My Top 100 Albums: #68 - Kate Bush, ‘Hounds of Love’
68.
Kate Bush, ‘Hounds of Love’
EMI, 1985
Listening to Hounds of Love in 2022 gives a practical impression of just how influential the music of Kate Bush has been on subsequent popular female recording artists. Mitski, St. Vincent, Lorde, Lingua Ignota, Fiona Apple and Sky Ferreira are just a few of the artists who have recent projects which directly evoke sounds and themes that can be found on this, the greatest and most complete of Bush’s studio LPs. What surely cements the imitability of Bush’s eclectic pseudo-operatic vocals, meandering lyrics and melodies, and driving synth instrumentals is the timelessness and fluidity of her sound. And yet, the trademark gated drums, analogue monosynths and uncompromising rhythms root Hounds of Love very deeply within the musical canon of the 1980s. This temporal juxtaposition is just one of many dichotomies that make this album so recognisable and yet so enigmatic (oops, there’s another one). After all, this is perhaps the stereotypical example of an album of two halves. Side A is a collection of singles made for radio that rarely falters in its quest for refinement and excellence. The Big Sky, for me, becomes slightly grating as it progresses, but this is more than compensated for with the much-covered title track Hounds of Love and unforgettable Cloudbusting, and possibly the best song of the 1980s in lead single Running Up That Hill. Side B is much more conceptual and contemplative: a thematic journey across tracks that draws more heavily on folk and tradition and compels in a much more subtle and abstract way, with its dreamy, otherworldly quality, culminating in the sensational The Morning Fog.
Light and shade, contemporary and folk, populist and avant-garde, grounded and esoteric, Hounds of Love is an album full of contradictions that combine to make one of the most dynamic and influential works of the 1980s.
Hidden Highlight: The Morning Fog
Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)
Hounds of Love
The Big Sky
Mother Stands For Comfort
Cloudbusting
And Dream of Sheep
Under Ice
Waking the Witch
Watching You Without Me
Jig of Life
Hello Earth
The Morning Fog