💬 Gen Z Has Finally Discovered Kate Bush, and I’m Thrilled

Growing up, I knew Kate Bush for Wuthering Heights, Babooshka and her duet with Peter Gabriel from nights watching Rage. However, I had never gone past that. Sadly, I did not have a cool older sister. I actually remember being introduced to Running Up That Hill via a cover by Placebo, but I still did not take my curiosity further. It was only more recently through steaming services that I have really dived in. I was in part inspired by Dylan Lewis.

In regards to Running Up That Hill, it was interesting to watch Bush do a rendition with David Gilmore where he plays the main hook on guitar.

And hear Bush talk about it on the Woman’s Hour. Watch Big Boi thoughts on the track:

Watch Trash Theory’s discussion of the steps and choices that led to Running Up That Hill:

Listen to Reverb Machine’s breakdown of Bush’s synth sound.

And listen to Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding try to make sense of Kate Bush’s renaissance.

Time will tell whether this is just a pure outlier or a part of a wider nostalgia movement:

Old music is growing more valuable than new music. According to data from Luminate, formerly known as MRC Data and Nielsen Music, at the beginning of 2022, old music—that is, music that had not been released within the past 18 months—accounted for 70 percent of the market in the U.S. in 2021, a jump of 5 percentage points from the previous year. (2021 also marked the first time since it was monitored by MRC Data that streaming of new music declined, not just in relation to old music, but overall.) “Never before in history have new tracks attained hit status while generating so little cultural impact,” Ted Gioia wrote in The Atlantic in his assessment of the data.