Kate Bush and the Electronic Experience

My late 80’s foray into mainstream-industrial music such as Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, combined with my New Order/ Pet Shop Boys based electronic roots, spawned in me a natural, evolutionary interest in rave music. I never did get to experience rave music at an actual rave but then again I liked the occasional rap song and I never did make it to “the projects”. And while being stereotypical… I love Dwight Yoakum and other select c/w music but don’t own a cowboy hat, I refuse to line dance and I have never worn a sleeveless, plaid shirt while travelling across a dusty, lonesome stretch of road in my late-model pickup truck with an airbrushed blonde bombshell at my side (that I can remember anyhow). On the other hand, I have been to a hillside meadow near Salzburg and not twirled around yelping “the hills are alive…”

Personally, I think electronic musicians are some of the most talented people in the music business. When their day in the sun lapses they go on to be remix artists (not an easy thing to do correctly) and to score movie soundtracks and video games. This is where early 90’s duo Utah Saints ended up, though it sounds like they may have re-formed. “Something good”, produced by Utah Saints back in 1992, is (in many ways) the epitome of rave music. It contains many of the basic elements that make a good electro-dance record: high rpms; repetitive/ sampled vocals; break-it-on-down percussions; shouty exclamation of band’s name; the occasional stripped-down piano tinklings; and, best of all, it can be enjoyed anywhere - not just in a club or at a rave. Overall though, I think it is fairly safe to say that no one would have heard of the Utah Saints if it weren’t for the Kate Bush and Annie Lennox vocal samples. And that’s okay - that’s what they are there for. In fact, “something good” is one of my favourite Kate Bush tracks and she didn’t have to do anything but give her approval for the “cloudbusting” samples.

Below is the video for “something good” featuring standard dance music scenes of knob twiddling and record scratching, the band rocking out a bit, some psychedelic sped up London traffic scenes and even a bit of original Kate Bush Cloudbusting footage. What would be cooler is if it featured a greasy n’ sweaty Jimmy-Joe burning up a dust road in his pickup - throwing the whole video music world out of whack just like Zach Galifianakis and Bonnie Prince Billy did in the previously posted Kanye West video.