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Items11
1
The Kick Inside (1978)
Released
Begin with the original “Wuthering Heights.” Bush sings from Cathy’s side of Emily Brontë’s story, letting the high notes make the ghost sound impatient to be heard. “The Man with the Child in His Eyes” gives the same young voice a quieter kind of drama.
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Lionheart (1978)
Released
On “Hammer Horror,” an actor takes over a dead friend’s role and finds that the friend still has something to say about it. Bush lets the quieter passages stretch before the band comes crashing in. “Wow” takes the album’s interest in performers back into the everyday world of show business.
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Never for Ever (1980)
Released
“Army Dreamers” uses the sound of a rifle being cocked as percussion, one of the ways Bush began working with the Fairlight sampler. Then listen to John Giblin’s fretless bass on “Breathing,” where a sound that seems to be gliding through the song can carry as much of the unease as the voice.
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The Dreaming (1982)
Released
On the first album Bush produced on her own, “Get Out of My House” builds a standoff out of voices, shouts, and eventually braying. She took some of its inspiration from Stephen King’s novel The Shining. “Houdini” is another way into the record, with a kiss and a hidden key at the center of the story.
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Hounds of Love (1985)
Released
Start with “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” for how quickly a repeated figure can pull you in. Then play the second side, The Ninth Wave, in order. The voice that wants to sleep in “And Dream of Sheep” has a different world to contend with by the time “Waking the Witch” interrupts it.
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The Sensual World (1989)
Released
The title song imagines Molly Bloom stepping out of the pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses and into a world she can touch. On “Rocket’s Tail,” hear how the Trio Bulgarka’s voices can set a scene before the electric guitar enters. Both tracks give the album a physical sense of space through different means.
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The Red Shoes (1993)
Released
On “Moments of Pleasure,” Bush sings memories in small details while Michael Kamen’s orchestral arrangement broadens the space around the piano. For the album’s interest in dance and film, try the title track. Bush also made a film around songs from the record and trained in ballet for it.
More about The Red Shoes8
Aerial (2005)
Released
The second disc, A Sky of Honey, follows a summer day into night and back toward dawn. Start it from the beginning and listen for birdsong changing as the light changes. If you want one track to try first, “Sunset” is where the suite’s quiet attention to the day turns into a dance.
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Director's Cut (2011)
Released
Bush revisits songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. Try “Moments of Pleasure” beside its 1993 version. Here the piano takes the foreground and a choir hums where she once sang the chorus, leaving room for a listener who knows the older recording to supply the words.
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50 Words for Snow (2011)
Released
Start with “Lake Tahoe” and give its long phrases time to settle. Then try the title track, where Stephen Fry speaks a succession of names for snow while Bush urges him on. It’s a good pairing for hearing how slowly paced music can make room for both an eerie story and a word game.
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Before the Dawn (2016)
Released
This live album documents Bush’s 2014 Hammersmith Apollo shows. Start the second disc with the spoken “Astronomer’s Call” and hear how it frames “And Dream of Sheep.” The Ninth Wave and A Sky of Honey each get a disc, so you can hear how pieces built for records were given a shape onstage.
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