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Category: Polls

Music Of The Millennium Poll – Kate Rides High

Music Of The Millennium was a poll conducted throughout the UK & Ireland in association with Channel 4, HMV and Classic FM, and tonights live TV broadcast was the climax to “the biggest and most comprehensive survey on popular music ever undertaken”. Over the past 12 months, the public has taken part by calling special phone lines, visiting the Channel 4 and Classic FM websites and by filling out voting forms in HMV stores, being asked to make crucial decisions about the best music ever made across ten categories; Best Band Of All Time, Best Album, Best Female Singer, Best Male Singer, Best Song, Best Songwriter, Most Influential Musician Of The Millennium, Best Jazz Musician, Best Piece of Classical Music, Best Classical Composer. The poll revealed the results after over 600,000(!) votes had been counted.

In the Best Female Singer category Kate shot into the top ten of the millennium at Number 9. Other top ten females included Ella Fitzgerald, Alanis Morrisette, Aretha Franklin and Bjork. Madonna topped the female singer poll.

Kate’s influence was also felt in other categories; Best Album (Hounds Of Love – Number 47), Best Song (Wuthering Heights – Number 84), Best Songwriter (Number 66), and she was placed Number 61 in the Most Influential Musician Of The Millennium category. Wuthering Heights features on the tie-in double CD release. Read the complete poll results at the Music Of The Millennium web-site.

The 100 Greatest Stars of the 20th Century

The new edition of Q magazine once again compiles a reader based survey, this time compiling the list of “The 100 Greatest Stars of the 20th Century”. Kate is placed at number 33, with Q commenting; “Venus in leg-warmers. Having made her sparkling arrival as a 19-year-old in 1977, Kate Bush retired from live performances after one tour and has released albums sparingly. The goggle-eyed, hello-flowers, hello-trees dance routines and paint-peeling trill made her a soft target for critics, but a subtle refining of her art and growing older has resulted in a sophisticated artist, extraordinarily successful but still shrouded in mystery. What is she like? Where does she go? Is it OK to fancy her rotten? The world still wants to know”. One voter (Jonathan Reynolds, Liverpool) summed Kate up by saying: “Imagination, romanticism and not giving a toss.” John Lennon topped this particular poll, but Kate proved a more popular choice than the likes of Jim Morrison, Prince and Eric Clapton.

100 Greatest singles

As with last year’s “100 best albums ever” poll, this months Q magazine features it’s reader’s 100 greatest eversingles. Kate shows very strongly at no.32 with Wuthering Heights and gets featured on the front cover with a host of other stars. Also in this issue The Kick Inside is featured in a selection of the best 10 “Diva” albums.

I’ve been asked to recommend to Kate fans a book by Bradley Smith, “The Billboard Guide to Progressive Music” which was released early last year and has received much praise for its intelligent discussion of various artist’s work, including Kate’s.

100 greatest singers of all time

The UK music magazine MOJO, has a huge feature in its October edition in which 175 singers have voted for the 100 greatest singers of all time. Kate is listed at No. 81, and receives a very favourable write-up. Voters included Mike Scott, Elizabeth Fraser, Paula Cole and Ben E. King. Aretha Franklin topped the poll. The writer of Kate’s section included You’re The One from the Red Shoes album as an example of a vocally “sublime moment” from Kate. Mike Scott, (Waterboys frontman) who covered Kate’s song Why Should I Love You in 1997 describes Kate as; “Exquisite, original, unique, passionate, fearless”

50 records that sound like sex

In the new Q Magazine (Sept. 1998) they list the “50 records that sound like sex”. At 49 is Kate’s The Sensual World. Also in the same magazine, Hounds Of Love is listed as one of the dozen essential UK albums of the Eighties.

The Kick Inside – best of 70s poll

The March 1998 edition of Q Magazine reminisces about the 1970’s and compiles a chart of the 50 best albums of that decade. The Kick Inside is at no. 36…..

Hounds Of Love praised by the thousands…

Hounds of LoveChannel 4 TV in the UK screen a programme announcing the results of the Music Of The Millennium poll of 100 all-time greatest albums carried out by the channel and HMV. Hounds Of Love is placed at no.78. (note: it seems that this survey also involved the readership of The Guardian newspaper and that in fact over 140,000 people in all responded to this poll!) Also, the January edition of Q magazine publishes their reader’s 100 All Time Greatest Albums. Kate’s Hounds Of Love is listed at number 48.

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