Kate Bush and Hounds of Love (Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series)

159 Pages·2007·0.43 MB·English

by  Ron Moy

KATE BUSH AND HOUNDS OF LOVE
To Anne, my treasure
Kate Bush and Hounds of Love
RON MOY
Liverpool John Moores University, UK
© Ron Moy 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher.
Ron Moy has asserted his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to
be identified as the author of this work.
Published by
Ashgate Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House Suite 420
Croft Road 101 Cherry Street
Aldershot Burlington, VT 05401-4405
Hampshire GU11 3HR USA
England
Ashgate website: http://www.ashgate.com
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Moy, Ron, 1956–
Kate Bush and the Hounds of love. – (Ashgate popular and folk music series)
1. Bush, Kate – Criticism and interpretation 2. Bush, Kate. Hounds of love
I. Title
782.4'2164'092
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moy, Ron, 1956–
Kate Bush and the Hounds of love / Ron Moy.
p. cm. – (Ashgate popular and folk music series)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5791-0 (alk. paper)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7546-5798-9 (alk. paper)
1. Bush, Kate – Criticism and interpretation. 2. Rock music – England – History and
criticism. I. Title.
ML420.B897M69 2007
782.42166092–dc22
2006032547
ISBN 978-0-7546-5791-0 HBK
ISBN 978-0-7546-5798-9 PBK
Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall.
Contents
General Editor’s Preface vii
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
Part One: Her Early Work 11
The Kick Inside 11
Lionheart 19
Never for Ever 23
The Dreaming 28
Part Two: Hounds of Love 35
Commercial Context and Critical Reception of Hounds of Love 35
The Conceptual Work 39
Ideas and Influences 40
Hounds of Love 42
Summary 54
A Daughter of Albion?: Kate Bush and Mythologies of Englishness 55
Genealogy 58
Creative Influences 59
Accent and ‘The Grain of the Voice’ 63
Language and Register 66
Style Indicators 69
Kate Bush and Auteur Theory 72
From Ingénue to Auteur 74
Shades and Degrees of Authorship 81
Audio Texts, Video Texts: Extensions or Detractions? 88
The Society of the Specular 89
Pop Video: History and Developments 92
An Overview of Kate Bush’s Early Videos 93
Hair of the Hound 98
Coming to Terms with Video 101
The Sensual World: The Video 101
The Line, The Cross and The Curve 102
Part Three: Her Later Work 105
The Whole Story 105
The Period Leading up to The Sensual World 105
The Sensual World 106
This Woman’s Work 113
vi KATE BUSH AND HOUNDS OF LOVE
The Period Leading up to The Red Shoes 113
The Red Shoes 115
The Period Leading up to Aerial 122
Aerial: A Sea of Honey 124
A Sky of Honey 128
Coda: We Become Panoramic 132
Bibliography 135
Index 141
General Editor’s Preface
The upheaval that occurred in musicology during the last two decades of the
twentieth century has created a new urgency for the study of popular music alongside
the development of new critical and theoretical models. A relativistic outlook has
replaced the universal perspective of modernism (the international ambitions of
the 12-note style); the grand narrative of the evolution and dissolution of tonality
has been challenged, and emphasis has shifted to cultural context, reception
and subject position. Together, these have conspired to eat away at the status of
canonical composers and categories of high and low in music. A need has arisen,
also, to recognize and address the emergence of crossovers, mixed and new genres,
to engage in debates concerning the vexed problem of what constitutes authenticity
in music and to offer a critique of musical practice as the product of free, individual
expression.
Popular musicology is now a vital and exciting area of scholarship, and the
Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series aims to present the best research in the field.
Authors will be concerned with locating musical practices, values and meanings
in cultural context, and may draw upon methodologies and theories developed in
cultural studies, semiotics, poststructuralism, psychology and sociology. The series
will focus on popular musics of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is designed
to embrace the world’s popular musics from Acid Jazz to Zydeco, whether high tech
or low tech, commercial or non-commercial, contemporary or traditional.
Professor Derek B. Scott
Chair of Music
University of Leeds
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Acknowledgements
Many people have actively helped me during the research and writing of this
book. My initial thanks must go to Derek Scott, and the commissioning board at
Ashgate, for their faith in this project. I must also thank my editor, Heidi May, for
all her assistance. Several members of staff within the School of Media, Critical
and Creative Arts at Liverpool John Moores University have taken the time to help
me. I would particularly like to thank Jo Croft, Elspeth Graham, Ned Hassan and
Gerry Smyth. Special thanks should go to my colleagues in Popular Music Studies:
Stuart Borthwick and Tim Dalton. Tim has helped me with DTP issues on numerous
occasions. Innumerable students have helped maintain my love and enthusiasm
for popular music since I began teaching in 1992, and I thank them collectively.
Particular mention should go to Jess Carver and David Kelly for their musicological
assistance. Paul Andrade was kind enough to proofread a draft of this text, and offer
valuable advice. Amongst the many writers whose work has helped in my research,
I must single out Rob Jovanovic, Holly Kruse, Phil Sutcliffe and Sheila Whiteley, all
of whom have written with particular insight about Kate Bush and her music. Many
contributors to websites, some unknown, have also been a great help. The Gaffaweb
site has been a rich mine of information and sources, as have the articles placed upon
Rock’s Back Pages.
Several friends have helped me over the course of many years to formulate
opinions through discussions relating to popular music; my thanks go to Brian
Dunne, Ian Runeckles and Brian Sharp.
My biggest thanks must go to Mike Brocken and David Buckley, long-standing
friends and sources of musical knowledge, texts and advice, and to my family –
Anne, Byron and Elena – who always make my favourite journey the one ‘home’.
And finally, my thanks to Kate Bush herself, whose music has given me such
pleasure over almost 30 years, and without whose inspiration this book would have
no reason to exist. Others have already used this title as a ‘sign-off’, but I can’t find
a better one – be kind to my mistakes.
Ron Moy, Cheshire, England