I was most excited this xmas when I found out that my 21 year old nephew had had the outline of Kate Bush’s Kick Inside tattooed to his left arm.  Good lad I said. And punched him really hard in the arm. Not that i have ever wanted to punch Kate Bush in the face, it just felt like a fun thin to do. I had previously bought 50 words for Snow, and it became our family xmas travel album. My initial response was that it felt very grown up, which isn’t always a bad thing. It progressed and gathered pace. Then Elton John started singing. Oh dear. I tried to pretend it wasn’t him, but the words Lion King kept entering my head. I had to skip. But then that led to the title track, the one that had been getting all the press due to Stephen Fry’s appearance. The one the journo’s had called the stinker. (Journalists dictate what is cool and what isn’t and apparently Stephen Fry is way down the barometer these days. Who’d have thought.) The drums kick in straight off, and within seconds I was taken back to Eno and Byrne’s Jezebel Spirit. Now I’m a sucker for a concept song, and this is exactly what that is. But more than that it is quite simply a brilliant record. Give it 10 years folks when the Frymania has died down, and we are over the backlash and on to something “cooler.” Give it time, and people will realise that this record is a classic. Now don’t let that put you listening to the rest of the album. It’s great, but it’s not aerial in the contemporary sense. It is in fact very grown up. And feel free to mute the Lion King duet….But it is a mad album made by a truly great artist. And one of kind of which there aren’t many left.