Can Bush scale the Heights?

Get ready to say goodbye to all of that. On November 7th, Kate Bush will end 12 years of enigmas, mystique, intrigue, mystery, daft conspiracy theories and headlines involving Wuthering Heights puns by releasing a new album.

For Bush fans, Aerial will probably be the most significant release of the year. For the music industry, it's yet another high-profile event release in the run-up to the December razzmatazz when sales all round go through the roof. For many others, it will be just another new album in the shops with all the attendant fuss that comes with a big release.

For Kate Bush, though, November 7th is hugely significant. For the first time since 1993, she will wake up to the knowledge that there's a new album in the shops (and stocked high in those all-important online stores which were not a retail factor the last time around). Now, everyone else will have the opportunity to judge what she's been quietly working on for the past few years.

Any musical hesitation, deviation or repetition will be highlighted. Ridiculous theories will be put forward about the cover artwork. Ludicrous meanings will be applied to her lyrics. Internet message boards will hum with activity. Bush could be forgiven for going right back to bed, turning off the radio and pulling the duvet over her head.

The release of Aerial may well be a Rip Van Winkle moment for Bush. After all, since The Red Shoes more than a decade ago, the music industry has completely flipped the script on how it operates. For a start, you can be sure that Bush and her advisors have had at least half-a-dozen ringtone conversations with the technology whizzkids, even if it's highly unlikely that her target audience would be in the market for such trinkets. Technology now calls the tune, whether the artist likes it or not.

Yet Bush continues to buck other trends. Acts who were once fêted, acclaimed and allowed long gaps between records to come up with new tunes are no longer so readily tolerated. There's absolutely no chance most artists would be allowed to spend 12 years creatively twiddling their thumbs while still under contract to a major music company. Long-term development of an act is very much a thing of the past as well, except in extremely rare cases and usually only when the act is signed to a US label, where there seems to be slightly more patience for the task.

But even new labels such as Sanctuary, boasting business models which involved signing established acts cast aside by other companies under the "distressed inventory" heading, have run into difficulties. Signing such heritage acts as The Blue Nile and Morrissey may add to a label's credibility, but recent profit warnings show there's not that much money to be made from these old codgers any more. After all, if there was, those acts would still be in the embrace of major labels.

For all this, the release of a Bush album is welcome because it will be the music rather than some spurious spinning which has the most impact. As with Kraftwerk, Bush is an artist whose stock has continued to rise in direct proportion to the length of time she has remained away from the release schedules. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

However, this album also needs to reach more than just the faithful, and it will be interesting to observe how EMI Records will go about this. It's unlikely that the artist will give up several weeks for pan-international telephone interviews with unwashed hacks, yet the thought of Kate Bush on the TV trail, going from Richard & Judy to Jonathan Ross, is probably just as unappealing.

Yet, as everyone from Coldplay and Robbie Williams to Richard Ashcroft and even Kraftwerk has found out with recent releases, you can't just sell new albums by sitting on your laurels and pointing to your back-pages. Watching Bush responding to these new realities may well prove fascinating.

jimcarroll@irish-times.ie