bush said how crazy it is that she has got all this attention. Now, in December, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)’s rise and dominance has subsided. Rather than it being this all-consuming and relentless juggernaut like some have painted it, it is a great moment for a legendary artist who some feel has retreated or is near to retirement. Whilst we do not know whether she will release another album, it is clear there is so much love out there for her. A whole new generation has found this amazing artist. I hope there has been proper explanation from them. Rather than sticking with Hounds of Love and not venturing beyond that, there is this whole world of wonder! Kate Bush has definitely dominated and owned 2022. I think that she will inspire a whole generation of upcoming artists, reach new fans in a very profound and real way, and prove beyond doubt that she is one of the greatest and most innovative artists ever. If she feel things have gone mad this year, it goes to show that her music has this incredible power and appeal. I think that there will be a lot more success and acclaim for Kate Bush in 2023. I think she should be very proud looking back on a year that ranks alongside the…
BEST and most important of her career.