YMMV / Kate Bush

• Americans Hate Tingle: When she burst onto the scene in the late 1970s, she became a star everywhere in the world...except in the U.S. Radio programmers there just didn't know what to do with her. It was only until the rise of MTV, College Radio, and "Running Up That Hill" that she was able to amass a cult following stateside.
• Audience-Alienating Era: A considerable contingency of fans consider The Red Shoes to be this, largely on account of its more stripped-down, radio-friendly sound that seems noticeably far removed from the denser production styles of the albums both before and after it; back in 1993, it even saw accusations of being a Sell-Out album. The latter aspect has since dissipated with Kate's return to her more conventionally multi-layered style on her 21st century output, though The Red Shoes is still her lowest-ranked album among fans (albeit considered decent on its own merits).
• Award Snub: Bush has never won a Grammy, and when she finally got inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2023, many musicians (such as Courtney Love) and music critics voiced the opinion she should have been inducted way sooner.
• Covered Up: Has happened to Kate a lot:
  • Prior to its Revival by Commercialization following its inclusion in Stranger Things, the Fan Vid-making community was far more aware of Placebo's or Within Temptation's cover of "Running Up That Hill".
  • And "This Woman's Work" is far more often thought of as a Maxwell song these days.
  • The Futureheads' version of "Hounds of Love" was a successful indie rock track in 2005.
• Critical Dissonance: The Dreaming was bashed by critics in the UK, but it's considered one of her masterpieces by fans. Eventually, it became Vindicated by History.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Toward the re-recording of "Wuthering Heights" on The Whole Story. Fans generally consider the original version to be the definitive one.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • One-sided with Tori Amos, as a vocal element of Bush's fandom accuse Amos of owing all her success to ripping her off. Torifiles, on the other hand, tend to like Kate, as evidenced by Tori's covers of Kate Bush songs getting big cheers from the audience in live performances. Tori was even interviewed in a BBC documentary about Kate, and shows some admiration for her.
  • A small faction of Bush fans are this with the Stranger Things fanbase, mainly due to the usage of "Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)", feeling Bush will now simply be associated with the series than her actual talents. Others however feel it's mainly yet another example of fan elitism and fan entitlement simply because of heavy exposure. Thankfully as mentioned, it's small and there hasn't been any animosity towards both fanbases, likely helped by Bush herself being a fan of the show.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Fans of David Gilmour — and by extension, fans of Pink Floyd — tend to get along well with Kate's fans, as David was the one who discovered her in 1974 and has made many guest appearances on her albums.
  • Peter Gabriel fans also like Kate, too, since she sang guest vocals on "Games Without Frontiers" and "Don't Give Up", two of his best known songs; the fact that both musicians had a similar stylistic progression over the course of their respective careers while still sounding noticeably distinct from each other also aids in this.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The Dreaming had a more favorable impression among American critics at the time than it did in her native Britain and established a cult following stateside through airplay on College Radio and MTV, ironic given her tendency to be overlooked in the States. The album entered the Billboard charts after the failure of her debut stateside, prompting EMI America Records to issue the rest of her albums there.
• Growing the Beard: Among both fans and critics, Never for Ever is considered a major turning point for the better. Not only did it mark the start of her Vocal Evolution (with many listeners not being fond of her high-pitched singing on her first two albums), but her introduction to the Fairlight CMI also made her open to greater musical experimentation on her work, as illustrated on her following three albums. Furthermore, it was the first album she produced herself, albeit with a co-producer's aid; she'd start producing her works entirely on her own with The Dreaming. Bush herself considered Never for Ever the first album of hers that she felt truly content with.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Kate recorded a French-language version of "The Infant Kiss" to serve as the B-side to "Ne t'enfuis pas". The problem? While "Un Baiser D'enfant" may have passed muster back in 1983, in contemporary French "baiser" means "fuck", making the title "An Infant Fuck". Oddly enough, this also fits the song's subject matter:
  Based on the movie The Innocents, it is the story of a governess who is frightened by the adult feelings she has for her young male charge (who is possessed by the spirit of a grown man).
  • She recorded the hilarious, Isaac Hayes-quoting "Ken" and some small instrumental parts for The Comic Strip Presents episode GLC: The Carnage Continues, which reimagined the political conflict between GLC leader Ken Livingstone and Margaret Thatcher that led to the GLC's dissolution in 1986 as a Hollywoodized action film with Charles Bronson as Livingstone. Fourteen years later, Tony Blair's government created the Greater London Authority, with the first election for mayor being won by Ken Livingstone. The fact that he went on to serve two terms as mayor and has just been reconfirmed as Labour's candidate for the next mayoral election just makes the song funnier.
  • "Deeper Understanding" seems to predict the plot of the film her.
  • "Sat in Your Lap" has a recurring "ooh" sound that sounds very similar to the later, infamous Roblox death sound effect.
• LGBT Fanbase: Bush has had a very large queer following from the outset, generally attributed to a mix of her campy theatrics, her unrepentant eccentricity, her exploration of atypical and even taboo subjects, and especially her ability to build a successful career on her own terms, all of which resonated well with the LGBT community and their plights. Bush herself acknowledged this part of her fanbase relatively quickly, including explicitly gay characters in "Wow" and "Kashka from Baghdad" on her second album.
• Moe: Wide eyed, adorable and inspiring fierce devotion in her fans.
• Mood Whiplash: Watch the BBC documentary about her and compare the archival interviews with footage of her performances. Kate seems pretty demure and soft-spoken (if passionate) while talking, only to turn into the mother of Large Hams while performing.
• Narm Charm:
  • Kate's odd dance routine for "Wuthering Heights" polarized critics when it came out, but among fans, it became a major part of the video's appeal; it's also still adorable how she hugs herself when she sings "I'm so co-o-o-old". Both of these things led to fans organizing events specifically dedicated to recreating the dance en masse.
  • In "Hounds of Love", there is a random verse where Kate sings about finding a fox and cuddling it in her arms. It's so out of nowhere yet cute and totally genuine that it's hard not to like it.
  • Kate dressed as a preteen Peter Reich in the video for "Cloudbusting", complete with a shaggy pixie cut. It's so blatantly unconvincing, yet it quickly becomes part of the video's appeal. Hell, her hammy acting in her music videos in general are a big part of what makes her videography so memorable.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Periphery Demographic: Hard Rock and Heavy Metal fans in the 1980s had a lot of respect for Kate— she regularly featured in Kerrang! magazine and won their "hottest woman in rock and metal" award five years running.
• Signature Song: "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" especially, since it had a massive increase in popularity thanks to its inclusion in Stranger Things. "Wuthering Heights", "This Woman's Work" and "Babooshka" definitely count as well, however.
• Sophomore Slump: Fans and critics tend to regard Lionheart as this, being considered inferior to both The Kick Inside just before it and Never for Ever just after. They don't consider the album outright bad by any means. They just think it doesn't break any new artistic ground compared to the debut.
• Tear Jerker: Has its own page.
• Vindicated by History:
  • The Dreaming was critically reviled in the UK, but in the decades since has seen more and more acclaim; today, it is typically ranked alongside Hounds of Love as her studio masterpiece. In the US, meanwhile, critical reception was positive from the outset.
  • When she started her career, she was considered something like Lady Gaga's detractors picture her: getting by on her looks and sheer weirdness rather than her talent. See for example Not the Nine O'Clock News's portrayal of her, with the show's resident Ms. Fanservice Pamela Stephenson portraying her as a ditzy Cloudcuckoolander while singing a parody of "England, My Lionheart" named "England, My Leotard". Her early performances and videos being a bit heavy on the fanservice and weird dancing certainly didn't help. Now she's one of the most critically acclaimed artists of all time, and is widely ranked as one of the most influential art pop musicians in western music.

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