It's a pretty quiet record, but it's not bad.

CD1 is a good collection of well-crafted pop songs. Sounds like classic Kate to me.

CD2 is like a piece of classical music. It's harder to enjoy right away. It doesn't make a huge impression at first, the flow gets to you after a while. It's much more creative than CD1. The end is particularly good.

i like it because i like birds

Here is a review I read shortly after buying the album.


On Aerial, Bush has become, literally, a domestic goddess. Packed full of lyrical and visual arcana for her disciples to obsess over, it includes a paean to her son; songs about Elvis, Joan of Arc, mathematicians, and painters; and a second-CD concept suite titled “A Sky of Honey.”

The best track, “Mrs. Bartolozzi,” finds transcendence in laundry. Over minimalist piano, Bush sings about cleaning the kitchen floor and washing clothes—“Washing machine! Washing machine!” she croons then cries as the piano dies. The machine’s churning water suddenly transforms into the ocean, and Bush is standing in the surf, waves lapping around her. Then she’s back to the laundry room for the wonderfully loopy coda, where she sings, high-pitched, “Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy / Get that dirty shirty clean / Slooshy sloshy slooshy sloshy / Make those cuffs and collars gleam.”

If only the whole album were that odd. The last time Bush did a concept piece—her 1985 masterpiece, Hounds of Love—she fooled around with Irish jigs, voice cut-ups, and tape loops. Her voice is still exquisite, but too much of Aerial fades into a soft-focus background of soothing synthesizers, murmuring bass, and twittering birdsong.
sunrise, but it’s not clear what it’s about exactly, beyond an amorphous oneness with nature. There’s a prelude and a prologue, but no epilogue; a brief voice-over from a painter about getting “that tone a little bit lighter there, maybe with some dark accents coming in from the side”; and a closing half evoking the sun’s streaking light.

Bush sounds incredibly contented, secure at the center of her world. You imagine her roaming around her country estate, occasionally dropping into the home studio to daub a dark accent onto track seventeen. It’s doubtless a nice place to reach in midlife, and if one were strolling the hills with her, one might, as “Nocturne” urges, “become panoramic.” But Aerial soundtracks bliss, rather than communicating it—what’s needed is a little more of Madonna’s restless spirit.

In other words.....boring!! But to each their own.

andyman91 said:

I actually prefer the 2nd disk. I thought it was the easier of the 2 to get into.

superspaceboy said:

My friend who's a huge Kate fan hates the first cd. He says it sounds too "Kate Bush" to him. He likes her because of her adventurous nature, not because she sticks to what she knows she can already do.

I think the 2nd disc is better, but I found the 1st easier to absorb and like on first listen.

I think the second disc is really good but on the first disc I only like "Mrs. Bartolozzi", "A coral room" and "How to be invisible". Songs like Pi and Joanni are just plain boring and Bertie has a nice instrumentation but the lyrics just make me want to puke. King of the Mountain is just OK.

...but perhaps I shouldn't expect that since she's like 50.

pkidwell said:

I don't get this. Why would age have anything to do with quality? Do folks get senile by the time their 50?

heartbeatocean said:

I bet she's got fine lines around her eyes. I'm just sayin'...

I think the second disc is really good but on the first disc I only like "Mrs. Bartolozzi", "A coral room" and "How to be invisible". Songs like Pi and Joanni are just plain boring and Bertie has a nice instrumentation but the lyrics just make me want to puke. King of the Mountain is just OK.

theplejades said:

I'm not crazy about the lyrics on a few songs on the first cd, particularly Mrs. Bartolozzi. I like the music, but the shishy swashy washing machine stuff is too much for me....

A Coral Room...

Cheek said:

That's my fave. Beautiful track.

Cloudbuster said:

Somebody's using Cloudbuster's account!!!

Stay off the crack, dude.

I DO NOT use drugs!

Cheek said:

You're missing out.

Yeah.

Cheek said:

"Washing machine... washing machine... washing machine"

I think I'm starting to feel dizzy...

"Take a pinch of keyhole... fold yourself up... cut along the dotted lines... think inside out..."

I kan't take my eyes of off your signature...

It's been a pleasure...

Always.

I hate Bon Jovi.