Kate Bush – “The Sensual World” (1989)

Rating: 7.5

Best Song – “This Woman’s Work”

Four more years passed until Kate Bush returned with The Sensual World, which once again was met with acclaim. It is a natural progression from Hounds of Love, solidifying her pop credentials while stepping further away from the oddities of her early work. From my perspective, it’s still a good album because even if the weird fantasy world that drew me in is largely gone, Kate can still kill it when she sings and does so on several occasions here. There is also clearly a lot of craft and thought put into the arrangements. If you can sense the “but…” coming, then you are dead on. At one point, I rated this one about the same as Never for Ever, but where Never slowly grew on me more and more, I found myself growing off The Sensual World as I listened to it closer. For although she largely covers it up with her singing and melodies, the sound here verges too close to late 80s adult contemporary for my liking (and indeed, Kate seemingly acknowledged this by releasing her Director’s Cut version of songs from this album and The Red Shoes in 2011). Where instrumental breaks in previous albums conveyed a definite emotional mood, several of the songs here have needless jamming codas at the end. And the middle section of the album from “Heads We’re Dancing” through “Rocket’s Tail” is noticeably less memorable than what I expect from Bush, and dare I say, mediocre.

All that said, the album gets off to a great start and finishes strong as well, which likely contributed to my stronger early impression and ultimately allows me to still rate it as a good album. The opening title track immediately launches in with a suitably sensual vocal, although I regret that Kate wasn’t able to follow her initial vision of having the lyrics be portions of Marion Bloom’s monologue from Ulysses. I like the arrangement better here but the Director’s Cut version with those lyrics does a better job of conveying the mood she was going for. “Love and Anger” soars on another powerful vocal and is reminiscent of the jubilant singles from Hounds like “The Big Sky” and “Cloudbusting.” “Reaching Out” is probably guilty of veering too close towards adult contemporary, but Bush’s voice indeed reaches out to the heavens and makes it all OK.

If it seems like I’m caught up on voice, voice, voice it’s because of my nagging feeling that a lot these songs might not amount to much with an average singer. We then get into the mid-section of the album where Kate’s vocals are more subdued and indeed I find myself somewhat bored listening to this stretch. It’s certainly not from a lack of effort on her part, but I just don’t find much memorable in this section of songs. And even those that are more memorable seem dated or clumsily arranged (“Deeper Understanding” with its dorky lyrics about computers that immediately date it to 1989 or “Never Be Mine” with a strong vocal and memorable chorus but lots of bleating flute that I find irritating). Fortunately, Kate held an ace up her sleeve for the end, and although it doesn't sound all that different at first from a generic late-80s adult contemporary ballad, “This Woman’s Work” may well have her most heartfelt singing performance ever and has a great melody to boot so I just have to overlook these things just like I do when listening to Whitney Houston singles (not in Kate’s league by any means, but same general point stands). 

In the end, The Sensual World is still a good album, but unlike with Hounds of Love, I wouldn’t recommend it to the new Kate Bush listener, because it gives almost no indications at all of her previous life as one of the most daring and successful art-rock musicians ever. And sort of like how I hold Hounds accountable for making her lose her edge, I hold Sensual accountable for 1993’s The Red Shoes, which saw her fully embrace dated production trends and then retire from music for 12 years. Oh wait, I’m spoiling my next review!