Adele Said Kate Bush’s ‘Before the Dawn’ Shows Are the Reason She Started Work on ’25’
Adele and Kate Bush know a thing or two about long hiatuses. Bush practically invented the term. Her music breaks started getting longer after 1982’s The Dreaming. Then, after 1993’s The Red Shoes, she left fans in the lurch for 12 years until she released 2005’s Aerial. Her next album came in 2011.
Adele has done a similar thing in her music career. She’s only released four albums between 2008 and 2021. There was a five-year gap between 25 and 30.
However, it was Bush who made Adele come out of hiding to record again.
Adele and Kate Bush were discovered in interesting ways
Both English singers were discovered in interesting ways. Bush started writing songs when she was 11. She became so good that her brother showed her demos to his friend Ricky Hopper, a mutual friend of Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour.
In an interview with Matt Everitt for BBC Radio 6 Music, Gilmour explained Hopper showed him Bush’s demos. He thought they were great, but he knew that record companies wouldn’t understand her. So, he decided to help her. Gilmour paid for a full studio session with Geoff Emerick engineering and Andrew Powell producing and arranging.
“I chose two or three songs out of about 50 that she had … we’ll do those to releasable level so that they weren’t demos, so that they were actually properly ready-to-go tracks,” Gilmour said.
A&M Records signed Bush shortly after Gilmour helped her. Then, she took it from there.
Years later, Adele started writing songs just as young as Bush. She attended the BRIT School, a free school for the performing arts. After graduating in 2006, XL Recordings signed her at age 18 after seeing her three demos, including her future “Hometown Glory,” on her Myspace page.
A generation might separate Adele and Bush, but they’re not so different.
Adele wanted to work on ’25’ after seeing Bush’s Before the Dawn shows in 2014
In an interview with The New York Times, Adele explained that she wanted to start work on 25 after seeing Bush perform during her comeback residency, Before the Dawn, in 2014.
“Her whole show was about before her parenthood and then being a parent, and her kid was in it,” Adele explained. “I read somewhere, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, that [her son] said when he was 16, ‘I want to know now why everyone loves you.’
“And it makes me so emotional. After that show, it was: ‘I don’t want to wait. I don’t want to wait till my kid is 16, I want to show him now.’ After that, I was: ‘I don’t care if no one wants me to make another [expletive] record. I’m making one for myself.'”
Given how many hiatuses Bush has taken over the decades, it’s interesting that her music made Adele come out of her own break from music.
Both English singers have seen success recently
Adele and Bush have come out of their respective hiatuses recently due to some success. In November 2021, Adele released 30, to fans’ delight. It became that year’s best-selling album worldwide.
In May, Stranger Things 4 premiered. Throughout the season, Bush’s 1985 song “Running Up That Hill” plays multiple times. Eventually, younger generations started loving it, and it re-entered charts worldwide. Bush released a statement thanking fans.
Bush’s music has always inspired fans and her fellow artists, just like Adele’s.
