The Red Shoes
| Kate Bush
The Red Shoes
The Red Shoes is the seventh studio album by English musician Kate Bush. Released on 2 November 1993, it was accompanied by Bush's short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, and was her last album before taking a 12-year hiatus. The album peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), denoting shipments in excess of 300,000 copies. In the United States, the album reached number 28 on the Billboard 200, her highest-peaking album on the chart to date.-Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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AllMusic
The album is a continuation of Bush's multi-layered and multiple musical pursuits and interests. If not her strongest work -- a number of songs sound okay without being particularly stellar, especially given Bush's past heights -- Red Shoes is still an enjoyable listen with a number of diversions.
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Slow Music Review
Of all the albums I own, I somehow never got round to listening to The Red Shoes until recently. Though I drew a line under it last week, I still feel like ripped paper brutally pieced together with frosted tape. I am still a little lost. These feelings will forever be printed on The Red Shoes and for that reason alone I want to talk about it.
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Sputnik Music
The Red Shoes is a weird one. It will bring out both love and anger in you as you jam. I mean Kate's voice is as amazing as ever but it's just missing the spark. Maybe its the weak-ass melodies . . . know but its just not up to her standards. It's kinda somewhere in between good and great
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Stereogum
The Red Shoes is the black sheep of Bush's catalogue. With its bland, dated production, surprisingly high-profile cameos (Eric Clapton? Prince?), and overlong tracklist, it almost feels like the work of a different artist. For the first time in her career, Bush seems a bit unsure of herself, bouncing back and forth between pop accessibility (the surprisingly bouncy "Rubberband Girl"), mournful balladry ("Moments of Pleasure," dedicated in part to her late mother), and witchy art-rock ("Lily"). On one hand, it's impressive how much stylistic ground Bush covered here — but The Red Shoes still pales in comparison to her stellar '80s work.
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The Guardian
Inspired by her love of the Powell and Pressburger film of the same name, the album sees Bush deliver a collection of songs from the unsurprisingly bouncy Rubberband Girl, the feel-good calypso of Eat the Music, piano-twinkling flashbacks on Moments of Pleasure and a Celtic-infused title track. P
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NME
A missed opportunity all round.
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Don Ignacio
that doesn't mean that The Red Shoes is a normal album. It's still miles above what most everyone else was making in 1993.
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Hot Press
The Red Shoes is an extraordinary piece of work, simultaneously accessible and deeply complex, poppy and highly experimental. Kate is still as nutty as a truckload of Snickers bars and during the first few listens there is much to have you scratching your head and essaying double-takes but slowly, gradually a cohesive silhouette starts to emerge and make something that is, if not quite sense, then very, very sensual.
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Adrian's Album Reviews
At the time of release, it had been four years since 'The Sensual World' and I think the world wanted some more classic Kate Bush singles. Instead, they got a few fairly average singles amidst a fifty-five minute long set that seemed a little flabby around the edges. The arrangements are more commercially inclined I believe than the previous couple of albums, with the ballads in particular seeming to aim for about the same ballpark of emotional response the classic 'This Woman's Work' evoked.
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Backseat Mafia
Oddly unappreciated by all but her most devoted her fans, and seemingly Kate Bush herself, I find The Red Shoes to be one of her most fascinating albums.
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The Solute Record Club
Make no mistake, Kate’s dulcet tones and song-writing have the alchemy to still make this an enjoyable album, but compared to most of her wonderful oeuvre – including albums that would come after this – many of the rock and orchestral instrumentations on The Red Shoes are pretty ordinary.
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Uncut
A soundtrack to tough times: the death of her mother and the end of her long-term relationship with engineer Del Palmer results in a patchy, overlong and oddly grounded record.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews
Until recently I’d always avoided The Red Shoes, as it generally has a reputation as one of Bush’s weaker albums. To its detriment, it does feel bloated and commercially oriented – with 12 songs running for almost an hour, and stacked with guest cameos from Eric Clapton, Prince, and Jeff Beck. But fundamentally, the songs here are strong, and it’s a much more consistent album than The Sensual World, even if the commercial production can be distracting.
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Blisspop
The Red Shoes suffers by comparison [to Bush's previous albums], but pretty much anything would suffer by comparison. It’s still a great album, and one I’ve been revisiting because of Prince’s work on “Why Should I Love You?” I think of this album as a set of companion pieces, and “Why Should I Love You?” and “You’re The One” make for an incredible close to the record, jumping from the haphazard nature of love to a towering breakup song.
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BBC America
Fans claim that it’s possible to hear a certain weariness here and there, songs which haven’t quite taken off, production ideas which haven’t aged well, but again, there’s plenty to enjoy by anyone else’s standards, and this was, after all, her big U.S. hit album. The title track alone is among the most vibrant and lively songs of her career, skipping along on a jaunty mandolin and garlanded with swirly flutes.
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People
This is the best and most conventional of all Bush’s albums and even includes a couple of potential Top 40 singles
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