Kate Bush Albums in Order: Ten Studio Records, 1978 to 2011

Kate Bush albums in order runs to ten studio records, from The Kick Inside in 1978 to 50 Words for Snow in 2011. That is a span of thirty three years, and for twelve of them she released nothing at all. I have plotted those ten albums as stations on a tube map, with every credited musician drawn as a named line running through the records they played on.

Kate Bush Albums in Order: The Ten Studio Records

• The Kick Inside (1978)
• Lionheart (1978)
• Never for Ever (1980)
• The Dreaming (1982)
• Hounds of Love (1985)
• The Sensual World (1989)
• The Red Shoes (1993)
• Aerial (2005)
• Director's Cut (2011)
• 50 Words for Snow (2011)

Two albums in 1978, two in 2011, and long silences in between. When I lay a discography out as a transit map, the release rhythm becomes the first thing you notice, because the gaps between stations have to be drawn to scale in your head even when they are not drawn to scale on the paper.

Del Palmer Runs Almost the Length of the Map

Del Palmer is the line that barely breaks. He plays bass on Lionheart in 1978, the second album, and he is still credited on 50 Words for Snow in 2011. Thirty three years, one album short of the full span. On a tube map that is one of the first lines you draw, because so much else has to be arranged around it.

What the map makes visible is how his role shifts. Early on he is a bass player among other bass players. By the mid eighties he is engineering as well, and his name starts appearing in places a session musician's name would not normally appear. I only credit musicians as lines, not producers, unless they are credited for musical input, so Palmer earns his line on playing alone. The engineering is a separate matter, but it explains why the line stays effectively unbroken for three decades when almost nobody else's does.

Paddy Bush and the Instruments Nobody Else Was Playing

Her brother Paddy Bush is the one line that does run the entire length, from The Kick Inside onwards, and he is the one that taught me the most while I was researching this map. The instruments credited against his name are the reason the sleeve notes take so long to transcribe: mandolin, balalaika, didgeridoo, koto, valiha, musical saw, and a run of things most rock records have never heard of.

When I am researching a new map I usually find that a band's instrumentation narrows over time as the production gets slicker. Here it widens. That is unusual enough that I checked it twice against the sleeve notes before I committed it to the artwork.

The Twelve Year Gap Between The Red Shoes and Aerial

The Red Shoes arrives in 1993 and Aerial does not arrive until 2005. Twelve years is the longest gap on the map, and it is the single most informative thing on it, because of what happens to the lines either side of it.

Most of them stop. A discography map makes attrition impossible to hide: you can see at a glance how many coloured lines terminate at The Red Shoes and never resume. A handful cross the gap and carry on into Aerial, and those are the names worth paying attention to. Del Palmer and Paddy Bush are two of them. The map is at its most useful in exactly these places, where a list of album titles tells you nothing and a set of lines tells you who stayed.

There is also a family arrival on the far side of it. Bertie, her son, is credited on Aerial, which gives the map a branch line that could not have existed on any earlier record.

Prince and Nigel Kennedy on Lines That Stop Immediately

Branch lines on my maps are the one-off contributors, the musicians who appear on a single album and never return, and Kate Bush has two of the more surprising ones in the catalogue.

Prince plays on The Red Shoes in 1993. That is the entire extent of it: one album, one branch line, no continuation. Nigel Kennedy, the violinist, has a slightly longer reach, appearing across The Sensual World and The Red Shoes, which on the map reads as a short two station hop rather than a single point.

These are the credits people miss when they read a discography as a list of titles. A name like Prince sitting on one station of a Kate Bush map is the kind of detail that only becomes visible when you draw the credits rather than tabulate them.

Elton John and Stephen Fry Arrive at the Final Station

50 Words for Snow in 2011 is the last station on the map, and it brings in two names that appear nowhere else in the thirty three years before it. Elton John sings on "Snowed in at Wheeler Street". Stephen Fry recites the fifty words of the title track, which is a spoken credit rather than a played one and sits on the map accordingly.

A final album that introduces new lines rather than closing existing ones is genuinely rare. From the patterns I have mapped across seventy discographies, most late albums narrow: fewer names, tighter core, the last record made by whoever is left. This one opens outward instead.

Sizes and Prices for the Kate Bush Map

Size	UK	US	From
A2	420 x 594 mm	24 x 18 in	£42
A1	594 x 841 mm	36 x 24 in	£58

Both sizes come unframed or in a black frame. Every print is a museum quality Giclée on 230gsm acid free matte fine art paper. With ten albums and a wide credit list, I would point most people at A1 if the wall allows it, simply because the branch lines stay legible at that size.

Related Music Maps

If the appeal here is a solo career with a long credit list and a literary streak, the Leonard Cohen map works on the same principle across a longer span. For art pop built around a small constant core with a large cast passing through, the Sparks map is the closer comparison.

Questions About the Kate Bush Discography Map

How many albums did Kate Bush make?

Ten studio albums, released between 1978 and 2011. Two arrived in 1978 and two in 2011, with the remaining six spread across the years between.

What is not on the map?

Live albums, compilations and soundtracks are not on it. The map is studio records only, which is an editorial rule I apply across every discography I draw. That means Before the Dawn, the 2016 live album, has no station, and neither do the various best of collections. If you want a map that includes live releases, this is not it.

Does the map show who played on each track?

No. On the discography maps the lines connect musicians to the albums they appear on, not to individual tracks. Only the Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup album map goes down to track level and shows each musician's role per track.

Are producers included as lines?

Only where they are credited for musical input. A producer who played on the record gets a line. A producer who only produced does not, because the map is a record of who played, not of who was in the building.

How is the print made?

Each one is a Giclée on 230gsm acid free matte fine art paper, in A2 or A1, unframed or in a black frame. The research behind it is mine, worked through from sleeve notes and session archives, and the artwork is plotted in CAD rather than generated.