For me, Kate Bush was always a trump card when the tiresome 'question' of female artistic genius came up. ... Before disgust stopped me getting dragged into these skirmishes, I had a ready arsenal of Girl Greats - Patti Smith, Bjork, Nina Simone, w:Delia Derbyshire:, Polly Harvey, and so on. And yet, there would often be some caveat why genius eluded my candidates (ripped off Dylan etc). Until we would get to Kate. Female genius? Kate Bush. End of. Aerial, the first Kate Bush album in a young lifetime (12 years), re-establishes the fact. It is extraordinary - jaw-dropping, no less.

At around an hour and a half, Aerial is unquestionably a substantial piece of work, and its manifold peculiarities and quirks offer much more interesting fare …

Aerial succeeds because it's all there for a reason. And because the good stuff is just so sublime. 'King of the Mountain', Bush's Elvis-inspired single, is bo…

She's unafraid, too, of tackling more problematic areas of sexuality, as for instance when she dealt with cradle-snatching in 'The Infant Kiss' and incest in '…

'I've changed music four or five times. What have you done of any importance other than be white?'

He wasn't just a genius, he had the genius's impatience with the whole idea of doing something again. He reinvented an art form, exhausted its possibilities, a…

'Then, in mid 1968 he taped a television special in a black leather suit, in front of a select live audience, opening with 'Guitar Man' and closing with a mild…