THE CUTTING ROOM FLOOR

KATE BUSH’s revisions of her older work have baffled some of her fans, because she has so many other gems sat in her lap. Kate scholar James R Blandford reports

When Kate Bush announced the release of Director’s Cut, many were surprised by the reclusive singer’s choice to re-record tracks from two of her least commercially successful albums, 1989’s The Sensual World and 1993’s The Red Shoes. Admittedly, she had already made a similar move in 1986, laying down a completely new vocal for Wuthering Heights for the hits compilation The Whole Story – a move that left many cold as the rather abrasive new vocal didn’t quite fit the ethereal feel of the original. But to release an entire album of such reworkings was a completely unexpected move from an artist who is notoriously disinterested in revisiting her past; so disinterested, in fact, that we still don’t have an official DVD release of the 1979 Live At Hammersmith film or a collection of her promo videos.

It’s a risky move for any artist to revisit earlier material in such a dramatic way. We frequently see stars doing the same thing on stage; Madonna in particular is well-known for bastardising her classics, – her toe-curling acoustic C&W Like A Virgin from 2003 being a case in point. That the gambit often misfires is unquestionable. And the phenomenon’s not restricted to music. Late in life, the famed Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka revisited her classic 30s Art Deco …

by James R Blandford
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