Generally speaking, it doesn’t take much to irritate John Lydon. He was likely to make fun of you for every mistake in the book, including not being punk enough or not playing music for the right reasons, if you even slightly mistook him for someone else. Even though Lydon undoubtedly has a long list of insults for every Hollywood pin-up girl, he never said anything negative about Kate Bush.
However, Kate Bush isn’t exactly the first person that comes to mind when considering the current pinnacle of punk rock. While Lydon made his name singing about the evils of society with the sharpest tongue you’ve ever heard, Bush was more often than not known for using her music to create little, distinct worlds.
For the rest of us, the adventure was just getting started. However, she had already achieved some of her biggest hits before most of us had even had our first drink. With every album she released, Bush seemed to be experimenting with what initially made pop music so captivating. She took inspiration from artists such as David Bowie and never released the same record twice.
The majority of casual fans are familiar with songs like “Running Up That Hill” and “Wuthering Heights”. However, the types of aural environments she produced intrigued John Lydon more. Even though he wore the well-known “I HATE PINK FLOYD” shirt, David Gilmour contributed to many of Bush’s albums. On albums like The Red Shoes, he typically gave the guitar work a glossy finish.
Although Lydon was instrumental in returning rock to its origins, he acknowledged that he had never met anyone who could match Bush’s abilities. He told Q that “Kate Bush is a true original.” The fact that she has been mimicking Torrid is not nice. Sorry, Tori Amos, but aimless. However, Kate Bush is a true artist. When she first started, she went through the same thing as me: “Oh, that’s not singing’. Who the fuck wrote the rules about music?”.
On the other hand, anyone who claims Kate Bush doesn’t have a good voice ought to have their ears examined. Her style of telling these loose-ended stories in her songs is something that only the Bob Dylans have yet to perfect. And even then, Dylan was never this descriptive. Her voice does take some getting used to.
Bush’s imitators are rarely popular to stay in one genre for an extended amount of time, even when you catch them performing in public. Some might argue that this is like comparing apples and oranges. However, Bjork is probably the most similar person we have seen in recent years to someone with Bush’s level of influence. Bjork also creates her own little universe to play around in whenever she releases a record.
For example, there is very little similarity between The Dreaming and Nevermind the Bollocks, but they do share one thing. They were raised to question the established order. Trailblazers are usually the first to identify other artists who share their desire to take things to the extreme.
