The Dreaming
| Kate Bush
The Dreaming
The Dreaming is the fourth studio album by the English singer Kate Bush, released in 1982 via EMI Records. Recorded over two years, the album was produced entirely by Bush and is often characterized as her most uncommercial and experimental release. The Dreaming peaked at no. 3 on the UK album chart and has been certified Silver by the BPI, but initially sold less than its predecessors and was met with mixed critical reception. Five singles from the album were released, including the UK no. 11 "Sat in Your Lap" and the title track. -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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The Quietus
For such an extreme album, its influence has been far-reaching. ABC, then in their Lexicon Of Love prime, named it as one of their favourites, as did Bjork whose similar use of electronics to convey the pantheistic seems directly descended from The Dreaming . . . [It] remains a testament to the exhilarating joy of "letting the weirdness in".
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sputnik music
The Dreaming, in the four years that I’ve known it now, continues to yield unthinkable surprises, pleasures and new discoveries every single time I hear it. It invites regularly listening on full volume while reading along in the lyrics booklet, allowing yourself to be fully absorbed by the music and reflecting on the themes at hand.
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Head Heritage
This is the sonic approximation of a furious psychic battle, with allusions to sorcery and exorcism. It sounds like she is destroying her voice as she sings most of the lyrics with a barking and spitting delivery, and repeatedly screams the title, then she leads a chorus of braying donkey impersonations by way of a closing gesture.
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The Guardian
Yet am I to encounter an album by another woman which radiates with the stream-rolling strength of The Dreaming. Gone was the damsel in distress with the floral headdresses and adagio dance moves. The Dreaming instead delivered us a new Bush - an almighty, animalistic, Amazonian force of a woman. One that bemused, bewildered...and apparently scared off record-buyers.
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Drowned in Sound
The Dreaming . . . remains the overlooked jewel in her canon. But while it may be challenging and uncompromising, it’s almost hard to imagine what Kate Bush would be like today if she hadn’t released it. A staggeringly bold step forward for her as a singer, songwriter and producer, The Dreaming was a milestone both for Bush herself and the wider world of music.
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AllMusic
Four albums into her burgeoning career, Kate Bush's The Dreaming is a theatrical and abstract piece of work, as well as Bush's first effort in the production seat. She throws herself in head first, incorporating various vocal loops, sometimes campy, but always romantic and inquisitive of emotion.
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Only Solitaire
The Dreaming is Kate at her best. Aw come on now, the girl was never about catchy melodies, she was always about refined romantic atmosphere with a touch of the mystical and a touch of the cynical. The Dreaming really just emphasizes these sides, as well as breaks down all the remaining barriers that separated Kate from complete freedom of fantasy. She herself called this her 'mad' album, and it is one, although this is no madness a la Captain Beefheart; all of the songs have a very strictly defined emotional/subconscious message/impact, and in fact, some of the songs actually make sense once you start digging into the lyrics and getting hints from knowledgeable people.
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Perrific
What can I say but, wow! If I had to reduce my desert island list to five albums instead of ten, this one would definitely still be there.
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VultureHound
he Dreaming represents not just a major advancement for Bush herself but a landmark in art-rock. Its sonic assault shrieks and shudders with a surfeit of musical ideas, all chiselled into a taut economy.
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NME
This was where Bush started to take complete creative control, and the results were – well – pretty short on hit singles anyway . . . She would take a few years to regroup, commercially anyway, but ‘The Dreaming’ is about adventure beyond borders.
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Glorious Noise
[The Dreaming] shows a young woman, manic with ideas and creativity throwing caution to the wind and delivering an off-her-rocker masterpiece that very few artists have ever had the courage to make before or since.
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buzz
“The Dreaming” is equal parts art-rock and experimental pop, utilizing a wide variety of instruments including a didgeridoo, synthesizers, bouzouki, piano, violin, mandolin and trumpets. Produced almost entirely by Bush herself, the English singer’s ambitious fourth album was almost turned down by her label EMI, who feared it would be a commercial failure. While it did end up selling less than its predecessors, “The Dreaming” remains nonetheless a masterpiece of a record and a landmark release of the 1980s.
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The Solute Record Club
The Dreaming may have taken a while to be recognised, but now it is hard not to recognise the album as another great work in a series of great works, and a substantial case for it being the best. Still, the lack of response could have spelt disaster for Bush’s project going forward.
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Liverpool Sound and Vision
It might not have the distinctive feel of her earlier albums such as The Kick Inside or Never For Ever or even the later album released in 1985, the sensational Hounds of Love but The Dreamingdeserves to be recognised as album of sheer incredible artistry by the elusive Kate Bush.
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