Icon of British music, Kate Bush, is turning 60 years old today, and we thought we’d take the opportunity to look back at some career highlights.
She most notably brought Brontë’s masterwork Withering Heights to life when she was just 19 years old. Becoming the first female ever to achieve a UK number one with a self-written song, she paved the way for female artists. Running around the moody moors in a bright red dress. She was Cathy lusting for Heathcliff, gyrating like no one had before.
This video is so iconic that there have been countless re-creations in the 40 years since its release, which huge crowds gathering in her honour. She made it cool to be weird and British, and inspired an entire generation to go out and get their quirk on.
She had a flair for the dramatic and always made headlines with her unique take on the music video, playing with the avant-garde in performance. When she was Running Up That Hill in the mid-eighties she brought teenage girls to tears with the emotional raw-ness of her work, and her emotional honesty was always centre-stage in her work. This song is still proving popular with audiences, being featured as a love song for the main romance in Ryan Murphy’s hit show Pose.
Though now she’s more of the artist your mother enjoyed listening to as a teenager, in her hay day she was a mystic sex vixen who’d prove dangerous if you got too close. Who else would think to sing a song about cat-fishing your husband as a Russian grandmother…
We here at the QX offices are in love with this woman. It’s been 60 years of big hair and strong make-up looks. What more could our cohort of queers want from a pop icon?
