The Sensual World

Kate Bush suffers from what I like to call "Björkism." Björkism is a disease that causes vocalists to wander aimlessly; rarely, if ever, approaching anything resembling a melody, let alone a legitimate hook. In fact, vocalists who suffer from Björkism often seem downright phobic when it comes to hooks. Instead, they choose to warble endlessly and leave the listener exhausted from trying to follow along. I call this syndrome Björkism, not because I believe that Kate Bush bit the style from the eponymous Björk, but because Björk is the ultimate example of this disease. Accordingly, "The Sensual World" by Kate Bush receives a slightly better score than your average Björk album because, as annoying as it is, at least it's not Björk.

DAMN… maybe all those stranger things nerds were on to something…

Right... I'm guessing this is going to be a bit of a theme but here we go: I know this album is great, but spending one day with it isn't enought. I feel bad rating the album anything without giving it its due diligence... So, I'll give it 5 stars in the hopes that I'm not wrong once I've dedicated the time to the album that it deserves. Again, Kate Bush is a fascinating and revolutionary artist, one that is worth studying and appreciating.

With all Kate Bush albums there is an element of intrigue and mystery. This is proved sonically with this album. The power and range of her voice is constant throughout with layers of atmospheric instrumentation. All mixed to never interfere with the vocals at centre stage but instead to enhance even more as the tracks build. Highlights are The Fog, Reaching Out, Deeper Understanding and the incredible finale This Woman’s Work. I personally prefer The Hounds Of Love slightly but this is still a valiant effort as a follow up to the album that has defined her career.

Beautiful, lyrical, ethereal. The opening and closing tracks are exquisite. Kate Bush is in a class of her own.

Hard to find something to enjoy about this record. Weird 80s beats and all the songs sound the same.

it doesn't quite give me the feels hounds of love does, but i'll be goddamned if i wasn't getting verklempt at "this woman's work."

This kind of discovery is exactly why I was excited about the prospect of this project. I would never have given it a chance. Wikipedia says "Art Pop?" Gag. But I listened once and felt a spark. Then again and started digging it. Now a third time in four days and it keeps growing on me. I love the theme (of most tracks) of yearning for human connection in various types. It's human and earnest and totally disarmed my assumptions about being pretentious. It's a little weird, but just a little, so it seems like it's in a sweet spot for me. So like, Tori Amos and Robyn and Portishead in a stew, not Bjork salad.

Yes. This clicked Kate Bush for me. I always appreciated she had an amazing voice and style, but I never enjoyed her music and always found it a bit too soft and airy. This album packs a punch, it's daring and out there, and her voice cuts through that brilliantly. It's fantastic

Kate Bush's dad was my first doctor, have I mentioned that before? This was in Plumstead, a tough suburb southeast of London, popular with the National Front back then, my mother tells me. Dr Bush was a lovely doctor, she says, and his daughter was always referred to as "Auntie Kate" in our household. I find it hard not to default to five stars when her records come up here. This is a grower: no earworms on first listen, on second it gets richer and stranger, which is generally how her records work. It has this strange artificiality that I associate with her songs, all the instruments clearly separated into their own place in a manner that seems to heighten this phantasmagoric effect she's goes for. Her voice charges through it all.

La légende raconte que Kate Bush a écrit cet album quelques heures seulement après s'être acheté deux sweatshirts dans un magasin GAP. Et on a envie d'y croire tant le projet est une réussite.

I never really "got" this when it came out, sounding to me like a defanged version of "The Ninth Wave", minus most of the tunes. It's better than that, but still not something I'll listen to much. Looking forward to getting her more distinctive albums later!

Not a good album by Kate Bush. Her style is already very controversial (in my opinion), and when the music is as boring as on this record, then there is nothing redeemable about it. Whole album was a perfect example of music for human tortures, probably it's number 1 in Guantanamo. I think I'm a bit too harsh, but definitely it is not a record for me.

Kate Bush is incredible. In looking at previous work in this project, Hounds of Love is one of my favorite albums ever. This album didn't quite show the variety of voices and styles that I appreciated so much in that one, but I still very much love so much of it. The title track has always been a sensual favorite, and "This Woman's Work" will always be emotionally connected to the scene from "She's Having a Baby," which it was written for. I did notice the influence from the very popular in the late 80s "Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares" keep creeping in, and then saw that it had an actual Bulgarian women's choir join in. "Deeper Understanding" is strangely prescient of our times for 1989! "Love and Anger" continues to be the sort of engaging song that made it on the US charts.

Bonerific

Excellent album, en revanche j'ai pas trop apprécié sa décla comme quoi "tout le monde préfère sa propre race à celle des autres"

This will be my final Kate Bush album to review. I didn’t care for The Dreaming very much, but Hounds of Love is one of the best albums of the eighties in my opinion, and I listen to it pretty often. I’ve never listened to The Sensual World before, but I’m hoping I’ll love this as much as I love Hounds of Love! This album was fantastic, and I absolutely loved it. Granted, the reasons I loved The Sensual World were completely different from the reasons I love Hounds of Love. Jesus, this was absolutely beautiful from start to finish. Kate Bush knows how to craft some fantastic arrangements, and that talent was on full display here. I love keyboards and synthesizers, so this album was right up my alley musically. There’s also some fantastic guitar playing from David Gilmour, and some beautiful strings too. I could listen to music like this all day long. I find the late eighties and early nineties are such an interesting time in popular music, due to the wide variety of influences that were leaving their thumbprint on music, and this album feels both of that time but also timeless. Kate Bush’s singing is fantastic too, and her voice fills out these beautiful melodies perfectly. I loved the songwriting on this album too, and I thought the moods and themes tied all of these songs together perfectly. There was a ton of emotion in every song, but the closing “This Woman’s Work” was the song I identified with the most. In my opinion, it was about a man watching his partner give birth to their child, and as a father of two little girls, I thought it captured the experience of birth from a father’s perspective incredibly well. I really loved everything about this album, and I will be buying a copy of it immediately. Well done, Kate Bush!

KB FOREVER

Hell yeah

another entry by the fantastic kate bush, this one smooth, dreamy, and... yes, absolutely sensual. this album is majorly centered around the euphoric and ethereal emotions revolving human intimacy. folksy and cathedralesque, this album, like others in kate's discography is unique and all her own. it's softer compared to her more famous tracks and albums.

Some people in music got to the point in the year where they had to write an album and knuckled down and wrote enough songs. Bush from Hounds of Love onwards seems to have just absorbed herself and written symphonies. Whole album of texture and sound, of musical experimentation. One of the finest prog rock artists of all time. I bought this in the autumn it came out and I'm listening to it here in November and it still screams cold, dark days and nights to me. A virtually perfect piece of work. Hell this is good. It even has Mick Karn.

This Woman's Work.

It was mysterious with lots of bwahhh bass, I liked it

I'm pretty sure Kate Bush is from the Feywild.

Who knew that something that begins with a Ulysses-inspired tune would turn out to be so lush? Layered, dense, and beautiful.

I’m a huge fan of Kate Bush but I think this is one of her weakest albums. There aren’t any bad songs, but no absolute knockouts either. This is probably her most commercially appealing work which is also probably why I’m not as enthusiastic about it. I would give this a 3.5 but round up because I’m not sure if her iconic albums like Never Forever, The Dreaming, Hounds of Love or Aerial will show up on this list

Titellåten gjorde ingenting för mig. Försökte för hårt att vara porrig och sensuell. Bra fart och nice David Gilmour-gitarr i Love And Anger. I The Fog är Kate Bush' röst så fin och skör. Precis tillräckligt stämningsfull och mystisk och experimentell, mycket bra! Reaching Out är kraftfull, kanske lite för powerballadig. Mer poetiskt än melodiskt vacker. Heads We're Dancing visar upp ett kul och innovativt låtskrivande, när berättarjaget blir uppbjuden till dans av Hitler. Deeper Understanding fortsätter understryka vad som verkar vara genomgående i albumet: briljant låtskrivande och sång av Kate Bush, men musikaliska arrangemang som är ganska släta och för mycket 80-tal för mig. Handlar om hur berättarjaget får kärlek och förståelse endast av en dator (före sin tid frågetecken). Between a Man and a Woman och Never Be Mine ljöd i lurarna utan att jag reagerade nämnvärt, varken bra eller dåligt. Rocket's Tail däremot! De första tre verserna är endast Bush' sång ackompanjerad av en bakgrundskör (den bulgariska kören Trio Bulgarka enligt wiki) innan bandet slår som en slägga - gitarrer och bas, trummor och hat - som förvandlar låten till ett fantastiskt rocknummer. David Gilmour med även här. This Woman's Work fantastiskt vacker. Tydligen ska bakgrundssången låta som en kvinna med sammandragningar inför en födsel. Ett bra album, med ett sound som kanske inte åldrats så väl, men som ändå lyckas dra in en i sin meditativa aura. Med en enigmatisk och mystisk Kate Bush blir det en upplevelse! Avslutet, med Rocket's Tail och This Woman's Work (räknar inte med bonusspåret Walk Straight Down the Middle), höjer albumet väldigt mycket! Under lyssningen gick mitt betyg från en 2:a, med hjälp av Kate Bush' mysticism till en 3:a, och tack vare de avslutande låtarna, som hjälpte mig se resten av albumet i ett nytt ljus, till en stabil 4:a! Bästa låt: Den första som stack ut efter en grundligare lyssning var The Fog. Men de två sista låtarna måste också nämnas. Speciellt andra halvan av Rocket's Tail.

Bush finally clicks. A sumptuous record (or should I say sensual) where the artist is able to convey an emotional range above and beyond the mere mortal. Best track: This Woman's Work.

Highlights: The Sensual World, Deeper Understanding, This Woman's Work It's easy (and frankly lazy) to compare Kate Bush to Tori Amos, but there is so much more. Both feature a strong, crystal clear vocal talent, companied with classically-trained piano...Bush's haunting, sweeping melodies intertwined with other-worldly lyrics are easily her own, comparisons be damned. She'll hook you with a pop-like progression and turn on you, shattering your expectations with the unsettling reality that this is her show, she's going to run it her way. It's great. This is a strong album from start to finish.

Wiki says Kate Bush's next album is called "Aspects of the Sensual World". How Chomskyan! This feels extremely of its time and extremely Kate Bush, which are not bad things, but make me smile in that way that things that are extremely how they are do. I like that she says sen[s]ual, which is apparently British. Highlights: 'Love and Anger' (my top 2 emotions), the first part of 'The Fog' that sounds like a 90s RPG 's town music. I'm starting to have a crisis of faith about the consistency of my ratings. But I think this was solidly "fine".

Yesh. This is bad

This just wasn't for me. I liked the David Gilmour solo towards the end of the album that other than that this was a chore.

5/5 Velvet Arousal Swells This album isn’t just sensual— It’s sentient. It listens to you as much as you listen to it.

Not her best work in my opinion but it's Kate Bush so never bad

4.5

At times challenging. I really like the world elements and use of strings and successfully pulled me into a different place.

It’s Kate Bush. It’s ethereal, quirky and amazing. Tempted to knock a star off for not being Hounds of Love, but holy heck it’s a stunning album.

Another album I already knew and loved before I started the generator. Kate's music is just amazing - well, maybe not everything she made, but this album surely is phenomenal. It has some of my favorite Kate Bush songs, it's such a beautfiul experience to listen to it from start to finish. It's really worth listening.

Superb.

The ultimate album to play while you make dinner for a goth chick so she puts out later in the evening.

Meravigliosa, onirica, ipnotica, energetica, mi è piaciuta un sacco

Sumptuous album.

Stunning vocals, incredible instrumentation, dreamy vibes.

9/10.

When I first heard this album, I thought it was ok, a bit strange. But as always with Kate, her music grows on you. After several re-listenings, I loved it. And still do, as I listen to her albums regularly. So this is a no-brainer for me.

Solid

Loved this album when it came out. It still hold up for me. The Trio Bulgarka are jarring at first but work on subsequent listens.

Genius - nuff said

A palatable version of Hounds of Love. If you liked the last one, you’ll like this one! It lacks the peaks of Hounds, and it also lacks its more experimental moments, but that evens out to something a bit more consistent and generally listenable. I’m not saying I could put this on at a house party, but it is a million times more accessible overall, and that’s just as valuable as a record that changes the game. And the beauty is that Bush achieves that without ever sacrificing her own voice. To me, there’s not a bad moment on The Sensual World. But then again, the worst moments are the ones that feel stuck in the ‘80s, like “Between a Man and a Woman,” so as a sucker for that sound, I was still on board. Basically, I just love Kate Bush. Simple as that.

A relaxing, charming and creative 80's album. Solid record all around.

This was absolutely brilliant. Never dug into Kate Bush's back catalogue beyond the obvious Running Up That Hill and Hounds of Love, but I've liked Tori Amos for a long time, and I see a lot of similarities. If you take Bush's more experimental stuff and extrapolate, you end up with Björk, but if you take the core of this album and extrapolate, you end up with Little Earthquakes. Probably the most enjoyable discovery so far on this voyage.

What an absolutely breathtaking album. My second Kate Bush of the project. She's one of my favorites of all time, and I'll echo what I said before that her artistry is unmatched. The sources of her inspiration are so unique and it's hard to imagine anyone else executing them in such pleasantly surprising ways. On this album alone, there are songs inspired by James Joyce's Ulysses, Stephen Hawking, The Godfather, and her cat, Rocket. Not to mention a song about dancing with a man who turns out to be Hitler. And, of course, This Woman's Work written for She's Having a Baby. The first time I heard Rocket's Tail transition into This Woman's Work, my breath caught for a tiny moment. She is a truly brilliant artist and I'm so glad to have her music as a constant companion.

fantastic

It's unusual for an album to sound so '80s, but not be dated. Kate Bush has always been a legend and her music holds up well.

True to its name, this is a sensual (late 80’s) ride. Luscious instrumentation throughout, it feels like a bare assed romp through silk sheets. My only beef with Kate is that her songs veer into the obtuse abstract realm just for the sake of it. This album is very well executed though, so it’s totally forgivable, and even welcomed because it suits these songs, unlike others I’ve heard from her.

Wow. This album was really powerful and beautiful. So many layers of sound and emotion. I was so-so on her last album, but this one kind of knocked my socks off. I got very immersed in the soul of it. I like how a lot of the tracks built as they went on. The first and last tracks were my faves, but so many great ones in between too.

Amazing! Anytime I thought I wasn’t loving it, the songs managed to come back around and grip me again. With that said, this one definitely needs way more than just one listen.

I'm not familiar with Kate Bush except for that one "Running up that hill" This was a beautiful album.

Lovlwy

Großartig. Kate Bush eben. Tolle Atmosphäre, spannende Stimme. 5/5

Every single song is beautiful and very affecting - a perfect record!

1989 - what a year for albums. This Woman's Work is easily the best song from any album we've listened to so far.

Great album. All the quirkiness and splendor one expects from Kate Bush.

Favorite Kate Bush CD.

Third Kate Bush album on the list. I remember this was a highly anticipated release at the time. Not as strong as Hounds of Love but this was not to be expected, still an easy 5 stars. my score in 1989: 10/10 my score in 2024: 10/10

Perhaps not as special as The Dreaming and Hounds of Love, but still a very beautiful album. The Trio Bulgarka sounds amazing, especially on my favourite track Deeper Understanding.

Great album!

As with any of Kate Bush's greatest work there's just so much to listen to here - chopped up drum machine bits, ethereal fiddles, unexpected guitar solos, and, uh, per Wikipedia, a cracked fishing rod? Of course, where else could it lead but one of the most powerfully sparse songs in Bush's catalogue with "This Woman's Work" - (mostly) just voice and piano, building and building to its haunting coda of "Make it go away". I wanted to not give it a 5 as a human being who's listened to Hounds of Love before, but come on, you always gotta give props to maybe the most classic auteur pop music ever gave us.

-YES another toe-curling five star number from Kate bush. It’s a lot more conventional and mature than The Dreaming but almost as good. I went through a period just about a year ago where I was absolutely obsessed with this album so it’s nice to revisit it -Favorites are The Sensual World, Love and Anger, The Fog, Heads We’re Dancing, and Rocket’s Tail

yes

So good! Very emotive. I like the lyrics, vocals, and sax parts the most..especially those deep cuts

Favorite Track: This Woman’s Work The Sensual World

If there is a problem in loving and appreciating an artists work so much, it is you are sometimes so familiar with a particular album you seldom listen to it in full. This is one of the great things about following this list in that you are sometimes ‘forced’ to listen to an album you thought it was impossible not to find anything new in. I realised that a few days ago when I was dealt Tarkus by ELP and reinforced today with this massive album. I knew it was bloody good but if you asked me yesterday where I would have put it in the complete Kate Bush catalogue it would have been near the bottom. But how the passage of time sometimes distorts your view or memories. Just one listen through again and I had to reassess to conclude it is impossible to grade any Kate Bush album as they are all masterpieces in their own way and completely different from one album to the next. That’s the magic of Kate Bush and why I and billions of others love her music. Because of the passage of time it was like hearing one or two of the lesser known tracks for the first time and since I have upgraded my listening equipment over the years discovered new sounds within the tracks. “This Woman’s Work” is a track which has never slipped my mind and one of my all time favourite Kate Bush songs. What a beauty it is. When Kate Bush sits behind a piano and sings a song with little accompaniment there is no-one like her to produce such emotion and sadness which always invariably brings me to tears. 5+/5 10/4/24

I’m at a 5. This is my first Kate Bush album – obviously, Running Up That Hill was huge a few years ago, but I never really took a deeper dive into her music. What’s here is one hell of a look at the idea of the human condition and the need for relevancy, comfort, and connection, bedazzled and supplemented with fantastic production work that seems to be the absolute pinnacle of the mid-80s style, refined all the way to this point in 1989. Her vocals are incredible throughout this album, and the lyricism is pretty damn good throughout. I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a more effective beat drop in my life than the launch of “Rocket’s Tail” – just a masterclass of how to do that sort of thing and have it work perfectly. It’s one of the many examples of great production work blending with Kate’s vision that are scattered throughout the album, but it hits brilliantly on that track in particular. This Woman’s Work might be one of the most emotional album closers that I’ve ever heard. Seeing the scene it’s paired with adds an incredible layer of depth. Really, I could keep glowing with praise, but I just felt really touched by this album. It hits a few snags of repetition or empty spots at points, but those get immediately washed away by some great line or a great vocal hit or something crazy in the soundscape. It’s just a really fucking strong album, and a very easy 5 for me.

I would have never have thought of pairing jaunty folk instuments with, well, the sensual world. But I'm not Kate Bush Better than I expected even from her tbh! Heads We're Dancing was a revelation. I didn't think we'd get such a BEAT! Rocket's Tail was bloody gorgeous. She's just a real visionary and it shows here, throughout. She seems more purposeful this album than the one I had to study But I did in fact get called out by the spending my evenings with the computer like a friend line...

the queen of my heart

One of the small number of people for me who need their own scale.

109% brilliant

Listened to it many times. She’s awesome. Wife loves it too. 😘

based

Love a bit of the Bush….

Progressive pop perfection.

I have a slight distrust in anyone who calls Kate Bush 'too weird'. I do kind of understand though. Her vocal style is unique, her music refuses to be complacent, and she's routinely compared to Bjork (not a bad thing in my opinion). The last point is slightly unfair as Bjork was still aimlessly jumping around Icelandic punk bands when Kate Bush was already established. If anything, it's Bjork who sounds like Kate Bush. I've always been intrigued by her music though it didn't immediately make complete sense to me. Repeated listens and multiple albums really help to connect the pieces though. There's something different and truthful about Kate Bush that's sitting there waiting for new generations to discover. Thanks to 'Stranger Things' that's exactly what has been happening. If you didn't like this one or found it 'too weird', I'd encourage another listen. Like a good wine, sometimes you need to let it sit for a short while before drinking it.

I just listen to this album a few weeks ago. I love this album and Kate Bush in general. I love the mixture of traditional and contemporary music. Great story telling and very emotional.

Excellent album that is much more than just a collection of songs. The songs and soundscape are written to be part of a whole without the too obvious need to produce them for single release. Dua Lippa eat your heart out.

The 80s was a dark period in pop music, especially the latter half of the decade. Things were so commercialised and overproduced, and everything just sounded the same and was painfully cheesy. For my whole life I have only ever been able to describe it as this "annoying 80s sound", without knowing what it actually was. But anyway, you get the point. I'm just going off on a tangent now. Kate Bush was a beacon of hope in the 80s. In such a commercial era of pop music, her progressive lyrics and forward thinking approach to art pop is so refreshing, and has aged absolutely beautifully. She did what she wanted and never sold out and became just another 80s pop star that faded into irrelevance in the early 90s. She kept making genuinely good music and I couldn't be more thankful for it, as fantastic albums like this show how there still was great pop music in the late 80s.

Eerie vocals over some well written and produced instrumentation. It’s witchcraft in the best way.

Well, it’s Kate Bush. For me this one flags at the start of side 2. Still gets a 5 though. This Woman’s Work has the ability to reduce me to tears

Absolutely excellent. I will never not give Kate Bush anything less than 5 stars. While The Sensual World isn't Kate Bush's best or, dare I say, flawless (see The Dreaming or Hounds of Love), it does have my favourite KB song; Never for Ever.

5/5. I don't know how she does it, every album feels so expressive and experienced. There is a passion and world-building that exists through your voice but also through great choices in instrumentation. This album, and most of her albums, spawned a generation of art pop that allowed female artists to explore the experimental without commercial or executive pushback. Just an awesome album, just like most of her stuff, great harmonies and backing vocals as well. Best Song: Love And Anger, Rocket's Tail, This Woman's Work

Gorgeous, Sensual, unique, wonderful.

brilliant

So apparently Kate Bush releasing The Dreaming, Hounds of Love, and The Sensual World in order might be one of my favourite three-album streaks ever. And I had absolutely no idea before going through this list.

Kate Bush utilizes the bouzouki, uilleann pipes and a damn fishing rod on the first track - and I'm all aboard. It's a bit less dreamy and more grounded (if any Kate Bush album from this era can be called that) and it suits the songwriting, production and her vocals immensely. The Sensual World ends an insane trio of albums by Kate Bush, with this, the last of her 80's-albums, being slightly better than The Dreaming and almost as good as Hounds of Love.

Love it.

Beautiful voice. Amazing lyrics.

Blows me over each time I listen - which has been many times.

This Woman’s Work always gives me chills when I hear it. It is profoundly moving. I’m not familiar with Kate’s full catalogue of work, but I think this might be the most accessible and enthralling she has ever been. Hounds of Love was giving me life too, but this album is an ethereal ghostly beauty that captivates and arrests my attention. The soundscape created here is lush, emotional, and airy; I love this side of Kate, she’s brilliant at creating fully realized sonic worlds where listeners can luxuriate in the splendour of it all. Top marks!

Amazing!

Perfect beauty.