Kate Bush
Discovered as a teenager after a demo tape reached Pink Floyd's David Gilmour, Kate Bush debuted in 1978 with the operatic, literary Wuthering Heights and spent the following decades as one of art-pop's most singular voices — a classically trained pianist and dancer whose theatrical, register-leaping vocals and elaborate home-studio production influenced generations of women singer-songwriters who followed, Imogen Heap among the most vocal about the debt.
Bush has spoken at length about her love of Bowie, whose picture hung on her childhood bedroom wall; his willingness to build songs around theatrical characters and abandon conventional structure showed her that pop didn't have to follow a formula.
listen forLife on Mars? swings from restrained verses into a huge, theatrical chorus with barely a warning; Bush's own Cloudbusting builds the same way, an ordinary story turned into full cinematic drama.
Bush has named Elton John as a formative influence on her piano playing specifically, pointing to how he showed her a way to apply big, dramatic musicianship to pop songwriting rather than just balladry.
listen forYour Song turns simple piano chords into something quietly enormous by the final verse; Bush's own piano-driven Wuthering Heights takes that same instinct somewhere far stranger and more theatrical.
Mitchell is named among the artists who inspired Bush, particularly in the confessional, piano-and-voice intimacy and the willingness to let a melody follow unconventional, almost conversational phrasing.
listen forA Case of You sits close and unguarded, just piano, voice, and raw feeling; Bush's early ballad The Man with the Child in His Eyes works from that same stripped-back, emotionally exposed space.