Happy 48th Birthday Kate Bush

A favorite singer of mine when I finished high school. When she releasedHounds of Love in 1985, I was really impressed and found myself scratching my head, wondering how did I miss out on her past work. [I had the same dilemma with XTC the following year in college.] Oddly, my wife has a great dislike for the chanteuse. 
 
The term “genius” is well overused when it comes to songwriters, especially by boring, self-important music rags *cough!*Rolling Stone Spin, that use the word with mediocre talents: Sheryl Crow, Eric Clapton and Kurt Cobain. However, Kate is very brilliant and does deserve the title since even her B-sides are stronger than many people’s “best” stuff (also see Andy Partridge, Neil Finn and David Bowie who are in the true musical genius camp). 
 
Last year, she released her first album in 12 years. Admittedly, I found Aerialto be rather disappointing since I probably didn’t expect so much navel gazing from her anymore. But as I said before, something that’s mediocre from Kate Bush is still much better than Madonna’s or U2’s best any day.