Tad's Happy Funtime: Keep Running Up That Hill

So it would seem that the Kids These Days have discovered Kate Bush - and I couldn't be more pleased.

In contrast to the impression that some of the memes going around might give you, there were a lot of us who appreciated her in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Personally, I tended to be late to every party, and I came to this one indirectly. I first remember hearing Kate Bush's voice in a 1990s PSA about teenaged runaways that featured her part from the Peter Gabriel duet, "Don't Give Up":

From there, friends pointed me to Running Up That Hill, and I bought a copy of her "greatest hits" album, The Whole Story, which featured most of the songs on this list.

Running Up That Hill only made it to number 30 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1985, which most people dismiss as a poor showing (oh, you 1980s kids didn't appreciate what you had!) but even a major talent like Elvis Costello didn't achieve that kind of success until 1989 when Veronica made it to number 19.

And consider the competition that year - whether you think they "deserve" it or not, you recognize most of these songs or the performers:

Top Songs of 1985

Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go. Wham!
I Want to Know What Love Is. Foreigner.
I Feel for You. Chaka Khan.
Out of Touch. Hall & Oates.
Everybody Wants to Rule the World. Tears for Fears.
Money for Nothing. Dire Straits.
Crazy for You. Madonna.
Take on Me. a-ha.

And I don't think it's a coincidence that the Stranger Things kids appeared in the video for that last one when Weezer remade it recently. (Weezer remade "Everybody Wants to Rule the World," too, for that album.)

My point is that it's easy to forget how beloved certain songs and artists were, especially over time. As big as I was into what was being called "New Wave" at the time, all of that was overwhelmed by the surge in Alternative music that R.E.M. was about to usher in - and the Grunge sound that Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, and the like were going to introduce a few years after that. Success is always relative, and very fluid.

And as much as I loved the weird things that Kate Bush was doing with her music, I admit that I loved other artists more - Peter Gabriel's So album, which featured Don't Give Up was one that I played an order of magnitude more often than I played The Whole Story. There is probably a whole essay's worth of baggage to examine about how we allow male artists to overshadow the women they work side by side with and depend on...

...but for now, I'll just be happy for Kate Bush, and I hope that you all dig into her entire catalog. I also recommend that if you're looking for more artists like her, you won't rely on your favorite app's algorithm. As great as Peter Gabriel and Talking Heads are, if you're looking for weird and wonderful women doing great work from that general late 80s/early 90s era, you could do a lot worse than these:

Aimee Mann -

(with Til Tuesday) Voices Carry

(from her 2017 album Mental Illness) Goose Snow Cone

Debbie Harry -

(as Blondie) Heart of Glass

(duet with Iggy Pop) Well Did You Evah?

Laurie Anderson -

(with Peter Gabriel, also from So) This is the Picture (Excellent Birds)

Only An Expert

her 2021 NPR Tiny Desk Concert (so deliciously weird!!!)

Suzanne Vega -

99.9 F