10 Essential 1980s Progressive Rock Albums
6. Kate Bush - The Dreaming
By fusing several approaches – singer/songwriter, art-pop, progressive rock, World music, baroque pop, etc. – Kate Bush was equally influential and idiosyncratic. Her touch stretches across popular music, from overt proteges like Tori Amos, Sufjan Stevens, Joanna Newsom, and Spellling to hip-hop greats like Big Boi and Tupac.
Everything she’s done is mandatory listening, yet it’s her fourth venture – 1982’s The Dreaming – that’s her superlative exhibition of limitless imagination and confidence. Why? Because each track feels born from a different musical universe, making it mind-blowingly eclectic, resourceful, and intrepid from start to finish.
Opener Sat in Your Lap is a hypnotically off-kilter and tuneful masterpiece of odd rhythms, gripping existential poetry, catchy choruses, and zanily regale production. Then, There Goes a Tenner is a welcomingly weird mash-up of music hall and avant-pop, whereas Suspended in Gaffa is a divine ballet of fetching peculiarities.
The title track offers captivating worldbeat creepiness, while All the Love and Houdini incorporate jazz and/or classical coatings into their luscious odes. There are also the exquisitely inventive changeups in Night of the Swallow to give you goosebumps.
The entire sequence is extraordinarily adventurous and precise, continuously splicing orthodoxy and unconventionality to yield something beautiful, bizarre, and utterly brilliant.