Dubbed "The Ninth Wave," the seven-song cycle uses eerie ambient sounds, spoken word snippets and traditional Celtic instruments, drifting between consciousness and a dream state and culminating with an eventual rescue. It's one of those records that you never forget hearing for the first time, not only because it pulls you in so effortlessly but because it boasts one of the most consistent A-sides of its era: From the unrelenting bass drum and thrumming cellos of the title track to the wide-eyed majesty of "Cloudbusting," it's a soaring, exhilarating listen.īut the back half of the record is where Bush retreats into conceptual hubris, with a mini-suite that looks to recreate the fractured psyche of a shipwreck survivor drifting alone at sea. The Dreaming was mostly regarded as a curiosity then (its critical standing has improved tenfold in the decades since), and so its follow-up Hounds of Love was embraced in England as Bush's return to a more approachable sound.
The record still sounds unusual today: Bush's voice slithers through synthetic soundscapes on songs filled with beguiling polyrhythms and vocal samples, and with subject matter ranging from the Vietnam War to Harry Houdini to The Shining. It's antique and futuristic at the same time.īush became her own producer in 1982 with her fourth LP The Dreaming, much of which she programmed on a Fairlight synthesizer machine, a relatively new invention at the time. It's the kind of song that's completely unmoored from the conventions of any recognizable era: It sounds unlike anything else that was being produced in the late '70s, but you can also imagine it being dropped in the middle of 2020 and coming as a total revelation. charts mere months before her 20th birthday.
Bush's first single, 1978's ghostly "Wuthering Heights," hit No. She was a musical wunderkind from a young age, mentored by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and producing dozens of self-made demos as a teenager. Bush has never received much mainstream radio play in the states, where her arty, eccentric sensibilities were dismissed by her contemporary critics as baroque gimmicks and rejected by audiences that had turned their attention to post-punk and new wave. Even so, it somehow seems like it still doesn't get the credit it deserves, especially in America.
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