Kate Bush: The Power of Strange Things

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Archive on 4: Kate Bush: The Power of Strange Things

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Kate Bush: The Power of Strange Things

NPR music journalist Ann Powers pays tribute to the inspirational talent of Kate Bush.

Like many teenagers, music critic Ann Powers was ‘saved’ by Kate Bush's musical embrace of the wild and wonderful. Ann pays tribute now, at the moment of Kate's renewed fame.

To celebrate Kate Bush's sudden and enormous popularity with a whole new generation as well as the 40th anniversary of her revolutionary album The Dreaming, (which Kate called her "I’ve gone mad" album) Ann Powers, NPR music critic and lifelong Kate Bush fan, tells the story of the rise of the ultimate outsider who inspired a generation of creatives - from writer Jeanette Winterson to Netflix Directors the Duffer Brothers, and Ann herself.

In 1978, a 19 year old Kate Bush became the youngest woman to have a self written number one in the UK with Wuthering Heights. In 2022, now 64, she made musical history again - this time as the oldest female chart topper too, with 1985’s Running up that Hill shooting to the top of the charts after capturing the hearts and ears of Generations Z when it was used in Netflix’s Stranger Things. 

In that series, the song comes to the rescue of leading girl Max - but in this edition of Archive on 4, Ann Powers reveals how Kate Bush's music has been saving and inspiring people for five decades.

Ann charts Kate’s remarkable creative odyssey, her incredible ability to distil epic fantastical stories and romances into four-minute pop songs, and her invented new synth sounds. 

Punctuated by the songs, including beautiful demo recordings and early BBC Radio and TV appearances, we also hear from the latest generation of singers inspired by Kate Bush, including jazz sensation Cécile McLorin Salvant

Presented by Ann Powers
Produced by Clem Hitchcock
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

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