50 Words For Snow

Kate Bush | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 21, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2011
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: ANTI Records
• ASIN: B005PTQPU0
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #581 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

1.Snowflake
2.Lake Tahoe
3.Misty
4.Wildman
5.Snowed-In At Wheeler Street (feat. Elton John)
6.50 Words For Snow
7.Among Angels

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

95 of 108 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A quiet journey into the imagination of Kate Bush, November 21, 2011

By 

Tracy Hodson "Awi Usdi" (Down by the Sea, United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: 50 Words For Snow (Audio CD)

After more than 30 years of writing and recording music unlike anything anyone else produces, Kate Bush, a serious artist disguised as an almost accidental pop star, is as well-known for her musical eccentricities as for her imaginative lyrics, stunning vocals, and lush aural landscapes, and there is no doubt that "50 Words for Snow" could only have been conceived and created by Kate Bush. From the first moments of its quiet opening piano chords and choir-boy vocal performed by her son, Bertie, she takes us on a journey deep into the heart of Winter in a series of seven songs, each of which revels in the contemplative and introspective, rather as if we're sitting with her by a fire while she sits at her piano musing on the nature of love, life, language, and the album's central theme, snow. It's an incredibly intimate experience, listening to the first three tracks: "Snowflake," in which Bertie sings the role of a falling snowflake which Bush encourages to 'keep falling, I'll find you' as she repeats the sad refrain, 'The world is so loud'; "Lake Tahoe," in which she and and counter-tenor Stefan Roberts tell the story of a Victorian woman's ghost who keeps appearing to wander around the cold lake, calling to her lost dog; and, perhaps strangest and most intriguing of all, "Misty", an unabashedly sensual song about a snowman who comes to life and makes love to the narrator, leaving her alone in soaked sheets and covered with bits of dead leaves in the morning. This triptych is built around Bush's simple vocals, jazzy piano, Steve Gadd's quiet but precise drumming, and bassist Danny Thompson's lovely bass lines, becoming denser and more complex as the songs progress. It's almost impossible to tell when one song ends and the next begins, even though Bush has said this album is not meant to be understood as a single piece of music à la Disc 2 of "Aerial: A Sky of Honey." But it feels as though it should be--it's hard to imagine pulling out one track and listening to it mixed in with other songs by other artists, or even by Bush herself.

The mood shifts a bit with the fourth track, "Wild Man", the only single from the album. On this song guest star Andy Fairweather Low joins her in the rousing chorus of a tale of a group who, while trekking through the Himalayas, come upon evidence of the elusive Yeti, the 'Wild Man' of the title, and join the local lamas and sherpas to erase all tracks so as to protect it from discovery (like all Kate Bush albums, this one is a collection of unusual stories and characters--she has never been an autobiographer, but almost a short story writer). Track five has generated the most mixed reviews so far, as she and Elton John trade vocals as lovers forever separated by events that span time (from the burning of Rome to 9/11 in New York City) on "Snowed in on Wheeler Street"; his performance here is a bit too muscular to sit quite comfortably beside her more delicate one, but his voice is strong and emotional, and they are convincing as an eternally star-crossed couple. Actor Stephen Fry guests on the title track, reciting Bush's fanciful list of "50 Words for Snow" in the guise of a language professor, cunningly named Joseph Yupik, the name of a Siberian-dwelling people, against a backdrop of rather agitated guitar-centered music. It is the least interesting song on the album, but again, if one listens to the entire hour-long record as one piece of music, it fits in well enough, and certainly opens a window onto her sense of humor (she made up many of the words--"spangladasha," "swans-a-melting," "stellatundra," and even includes one in Klingon). She closes the album with the simple piano ballad, "Among Angels," the only song not directly to do with Winter or snow, but which calls to mind falling back and making snow angels, and takes us out of the album with the same quiet with which it opened.

At 53 years old her voice has aged into a mellow, much lower register which she uses to great advantage, both singing and performing spoken word sections in some of the songs. But where her age shows most clearly is in the album's quiet authority. For all its extravagant imaginings (some would say "silly," an adjective I suspect she'd be fine with), she evinces no doubt at all about the strength of the album. 2005's "Aerial" was a no-holds-barred foray into the glory of nature on a Summer's day in the sunshine and then a night swimming under a starry sky, and it's narrative and musical thrust took us outdoors to enjoy birdsong, laughter, the ocean--the intense joy of being alive in the natural world. "50 Words for Snow" is that album's counterpoint, shutting us inside on a cold day to roam through a fantastical, but beautiful, interior world in a wistful, rather than joyous frame of mind. The album is long (just over an hour) and requires that one slow down and listen; there are no catchy hooks or pop-chart climbers, but what's on offer instead is a break from chaos and a noisy, intrusive world. Writing about "Aerial" one critic said that no other recording artist allows us such unfettered access to her imagination, and true to form, Kate has again issued an invitation to join her her in that unique place. Settle in, turn the stereo up loud, and enjoy.

(For those who find similarities in this review to the album's Wikipedia article, this isn't a copy and paste job: I wrote most of that article. TEH)

37 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Subtle dangers and beauties, November 23, 2011

By 

Karen Newcombe "Gaming Auntie" (So Florida) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: 50 Words For Snow (Audio CD)

Of any living musical artist, Kate Bush is the one who best understands her materials - music, voice, silence and words - and how to use them. She confessed in an interview this week (Nov 22, 2011) that she has lost interest in writing pop songs. For anyone else this would be a disaster; for Kate and for us it is a godsend. Pop music is really for teenagers after all; this album is for grownups. In 50WFS Kate has pared back her trademark lush layering of sound to key elements, yet they are used more artfully than in any of her previous work. It is recognizably Kate, but with a new kind of muscle and power that calls to mind the martial artist - someone who is at once both peacefully gentle and powerfully able - even dangerous.

You should listen to this album as an album: snow is a subtle, fragile, beautiful and often deadly substance. As we move into the songs we are guided through landscapes of beauty, death, absence, mystery, unification, humor and joy. Each song tells a story, yet all are united through Kate's unique musical approach. As one interviewer joked with her, "They won't be singing THESE songs on the X Factor." No indeed. 50WFS is in another class entirely. You likely won't get it on the first listen, and you may not get it on the third or fourth. But keep listening and the songs will open up, you'll begin to understand the great artistry at work here. Then your heart, too, will be caught up.

Only Kate has the mastery to take something as trivialized in popular culture as the Yeti and return to it the full mystery and elusiveness of the being that the lamas claim is a god. The erotic snowman of Misty IS a god - the God of the Greenwood in winter guise, summoned by the blood on her hand, and taking his one-night-stand with a human as the ancient gods were wont to do. Lake Tahoe is a place where snow can kill you rather quickly, as can falling off a cliff into the icy lake; the lonely spirit of this legend finally finds peace when her old dog comes home to her. Yet these are not ponderous or overly serious songs, they have an open, light, airy quality underpinned by darkness. Kate turns playful in the title song and enlists Stephen Fry for a roll call of 50 ever more ridiculous words for snow - even including the Klingon word: peDtaH 'ej chIS qo'.

If you are looking for a snappy pop album to jazz up your Christmas party, you are in the wrong place. But if you're willing to be adventurous, head off the trail on snowshoes, and can handle a little risk, buy the whole album - not just one or two songs - put it on, sit in a dark room with a brandy, and let Kate's magic work on you.

39 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Startling us still ..., November 21, 2011

By 

Jason Monaghan - See all my reviews

This review is from: 50 Words For Snow (Audio CD)

It may surprise people to think about it in these terms, but Kate Bush has been startling audiences with her unique artistic vision in a recording career that now extends across five decades.

She first burst into public view as a teenager in 1978 with her hit single "Wuthering Heights" and debut album The Kick inside. It was then - and remains today - difficult to comprehend that a work so accomplished, so fully realised (and at times, so deeply personal and confronting) could have been produced by a precocious 19 year old.

The 1980s would prove to be challenging decade for many artists who thrived in the 70s. But Bush flourished, producing a peerless trilogy of boldly experimental and startlingly beautiful albums: The Dreaming (1982); Hounds of Love (1985) and The Sensual World (1989). While the 1990s would prove to be more difficult for Bush artistically (and in some respects personally), after a 12 year absence, she returned in 2005 triumphantly, and at the peak of her powers, with the release of the ambitious double album Aerial.

And now, in another new decade, Kate Bush has, for the first time since 1978, rewarded her patient admirers with two new releases. It is probably fair to say that the first of these two, Director's Cut - which featured reworked material from two earlier albums - confused, and divided her very passionate fans in a way that none of her earlier releases had.

However, there is every reason to believe that 50 Words For Snow will come to be viewed as yet another startling triumph. Apart perhaps from the first single, "Wild Man", 50 Words, bears little discernable relationship sonically to anything she has produced before. Its lengthy tracks (only 7 songs over a 65 minute playing time) are linked by the snowy theme. They are intimate, even jazzy at times, and are decidedly more impressionistic than anything she has released before. But even on a first hearing, this is unmistakably Kate Bush, and it has all the emotional depth, haunting beauty and romantic lyricism of the best of her work.

Bush continues to see passion and the possibility of beauty and love in places no one else would think to look - she feels lust for a snowman in "Misty" and compassion for a yeti in "Wild Man". She duets beautifully with her son against a fragile backdrop of gently falling notes ("Snowflake") and with an uncharacteristically subdued Elton John she sings of undying love in "Snowed In at Wheeler Street". The accompaniment, compared at least to her usually lush productions, is starkly minimalistic, but this gentle minimalism is apt given the notionally frigid themes of the album.

But in truth, 50 Words For Snow represents anything but a bleak winter - Bush extracts unimagined warmth and grandeur from the subject matter as only she can. And whether this turns out to be a final recording, or there is still the promise of a new spring to come we should feel blessed that we have once again be allowed to enter her unique and wondrous world.

A must have album for anyone who ever loved her work.
Jason Monaghan