In 2024, singer Chappell Roan made headlines for pushing back against the industry’s status quo surrounding artists’ professional and personal agency. Roan’s frustrations, stemming from aggressive brushes with a stalker and predatory fan behavior, highlight a significant rift in today’s modern entertainment environment, which is quick to trade humanity for easily objectifiable, viral-ready, platform-digestible packages.
Kayleigh Rose Amstutz’s resilience as Chappell Roan is in direct opposition with how things are expected to be, where artists maintain increasingly more controlling schedules and shrinking personal lives until every last drop of profitability is squeezed. It's a dichotomy where one side is success, and the other is personal authority—a dichotomy that women are forced to deal with daily.
In the music industry, this compromise seems to have persisted to today, regardless of the contributions women have made to our very concept of popular music, with commercial figureheads and CEOs perpetuating backwards prejudices at the very highest level of cultural distribution.
Despite such negative headwinds, marginalized artists have made extreme impacts on the tightly controlled commercial world of pop music, with many women artists championing the take-no-shit edge needed to overcome the ghosts of these overguarded inner-rooms which haunt with a hungry bias. I think of hyperpop, market-dominating rap and hip-hop artists, the punk-politics of bands like Pussy Riot, the international web of feminist artists in the Riot Grrrl movement, the lineage of singer-songwriters from the second half of the twentieth century, women who took, and continue to take, the stage front and center to demand to be seen and heard on their terms.
The UK’s Electronic Maven
Electronic music and technology have provided even more opportunities for artists to achieve their goals in their own way. And when we think of the early trailblazers in electronic music’s many infiltrations into modern popular music, one name will continually sit at the top of that list: Kate Bush.
Kate Bush is certainly one of the most successful examples of why working hard, and compromising nothing, is the right decision.
A true visionary, an underdog, and self-made from an early age, Bush’s first album, The Kick Inside (1978), was released when she was only 19 years old. Bush leveraged some life-changing opportunities to shatter the gender barrier while sitting at the top of the UK singles chart with her legendary, debut hit single, “Wuthering Heights,” making her the first female artist in British music history to hold a number one chart position as a singer-songwriter with a self-written song.
Bush has gone on to win the heart of history, consistently remaining an icon to her devoted fan base and converting new fans to this day with music written almost 40 years ago.
Dispatches from the Future
A modern-day Joan of Arc, Kate Bush’s music is rich in story and personal truth. Her songs of heartbreak, vindication, love, womanhood, and motherhood ring true with audiences across generations.
Bush’s recent surge in popularity is massive thanks to hits placed in Stranger Things and across TikTok. Bush’s legacy of independence, living in the moment, and emotional freedom seem more relevant today than ever before. Used almost 2 million times on TikTok, and the 2022 Sync of the Year Award from Variety Hitmakers, Kate’s song “Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)”, has been making its comeback after 37-plus years, after being featured on Netflix.
Kate Bush at the Fairlight CMI
Perfect for today’s algorithm, Bush’s techno-pop masterpiece from her groundbreaking and well-loved album Hounds of Love (1985) is the quintessential cross-sample of 1980s synthesizer-driven pop music, which artists like Chappell Roan are drawn to like ethereal moths.
Bush's unique sound and feminine bravado are almost perfect for modern audiences, but regardless of the song’s most current social currency, her music is supported by legions of continued fans. Seemingly the only real difference is that now, Bush’s music would no longer remain an easter egg reserved for nostalgia mavens like Noel Fielding or die-hard fans’ secret chords for amorous mix-tapes or wonderfully red-dressed flash mobs.
Kate Bush’s timelessness does not come from just one place. It needs to be said that her timelessness is too often underestimated, even by her most devoted fans. More than just a singer, more than just a songwriter, Kate Bush is a technology maven whose studio practice is marked by her use of cutting-edge studio equipment—which, in part, came to define her sound.
To get the full picture of Kate Bush’s true genius, we need to follow her story back to the beginning, when Bush was a child, writing songs on the family piano.
Humble Beginnings
So much of Bush's singularity comes from her DIY ethos; throughout her career, she demanded the controls and always fought to self-produce her work. When the time was right, Bush’s cutting-edge home studio helped take her music to the next level—and should shine like a beacon for those of us building our own home environments. Such a drive requires a mighty catalyst, and in her case, it would seem that an ever-flowing font of music develops her vision.
At the age of 15, Bush had already written over 50 songs in her family home. Thanks to her family’s encouragement, Bush’s knack for songwriting was developed from a young age. According to Far Out Magazine, Bush's family even cut her a demo tape. The demo tape would take a trip from the Bush family to family friend Ricky Hopper, who would hand the tape over to Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour was more than impressed.
Sensing the greatness in the young Bush’s home-cooked demos, Gilmour would proceed to take Kate under his wing as a protege of sorts. Gilmour would go to bat for Kate and her first album, standing up to EMI when they doubted her talent. It would be the beginning of Kate Bush’s legacy of ruffling feathers to make sure her music was done right.
Sensing the greatness in the young Bush’s home-cooked demos, Gilmour would proceed to take Kate under his wing as a protege of sorts. Gilmour would go to bat for Kate and her first album, standing up to EMI when they doubted her talent. It would be the beginning of Kate Bush’s legacy of ruffling feathers to make sure her music was done right.
Gilmour’s stewardship of Bush’s early career would get her into rooms many artists could only dream of, like Abbey Road, and allowed her to learn the lessons needed to take her career into her own hands and give the world her music on her terms.
Becoming Kate Bush
In an interview with Keyboard magazine from 1985, Bush shares some insight on her first two albums, those fledgling recordings where she was still restrained by her professional adolescence. According to Music Musings and Such, her early experiences in the world of commercial music were formative, but still lacking:
By the time the second album was finished, I knew that I had to be involved. Even though they were my songs and I was singing them, the finished product was not what I wanted. That wasn't the producer's fault. He was doing a good job from his point of view- making it sound good and together. But for me, it was not my album, really.
Even on those first two albums where Bush did not have full control, her vision was still brimming—yearning to be heard.
In that same interview with Keyboard magazine in 1985, she looked back on her early years, pre-Hounds of Love.
Even on the first two records, I was doing what I'm doing now as an artist, only (because I was a lot younger, and I didn't have the room and the space to be able to truly present my music. I had to work with a producer and within certain kinds of set-ups because of the fact that- that's how it was, I wasn't powerful enough basically to be able to say, 'Look, I'm producing this myself. This is what I do.' And that's what I do now.) I think that if I had been a little older, and if I'd had the experience at the time, I would have done it then, too.
The answer to her yearning lay in her complete control over her music. The key to her control was simple and yet untouched by her contemporaries: synthesizers and signal-processing tech. Kate Bush was an early adopter of synthesizers and electronic music production equipment, specifically her array of signal processing tech—which she collected, or more realistically amassed—in her home studio and whatever studio she would do final production in.
Unlike other artists during her heady years, and frankly unlike many artists today, Kate Bush saw most of her most successful music's production through from start to finish. From fleshing out her ideas on her acoustic piano to producing her completed pieces in world-famous studios like Abbey Road Studio 2 on her own, Bush is certainly one of the most ambitious creatives of our time.
Kate Bush and the Fairlight CMI
From the beginning, Kate Bush and the piano have been inseparable; the instrument is her main songwriting tool, and her arsenal of acoustic pianos, synthesizers, and drum machines has given her the freedom to bring the world record-breaking, chart-topping music.
The Yamaha CS-80 was a mainstay and early go-to writing instrument for Bush; we can hear it on her track “There Goes a Tenner,” and she consistently turned to the new LinnDrum for those killer and classic Kate Bush experimental, baroque-pop mega-hits. However, her true excalibur would be the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, her closest companion and mouthpiece.
Released in 1979, the Fairlight CMI, officially the Fairlight Computer Music Instrument, was the first digital synthesizer capable of both sampling and sequencing. Released by the Australian company, Fairlight Instruments Pty Ltd, the synthesizer was used widely across popular music. From Peter Gabriel to Def Leppard—from Afrika Bambaataa to Frankie Goes to Hollywood to Britney Spears—the Fairlight has been used to bring some of the world's most popular music across the finish line.
The 1980s would be full of great examples of the Fairlight’s prowess, but in the hands of its earliest adopter, Kate Bush, this next-level sampler and synth would become the key to synth-pop and electronic pop, hip-hop, and art rock.
Kate Bush was the first artist to use the Fairlight on a commercially successful record, and by at least three years! Bush was instantly taken with the Fairlight because it gave her the tools to create whatever she wanted. Synthesizers give the player the ability to create anything they can think of. For artists like Bush, for whom complete control is necessary, the Fairlight CMI and all digital samplers that followed opened a completely new world of sound and possibilities.
Bush’s first big Fairlight hit is her song “Babooshka” from the album Never For Ever, which features iconic broken glass samples. The glass for that sample is actually crockery from Abbey Road Studio 2, which, according to The Quietus, fell prey to Bush and her band’s roving and lengthy sessions while writing Bush’s third album.
In one of the greatest electronic music collaborations of all time, Never For Ever featured the track “Infant Kiss.” This track featured electronic effects and cues from the film The Innocents (1961)—a film whose music was produced in large part by Daphne Oram, one of electronic music’s most revered composers.
The Songwriter on Her Own Terms
Kate Bush’s third album would be the changing point in her career, the album where she finally had control and, thanks to her adventurous creativity, was able to bring her visions to the world.
Not only was she able to produce on the record, but parting ways with her original producer, Andrew Powell, gave her the power to bring back her original touring band, the KT Bush Band. With the labor and the technology figured out, Bush was ready to grow towards her final form.
Bush’s first solo production endeavor was a small home studio to record demos for her album Lionheart. With KT Bush Band bassist and long-time collaborator, the late Del Palmer, by her side, Bush began developing her home studio for recording and writing. By the 1990s, Bush's studio was a fully-fledged recording environment, replete with some of the best studio gear ever produced.
In the years following 1982's The Dreaming, the singer-songwriter took some time away from the public eye to create Hounds of Love (1985), her most hands-on record yet.
Hounds of Love was a labor of love—it took over two years for Bush and her band of musicians and collaborators to complete the album. This, her fifth album, is certainly one of her most beloved, with “Running up That Hill,” “Waking the Witch,” and “Cloudbusting": a prime example of Bush’s unique and legendary songwriting and production skills. Specifically, her heavy use of signal processing and tongue-in-cheek overdub approaches are one of the keys to her singular sound.
Home is Where the Heart is
By 1985, Bush's studio had accumulated the right tools to bring her baroque-synthesized melodrama to the masses. Based in a cottage near her home, the residential studio where Kate Bush wrote and recorded most of Hounds of Love had the capacity to produce the reverb-dripped, spacey ballads and story songs that immortalize her work.
The studio had multiple reverb units, each with their own specific use. For her voice, Kate used a Quantec Room Simulator, which gave her the ability to literally create the room she wanted her voice to live in. The studio also featured two digital AMS reverb units—the RMX16, specifically—with two different firmwares to create her fantastic drum sounds and other precise reverb tasks within the mix. Hounds of Love’s final reverb player would be the Lexicon 224. While the 224 was significantly more limited than 1986’s Lexicon 480, the 224 brought classic reverb sounds to Kate’s unique sound.
To add even more depth to her recordings, Kate Bush’s obsession with blending the real world and the synthesized world in the studio gave way to fantastic overdub techniques which often included the Fairlight and live recordings or doubling vocal parts with different processing to create wobbly, spaced out products which were unique to her studio.
By the 1990s, Bush’s workflow had been perfected, and by the time she finished her 1993 record The Red Shoes, most of her recording was done while writing the record at her barn studio off the Bush family home. According to Del Palmer, their time spent at Abbey Road was mainly used to take the recordings off tape and to digitize them for distribution, highlighting Bush’s competency outside of EMI’s normal ecosystem.
A Living Legend of Pop
Kate Bush’s return to the public eye over the past decade has been gradual—but promising for fans of one of popular music’s most creative singer-songwriters and producers. It is very fitting that we still celebrate her accomplishments from the '80s and '90s, because they are still so poignant. While we mainly look to her lyrics and theatrical performances, it is important to appreciate her skill over the Fairlight CMI synthesizer and studio equipment which really set her music apart.
In 2024, in support of War Child International, Bush released the new video "Little Shrew (Snowflake)," a beautiful and animation depicting a shrew exploring a war-torn city, set to a song from her 2011 album 50 Words for Snow. That same year, she stated in an interview that she was eager to start working on new music—and we look forward to a future with more of her work.
