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Date: Tue, 9-Dec-86 12:23:22 EST
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Posted: Tue Dec  9 12:23:22 1986
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Really-From: Neil Calton 

Here are a couple more English reviews of 'The Whole Story'.  The
reviewers  (those below and in my earlier posting) are remarkably
consistent in their verdicts - which seem to  be  that  (1)  Kate
Bush  is  a major artist, (2) the record is a good summary of her
career to date, and (3) the early songs now appear (to  them)  as
twee or whimsical in comparison to her latest compositions.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

The Times  Saturday Nov. 22nd - Times Newspapers Ltd.

...  Kate  Bush  ...  whose  album  'The  Whole   Story'   neatly
encapsulates  her  12 best single releases, including the current
hit "Experiment IV".

When "Wuthering Heights" soared with such ease to No.  1  in  the
spring of 1978, many observers either imagined or hoped that the
success of the pouting 19 year-old  girl  with  the  caterwauling
vocal  style  and  preposterous  dance routines would be a short-
lived  novelty.   But  despite  some  of  her   more   offputting
mannerisms  -  the  babyish  gurgling  in "Army Dreamers" and the
strident screeching in "Sat in your Lap" - she has developed as a
writer  and  performer  of some depth. Despite the big production
job,  "Wow"  demonstrated  a  pleasing  sense  of   irony   while
"Cloudbusting"   and   "Running   Up   That   Hill"  revealed  an
increasingly sophisticated sense of rhythm, melody and  narrative
awareness.

                                                   David Sinclair
_________________________________________________________________

New Musical Express  22nd Nov. - Holborn Publishing Group.

It was Mark Smith of top pop group  (sic)  The  Fall  who,  in  a
typical  broadcast  of  dedicated  antitrendiness, announced that
vegetarianism helped one leave the trolley of  normality  behind.
Something  to do with vital enzymes only being available from the
flesh of murdered livestock.

Kate Bush is a vegetarian. And if Mark's MESsy  (sic)  theory  is
true, then it might account for the large quotient of strangeness
coiled inside the songs  and  sounds  that  make  up  'The  Whole
Story'.

Of course, being signed to EMI from the age  of  14  and  getting
career  guidance  from  zonked-out ex-Pink Floyd guitarists can't
have helped.  Listen to the early string-sugared  meanderings  of
'Wuthering  Heights'  and  'Wow'  (the  latter  now sounds like a
Spitting Image parody) and hear how despite  the  MORish  musical
arrangers  and  the  synthetic  touch  of session musicians, Kate
sounds like she'd been talking to the same ghosts as Ian  Curtis.
The  marketing  executives still saw her as a Carole King for the
Brothers In Arms, an Elkie Brooks who'd soon sort herself out.

But  Kate  just  got  curiouser  and  curiouser.  Rejecting   the
saccharin  sheen of pet poodle producers, she took total control,
coming up with a whiplashed  meditation  on  fame  ("Succeed  and
heaven  is  hell/Succeed and hell is heaven") called 'Sat in Your
Lap'. 'The Whole  Story'  really  stems  from  there,  the  early
inclusions  being just a way of making this a Christmas-targetted
hits collection.

From this point on, Kate Bush began to build on the fact that she
belonged  nowhere.  She  smiled  at  Terry  Wogan  while shifting
buckets full of compact  discs  to  the  Strait  generation.  She
dispensed  with the walking-stick guitar solo and the comfortably
melodious fretless basses and began  using  odd  combinations  of
samples,  sirens,  bodhrans  and  banjos.  Listen  to last year's
'Hounds of Love' LP. There are three tracks from  it  here.  Kate
Bush was and is a law unto herself.

And the voice just gets bigger  and  darker,  climbing  from  the
floor  to the ceiling in the space of a line. 'Wuthering Heights'
has a re-recorded vocal which is almost evil  in  its  intensity.
The single 'Experiment IV' is also included, proving that Kate is
still missing the vital enzymes which help make you  as  sane  as
Mark Smith.

'The Whole Story' is big, black subversive pop, more  useful  and
more enjoyable than the constipated jangling of a hundred and one
little lads with big mouths and even bigger  clothes  allowances.
Such people are not worth a carrot. Meat or no meat, Kate Bush is
streets ahead.
                                                    John McCready

*******************************************************************

From an established English star to a new American one:-

                          Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega finished her  British  tour  at  the  Oxford  Apollo
Theatre  on  sunday  30th November and played an excellent set of
nearly 90 minutes.

I was rather surprised to find the (largish) theatre packed since
Suzanne  Vega  has  not  had huge success in England - one top 40
single, and a couple of TV  appearances.  However,  the  audience
appeared  to be c. 95% students which suggests there are an awful
lot of Suzanne Vega albums lying  around  flats  and  bedsits  in
Oxford.  She  is  obviously the Dylan/Cohen/Mitchell of the post-
punk generation, and judging by the way  the  tour  posters  were
being  snapped  up outside the theatre there will be many a young
yuppie with a picture of Suzanne over their bed.

Support act were a duo called Cry No Tears who, judging by  their
age, and confidence on stage, were probably ex-session or backing
musicians. They suceeded in winning over the audience and putting
them  in  a  good  frame  of  mind for the main attraction of the
evening. I hardly saw anyone sneak off to the bar.

Suzanne Vega arrived on stage to  an  ecstatic  welcome  and  the
audience  appreciation  grew throughout the set. This was despite
the fact that her vocals were inaudible on  the  first  song  and
although the sound mix improved after that, there were times when
her voice got  lost  in  the  overall  sound.  Her  backing  band
consisted of guitar, bass, drums and synthesisers, and there were
some amongst my friends who felt that too often the band tried to
dominate  Suzanne's  songs  -  the  guitarist was even given some
short solos: which seemed inappropriate.

Suzanne played all the songs of her debut album  plus some  newer
material -  'Marlene on the Wall'  getting the strongest ovation.
She seemed rather nervous on stage but perhaps  she  is  used  to
playing  smaller halls. Certainly, she seemed almost surprised at
the enthusiasm of the audience, being rather nonplussed by shouts
of  'we  love  you'  from  the  balcony!  However,  she  grew  in
confidence as the set progressed and began to relate some of  the
songs'  histories;  remarking  at  one stage that Leonard Cohen's
songs were marginally more cheerful then her own!

The audience exploded into appluase and foot-stomping at the  end
of  the  set  and  Suzanne  returned  without  the band to do two
numbers, the first of which was performed  without  accompaniment
and  the  second  with  her  guitar.  The audience still were not
satiated and called her back for a second encore  for  which  the
band  also appeared.  She announced the song they played as being
'really bad' suggesting she was running out of  material.  Anyway
it  was actually quite good - certainly good enough for the crowd
who called for and got a third encore. This time  Suzanne  played
with  just  the  synthesiser  player  and  performed  a  new song
(perhaps the rest of the band had not learnt it yet).

Despite the problems with the sound mix it was an excellent show.
Listening  to  the album afterwards I felt less satisfied with it
than at any earlier hearing;  I  found  myself  longing  for  the
excitement  of  the  live  performance. Well, there is always the
next tour - I am sure she will be back many times in  the  future
(unless the American audiences demand her constant attention).