Kate Bush – “Hounds of Love” (1985)

Rating: 8.5

Best Song – “Hounds of Love”

After the lukewarm critical and nonexistent commercial reaction to The Dreaming, Kate was silent for three years before returning triumphantly with Hounds of Love, her most successful album from both a critical and commercial standpoint. Or so the traditional narrative goes. Obviously, The Dreaming is one of my personal favorite albums, so I view Hounds a bit differently in that context. For on this album, Kate starts singing like a normal person and writes actual pop songs! Fortunately, although I feel in hindsight the commercial direction here augured the end of her creative peak, Hounds of Love is still a great album in its own right And although I started my journey into Kate’s discography with The Dreaming, I recognize that that method is not for everyone, so I would also recommend Hounds as the starting point for most Kate listeners, as it showcases her beautiful singing voice and pop smarts while still hearkening back to the eccentric fantasy worlds of her earlier albums.

           Indeed, if Hounds is viewed as a signal for a change in style for Kate, it is structured very conveniently. The first side contains all the singles and would be perfectly enjoyable to hear on pop radio, whereas the second side contains Bush’s first conceptual suite, entitled The Ninth Wave. Surprisingly, I actually enjoy the first side more than the second side, as the singles are fantastic any way I look at it. The album gets off to a great start with one of her more famous tracks, “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” where Kate sings of making a deal with God to trade places with a lover. Coming from The Dreaming, it’s another stark shift in style, but not because it’s radical in and of itself, but because she sings in a lower, warmer range, not piercing or screaming at all! Of course, I loved her ultra-high singing, but I've come even to prefer her singing in a normal register because her voice so rich and sonorous that I find myself swooning for just about anything she sings. Honestly, she may not have the range of contemporary divas like Whitney Houston (maybe a weird comparison, but bear with me), but she can belt it just as well, and she brings way more emotionally to the table, reaching that point where I will basically enjoy anything with her vocals on it. And of course, with great tracks like the songs here, the effect is just that much more superlative.
          Indeed, the title track is a romantic ode that mood-wise calls back to The Kick Inside and even if she doesn’t use her pixie voice once, I am utterly swept away by the singing (“take my shoes off, and THROW them in the lake”). Really, everything on the first side is great, especially “Cloudbusting” with its martial strings and more great singing (“I just know something good is going to happen”) and the jubilant “The Big Sky.” It all puts a big smile on my face, like good pop is supposed to do, but the songwriting and singing is still unique enough that I hardly feel pandered to.

         The Ninth Wave suite, by comparison, is much more experimental yet is still fairly accessible. compared to her earlier work The songs stand on their own fairly well, so it takes attentive listening to trace the general plot. I still think there is more to uncover, but my overall interpretation is that “And Dream of Sheep” is about Kate falling asleep, “The Morning Fog” is about her waking up, and everything in between describes the dream world. “Under Ice” is ostensibly about being trapped under ice, but I see it as her trying to wake up, but being unable to, for the nightmare of “Waking the Witch” is upon her. “Waking” is the song that most calls back to her experimental past, as it starts with about a minute of ambient guitar while various disembodied voices urge Kate to wake up, but when she finally does, the listener gets some classic Kate Bush theater, this time with her as a witch standing trial. And as always, it works much better than it would seem on paper with her dissonant pagan chants and background voices screaming “Guilty! Guilty!” all melding together to create a unique listening experience. I am not as sure how the remaining songs fit in, but they seem to carry on the same general theme of being trapped in a dream, unable to communicate with the outside world.

        My only real complaint about Hounds of Love is that as interesting and fully realized as it is, it lacks the mad dynamism of The Dreaming or even The Kick Inside. By comparison, it feels a bit safe, and I could have used a few more wild tracks in the vein of “Waking the Witch.” But overall, I certainly would be hard-pressed to argue with the general consensus that this is a landmark album. Just if you start here and love it, make sure to eventually move on to Kick and The Dreaming.