As a younger man, I was a big Kate Bush fan. I was not alone; Bush had a devoted following of strange young men and artistic young women on both sides of the Atlantic. When This Woman's Work, an 8-CD compendium of her work-to-date was released in 1990, I pulled out the plastic and took it home. I hadn't listened to it for quite a while, and when I dusted it off recently I was shocked by how much I hated it. (Well, parts of it.) In reality, it was I, not the CDs, that had changed. Perhaps all the simpering Bush acolytes (Tori, Sarah, Alanis) had soured me. Methinks it more likely that much of Kate Bush's work was overrated to begin with, and I fell for the critical line of the day.

The precocious debut The Kick Inside, recorded when Bush was only 17, has stood the test of time; it's her best bunch of songs on record. Never For Ever, her third, is her most accomplished performance. After that, things get sticky. The Dreaming is a pretentious mess, and Hounds Of Love, Bush's most popular album in the US, is inconsistent. Later albums are hazy, romantic goo. The Whole Story, a best-of released in 1986, is an adequate sampler for most people, but beware: Kate Bush, with her archly literate style and quirky voice-from-Mars, is not for everybody.