When you talk about Kate Bush, it is paramount to mention to Hounds of Love. It’d be blasphemy not to - spawning four hit singles in her homeland and receiving generally rave reviews, many consider it to be the peak of her work. But we can’t just start at the top. What transpired on her previous album - The Dreaming - was essential to forming the groundwork for Hounds. It was on The Dreaming that Kate Bush first took sole responsibility for producing her album. The process was lengthy and arduous, but the result was one Kate herself was very pleased with.
Her chops as a songwriter are displayed on The Dreaming - Bush is a storyteller, weaving tales of failed burglaries and the plight of the Aborigine people, among other things. Also experimenting with different instruments, a wild assortment of sounds was found on The Dreaming from didgeridoos to bagpipes. Alongside them was Kates growing fondness for the Fairlight CMI, a sampling tool that would be crucial to the creation of Hounds of Love.Unfortunately, lack of accessibility caused The Dreaming to be her biggest commercial failure. Graciously allowed by EMI to produce her next album alone once more, Bush set off to create the album that would be hailed a masterpiece. Three years pass and we are met with Hounds Of Love.
The album consists of two very distinct sides. The first one - Hounds Of Love - is the home of some absolutely spectacular pop singles. Album opener and single Running Up That Hill builds itself off of a steady rolling drum beat and a memorable synth line, taking flight with the inclusion of an electric guitar. A song about proving unconditional love, it sets the tone for this side quite nicely. Most of the side - Hounds of Love - deals with its namesake, love. On the titular track, violins saw away under blaring synths as Bush likens falling in love to being chased by hounds. Themes of parental love are found on ‘Mother Stands for Comfort’ and ‘Cloudbusting’. The former tells the story of a mother who will always love and support their child, even though they’re a murderer. The latter shows us a child viewing his father, a man who believed he could control the clouds. It’s a standout track, a baroque pop gem that only soars higher and higher.
The other half of Hounds Of Love is an entirely different story. A conceptual suite of songs titled The Ninth Wave, Bush tells the story of a woman stranded at sea, struggling to stay awake through the night. The Ninth Wave all but abandons the radio friendly pop sounds found on the first half and replaces them with something much more adventurous. Bush's songwriting is in peak form here - The Ninth Wave is an excellently cohesive conceptual piece of music. From the gentle piano on And Dream Of Sheep to the frantic synths and latin chanting found on Waking The Witch, a story unfolds. Emotional turmoil comes to a head on Jig of Life, which sees Kate digging into the sounds of her heritage as our characters future self urges her to stay alive. Penultimate track Hello Earth imagines our heroine looking down at Earth from space, a poetical reversal of her actual situation. As the song crests, she cries out ‘Murderer! Murderer of calm!’.
The suite is arguably Kate Bush’s best work. Her songwriting is top-notch. The story is very intricate and songs occasionally intertwine with each other. A garbled voice barely heard on one song takes the front stage of another, a peak of a conversation one on track is heard in full in a later track. Bush is a storyteller here, and whereas The Dreaming read as a collection of short stories, The Ninth Wave is akin to a magnum opus.
One half flawless pop album and one half art rock concept album, Hounds Of Love went double platinum in the UK and remains Bush’s most successful album to date. An astounding display of songwriting and producing, Hounds Of Love remains Bush’s best album artistically as well, deserving the title of her best work.
