Kate Bush - “The Red Shoes” (1993)

I really didn’t care much for this album at first, but it has grown on me quite a bit. It’s probably still Kate’s worst album, which is indeed its reputation and much like how she was dismissive of Lionheart for being outtakes from the debut, she has been dismissive of this one as well, citing the fact that the songs were really intended to shine on stage for a tour that never happened. And after this, it would be 12 years before she would release another album.

I can buy that these songs might have improved in a live setting, because her songwriting hasn’t necessarily slipped all that much. The main flaw of the album is that the slide into generic adult contemporary continues, and unlike on The Sensual World, where she made up for it with layered, sophisticated arrangements, the instrumental backing on most of these songs could have been done by anybody. It's one of those albums with loads of guest musicians but no particular personality or guiding force. And yet despite all that, Kate’s singing is so great throughout that I like this album way more than I feel like I should.

The major standout for me is “Moments of Pleasure”, even though it’s not free of questionable musical choices, with gloppy strings that sound like the score to the Oscar montage of dead actors. Yet like “This Woman’s Work” this is just one of those songs where her singing is so damn beautiful that I have to give in. I’m just a sucker for Kate Bush singing sad piano ballads, what can I say?  The opening “Rubberband Girl” is another highlight with a catchy, churning guitar riff and the most clearly defined melody and chorus on the album. “And So Is Love” has a nice melody and a suddenly yearning vocal part about halfway through which helps to overcome the bland synthesizer and string arrangement in the background. As for the rest of the material, most of it is at least solid, with good singing and good melodies to help overcome the somewhat generic sound.

I do think there was unexplored potential here, though it's not like there was some great album buried, probably just a decent one. But whatever the circumstances were, The Red Shoes does suffer a bit from a lack of creative spark, and as such, the 12 year break was perhaps not a terrible thing in order for Bush to recharge and head in a different musical direction. And indeed, the release of Director's Cut in 2011, with several reworked versions of songs from The Red Shoes seems to be her acknowledgement that this album was not all it could have been. All that said, there have been a lot of great artists that have released albums much worse than this one, so it shouldn't be seen as some mark of shame.