In something of a surprise to us (considering this is an expensive box set containing 7 individual albums) Kate’s Remastered Part 1 CD set has actually entered the official UK album charts at number 51! Perhaps in the digital/streaming age there are new rules governing what qualifies for the album chart now, but this is still very nice to see! Both vinyl box sets (I and II) and Hounds of Love also popped up in last week’s midweek charts on the strength of early sales of the remastered products.
More chart figures for you (with thanks to Matt, chart-wiz over on our site forum!)
UK albums top 100:
Number 51 – Remastered 1. (CD box set) 2634 sales
UK vinyl chart
Number 7 – Remastered in vinyl volume 1
Number 9 – Remastered in vinyl volume 2
Number 10 – Hounds of Love
Number 14 – The Red Shoes
Number 26 – The Kick Inside
Number 39 – The Sensual World
UK Physical Chart (CDs & vinyl)
Number 33 – Remastered 1 (CD box set)
Number 61 – Hounds of Love
Number 69 – Remastered in Vinyl volume 1
Number 73 – Remastered in vinyl volume 2
Number 89 – The Red Shoes
Number 93 – The Kick Inside
That Mojo Magazine Kate Bush-starring cover feature includes another big review, giving Remastered a solid 4 stars. It’s the first review to mention *that* hugely anticipated unreleased track: “You could imagine her singing the previously unreleased country-tinged pop song Humming with the KT Bush Band in the ‘70s” Reviewer, Mark Blake, continues: “The musical leaps made in the ‘80’s between Never For Ever, The Dreaming and Hounds of Love sound even more vivid here. Bush and Guthrie’s new cuts put the listener right there: close enough to get cut by Babooshka’s flying glass or trapped shivering under the ice floe in The Ninth Wave. It also gives us the opportunity to reacquaint and re-evaluate. Who else had forgotten The Red Shoes’ Nigel Kennedy-assisted industrial-rock freak-out Big Stripey Lie? Meanwhile the B-sides offer a bewitching sub-plot to the main story. Anyone for synth-pop-meet-French-chanson on Ne T’Enfuis Pas or Brechtian oompah on Ran Tan Waltz? Kate Bush is rarely predictable but if…Remastered is intended as a curtain call, then it also adheres to that great showbiz maxim and leaves you wanting more.”
Finally, in a feature on Christmas records, the Metro newspaper in the UK singles out December Will Be Magic Again from the upcoming Remastered rarities collection as a gift option: “Tucked away in the box-set of remasters out this month, on a final disc of remixes, covers and rarities is Kate Bush’s little remembered, genuinely magical, distinctly Bowie-esque 1980 Christmas single. So too is the gorgeous, brief acoustic number Home For Christmas from 1992. It’s Kate. It’s great. Obviously.” (How lovely to see this single cover appearing in print today – Remasters; job done!)
The first major review is in and it’s very good! Writing in today’s new edition of Uncut Magazine, Erin Osmon reviews the 4 box sets that make up Kate’s Remastered in Vinyl releases. As well as reserving high praise for the included rare tracks on these collections, the reviewer is careful to assess the improvements in the remastered sound of Kate’s classic songs, something we’ve been very curious to hear about…
The instrumentation of “Wuthering Heights” at last feels in balance with the track’s striking vocals, as if they too were invited to perform from the stage, rather than projecting towards the singer from the pit.
