You’re
probably familiar with those music DVDs that crop up in discount
stores, where the fine print on the back tells you that there
won’t actually be any music by the act in question on the
disc, but rather a mish-mash of old TV interviews and other footage,
aimed presumably at the obsessive collector who wants everything.
This double DVD set is, thankfully, not that sort of thing. Instead,
here we have a pair of ‘proper’ (though unauthorised)
documentaries about one of music’s most enigmatic and astonishing
artists.
The first disc is a full career biography of Kate (up to 2005’s
Aerial, anyway), with assorted talking head experts
– Paul Gambaccini, Lucy O’Brien – discussing
her work from the remarkable debut album The Kick Inside,
through 'difficult' work The Dreaming, widely
acknowledged masterpiece Hounds of Love and beyond.
As a career documentary, it’s well put together and the
comments made are solid enough observations about her career,
her influences, her fascination with experimentation and her exploration
of sexuality and the dark side of life. You do wish the producers
had gained access to more people who had actually worked with
Bush, such as the likes of David Gilmour and Peter Gabriel –
only session musician Morris Pert appears, and the five interviewees
are stretched rather thin at times. But what makes this is the
wealth of rare archive footage – not just clips from the
promo videos and the Live at Hammersmith video
that really, really need to released on DVD, but also
rare TV appearances and interviews. It’s fascinating just
how much TV Kate Bush did in her early years – I have about
9 hours of barely watchable VHS footage that includes TV specials,
documentaries and painful interviews that will probably never
be seen again (I was and am a big fan), so it’s great so
see some snippets of those appearances – and stuff I’d
never seen before – included here. In the extras, you even
get to see her collecting an award at The British Rock and Pop
Awards, which were the Poundland version of the Brits and includes
a hilariously barely conscious Gary Numan as an extra treat.
The
second disc is a feature-length critical analysis of The
Hounds of Love – the most important interviewee
here being drummer Charlie Morgan, who gives good insight into
the creation of the sound. It’s probably unlikely that Kate
will ever do a Classic Albums documentary, more’s
the pity, so this critical track-by-track study is most likely
the best look at this brilliant album we’ll get. With samples
from every track (and the videos, including the extraordinary
Cloudbusting), as well as plenty of footage of
the influences (including movies like Night of the Demon
and Gone to Earth, this is a pretty exhaustive
study. Included as an extra here are extracts from a 1985 taped
interview with the editor of Zig-Zag, which are
unfortunately barely comprehensible.
While perhaps not of the quality of the music documentaries you’ll
find on BBC4 – I’m assuming this would have had a
far lower budget than any Beeb-produced doc – this is nevertheless
a solid pairing that more than holds up, and is an informative
look at one of music’s finest artists. If you are a fan,
you’ll be more than happy with this three hour collection;
if you’re not, this is a good way to show you why you are
so very, very wrong.
You’re
probably familiar with those music DVDs that crop up in discount
stores, where the fine print on the back tells you that there
won’t actually be any music by the act in question on the
disc, but rather a mish-mash of old TV interviews and other footage,
aimed presumably at the obsessive collector who wants everything.
This double DVD set is, thankfully, not that sort of thing. Instead,
here we have a pair of ‘proper’ (though unauthorised)
documentaries about one of music’s most enigmatic and astonishing
artists.
The
second disc is a feature-length critical analysis of The
Hounds of Love – the most important interviewee
here being drummer Charlie Morgan, who gives good insight into
the creation of the sound. It’s probably unlikely that Kate
will ever do a Classic Albums documentary, more’s
the pity, so this critical track-by-track study is most likely
the best look at this brilliant album we’ll get. With samples
from every track (and the videos, including the extraordinary
Cloudbusting), as well as plenty of footage of
the influences (including movies like Night of the Demon
and Gone to Earth, this is a pretty exhaustive
study. Included as an extra here are extracts from a 1985 taped
interview with the editor of Zig-Zag, which are
unfortunately barely comprehensible.
