LENNOX VS. BUSH: BATTLE OF SOULZ

While I was hoping to write my first post on The Secret Blogger about Charles "Chuck" Bass, NY Mag Person of the Year, I know that Blogger X is not a fan and wish to bring her at least a small fragment of joy in this new year. Therefore, momentarily leaving aside my affection for Gossip Girl, this post will focus on a more serious discussion of two excellent songstresses. Since my graduation from the hallowed halls of one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges, I have had plenty of time to enjoy the eclectic vocal and visual stylings of Annie Lennox and Kate Bush. Let me present a few choice examples of their work.

Annie Lennox
"Walking on Broken Glass"
"Love Song for a Vampire"
"Cold"

Kate Bush
"Hounds of Love"
"Wuthering Heights"
"The Dreaming"

Perhaps the most obvious similarity between these two dazzling artists is their affection for the Brontë sisters, as displayed in "Wuthering Heights" (taken from Emily Brontë's masterpiece of ghostly obsessive moor-trundling love) and "Cold" (which evokes Anne Brontë's considerably less masterful Agnes Grey, a novel about a sad governess and children who rip birds apart with their bare hands). Bush uses unique kaleidescope techniques and smoke machines to summon forth the spirit of Catherine Earnshaw as she searches for Heathcliff in the dark night, and we viewers gasp with recognition as we peer into our own ghostly souls. Poor Lennox has a harder time of it, no thanks to the saintly Anne B., who didn't give the poor lady much to work with. Just birds and bonnets and horrible collars.

But luckily for Lennox, the decadent Rococo charms of France are untrammeled ground for Bush. Inspired casting makes Lennox's "Walking on Broken Glass" a success -- yes, there is Hugh Laurie with a wig framing his foppish young face, and oh my, John Malkovich appears clad in strange and unnerving facial hair! Lennox is crawling on the floor and the shards of glass enter our own bleeding palms! Surely this one-ups the rather tepidly frightening "The Dreaming," with its creatures born of the earth and gibberish gabbering, though it is true that few could question the soul-stirring experience of watching Bush call forth eternal beings with a glowing dagger.

Finally, then, we turn to "Love Song for a Vampire" and "Hounds of Love." Lennox does her darndest, strapping on fingernails and whitening her face into an Edward Cullenesque mask of pain, and she sings with the fiery passion of many no-longer-virgin Vampire Brides, but in the end, most of the video is dedicated to weird clips of Winona Ryder writhing in a tiny top hat. On the other hand, "Hounds of Love" is a full-fledged tale in itself. Bush and her cleft-chinned suitor run through the frozen night like wraiths belched from the smoky streets of some forgotten B-movie. When they find themselves dancing in a room of spooky revelers, we too sing softly to ourselves, "it's coming for me through the trees!" And so we must wave farewell to the spotlit vampy Lennox and take our shoes off and throw them in the lake and make our way out of the room of hat-wearers and into a glorious realm of possibility.

So tonight we crown Kate Bush queen, but we have not forgotten Annie Lennox and all she does well. Cherish them both, cherish them dearly.