Kate Bush's Never For Ever enters the UK charts at #1

Kate Bush : Army Dreamers

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On September 8, 1980 Kate Bush released her third album, Never For Ever. This charming release entered the UK charts at #1, making Never For Ever not only her first UK#1 album but the first ever album by a British female solo artist to top the UK album chart . It features three hit singles, "Babooshka", "Army Dreamers" and "Breathing". The cover, featuring all kinds of creatures flowing out from under Kate's dress was also voted 'Greatest Album Cover of 1980' by Record Mirror. 

NME called Never For Ever Bush's 5th best album, writing:

“As soon as I met the Fairlight,” Bush admitted in 1985 about the digital sampling synthesiser, “I realised that it was something I really couldn’t do without because it was just so integral to what I wanted to do with my music.” The possibilities are obvious on ‘Never For Ever’, the most lush of her albums to that point, where dreamy Minnie Riperton soul (‘Blow Away’) meets berserk vamping rock (‘Babooshka’). Its finest moment is the haunting ‘Breathing’ with Bush facing up to the burgeoning nuclear crisis as weapons move into Greenham Common. “What are we going to do/We are all going to die” is as direct as she ever gets, and has all the more grim power for that.

The song "Blow Away" was dedicated to to her lighting engineer Bill Duffield, who died in a tragic accident at Poole Arts Centre on April 2, 1979. Bush would stop touring for years.