1) Moving; 2) The Saxophone Song; 3) Strange Phenomena; 4) Kite; 5) The Man with the Child in His Eyes; 6) Wuthering Heights; 7) James and the Cold Gun; 8) Feel It; 9) Oh to Be in Love; 10) L'amour Looks Something Like You; 11) Them Heavy People; 12) Room for the Life; 13) The Kick Inside
The humble and rather normal beginning. Apart from that one song you know.
Key tracks: "The Saxophone Song", "Wuthering Heights", "Oh to Be in Love"
For a young solo singer/songwriter it's hard to imagine a better launchpad than what Kate Bush got for her debut. David Gilmour's backing guaranteed she could get nearly all the creative freedom she could want, not to mention the label deal and the PR push to begin with. The only concession she had to make was that she had to use session musicians rather than her own backing band, but all the hired hands involved with the album were seasoned pros who clearly understood her vision and who clicked not just with the songs but with each other as well. Above all, she had a calling card as triumphant as "Wuthering Heights" up her sleeve - one of the all-time iconic debut singles and genuinely an awe-inspiring song of the magnitude that any artist would kill to have somewhere in their discography, much less as their first single. The odds are so stacked in favour of Bush that it's easy to forget she's barely 19 here and, to put it politely, still learning the ropes.
It wouldn't be fair or correct to call her the album's weak point - she's deservedly the star of this show and commands the songs with confidence - but she is the greenest thing on what is otherwise a staggeringly professional production and it does show across the songs chosen. This is especially true if you're coming onto this album with any kind of expectation of what "a Kate Bush album" should sound like whether that's through her reputation or having heard any of her later works first (which I imagine is the likely case these days). For that matter, even if you're only aware of "Wuthering Heights" that's still the case because in all of its arrangement, structure and performance it stands out massively from the rest of The Kick Inside. "Wuthering Heights" is a colossus of a song that's constantly on the brink of overwhelming itself with another new trick around the corner but which never falters, only boldens: just when you think it couldn't get bigger, it throws in front of you something like a guitar solo straight from a prog rock guitar hero album. Every little detail and aspect of its arrangement - and there are many - are put to powerful use, to weaponise Bush's eccentrically rambling verse melodies and the chorus that must have dropped the jaws of every label head who heard it for the first time to the floor. It's by and far the most fleshed-out, most deftly arranged and most ambitious song on the entire record, something that in a logical sense should've appeared a good couple of albums down the line and with more experience in her belt. Instead, it's here and it's by and far the most accomplished thing on the album and you won't hear anything else like it on The Kick Inside.
Outside its big centrepiece song, you can tell Bush is still a young songwriter. A good one for the most parts, but her writing is more conventional and straightforward in a manner that doesn't feel entirely by intent, and her lyrics are rather matter-of-fact and often very obviously indebted to whatever media she's consumed recently. The Kick Inside is at its best when you do start to hear her more recognisable elements emerge: the deliciously fluttering chorus and swiveling structure of "Oh to Be in Love" where she moulds a pop song in her own image, the atmospheric waves of "Moving" and its counterpart "The Saxophone Song" where those waves are turned into a lush prog-pop dream (with some wonderfully delirious synth arpeggios towards the end), or "James and the Cold Gun" which probably doesn't work quite as much as it would want to but Kate Bush doing a cowboy rock anthem is exactly the kind of off-kilter firecracker the album benefits from. You can hear a talent emerge, rearing its head across the album on and off. Though also on the flipside that same inventiveness does also lead onto the cod-reggae flavoured "Kite", which is exactly the kind of awkward idea you bury in your debut and never play again once you come to your senses.
At thirteen songs The Kick Inside also feels oddly long despite its perfectly average 40-odd minute length, thanks to a number of songs particularly towards the latter half which sound like lesser versions of others you've heard so far already: "Feel It", "L'amour Looks Something Like You" and "Room for the Life" come to mind in particular. Bush's backing band here is as fantastic a set of session musicians as you can get and the production still stands up, as even now this sounds wonderfully warm with some delightful instrumental flair (I heavily recommend headphones for this, especially to appreciate those gorgeous basslines); the downside is that every song bar "Wuthering Heights" and the three Bush solo pieces (of which the tender "The Man With the Child in His Eyes" is the highlight) is treated with the same approach, which makes much of the album sound alike to some extent and in turn really highlights the parts where the writing is weaker than elsewhere. I always feel it's unfair to judge an album based on what its creator would go on to do in the future, but in the case of The Kick Inside it's nigh impossible to avoid doing so when one of Bush's fortés in every single other album of hers is the range of her palette. Here the one particular shade used across the entire record mainly points out that she's still not quite there.
I may be lowballing the rating here a little bit because The Kick Inside is an enjoyable listen but I also don't think this would be quite as remembered if it didn't have "Wuthering Heights" or if it didn't have the retrospective benefit of her legacy afterwards keeping its memory alive. Only about half of this is genuinely remarkable, while the rest paint a picture of a young musician's humble beginnings. Which is, well, enjoyable certainly to some extent but I don't think anyone really pines to hear Bush in the role of just a frontwoman of a standard 70s pop band.
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