The Red Shoes

The Red Shoes is the seventh studio album by English musician Kate Bush. Released on 1 November 1993, it was accompanied by Bush's short film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, and was her last album before a 12-year hiatus. The album peaked at number two on the UK Albums Chart and has been certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), denoting shipments in excess of 300,000 copies. In the United States, the album reached number 28 on the Billboard 200, her highest-peaking album on the chart at the time. Overview The Red Shoes was inspired by the 1948 film of the same name by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, which itself was inspired by the fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. It concerns a dancer, possessed by her art, who cannot take off the eponymous shoes and find peace. Bush had suggested she would tour in support of The Red Shoes and deliberately aimed for a "live band" feel, with less of the studio trickery that had typified her last three albums (which would be difficult to recreate on stage). However, the tour never materialised. This was a troubled time for Bush, who had suffered a series of bereavements including the loss of her favoured guitarist, Alan Murphy, as well as her mother, Hannah, who died the year before the album's release. Bush's long-term relationship with bassist Del Palmer had also ended, although the pair continued to work together. "I've been very affected by these last two years", she remarked in late 1991. "They've been incredibly intense years for me. Maybe not on a work level, but a lot has happened to me. I feel I've learnt a lot – and, yes, I think [my next album] is going to be quite different... I hope the people that are waiting for it feel it's worth the wait."