The Dreaming (1982)

The Dreaming is the fourth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Kate Bush, released on 13 September 1982 by EMI Records. Recorded over two years, the album was produced entirely by Bush and is often characterised 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. It 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, "The Dreaming".

The critical standing of the album has improved significantly in recent decades. A public poll conducted by NPR ranked The Dreaming as the 24th greatest album ever made by a female artist. Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 71 on its list of "Best Albums of the 1980s". It is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die, the Mojo "Top 50 Eccentric Albums of All Time" list, and The Word's "Great Underrated Albums of Our Time" list. Musicians such as Björk, Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree, and Big Boi of Outkast have cited The Dreaming as one of their favourite albums.

Recording and composition

Bush's third album Never for Ever had been a co-production between her and Jon Kelly. For her fourth album, she elected to produce the work entirely herself. With her newfound freedom, Bush experimented with production techniques, employing a diverse blend of musical styles. She made extensive use of the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synthesizer, which she had first used on Never for Ever. She also collaborated with a variety of engineers, including Nick Launay, who had previously worked with artists such as Public Image Ltd and Phil Collins. Recording began around the release of Never for Ever, with the first demo for "Sat in Your Lap" being laid down in September 1980, inspired after Bush attended a Stevie Wonder concert.

Originally, Bush wanted Hugh Padgham to work with her as an engineer on the album, having been impressed with his work on Peter Gabriel's eponymous third album. Due to Padgham's busy schedule at the time — he was doing final work on Genesis' Abacab and was yet to co-produce with the Police on Ghost in the Machine — he was only able to work with her for a few weeks, engineering just the backing tracks for "Sat in Your Lap", "Leave It Open" and "Get Out of My House". Launay therefore took over for the Townhouse sessions.

According to critic Simon Reynolds, "armed with the Fairlight and other state-of-the-art machines, Bush pushed her existing maximalist tendencies to the brink of overload." In June 1981, the first single was released, "Sat in Your Lap", which peaked at No.11 in the UK, but the rest of the album was slow to develop, with Bush saying she suffered from writer's block. Over the summer of 1981, Bush worked on the album at Abbey Road Studios and Odyssey Studios as well as working with Irish folk bands Planxty and the Chieftains in Dublin. After long days in the studio, Bush decided to take a break from the album in the latter part of 1981 and resumed work in the early months of 1982 – laying overdubs and other final touches throughout the period January to May 1982 at Advision Studios.

The Dreaming has been characterised as an experimental release. The album employs folk instruments such as mandolins, uilleann pipes, and didgeridoos, shifting time signatures and textures, polyrhythmic percussion, samples and vocal loops. Its songs draw inspiration from a variety of sources, including old crime films ("There Goes a Tenner"), a documentary about the war in Vietnam ("Pull Out the Pin"), the plight of Indigenous Australians ("The Dreaming"), the life of Harry Houdini ("Houdini") and Stephen King's novel The Shining ("Get Out of My House"). Other tracks explore more personal issues; "Sat in Your Lap" examines feelings of existential frustration and the search for knowledge, while "Leave It Open" speaks of the need to acknowledge and express the darker sides of one's personality. The Quietus suggested that "The Dreaming's disparate narratives frequently seem to be tropes for Bush's quest for artistic autonomy and the anxieties that accompany it." Daphne Carr of Pitchfork described its sound as more similar to experimental post-punk bands such as Siouxsie and the Banshees and Public Image Ltd in comparison to her previous works.

Release and commercial performance

The album was released on 13 September 1982. The album peaked at No. 3 in the UK. It however remained on the chart for only 10 weeks, making this Bush's lowest-selling album, being certified just silver.

"The main thing I heard was 'uncommercial'... the label that the press, the record company put on it. But for an uncommercial record to go straight in at No.3 in the charts seems ironic to me."