Kate Bush

Born 30 July 1958, Bexleyheath, Kent, UK. A precocious talent, Kate Bush signed to EMI at the age of 16, scored a number one hit with Wuthering Heights at 19 and spent many years trying to live up to her early promise. Her first two albums The Kick Inside (#3) and Lionheart (#6) were both released in 1978; in 1979 she embarked on what remains her only tour, before starting work on a third album. Released in September 1980, Never For Ever became Kate’s first number 1 album and contained Babooshka, her first top five single since Wuthering Heights two years earlier.

Over the next few years, Kate’s unhurried approach to making albums – in an era when one album per year was still the norm – didn’t sit well with the record buying public. 1981’s Sat In Your Lap single reached number 11 and opened her next album The Dreaming, although this didn’t appear until over a year later in September 1982. The album reached number 3 but spawned no further top forty hits; the title track crawled to number 48 and follow-up There Goes A Tenner failed to chart at all. Retreating from the public eye to lick her wounds, all was forgiven in 1985 when Kate returned with Hounds Of Love, another number 1 album which this time gave her four hit singles: Running Up That Hill, Cloudbusting, The Big Sky and the title track. A guest appearance on Peter Gabriel’s Don’t Give Up and the release of a best-of album The Whole Story in 1986 rounded off this phase of Kate’s career.

At the tail end of the ’80s Kate released The Sensual World, a number 2 album which included one of her most acclaimed, if not particularly commercial, songs This Woman’s Work, a number 25 hit just before Christmas 1989. After one further album The Red Shoes (1993, #2) Kate withdrew from public life while she raised her son. She finally returned to the public eye in 2005 with a new album Aerial, which reached number 3 and spawned exactly one hit single, King Of The Mountain (#4). Six years later this was followed by Director’s Cut (2011, #2), an album of re-recordings of songs from The Sensual World and The Red Shoes. With unusual haste, Kate released another album in November 2011, 50 Words For Snow (#5), featuring guest performances from Elton John, Stephen Fry and even Kate’s son Bertie. Running Up That Hill was a top ten hit all over again in 2012 after its use in the London Olympics closing ceremony and Kate surprised everyone in March 2014 when, out of the blue, she announced her intention to return to the stage with a 22-night residency in London, 35 years after her only tour.