Charles on… anything that comes along

I like Kate Bush. Well, her songs - never actually met her, of course. Hounds of Love was the first record I ever bought first on vinyl and then on CD. It sounded rather better on CD. Anyhow, three things I’ve noticed in the past 24 hours.

• Just bought her new album, Aerial. On CD, obviously, because I want to have something I can keep, and this has song lyrics and everything (plus the intriguing information that it’s © Kate Bush trading as Noble and Brite plus, on the cover, This label copy information is the subject of copyright protection - the latter presumably so it’s an offence to knockoff copies for sale at car boot sales).
  But: you can’t get Aerial on iTunes. All her other albums have suddenly appeared there recently, but not this one, in the week it’s released. Wonder whose decision that was.
• Some ITV drama is using KB’s “A Woman’s Work” as the background music for a trailer for a new drama. The chunk it’s using comes from the start, a haunting not-quite-wail. It’s very recognisable to anyone who’s come across Bush’s work (might not be that many people, but..)
  And the drama’s title? “Walk And I Stumble”. Uh-huh. That’s really clever - use a Kate Bush track paired with a title straight out of one of Macy Gray’s best-known songs, whose pace and rhythm is completely different from the one being used for the trail? It would take a tin ear to do that. Obviously the drama didn’t have that title to begin with; someone stuck it on, thinking “Ooh, that’s a nice line, and it’ll resonate with people, they’ll get the reference”. Then someone else stuck other music on. Ouch.
• If you take a look at the references for Bush’s first album, The Kick Inside, on Amazon, you’ll find that the list of things in “people who bought this also bought…” is rather… narrow. And as for the sponsor’s suggestion of what “customers interested in Kate Bush may also be interested in..”, well, safe to say that’s hardly rocket science either.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• The long tail, best gadgets for Xmas, and how a Canadian island may foretell the fate of the Amazon (1 December 2004; score: 71.41%)
• Music biz seeks digital price rises - but why? To keep the artists in line (18 November 2005; score: 47.96%)
• Done a book review on Amazon? .... oh, so you have (18 November 2005; score: 45.2%)