Kate Bush vs Madonna

Kate Bush or Madonna, simple as


  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
she's an insane narcissist who is using fame and pop music to address childhood trauma, so I think in that they're kinda similar. but yeah, dressing (you) up to deflect from the inner world

The point in the other thread was more about lack of personality. But fair dos
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
But I think the two are connected - the constant costuming/shapechanging can prevent a distinctive personality from forming.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I have to counter the idea that Kate is a simply purveyor of the twee or the ethereal. The more difficult side is that she does display distressing aspects of the Performing Arts, and I hate those people. I wonder if living in post-BRIT School Britain has led to the ludicrous over-inflation of her reputation along these lines: the dominant mode in modern pop is the Stage School approach.

I also remember David Toop saying that using didgeridoos in 1982 was lame and her reputation for experimentation was dubious at best (I think this was the gist of it).

It is never good when somebody is being strange for the sake of it, but I often think that Kate Bush, at her best, is striving for a very vivid kind of clarity, simply her own way of articulating ideas.

This is an amazing song about nuclear holocaust, only Threads was better:

 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
They've got quite similar voices, haven't they?

Obviously they do different things with those voices but there are times where someone who didn't know their respective ouveres could easily confuse the two.
 

luka

Well-known member
I wouldn't conflate the theatricality of Bush with the Brit school of performing art school. I think they're two different things.
 

luka

Well-known member
They've got quite similar voices, haven't they?

Obviously they do different things with those voices but there are times where someone who didn't know their respective ouveres could easily confuse the two.

I can't detect any similarities whatsoever.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I wouldn't conflate the theatricality of Bush with the Brit school of performing art school. I think they're two different things.

Yes, but I'm thinking of that misunderstanding of her that led to Florence and the Machine and Bat for Lashes and eventually led to Ellie Goulding voice. I'm not blaming her for it, I'm distancing her from it, but even her best records are it risk of falling into that trap, more of a Performing Arts trap in Kate's case than Stage School, Rose Bruford rather than BRIT. Thinking particularly of things like 'There Goes A Tenner' on The Dreaming which proves that she errs on right aesthetic side, as that is my favorite album of hers and I am allergic to thespians.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think she sounds like Laura Nyro, or at least I did when my father played me this album:

 

luka

Well-known member
I think Nyro is more of a proper singer. I don't think she takes the same risks. I don't think she explores as many different registers and modes.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
I think Nyro is more of a proper singer. I don't think she takes the same risks. I don't think she explores as many different registers and modes.

Much more soul tradition. I'm not sure why I thought it so strongly at the time, on reflection.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy

Another 80s singer in that same babyish heliumish range. This is the "that voice" of the 80s, perhaps, just like Winehouse's voice was "that voice" and now it's fuck knows it's that kind of ultra nasal voice innit.
 

luka

Well-known member

Another 80s singer in that same babyish heliumish range. This is the "that voice" of the 80s, perhaps, just like Winehouse's voice was "that voice" and now it's fuck knows it's that kind of ultra nasal voice innit.

The question of range I think is maybe a red herring. Lauper is a better comparison with Bush than Madonna or Nyro but it also points up the huge differences between them. Lauper is bratty, it's a teenage personna. An American personna. It's just as annoying, but in a different way, for different reasons.
 

luka

Well-known member
It's also interesting to watch the Lauper video back to back with this video. The iconography. The kitsch presentation of a particular image of outmoded American working class masculinity. (Both dads could be Italian, certainly not Anglo.)

 
Top