We are all reeling today after the news of the death of Sinéad O’Connor. Kate has paid tribute to Sinéad on her official site. She writes:
It’s like a light has gone out, hasn’t it? A beacon on a high mountain. Sinead didn’t just move us with her incredibly emotive voice, she stood up with it.
I salute her. We were lucky to have such a magical presence move among us.
Kate
To celebrate the 85th birthday of the world’s longest running comic, The Beano, a group of 3,000 children (aged seven to 14) were asked in a poll which celebrities they would like to invite to their own birthday party and be friends with. The resulting list of guests are featured on the special wraparound cover which is available in shops in the UK and Ireland today.
The huge awareness of Kate now among young people since her massive 2022 chart success means that she is featured on the cover alongside stars such as singers Harry Styles and Adele, Sir David Attenborough, presenter Claudia Winkleman, singer Fleur East, racing driver Lewis Hamilton, the King, Queen and Prince and Princess of Wales, singer Dua Lipa, rapper Stormzy, singer Lewis Capaldi, presenters Ant and Dec, Spiderman actor Tom Holland, actors (and football club owners) Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, footballers Jill Scott, Marcus Rashford and Phil Foden, actress Rose Ayling-Ellis and social media influencer KSI.
Last year, The Beano helped re-introduce their readers to Kate with fun quizzes, such as “Which Kate Bush Song Are You?“, “Running Up That Hill Lyrics Quiz” and “The Ultimate Kate Bush Quiz“. The BBC website reports: “Since the Beano launched in Dundee in 1938, more than 4,000 issues have been printed featuring around 700 characters, such as Dennis [the Menace] and Gnasher, the Bash Street Kids and Billy Whizz….”
“To mark the anniversary, 2,023 issues of the special edition Beano – which first went out to subscribers at the weekend – will be given out to classrooms across the country through the Beano for Schools programme this week, while prizes can also be won on its website.” Read more at The Beano’s Facebook page here.
We’ve never seen Kate sign quite so many things in such a short period of time! With a recent run of hundreds of signed paperback editions of her book, How To Be Invisible, which helped support indie book and record shops, in May we also reported that Kate had signed a series of prints at her home based on the soundwave of her song Running Up That Hill to raise funds for the charity War Child UK, which protects, educates, and stands up for the rights of children caught up in conflict zones across the globe. That run of prints sold out immediately.
War Child has long been a favourite charity of Kates, so much so that Soundwaves Art Foundation has brought out a 2nd, final edition collection, again created from the soundwave for ‘Running Up That Hill’. The Foundation writes: “Kate has been incredibly generous with her time and the money from both collections will benefit War Child UK whose work is more important than ever in the world we live in today.
There are two colourways and 75 prints available from each print. Every print is signed by Kate Bush and the Soundwaves artist Tim Wakefield. Every artwork is numbered 1/75 – 75/75. These will be the last artworks available from ‘Running Up That Hill’ and there are only a handful left as the official waitlist was recently contacted with the chance to purchase.”
Get yours here: https://soundwavesartfoundation.com/collections/kate-bush-version-2 (with thanks to Tom Wakefield for letting us know)
Uncut Magazine are no strangers to publishing great looking Kate Bush cover features and their upcoming issue (September 2023 – it’s a publishing thing!) is no exception, featuring a wonderful portrait of Kate by her brother John Carder Bush – we remember seeing a variant from this “orchid” photo session used way back on a cover of Record Mirror in 1981. This issue, which features “The untold stories of 40 of her greatest songs” is out in the shops in the UK and Ireland from Thursday 13th July this week OR YOU CAN ORDER IT ONLINE HERE.
We’ve actually seen the feature in Uncut now (out in shops today!) and the good news is we’re very impressed! The selection of 40 (greatest) songs is very well-considered and agreeably career-spanning, while each song in the 10-page feature is illuminated by the welcome presence and insights of those gifted individuals who actually worked on the songs with Kate; drummer Stuart Elliott, engineer Peter Henderson, producer Andrew Powell, guitarist Brian Bath, singer Roy Harper, Fairlight pioneer Richard Burgess, drummer Preston Heyman, engineer Teri Reed, Irish trad musician Donal Lunny, bass player Youth, strings arranger Dave Lawson, producer Joe Boyd, concertina player Alistair Anderson, saxophonist Nigel Hitchcock, vocalist Lol Creme, accordionist Chris Hall, drummer Peter Erskine, engineer Stephen W Tayler, drummer Steve Gadd and multi-instrumentalist Kevin McAlea! Phew.
Thanks to Uncut editor Michael Bonner for sending the news on to me. He writes:
“In June, “Running Up That Hill” passed one billion streams – another phenomenal milestone in the long, strange afterlife of KATE BUSH’s uncanny masterpiece. But there are, of course, many other classic songs in her canon – potent and idiosyncratic mini-dramas about escapologists, snowmen, second-rate actors and even the King of Rock’n’Roll himself, whose creator has utilized harpsichord, uilleann pipes, smashed crockery, a Bulgarian folk trio and even the sonic attributes of a kitchen cupboard to realise her extraordinary artistic visions.
In this month’s UNCUT we celebrate 40 of Kate’s greatest songs in the company of musicians and eyewitnesses, as we attempt to unravel the magical thinking and creative mysteries behind one of the most consistently adventurous and radical songbooks of the last 50 years – from her career defining hits to b-sides, deep cuts and even a Christmas song.
“The one thing that she taught me, there are no barriers,” says one collaborator. “Too many people think you shouldn’t do this or that. But Kate would often ask, “Is that weird?’ or ‘How can we make this weird..?”
A momentous milestone today, Kate has surpassed 1 Billion streams of her song Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) on Spotify! It is, of course, the first of her songs to do so in the modern streaming era. Kate becomes the first female artist to hit this milestone with a song released in the 1980s. In that crazy whirlwind of chart activity and success in 2022 that followed the song going viral and becoming her biggest career hit to date, it was often difficult here on the news site to get a satisfying snapshot of this truly global phenomenon that occurred. How could we illustrate how massive a brand new hit the song had become and the sheer number of people around the world who were now listening to it? What helped greatly to show this were two sources in particular, the Billboard Global 200 chart and also the daily/weekly Global charts on Spotify. In this article we’ll explore just how significant Kate’s achievment is.
Update: Kate has added a lovely post to her official site (appropriately accompanied by a NASA photograph of the Ganges river delta) clearly blown away by today’s news!
Why is Kate’s achievement such a big deal?
Reaching 1 billion streams with a song on Spotify really is a huge deal in 2023. So much so that only around 400 songs have managed this feat in Spotify’s history, the VAST majority of them, as you might expect from a service launched in the last decade, are songs recorded in the 2010s and 2020s – only 10 other songs from the 1980s have achieved it.
This is why Kate is in very rarified company in terms of music released by artists from the 1960s-2000s – Spotify’s user base skews younger, and much more contemporary – the “Billions Club” is full of the likes of Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd, Post Malone, Justin Bieber, Billie Eilish, Drake, Ariana Grande and Dua Lipa. In fact other established, huge-selling acts from previous decades like Madonna, Whitney Houston, U2, The Rolling Stones, Elvis Presley, ABBA, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and many more have yet to achieve the “billion” with a song as Kate has done. The Beatles only achieved their first billion streaming song last year with Here Comes The Sun.
Spotify also has all 400+ songs included in their popular Billions Club playlist below and fittingly they have revamped the cover photo of the playlist this evening!
How did Running Up That Hill do it?
Since hitting just over 8 million streams a day at its peak last June, Kate’s song has continued to reach almost 1 million streams daily ever since, and a year later this has now nudged her total streams past the 1 billion mark. Spotify is the world’s largest music streaming platform with over 80 million songs and updated streaming numbers are made available each day. When the Netflix show Stranger Things first catapulted Kate’s 1985 hit back into the charts in early June 2022, it represented an 8,700% increase globally in streams of the song on Spotify. The day Stranger Things launched on May 28th the song achieved a whopping 1 million+ streams – but that was just the tip of the iceberg! The following week saw the song rise to the number 1 position in the Spotify chart globally, with 57 million+ streams in one week alone and averaging over 8 million streams a day. Kate’s achievement that week has put her firmly in the All Time Top 20 most streamed songs ever in a single week on Spotify, and only 13 other No.1 songs on Spotify have achieved more average weekly plays.
Kate would reach the weekly summit of the Spotify weekly chart twice more in July, AND a staggering 17 individual days on top of the daily global chart in June and July. By the end of September she had racked up over 600 million streams since May. Kate remained in the Spotify Top 100 well into December, even receiving a considerable boost again around Halloween when the song was clearly being used in all manner of Stranger Things themed parties. Running Up That Hill continues to achieve almost 1 million daily streams to this day.
Does she get an award or something?
Yes, Spotify will send Kate out a special plaque celebrating her 1 billion streams success. As the Spotify logo on the plaque takes the form of a silver bowl shape, several artists have celebrated their achievement on social media by posting photos of them eating out of it. Others, like the singer Shakira above, are happy to simply pose with the award and thank their fans etc.
Was the Spotify success mirrored on the Billboard Global 200 chart?
Resoundingly, yes! Kate achieved a jaw-dropping chart run on this truly World chart-of-charts, which each week ranks the top songs globally and is based on digital sales and online streaming from over 200 territories worldwide. Kate had the biggest song in the entire world for three weeks!
(Many thanks to Brian Cloughley for creating the graphic at the top of this feature!)
In this new episode of the Kate Bush Fan Podcast Darrell (Bush Telegraph) interviews Gered Mankowitz, the prolific Rock and Roll photographer who worked with Kate Bush, as well as other music legends – The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Marianne Faithfull, to name only a few. This is a deep dive into how Gered started his career (thanks in part to actor/comedian Peter Sellers!) and how he eventually worked with Kate on the iconic photos from The Kick Inside and Lionheart era.
Every photo session is talked about in detail. The stunning album cover of Lionheart was his creation, and we get to hear interesting details that have never been revealed before. Paul and Darrell, also reminisce about the heady days of 1978 and 1979 when these photos were first published and seen.
Gered’s incredible WOW! book is still in stock and available now. Gered’s Jimi Hendrix E-Type Art Car “Electric Lady”, mentioned in the episode, is being launched on May 24th/25th here – also visit the Gered Mankowitz website at www.mankowitz.com and follow Gered Mankowitz on Instagram: #geredmankowitz
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or Spotify or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
THIS WOMAN’S WORK – A KATE BUSH CABARET CELEBRATION AT THE ROYAL VAUXHALL TAVERN IN LONDON
A FUNDRAISER FOR CABARET VS CANCER
Following last year’s sell out show, A Deal With God, HomeGround and KateBushNews.com are thrilled to be back once again at the iconic LGBTQ+ venue for another Kate Bush themed cabaret show to raise money for Cabaret vs Cancer.
This Woman’s Work will be a celebration of the work of Kate Bush, featuring cabaret, drag and burlesque performances of, or inspired by Kate songs. From Wuthering Heights to Before the Dawn, her Whole Story will be represented.
The cast will be announced shortly, but we can promise you returning stars from last year’s show, plus some exciting new names. Watch this space and the RVT socials.
Tickets are £12 from:
https://www.outsavvy.com/event/14473/this-womans-work-a-kate-bush-celebration
Doors at 7pm, show from 8pm
The Royal Vauxhall Tavern is a world famous LGBTQ+ performance and club venue, located in Vauxhall, South London, just a few minutes walk from Vauxhall underground, rail and bus station.
Cabaret vs Cancer is an independent charity set up in 2014 by performer Rose Thorne and Dave from HomeGround is a Patron for the charity. Theyraise money, via live events and online auctions to help families, especially children cope with the effects of cancer, you can find out more at https://www.cabaretvscancer.co.uk/
With more than 450 million users, Shazam is an app that can identify music based on a short sample played and using the microphone on the device. Kate’s This Woman’s Work has seen a huge surge in searches since being featured on the Netflix film The Mother, starring Jennifer Lopez, which debuted a few days ago on the streaming service. Kate’s song is played over the closing moments of the action-thriller. This Woman’s Work is the No.1 most searched for song in the US right now, #2 in the UK and #8 worldwide.
It is worth noting though that the song isn’t moving to the top of the iTunes, Spotify or official charts around the world in the same way as Running Up That Hill last summer. It’s great to see more people discovering Kate’s searing ballad, though!
Many were shocked and saddened to hear that the great bass player, John Giblin, a longstanding member of Kate’s musical “family” and ultimately her KT Fellowship, has sadly died on Sunday in Cheltenham, aged 71. John’s extensive work with Kate started as far back as playing on Babooshka and Breathing from the Never For Ever album, and continued with his contributions on the albums The Sensual World, The Red Shoes, Aerial, Director’s Cut and 50 Words For Snow. John first worked with Kate when he played on Peter Gabriel’s song No Self Control with her in 1979. John was also Kate’s chosen bass guitarist on her Before The Dawn shows in 2014. His contribution to her work has been immense.
UPDATE: Kate has added some beautiful words about her dear friend John Giblin to her official site:
Everyone loved John. He was a really beautiful man in every sense of the word. Everybody wanted to work with him because he was such a great talent and everyone wanted to be his friend because he was such a wonderful person.
I loved John so very much. He was one of my very dearest and closest friends for over forty years. We were always there for each other. He was very special. I loved working with him, not just because he was such an extraordinary musician but because he was always huge amounts of fun. We would often laugh so much that we had to just give in to it and sit and roar with laughter for a while. He loved to be pushed in a musical context, and it was really exciting to feel him cross that line and find incredibly gorgeous musical phrases that were only there for him. He would really sing. It was such a joy and an inspiration to see where he could take it.
We’ve all lost a great man, an unmatchable musician and I’ve lost my very special friend. My world will never be the same again without him.
Kate
Described by producer Robert M Corich as a “bass guitarist, double bass player, arranger and all round session musician extraordinaire”, John was born to a musical family in Bellshill, Scotland where he started his interest in music from a young age, playing with various rock and pop bands in his teens and progressing from there. From the Facebook page of the band Osibisa who John recently worked with:
“His immense performing ability was noticed early on and he was soon touring and recording with Peter Gabriel as well as Kate Bush, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton and Annie Lennox to name a few. He became the bassist, often using fretless bass, for the band Simple Minds where he replaced Derek Forbes and performed with the band on three albums before returning to his former passion as a studio musician.
During his career he worked with countless artists and groups, covering a wide range of musical genres. Including Peter Gabriel, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, Donovan, Judie Tzuke, Fish, Manfred Mann’s Earthband, Jon Anderson, Roberta Flack, Mark Knopfler, George Martin, David Sylvian, Sting, Wendell Richardson, Joan Armatrading, David Arnold, Richard Ashcroft, Asia, Big Dish, Colin Blunstone, Brand X, Elkie Brooks, Duncan Browne, Sarah Brightman, Chris De Burgh, Brian Eno, Exile, Roberta Flack, Al Green, Steve Harley, Natalie Imbruglia, David Knopfler, KD Lang, The Psychedelic Furs, Ralph McTell, Gerry Rafferty, Tanita Tikaram and Scott Walker among many others.”
Interviewed in 2016 John described his delight at being asked to play on Kate’s live comeback. “I had a call from Kate Bush “I want to do a lot of live shows!”…and they were amazing! Dear Kate, we have been working together since 1978! Kate’s band was a perfect combination of David Rhodes, Omar Hakim and Minu Cinelu. I really was a happy bass player!”
We are thinking today of John’s family and friends and everyone in the music world who will deeply mourn his passing.
RIP John Giblin – 26th February 1952 to 14th May 2023
Last month Kate signed a series of prints at her home which are based on the soundwave of her song Running Up That Hill to raise funds for the charity War Child UK, and they have just gone on sale. From Andrew at War Child:
“It’s been a big year for Kate Bush. First, Netflix catapaults her back onto the charts. Then she gets inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And now she gets to sign Soundwaves? What more could someone ask for?! All jokes aside, we are grateful to be working again with Kate. She signed a few originals for us almost a decade ago as Tim was just starting out with this idea, and we’re so happy to have reconnected for a run of 100 prints of “Running Up That Hill (A Deal WIth God).””Running Up That Hill” has been a hit for decades, but the song ascended to truly unfathomable heights last year thanks to its prominent feature in Netflix’s Stranger Things. It reached #1 on the charts in several countries and its streams on Spotify in the US increased by almost 10,000%. Kate signed the prints as part of our ongoing celebration of War Child UK’s 30th anniversary in 2023.”
You can learn more and purchase these newly signed Soundwaves prints here: https://soundwavesartfoundation.com/collections/Kate-Bush
Today it was announced that Kate has finally been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, so in this new episode of The Kate Bush Fan Podcast Seán catches up on this news and other recent exciting developments in the world of Kate Bush music – including her Fish People rebrand and new partnership with The state51 Conspiracy plus Seán discusses the new paperback edition of How To Be Invisible, Kate’s recent award nominations and we also remember the late guitarist, the brilliant Ian Bairnson.
You can subscribe to the Kate Bush Fan Podcast on iTunes or Spotify or on any podcast app you happen to use, such as Stitcher or Tunein or listen below on Soundcloud.
Well, it’s a case of fourth time lucky for Kate as she is officially announced today to be one of the seven music acts to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in the USA along with Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine, Missy Elliott, Sheryl Crow, George Michael and the Spinners. Congratulations to Kate!
UPDATE: Kate has responded to the news on her official site:
I have to admit I’m completely shocked at the news of being inducted into the Hall of Fame! It’s something I just never thought would happen.
Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me. It means a great deal that you would think of me. It’s such a huge honour.
Now as part of the initiation ceremony I get to find out about the secret handshake… there is one, right?
Kate
Eligible for nomination since 2004 (nominated artists must be at least 25 years into their careers), Kate had previously been nominated in 2018, 2021 and 2022 before finally being inducted this year, her massive US chart success last year perhaps making this inevitable.
These honorees will be celebrated in an induction ceremony and concert to take place November 3rd at Barclays Center in Brooklyn. Obviously there is no word as of yet if Kate wishes to attend or perform at the ceremony. Hall of Fame president and chief executive Joel Peresman told Rolling Stone that he hoped Kate would perform at the induction ceremony: “We open that door. It’s up to her.” If she did perform, it would be her first live performance since her 2014 London concert residency, Before the Dawn. More about the Hall of Fame inductees here.
There are six more inductees beyond that list, with the distinction of being selected by a select Hall of Fame committee to join the seven performers who were voted in via general balloting. These are singer Chaka Khan, instrumentalist-producer Al Kooper and lyricist Bernie Taupin, all in the “musical excellence” category; pioneering rock guitarist Link Wray and hip-hop originator DJ Kool Herc in the “musical influence” division; and “Soul Train” TV host Don Cornelius as the recipient of the annual Ahmet Ertegun Award.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts, BAFTA, have revealed the nominations for the inaugural P&O Cruises Memorable Moment Award, which honours “the impact of television in the UK and its power to entertain, inform and bring the nation together – looking back at key moments from 2022 that inspired and moved audiences at home”. It includes a nomination for that momentous scene from Stranger Things that featured Kate’s Running Up That Hill which went on to make the song the most massive worldwide hit of Kate’s career.
The six nominees are:
Members of the public can vote for their P&O Cruises Memorable Moment online via bafta.org/moment. Voting will close at midday on May 2, 2023 and the winner will be announced at the BAFTA Television Awards with P&O Cruises on May 14, 2023 on BBC One and iPlayer from 7pm.
Kate’s Running Up That Hill has been shortlisted for “Most Performed Song” at this year’s Ivor Novello Awards, after the song’s massive global success last year. As the BBC reports, the track is up against several contemporary hits including As It Was by Harry Styles, Heat Waves by Glass Animals and two tracks by Ed Sheeran – Bad Habits and Shivers. The award recognises the song that was played most often on TV and radio, and at concerts and DJ sets, over the last year. The awards, which are named after Welsh entertainer Ivor Novello, will be handed out at a ceremony in London on Thursday, 18 May.
Running Up That Hill was previously nominated for best contemporary song at the 1986 Ivor Novello Awards, but lost out to Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero. Kate has previously won two Ivor Novellos: Best lyric for The Man With The Child In His Eyes in 1979 and best song for Don’t Give Up, a duet with Peter Gabriel, in 1987. In 2002 Kate won an award from the Ivors for Outstanding Contribution to British Music. In September 2020 Kate became a fellow of the Ivors academy, receiving much praise from her peers in the music industry, the highest honour the awards can bestow.
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