Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Artist: Kate Bush
Rating: EXCELLENT
Genres: Art PopBaroque PopProgressive Pop Art RockExperimental RockGothic Rock
Released: 1982
Type: Album
Label: EMI
Link: Spotify

The Dreaming is the fourth studio album by the English singer Kate Bush, released in 1982 via EMI Records. Recorded over two years, the album was produced entirely by Bush and is often characterised as her most uncommercial and experimental release. The Dreaming peaked at No. 3 on the UK album chart and has been certified Silver by the BPI, but initially sold less than its predecessors and was met with mixed critical reception. Five singles from the album were released, including the UK No. 11 "Sat in Your Lap" and the title track....

The critical standing of the album has improved significantly in recent decades. A public poll conducted by NPR ranked The Dreaming as the 24th greatest album ever made by a female artist. Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 71 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". It is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, the Mojo "Top 50 Eccentric Albums of All Time" list and The Word magazine's "Great Underrated Albums of Our Time" list. Musicians such as Björk and Big Boi have cited The Dreaming as one of their favourite albums.

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Four albums into her burgeoning career, Kate Bush's The Dreaming is a theatrical and abstract piece of work, as well as Bush's first effort in the production seat. She throws herself in head first, incorporating various vocal loops, sometimes campy, but always romantic and inquisitive of emotion. She's angry and pensive throughout the entire album, typically poetic while pushing around the notions of a male-dominated world. However, Kate Bush is a daydreamer.

Unfortunately, The Dreaming, with all it's intricate mystical beauty, isn't fully embraced compared to her later work. Album opener "Sat in Your Lap" is a frightening slight on individual intellect, with a booming chorus echoing over throbbing percussion and a butchered brass section. "Leave It Open" is goth-like with Bush's dark brooding, which is a suspending scale of vocalic laments, but it's the vivacious and moody "Get Out of My House" that truly brings Bush's many talents for art and music to the forefront. It prances with dripping piano drops and gritty guitar, and the violent rage felt as she screams "Slamming," sparking a fury similar to what Tori Amos later ignited during her inception throughout the '90s.

Not one to be in fear of fear, The Dreaming is one of Kate Bush's underrated achievements in depicting her own visions of love, relationships, and role play, not to mention a brilliant predecessor to the charming beauty of 1985's Hounds of Love. - MacKenzie Wilson for allmusic]

Editions:
1982 Original Release
EMI | EMC 3419 | Vinyl, LP
Side A:
A1. Sat in Your Lap (3:30)
  A2. There Goes a Tenner (3:26)
  A3. Pull Out the Pin (5:29)
A4. Suspended in Gaffa (3:58)
A5. Leave It Open (3:25)
Side B:
B1. The Dreaming (4:32)
B2. Night of the Swallow (5:34)
  B3. All the Love (4:35)
  B4. Houdini (3:52)
B5. Get Out of My House (5:32)