Waffle

Patrick Wolf has done several Kate Bush covers over the years, but the ones that I could find until today were all solo live recordings made from the audience, and aside from the fact that I'm getting a bit sick of live solo recordings, they also had poor sound quality. So I was pleasantly surprised to find this studio version with additional musicians. Patrick Wolf's reading is grimmer, angrier and just individual enough to stand out, without subverting the song. I'd like to hear more like this, please.

I'll hear more of this, because there's a free download. And it's from a compilation that is for a good cause, but the website for that is down at the moment.

OK, time for something a little more upbeat. This cover of "Love and Anger" from 2010 by Nada Surf, of all people, is pretty faithful to the original. The singer acquits himself pretty well, though it's clearly not his best register. I was very surprised to find this.

This 2009 version of "Cloudbusting" by Gemma Hayes would make a good pairing with Eivør's version of "Hounds of Love". Similar type of voice, similar toned-down version that still retains traces of the original beat in the background. Nice, eerie synth sounds, too. I like this.

Prolific Belgian rocker Mauro Pawlowski doing a minimalist version of "Babooshka" with just his gravelly voice and electric guitar. Dunno if I like this one just yet. Don't know exactly when this was recorded either, but I'm guessing 2009.

I will try very hard not to do another six versions of "Running Up That Hill" in a row. It's Kate's most-covered song by a large margin, but it gets to be a bit much. Believe me, even I get sick of "Running Up That Hill" eventually. In fact, I was heartily sick of it for much of the 1990s, until I bought the remastered edition of Hounds of Love and learned to love the song again.

What doesn't help, as far as cover versions are concerned, that there are so many that follow the same basic approaches. We had two metallic ones that beefed up the song, and three that are slowed down, stripped down arrangements. Kiki Dee's is another one that follows the latter approach, as are two as-yet unfeatured ones by Michael Aaron and Kevin Slick. Feature too many of them in a short time and they all start to blend into one another.

Which is a bit of a shame in the case of Kiki Dee's version, because by itself, it's quite nice. Dee's voice now has a timeworn, worldweary quality too it, which she uses with skill and quality to give the song a more thoughtful, "what might have been" type of feel, and creative partner Carmelo Luggeri's guitar work is decorative without drawing too much attention to itself. There is a studio version of this, but I haven't heard it, so I have no idea if that is more elaborate.

This version is also noteworthy for being the first that I've encountered that is done by someone older than Kate Bush. Kiki Dee's career goes back to the middle of the 1960s, and peaked in the mid-1970s when she was first a backing vocalist for Elton John, then duetted with him on Don't Go Breaking My Heart, a number 1 hit single in several countries.

(Note: visuals in this video are Kate Bush's original promo; audio is a cover version.)

Aaand we've got the first non-English cover version of a Kate Bush song. "Shem Baeven" by Mazi Cohen is "Army Dreamers" translated into Hebrew. Alienating as the effect is, the cover works well musically; Cohen has kept the tempo the same but changed the instrumentation to something more dependent on backing/harmony vocals. Her timbre is also different enough from Kate's not to fall into copycat territory.

And it's from the 1980s! This song appears on her eponymous 1987 debut album. That makes Cohen's one of the earliest in the series.

To be honest, I don't really like what Brazilian Power/Sympho Metal band Angra have done with Wuthering Heights":

It's technically all very well and the singer does a decent job, but to do the job, he has to use a rather unattractive falsetto register. What's worse is that it doesn't add anything to the original. There's faithful covers, and there's slavish covers, and this, to me, falls in the latter category.

It is noteworthy, though, for being from the 1990s. The way I remember it, very few Kate Bush covers were produced before the year 2000. There was Pat Benatar's version of "Wuthering Heights" from 1980, China Drum's version of the same song from 1996, and this. I'm sure more covers from before 2000 will show up, and in any case I haven't checked the dates on many of the previous 18 entries all that thoroughly, but one of the reasons I wanted to do this series was because it seemed to me that the musical landscape had changed since the turn of the century, so that Kate Bush was transformed from an influential artist that few dared to tackle directly, to one who was... I don't know. Perhaps she is now slightly less revered. Or perhaps more people are realising that it's her writing, not her voice, that gives her her staying power. The voice either draws people in or repells them, but it's the songs that create the lasting impression.

Anyway, back to this. I think in theory, the idea of a metal cover of a Kate Bush song, especially an early one, could work, and if anyone can recommend a good one to me, I'd very much like to hear it. Like Within Temptation's cover of 'Running Up That Hill', this version just doesn't do it for me, though

This demented cover of 'Babooshka' by Rumanian/German singer Miss Platnum is a balkan hip-hop take on Kate's transitional hit single from 1980. I'm a sucker for brass sections anyway. A very nice surprise to be linked to, courtesy of the Kate Bush forum.

Please note the YouTube video above is a repost - the original, official version is not available in some countries, including my own. But arbitrary restrictions are there to be routed around, right?

A faithful and not at all riotous cover by American indy rockers Ra Ra Riot. The vocals take some getting used to but I enjoy what they've done with the electric cello part. We'll be seeing them again in a while.

This live acoustic cover of "Hounds Of Love" is a bit rough around the edges, both in terms of sound quality and a few hairy notes from performer Lisa Redford, but it's still utterly charming. Like the Futureheads, she's added chords to the accompaniment.