Trollheart

Album title: 1999
Artiste: Prince
Genre: Funk/Pop/Rock/New wave
Year: 1999 (nah, kidding: 1982)
Label: Warner Bros
Producer: Prince
Chronological position: Fifth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 9/200 (US) 30/28 (UK) (wtf?? I guess every Prince fan had it by the time he passed)
Singles: “1999”, “Little red Corvette”, “Delirious”, “DMSR”, “Let's pretend we're married”, “Automatic”
Lineup: Prince: Everything (with assistance on vocals from Dez Dickerson, Lisa Coleman, Jill Jones, Vanity and Wendy Malvoin)

Ah, here we go! The one that made Prince, the big breakthrough album which introduced those of us who were saying “Prince who?” to this musical genius. This would kick off a period of about ten years during which Prince would bestride not just the charts but the music scene like a colossus, reinventing himself, and music, setting trends, breaking boundaries, and basically giving the finger to anyone who dared say to him “But you can't do that!” He also managed to have the first video on heavy rotation with MTV, who a few years ago refused to play Michael Jackson's “Billie Jean” because, well, he's black, y'know?

Review begins
Surely everyone knows the title track, and if you don't, to borrow from the Batlord book of wisdom, fuck you, you should. Even I've heard it. Interesting though how it starts with a really slowed down speech sample before it kicks in, and it's also a great example of Prince using his multiple vocal tones, to the point where when I heard this the first time I assumed that was someone else singing the first line. Oh wait: I see they were. First time I see Prince sharing vocals other than that one track with Lisa Coleman. Just as big a hit, “Little red Corvette” is a little more restrained (just a little) but keeps the energy high, and again I can see Warners were falling over themselves to get as many singles off this as they could: six in all. Mind you, it is a double album, but even so, there are only a total of eleven tracks on it, so really only three extra compared to his other efforts. Greedy bastards. Naturally, the album versions of both songs are much longer than the single releases, maybe a little overextended, maybe not. Anyway, yet another single, “Delirious”, kicks back in Prince's love of one of my least favourite genres, rockabilly, but it's decent fun with squeaky keyboards and some nice almost honky-tonk piano.

Amd yet another single. You know guys, sometimes it's a mistake to release too many singles: people may not bother with the album. “Let's pretend we're married” kind of carries on the idea of the melody in the previous track. Not quite as rockabilly, more a new wave edge to it but quite similar I feel. It is very catchy though. Total funk then a la Herbie Hancock with “DMSR”, touches of Janet Jackson in there too, a real party anthem, like much of this album. Let's be honest: even though the title track is ostensibly a warning about nuclear war it's a real dance theme, and most people probably shook their booties down to the ground to it without worrying too much about the political lyric. “Automatic” starts off with the basic beat of “Little red Corvette”, and I don't know if it's something wrong with my Spotify here or what, but the volume seems to drop seriously here. Steamy BDSM lyric for sure, with a funky new-eave melody, and it's actually the longest track on the album at over nine and a half minutes.

Sorry, but by six minutes it's gone on long enough (with not a lot of variation even in that) and we have three more to go? Pointlessly overlong. Can we even get a smokin' guitar solo into that three minutes? No? Boo. Yeah that was quite a trial to get through, I must admit. Bit of Kraftwerkesque whatever-the-fuck-they-play (new wave?) in “Something in the water (does not compute)” and it kind of doesn't, with an Invisible Touch-era Genesis sound (yeah yeah I know this was four years before that album) but at least some powerful vocal histrionics from the Purple One. Doesn't do a lot for me though. At least it's short. Like him. Sorry. Up next is “Free”, which opens with the sound of rain (I think) and footsteps walking quickly, then a simple piano line with a kind of Beatles or even Bread feel to it, possibly a ballad? Well, sort of: more a power anthem for togetherness and equality though. Good song, powerful solo and a great vocal performance from Prince and what sounds like a choir, though none is credited.

More sound effects to open “Lady cab driver”, unsurprisingly the sound of traffic and Prince hailing a cab, then it's a kind of low-key funk but again we're looking at eight minutes, and I must be honest that the longer tracks are beginning to wear on me. I mean, this is eleven tracks totalling seventy minutes. That's a lot. Feels a little jazzy in ways, so no, not one of my favourites, and the sexy noises don't really make me like it anymore. At this point, I feel Prince is in danger of becoming a walking cliche, hence, perhaps, the change of direction for the next album. This, too, could end at the fifth minute easily, but it's dragged gasping and panting on for another three. Seems almost cruel. At least we get a decent guitar solo this time out.

That leaves us with “All the critics love U in New York”, with what I feel is a very Robert Palmer sound to it, again quite low key with spicy keyboards, a spoken vocal for much of it, and pretty boring too for most of it. Ends well though on a great soul ballad for “International lover”, back to the Prince of the first two albums. If only more of it was like this.

Track listing and ratings

1999
Little red Corvette
Delirious
Let's pretend we're married
DMSR
Automatic
Something in the water (does not compute)
Free
Lady cab driver
All the critics love U in New York
International lover


Afterword:

Given how well known this album is, and how successful it was, I'm kind of disappointed. I do find, with the admittedly limited experience I have of Prince to this point, that many of his albums tend to have a lot of filler on them. Even Purple Rain has tracks I don't like, and this, while it has some great stuff on it, suffers from some very weak tracks too. I reckon had he cut it down to a single album and shortened some of the tracks by two or three minutes it could have been a real killer. As it is, it just kind of mugged me but I can make it to the nearest cop shop to report the assault. Shoulda finished me off, Prince!

Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: Purple Rain
Artiste: Prince (and The Revolution)
Genre: Pop/Rock/Funk
Year: 1984
Label: Warner Bros
Producer: Prince
Chronological position: Sixth album
Notes:
Album chart position: 1 (US) 7 (UK)
Singles: “Let's go crazy”, “When doves cry”, “I would die 4 U”, “Take me with U”, “Purple Rain”
Lineup: Prince – lead vocals, background vocals and various instruments
Wendy Melvoin – guitar and vocals (1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9)
Lisa Coleman – keyboards and vocals (1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9)
Matt Fink – keyboards (1, 2, 7, 8, 9)
Brown Mark – bass (1, 2, 7, 8, 9)
Bobby Z. – drums and percussion (1, 2, 7, 8, 9)
Novi Novog – violin and viola (2, 8, 9)
David Coleman – cello (2, 8, 9)
Suzie Katayama – cello (2, 8, 9)
Apollonia – co-lead vocals (2)
Jill Jones – background vocals (2


Review begins

http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ml#post1272396

(Note: this was written in 2013, so any references to Prince in the present tense, you know, work it out.

Track listing and ratings

Let's go crazy
Take me with you
The beautiful ones
Computer blue
Darling Nikki
When doves cry
I would die 4 U
Baby I'm a star
Purple rain

Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: The Kick Inside
Artiste: Kate Bush
Genre: Art pop
Year: 1978
Label: EMI
Producer: Andrew Powell
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes:
Album chart position: 3 (UK)
Singles: “Wuthering Heights”. “Moving”, “Them heavy people”, “The man with the child in his eyes”, “Strange phenomena”
Lineup: Kate Bush - songwriter,composer,piano,keyboards, vocals, background vocals
Ian Bairnson- guitar (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12), background vocals (9), beer bottles (12)
Paul Keogh - guitar (2)
Alan Parker- guitar (2)
Paddy Bush-mandolin(9), vocals (11)
Duncan Mackay-organ(4, 6, 7),synthesizer(3), electric piano (1, 10),clavinet(4)
Andrew Powell- synthesizer (9), keyboards (2), bass (6), electric piano (3),celesta(6), beer bottles (12), producer
Alan Skidmore-saxophone*(2)
David Paton- bass (1, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12), acoustic guitar (6, 9), background vocals (9)
Bruce Lynch- bass (2)
Barry DeSouza -drums(2)
Stuart Elliott- drums (1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12), percussion (9, 12)
Morris Pert-percussion(3, 4, 6),boobam(12)

From the first moment her high-pitched, almost unintelligible voice was heard on her first ever hit single, “Wuthering Heights”, Kate Bush was someone you took notice of. Not a rock chick, not a pop diva, she was and is and always has been and probably always will be a force of nature, a law unto herself, an innovator, an experimenter, almost more soul than body and certainly unique. Few artistes can boast of having, not only a hit, but a number one hit, with their very first album, but Kate rocketed into the British consciousness with the release of the sixth track on this, her debut album, and would go on to have hit after hit throughout the seventies and eighties, though she would not always be in the public eye. Indeed, after a while, a concert by Kate Bush was a rare, nay freak occurrence.

My own experience of Kate is limited mostly to her greatest hits collection, The Whole Story, the singles I've seen or heard her perform during my youth and three albums: Aerial, The Hounds of Love and 50 Words For Snow, so this will be something of an education for me, but I already like much of her music so hopefully I'll get to like more.

Review begins

“Moving” opens the album with wolf howls (oh: it says here it's whalesong. All right then) and orchestral strings before the piano comes in just before her voice, that almost indefinable vocal – there are few if any who can sing like Kate – and a very full sound on the piano. There are quite a few alumni from the Alan Parsons Project here – David Paton, Ian Bairnson, Stuart Elliott – so there's a certain APP melody pervading the tune here. It seems to flow almost seamlessly into “The saxophone song”, which unsurprisingly has some fine work on the horn from Alan Skidmore and again some bright piano from Kate peppered with synthesiser lines from Duncan MacCay, and spooky piano then leads in the appropriately-titled “Strange phenomena”, but again I can't shake the APP influences here, almost as if the boys are guiding her music along. Her voice certainly takes centre stage here though and there are foreshadows of the later hit “Wuthering Heights” in some of the piano riffs.

Like Prince, on whom we concentrated earlier, Kate has the ability to reach very high notes or drop her voice down to a low moan, very versatile, the latter at times almost making her sound like a man singing. “Kite” is the first really uptempo song, quite pop and a lot of fun, bouncing along on Kate's almost childlike vocal, with carnival-style synths and backing vocals added by Kate herself, but like Prince, they sound as if someone else is singing. Considering that the Alan Parsons Project's Pyramid came out only four months later, I do find myself wondering if the guys took a few musical ideas from this song for “Pyramania”, but the next song is pure Kate, one of her big singles, “The man with the child in his eyes” survives almost completely on her aching vocal and piano, with gorgeous violin really setting the mood. The piano in the bridge almost seems to float in mid-air, lending the music the idea of being the next best thing to totally ethereal.

The big hit single is of course “Wuthering Heights”, based on the novel by Emily Bronte, and if you don't know it then you should. It's a superb piano-driven love song from a lost soul, and instantly established Kate as a major talent and one to watch. Honky-tonk piano then kicks off “James and the cold gun”, and again it's hard to ignore the APP melody here – sounds like much of The Turn of a Friendly Card, especially “The gold bug”. It's an uptempo rocker with a great organ line from Mackay driving it and hard guitar. Piano then continues as we head into “Feel it.” I must admit, I can see why Kate's voice is not for everyone: it can be quite grating at times, almost like a little girl singing. But I love her. This is pretty much a ballad, as is “Oh to be in love”, with a slightly faster pace but not much. Sort of a country feel to this in ways. Nice bassline, though the chorus is cringeworthy. Oh dear. That was pretty poor. At least “L'amour looks something like you” makes up for it; yet another ballad, again a Country edge to it, but much much better than the previous. Well, that wouldn't be hard, would it?

There's a reggae twist to “Them heavy people”, another single, though it didn't do as well as the other two, and I can see why. It's never been one of my favourites either., and not just because of the terrible misuse of grammar. Decent enough but a little throwaway and I can't understand why they decided to release it as a single. Oh well. Sort of back to the ballads then for “Room for the life”, with some really nice gentle percussion (congas? Bongos?) but again it doesn't do a whole lot for me, and the album ends on the title track, which is, yes, another ballad but a much better one, again piano-led, but softer and kind of echoes “The man with the child in his eyes” to an extent, and features the return of the violins, which kind of makes the comparison even more valid. Decent closer though.

Track listing and ratings

Moving
The saxophone song
Strange phenomena
Kite
The man with the child in his eyes
Wuthering Heights
James and the cold gun
Feel it
Oh to be in love
L'amour looks something like you
Them heavy people
Room for the life
The kick inside

Afterword:

I couldn't honestly say I was knocked out by this album. Had I not heard the singles already, then maybe yeah, but the tracks around them, while they're generally very good, don't make me step back and say “Holy fuck!” as I did with Prince's debut. I know how good Kate got, so I know this is not her best album, and as a debut it's very solid, but really only that. It's a good start but there's a way to go yet.

Rating:

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Oriphiel

Yeah, Oh to be in Love isn't her strongest song. It's a real shame, as there is an early demo of it floating around that is fantastic, even in spite of the tape itself being of rough audio quality. There's just something so sad and moving about it that was almost completely lost in the official version.

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Trollheart

Album title: Lionheart
Artiste: Kate Bush
Genre: Art rock/Pop
Year: 1978
Label: EMI
Producer: Andrew Powell
Chronological position: Second album
Notes:
Album chart position: 6 (UK)
Singles: “Hammer horror”, “Wow”
Lineup: Kate Bush - vocals, harmony vocals, piano, keyboards, recorder
Ian Bairnson - acoustic, rhythm & electric guitar (1, 2, 3, 6, 9, 10)
Brian Bath - guitar (3)
Paddy Bush - mandolin (3), harmony vocals (4, 5, 8), pan flute (8), slide guitar(4), mandocello(8)
Richard Harvey - recorder (5)
Duncan Mackay - synthesizer (9, 10), Fender Rhodes (1, 2, 4)
Francis Monkman - harpsichord (4, 5), Hammond organ (6)
Del Palmer - bass (3, 8, 10)
David Paton - bass (1, 2, 4, 6, 9)
Stuart Elliot - drums (1, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10), percussion (8, 9)
Charlie Morgan - drums (3, 8)
Andrew Powell - joanna (8), harmonium (10)

Like record labels the world over, EMI emulated Warner Bros with Prince around the same time across the water, demanding Kate release another album in a hurry, the same year in fact as her debut. Kate does not like to be rushed, having her own organic way of working, but the suits had spoken, and though she already had a number one single this did not guarantee longevity – we're all aware of the one-hit-wonder syndrome – so she had to take a bunch of songs she had composed when she was as young as thirteen, add a few new ones, and the followup to The Kick Inside was ready to hit the shelves, a mere nine months after it. Talk about having two children in quick succession!

Review begins

There's a beautiful laidback feel to “Symphony in blue”, though I can still detect right away the influence of the APP guys, some very familiar guitar licks there from Bairnson. I feel it's a better opener than on the debut though, and it kicks up quickly enough with a lot of power and passion, some great guitar work from the Project man and some really nice touches on the keyboards, that kind of ethereal flavour that characterised much of the first album leaking through again. “In search of Peter Pan” nods back to the big hit single from the debut, driven on the piano for the most part but that APP sound comes sliding back in. Nice children's choir (none credited, unless the voices are hers?) with a very sort of flowing, rippling melody, kind of like a river slowly meandering along. She even uses a sample (well, not a sample: it's her singing it) of “When you wish upon a star”, which is perhaps odd, as that song belongs in Disney's Pinocchio not Peter Pan.

The big hit single this time is “Wow”, which I assume most of you reading know, and if you don't, well it's a great vehicle for the power of Kate's voice, where at times she dips from soprano to baritone, just showing how versatile her pipes are. Well, EMI wanted a hit single, and they got it. You can see why. There's a certain punch and a rise in tempo and energy for “Don't push your foot on the heartbrake”, probably the first time you can say Kate really rocks out so far on this album., then the song which gives the album its name (though it's not a title track; there isn't one) brings in soft violin and flute as “Oh England my lionheart” rides along on a soft piano line with some great vocal work from Kate. There's somehow a very medieval feel to this, then “Fullhouse” reminds me of James Taylor and The Carpenters for some reason, got a soul vibe to it too, quite strong and punchy, but I have to admit it doesn't really do it for me.

I feel I've heard “In the warm room” before? Wonder if it was re-released on some other album? Let's see. No. Must have been thinking of “A coral room” on Aerial. Nice ballad, real croon by Kate on this one and pretty much entirely on the piano so a real showcase for her talents. Hmm, seems like it slipped into “Kashka from Baghdad” without my realising. I don't think that can be taken as particularly good. I do like the sort of discordant piano she uses here though. “Coffee homeground” has a sort of twenties jazz feel to it, with what sounds like an accordion leading the line in a weird little tango, reminds me oddly enough of Dracula's Musical Cabinet from The Vampires of Dartmoore. And that leaves us with “Hammer horror”, the first single released from the album originally, which was pretty unsuccessful. Big cinematic/operatic build up leads into a soft gentle vocal from Kate, the tempo picking up as the orchestra comes in, but given the subject matter the song comes across as too much of a pastiche, which might explain its failure to chart.

Track listing and ratings

Symphony in blue
In search of Peter Pan
Wow
Don't push your foot on the heartbrake
Oh England my lionheart
Fullhouse
In the warm room
Kashka from Baghdad
Coffee homeground
Hammer horror

Afterword:

Though I certainly don't hate these albums, I'm still waiting for, to quote Kate herself, the wow factor. I've enjoyed the debut and this album, but I can't see very much in them (other than the singles, which I already knew) that would make me want to come back to them any time soon. There haven't been any incredible revelations, I haven't slapped myself upside the head and said “How have I gone so long without listening to this?” and my impression of her music so far, though it's impressive for a girl at such a tender age, is decidedly lukewarm. I'm not sure I can even remember any track on either album – again, other than the singles – and certainly will not be humming anything afterwards. But there's a way to go yet, so she might still impress me. On we go.

Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: Never for Ever
Artiste: Kate Bush
Genre: Art Rock/Pop
Year: 1980
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush, Jon Kelly
Chronological position: Third album
Notes:
Album chart position: 1 (UK)
Singles: “Babooshka”, “Army dreamers”, “Breathing”
(Note: I'm discontinuing the “Lineup” category from now, putting it in only on the first album or if there are major changes along the way. Some of the personnel lists are ridiculously huge)

Kate's first album to hit number one (only in the UK though: she was still pretty much unknown in the USA), this was also the first album she produced herself (although with help), something that would continue through all her albums to date as she took more control over her music. It features three hit singles, two of which cracked the top twenty (again, only in the UK) and one of which went to number five, her biggest success since “Wuthering Heights”.

Review begins

A dark piano opens up “Babooshka”, one of the hit singles, the one that went to number five, and it features a bewitching performance from Kate on vocals, with some pretty hard guitar and a great driving rhythm in a kind of folk style at time, fretless bass provided by John Giblin. The song is the tale of a woman trying to test her husband's fidelity by presenting herself in disguise to him as a rival for her affections, through letters. I suppose, to some degree, similar in theme to Rupert Holmes's “Escape”. The song features the sound of what sounds like glass breaking, perhaps meant to symbolise either the woman's breaking heart as she realises, as the husband falls for “the other woman”, that she has outmanoeuvred herself, or her hurling crockery and things in a temper. Oddly, Kate revealed that at the time she wrote the song she didn't realise that the word was a Russian term for a grandmother. A similar percussive line to “In the air tonight” gets “Delius” underway, with what I think is the first male vocal on a Kate Bush album – I don't know if it ended up being the last one. Certainly she did not use male voices much, if at all, in her music. The tune itself is a nice kind of soft rippling thing, again driven on bright piano but with the vocals at times almost snarled by the male voice, which belongs to none other than Ian Bairnson, the guitarist from the Alan Parsons Project who has at this point been on both of her albums. Here though he only provides the vocals on this track, guitar duties being taken by Brian Bath and Alan Murphy.

“Blow away” is a sort of prayer for one of her engineers who died in an accident, and has an almost gospel chorus with some lovely orchestral arrangements, quite sad but almost celebratory in its own way, while whistling flute and violin complement the piano on “All we ever look for” with a kind of pizzicato rhythm, more male backing vocals, this time from Gary Hurst and Andrew Bryant, and the song ends on a rather odd effect of what sounds like Kate walking out of the room in which the music is playing (it fades down as she closes the door) and a whistle. Odd little song, can't say I like it all that much. “Egypt” then has a suitably eastern melody, though it sounds like there are uileann pipes in there, and rather oddly a piano run which sounds eerily similar to later Deacon Blue hit “Real gone kid”!

A much more uptempo and forceful affair, “The wedding list” has some fine violin and I think harmonica, with Kate almost channelling Lene Lovich at times (!) and the song sounds like it may be a tale of revenge (I'm pretty sure she mentioned it in the lyric, but I'm too lazy/busy to look it up), with again some really nice work from the Martyn Ford Orchestra. I had, I admit, expected “Violin” to be an atmospheric ballad on, well, violin, but it turns out to be Kate's attempt to move on from Lovich and on to Sioxsie Sioux! Totally madcap and full of energy, giving the guitarists a chance to rock out, even rack off a solo, but I'm not that fond of it. “The infant kiss” is another nice ballad with a sort of lullabye feel to it, some of the piano a little discordant, and violin coming in here too, very effective, while “Night scented stock” is barely a minute long, leading into “Army dreamers”, a waltz rhythm defining one of her other hit singles and again featuring male backing vocals. I always feel that Kate sounds totally Irish on this; maybe it's the accent she uses, I don't know. The final single, “Breathing”, displays Kate's amazing creativity and versatility in terms of subject matter, as she takes on the persona of an unborn foetus, worrying about the world it is going to be born into. The longest track on the album, it's accompanied by dramatic piano and mournful violin and has a dark, apocalyptic feel to it, perhaps an odd one to end the album on, an even odder choice for a single, but a great song and one that showed Kate was serious about her music.

Track listing and ratings

Babooshka
Delius
Blow away
All we ever look for
Egypt
The wedding list
Violin
The infant kiss
Night scented stock
Army dreamers
Breathing

Afterword:

I'd say a definite step forward for Kate, compared to her last two albums. Still not blowing me away, but some really powerful material here and a marker for how much of a force she was going to become in music, and what an icon she would represent for women trying to make it in what was still very much a man's world.

Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: The Dreaming
Artiste: Kate Bush
Genre: Art rock, Pop
Year: 1982
Label: EMI
Producer: Kate Bush
Chronological position: Fourth album
Notes: First of her albums to chart within the US
Album chart position: 3 (UK) 157 (US)
Singles: “Sat in your lap”, “There goes a tenner”, “Night of the swallow”, “Suspended in gaffa”

As would become her trademark, Kate threw all the success of Never for Ever to one side and concentrated on making her fourth album as different as possible. As a result, though this also went high in the charts in the UK – and for the first time moved the US audience to put their hands in their pockets – only one of the five singles from it would be a hit, and her next album would take another three years to complete, this time recorded in her own purpose-built studio. This is believed to be her most experimental album. Lucky me.

Review begins

With the kind of tribal percussion that would characterise Peter Gabriel's albums in the eighties, “Sat in your lap” kicks things off, and was in fact the one successful single from the album, hitting the number eleven spot. There are plenty of samples in it, different vocal elements and sounds used, orchestral hits and loops. It's probably best remembered though for the “Ooh-ooh!” hits that finish every line, very distinctive. She uses a very cockney accent on “There goes a tenner”, with brass and bouncing percussion, fretless bass is very much in evidence on “Pull out the pin”, again utilising male backing vocals, the familiar effect of helicopter blades and a screeched, almost wounded vocal from Kate. Sounds like samples of the melody from “Babooshka” being used there. Not convinced about that one, now. “Suspended in gaffa” has a bouncy piano line and a sort of sing-song vocal (if that makes sense) with some nice organ work and thumping, Beatlesesque drums.

She's back to copying Siouxsie for “Leave it open”, a slower, marching, kind of threatening in a way track, with phased vocals and something like kids singing distantly in the background, then again we're very much in Gabriel territory for the title track, the rhythm of which sounds really similar to his “The rhythm of the heat”, though I think that was two years later? No: same year. Bloody Hell! Released seven days before this! Can that be coincidence? Very tribal sound anyway, not surprising as it's about the plight of the Australian Aborigines. Features Rolf Harris on didgeridoo. No crude jokes please. The Chieftains (well, some of them) and Planxty show up to help on “Night of the swallow”, a slower moody tale of a smuggler and his wife. The song has, you'll be unsurprised to hear, a very Celtic feel, with uileann pipes, whistles, fiddles and bagpipes. More fretless bass on “All the love”, a nice ballad, though there's not much more to say about it other than that, apart from the spoken samples (on the telephone?) near the end, all of which apper to be saying goodbye. The ballad style continues into “Houdini” (any guesses who that's about?) which also reflects the cover art of the album, but it fails to work any magic on me. Good croaking vocal from Kate, yes, and some lovely violin, but again I don't see this remaining in my head for long after the album is over. And speaking of being over, it closes with “Get out of my house”, based around The Shining, and which has a quite rock feel about it and features a return to her Lovich personality. The percussion here is very good, and the title screamed by Kate is very effective, the clanging guitar chords reminding me of early Police, but overall I'm kind of relieved to be finished this, and leave her with her weird house.

Track listing and ratings

Sat in your lap
There goes a tenner
Pull out the pin
Suspended in gaffa
Leave it open
The Dreaming
Night of the swallow
All the love
Houdini
Get out of my house

Afterword:

Well, when I saw that it was her experimental album I expected to struggle with it, and I did. There are good tracks on it, sure, but as an attempt to provide me with a Kate album I can point to and say “I really like that” it really has not done the job, but then I never expected it to. The next one I do know, so the review will be a lot kinder. This one I can't see myself coming back to.

Rating:

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Cuthbert

Agree with a lot of this.

HOL will be a 4.5 imo.

Oriphiel

Hey Trollheart, I can't help but feel like you may be rushing through these songs. For example, it's odd how all you had to say about The Infant Kiss and The Kick Inside was that they were "nice ballads", when the first is very clearly about a woman who feels the urge to rape her infant son, and the second is about a woman who kills herself after being impregnated by her brother. They're probably Kate's darkest and most haunting songs, but I feel like you were so busy comparing her to other female musicians that you completely missed the point and the power of the way she approaches each song.

Saying that a female musician is channeling Lene Lovich simply because she screams during an emotional song, or that she's copying Siouxsie Sioux because she can be moody and gothic, is not only doing a great disservice to her and her music, but is also an oversimplification that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of each of those musicians.

That being said, I'm still enjoying each of your reviews. Believe it or not, I actually had less of an opinion than you did of the albums you've reviewed so far. It took quite awhile for them to grow on me.

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The Batlord

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