Hounds Of Love - Kate Bush (1985)
The first Kate Bush record I heard was 1993’s The Red Shoes, which probably delayed my discovery of her music a bit. It’s not a bad record, but it’s her least-loved and least-focused. It had that “older artist struggling to find relevance” energy that was widespread in the early 90s.
On the plus side, the fact that she only ends up making about one album per decade meant that I didn’t have a ton of catching up to do when I did finally start loving her music in the early aughts because of my music piracy shenanigans.
Bush looks from the surface like a pop chanteuse, in the tradition of talented singers who had to work within the limits of the male-dominated music industry of the 70s and 80s.
But she was not just a singer with a pretty voice. She wrote, produced, and arranged everything, played the primary instruments, and didn’t release anything until she was personally satisfied with its quality.
Hounds Of Love was started from her high-tech home studio, then brought to several professional studios to record parts on top.
It’s an amazing achievement and one of the best examples of what she can do.
