Kate Bush

[sound world]

I was watching an old 'Comic Strip' episode last night (I've got a box set of them on DVD which I'm slowly working through, loads of episodes), and lo and behold, Kate Bush was in the episode-a surreal one called 'Les Dogs', about a wedding from Hell (KB is the bride) which morphs into the delusions of a guy involved in a carcrash. Kate becomes the object of his desire.
I wonder how she got involved with the Comic Strip? This one was made in 1990 . Maybe one of you Kate fans knows.

[RobB]

In describing that episode, 'carcrash' is about right.

I can't remember now just how Kate came to be involved.

In 1986 she was working with Rowan Atkinson on Comic Relief, & Dawn French & Hugh Laurie appeared in her Experiment IV video. Tim McInnerny appeared in her This Womans Work video.

In 1989 Peter Richardson directed her The Sensual World video

Terry Gilliam was a friend who made personal suggestions to her 1985 video Cloudbusting whilst Robbie Coltrane appears on the Hounds Of Love album from the same year.

So there has always been these 'comedy' connections but i'm nor sure without checking how it all began.

Incidentally, in another episode that you probably have, 'Ken' (or maybe its GLC ?), Kate contributes songs and incidental music.

[blue]

Kate became friendly with several of the 'alternative' comedy crowd in the gap between The Dreaming and Hounds of Love. Robbie Coltrane and Peter Richardson both appear as voices speaking dialogue in 'The Ninth Wave', the b-side of HOL.

I recall watching Les Dogs at the time of the original broadcast and finding it very disappointing. Kind of showcases Kate's lack of acting ability.

[RobB]

Kind of showcases Kate's lack of acting ability.

On the plus side though, her 'acting' (sic) was even more embarrassing in The Line, The Cross and the Curve.

[blue]

Oh god, yeah. Cringeworthy. Such a shame - if she'd stayed behind the camera and got someone else to play the part of the dancer it might not have been such a disaster. The story had potential and she had a wonderful cinematographer.

[sound world]

Actually she had very little to do in 'Les Dogs'-mostly standing or lying around looking desirable. There was worse acting from the likes of the massively overrated Alexei Sayle.

[blue]

Oh my lord, I've just had the biggest laugh to start my day - browsing the boards at unforumzed and caught site of a thread on the Kate board about a new release, Director's Cut, where she's apparently gone back to her Sensual World and Red Shoes albums and reworked tracks. There was a preview clip of the new Deeper Understanding that made me laugh out loud, it's so terrible! She's replaced the beautiful warm 'computer' voice of the original with an awful Vocoder that sounds like a cross between Pinky and Perky and a castrato.

Oh dear. That was such a gorgeous song as well, one of the few Kate songs I still liked. What on earth was she thinking?!!


The new clip and the original are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deeper_Understanding

[blue]

Listening to it again I just realised she seems to have removed the haunting backing vocals by the Trio Bulgarka as well?

Crikey. I think artists should be banned from revisiting old work.

[Franck]

it just can't be possible to destroy a song that way.

How I love this album and the songs with the Bulgarka trio, deeply moving to me. Please Kate, leave it as it was perfectly done at that time.

[Franck]

Listening to it again I just realised she seems to have removed the haunting backing vocals by the Trio Bulgarka as well?

It's still in the background, but far behind this awful vocoder voice. Computer, uh? How original this sound is nowadays. [:xx]

[blue]

it just can't be possible to destroy a song that way.

Apparently it is - I actually thought on first listen that it must be a spoof, but it came directly from her own website.

How I love this album and the songs with the Bulgarka trio, deeply moving to me. Please Kate, leave it as it was perfectly done at that time.

Yeah, that's the thing - she captured the idea beautifully on the original. I remember her talking about wanting the 'voice' of the computer to sound unearthly and seductive, which is why the person in the song becomes dependent on it and excludes all real contact with the outside world. That's just how it sounds on the original, almost like the voice of angels. I'm totally baffled as to how she could possibly think that awful cheesy Vocoder sound is suitable for the expression of that kind of idea.

On further listening, she's basically sucked all the warmth of the original recording away in terms of the instrumentation and ambience too, you can barely hear the piano and the new drums are awful, really bland. The overall sounds seems dry and compressed compared to the space of the original.

Well. Maybe she's just smoked way too much weed by this point.

[blue]

Listening to it again I just realised she seems to have removed the haunting backing vocals by the Trio Bulgarka as well?

It's still in the background, but far behind this awful vocoder voice. Computer, uh? How original this sound is nowadays. [:xx]

Yeah I can just about hear the Trio if I listen really hard. Such a pity she's relegated their beautiful vocals to the far background.

That Vocoder sound is so naff now from sheer overuse.

[RobB]

I'm reserving judgement as that 20 second sample might not be representative of the whole six and half minute song,....two minutes longer than the original incidentally.

But based only on that sample, the vocals certainly seem to be disjointed and jarring.

[blue]

I'm reserving judgement as that 20 second sample might not be representative of the whole six and half minute song

It's the chorus, Rob! The bit where the voice so transcendantly seductive comes in!

Ah well, I can understand devoted fans wanting to give it the benefit of the doubt I suppose, and watching them do so is comedy gold. The reactions on unforumzed were hilarious to read.

Really though, even if the rest of the song somehow managed to improve on the original, which it hasn't judging by the other points mentioned above, that ridiculous vocoder coming in at the crucial point just destroys it, as Franck says. You shouldn't want to laugh at any point in this song.

Gosh, I can't wait till the whole album leaks. This is one car crash I won't be able to help gawping at.

[blue]

Hmm, has Katy got wind of the reaction? The clip has disappeared from the above link and her website, apparently.

The song is out as a single on 5th April, which seems a bizarre move even without the hilarious Metal Mickey revisions.