100 Best Albums
- 16 SEPT 1985
- 12 Songs
- Hounds of Love (2018 Remaster) · 1985
- Never for Ever · 1980
- Never for Ever · 1980
- The Kick Inside · 2022
- So (Special Edition) · 1986
- Hounds of Love (2018 Remaster) · 1985
- The Sensual World (2018 Remaster) · 1989
- Hounds of Love (2018 Remaster) · 1985
- Never for Ever · 1980
- Hounds of Love (2018 Remaster) · 1985
Essential Albums
- 100 Best Albums If Kate Bush’s first two albums were steeped in the art-rock of the ’70s (florid piano melodies, thrumming Hammond organs, a Spiders from Mars-grade rhythm section), then 1985’s Hounds of Love, the British singer-songwriter’s fifth LP, didn’t just reflect its era—it helped define it. Few songs are more evocative of the sound of mid-’80s pop than “Running Up That Hill”, with its gated drums, quasi-dance beat, eerie vocal effects and instantly recognisable synthesiser melody. Likewise, few albums did more to take the ambition of progressive rock and port it into the digital era. Split across two side-length suites—the five-song Hounds of Love and the seven-song The Ninth Wave—the album grapples with big themes: the gulf between men and women, the fierceness of a mother’s love, the nature of dreams. Bush’s voice is an instrument of breathtaking power, capable of both tenderness and force, yet Bush herself is everywhere and nowhere: Particularly in the second suite, her songwriting gives shape to a kind of fragmented consciousness, a shifting array of thoughts, voices and perspectives. Cryptic metaphors and allusions give the songs an unmistakably metaphysical aura, and the production follows suit. Bush recorded the album at home, in the 48-track studio she installed in a barn behind her house just outside of London, in a lengthy process of demoing, overdubbing and layering. Availing herself of a state-of-the-art Fairlight CMI sampling synthesiser, one of the first of its kind, she peppered the album with sound effects: church bells, breaking glass, bits of film dialogue and the snippets of Georgian folk music that give “Hello Earth” its otherworldly power. Yet the LP never feels overstuffed. There’s an abiding elegance to sounds like the fretless bass of “Mother Stands for Comfort”, and whenever the album reaches a peak of intensity, she instinctively knows to pull back. “Waking the Witch” builds from a dreamlike reverie to an almost overwhelming surfeit of input—industrial-strength drum machine, atonal guitars, death-metal growls—only to give way to “Watching You Without Me”, a shimmering ballad located halfway between Japanese ambient music and The Beatles’ most psychedelic pop. In 1985, there was nothing else like it out there. And in some ways, nothing else has ever come close to its mix of pop hooks and avant-garde sound-sculpting. But Hounds of Love also opened an entire world to be explored, with generations of musicians—Björk, Fiona Apple, Tori Amos, Joanna Newsom, Julia Holter, to name just a few—following in Bush’s wake.
Albums
Music Videos
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- 2010
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Artist Playlists
- The first post-punk progressive rocker was also a massive pop star.
- The otherworldly elixir behind her musical incantations.
- Her theatrical genius fuelled a generation of innovators.
- A testament to the New Wave visionary's limitless imagination.
Singles & EPs
More To Hear
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- Hear artists inspired by "Running Up That Hill" and her other hits.
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About Kate Bush
With her enchanting howl of a voice and passion for outrageous creative risk, Kate Bush strikes an uncanny balance between artistic experimentation and pop satisfaction. In a career that goes back to the late ’70s, she’s produced hits like “This Woman’s Work,” “Babooshka” and “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” alongside esoteric song cycles and conceptual works, inspiring artists as diverse as St. Vincent and Big Boi with her wonderfully witchy distillation of literary themes, musical idioms and studio innovations. Born Catherine Bush in July 1958 in Kent, she grew up in a village farmhouse with an ever-supportive Roman Catholic family. Her two older brothers, John and Paddy, were her earliest collaborators; her big break came at age 16 when Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour helped her produce a demo tape and land a record deal. She was a sensation from the start with her Emily Brontë-inspired 1978 debut single, “Wuthering Heights”, summoning raw desire with her piercing soprano and the video's interpretive dance moves. She went on to produce a string of acclaimed albums throughout the ’80s and into the ’90s—including 1985’s masterful Hounds of Love, which veers between synth-pop, piano balladry, Irish folk and earthy lyricism. Bush has been quieter in more recent years, releasing just three albums in the 2000s and 2010s. But her visionary work helped make way for the post-genre pop of artists like Lorde and Billie Eilish, while her artistic autonomy sets an important standard for the music industry. When "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" was featured on the Netflix show Stranger Things in 2022, it re-entered the UK Singles chart, eventually landing at No. 1, nearly 37 years after it was released.
- BORN
- 1958
- GENRE
- Pop