FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Thirty-Eight
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush promoting Hounds of Love at the London Planetarium on 9th September, 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Dave Hogan/Getty Images
Hello World: The Musical and Cultural Landscape in 1985
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SHE is practically a household name….
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in an outake from the Hounds of Love album cover shoot/PHOTO CREDIT: John Carder Bush
in America this year. That was not always the case. Even if Kate Bush’s fourth studio album, The Dreaming, got a foothold and some impact in the U.S. in 1982 to 1983, it was not a massive success. Hounds of Love changed things. As this is the final feature I am writing about Hounds of Love ahead of its thirty-eighth anniversary on 16th September, there are a few different elements I want to include. I will return to the subject of how Hounds of Love broke Kate Bush into America. I have written about this before I know - so I will not repeat that feature. Instead, as 1985 globally was a massive year for music and music events, that is something to frame around Hounds of Love. If some view 1986 as the worst year in music because of the prolificacy of drum machines and the fact a lot of records sounded the same, 1985 must go down as one of the best! Bush released Hounds of Love on 16th September. It was halfway through the ninth month of an extraordinary year. In terms of the biggest music event, 13th July was when Live Aid happened. A benefit concert held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London and JFK Stadium in Philadelphia; it raised $127 million for famine relief in Africa. A few weeks after that huge event, Bush released the first single from Hounds of Love, Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God). In British politics, under Margaret Thatcher, the country faced drives for privatisation, and the need for better bank regulation. Among the classic and celebrated films of 1985 was The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future, and Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Artists like Huey Lewis and the News, Dire Straits, and Whitney Houston were ruling the charts.
A lot was happening and changing in 1985. In terms of the major artists on the scene, legends and established icons like Prince and Michael Jackson were on top of the world. Few could compete with the rise of Madonna. She released her second album, Like a Virgin, in 1984. Kate Bush actually took it off the top of the U.K. chart in 1985. It was a time when Bush began to crack America and created a masterpiece at the same time as a Pop queen – who was no doubt influenced by Bush – was beginning to get some serious attention. Madonna was on her way to becoming thew most important artist on the planet. A magnificent year for music, near-career-best albums from Tears for Fears (Songs from the Big Chair), The Smiths (Meat Is Murder), Dire Straights (Brothers in Arms), Tom Waits (Rain Dogs), Prefab Sprout (Steve McQueen), and Eurythmics (Be Yourself Tonight) sat alongside Hounds of Love. Although there is debate as to which album from 1985 is the best, you can see where Hounds of Love lands in articles by NME, Udiscovermusic., Rolling Stone, and SLANT. Although there was a tonne of terrific music out there, and artists like Madonna were at the centre of popular culture, Hounds of Love seems to surpass everything! Maybe because the album was both of its time and unique. If the singles on the first side fitted within the aesthetic of the mid-’80s, The Ninth Wave – the album’s second side – was very much outside of that. That dichotomy and variation intrigued fans. Bush had definitely hit her stride, perhaps inspired by music and culture from the U.K., U.S., and around the world.
Prior to getting to how Hounds of Love gave Kate Bush a real footing in America, The Ringer wrote a fascinating feature in 2019. At a time when Netflix’s Stranger Things took us back to the mid-‘80s, they looked at the music of the time. There was one-named megastars, a thriving underground, and a new British invasion. Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love came into a world where music was solidifying legends and making new heroes:
“The Stalwarts
There were a lot of winners in 1985 but none bigger than Wham! and Madonna. Both placed two songs in the year’s top 10 and both ultimately ended up with four in the top 100. More importantly, their success was a recognition of generational voices establishing a permanent beachhead in our consciousness. The deep blue Wham! classic “Careless Whisper” was both the year’s highest-charting single and the first full-fledged evidence of George Michael’s gestating excellence.
Madonna’s top-10 doublet “Like a Virgin” and “Crazy for You” perfectly encapsulated the come-hither mastery of her early persona, while hinting at the deeply layered subversion that would ultimately characterize her most celebrated work.
After Purple Rain and his world-historic 1984, it was something of a quiet year for Prince, but even a quiet year in the midst of his prime yielded the unforgettable likes of “Raspberry Beret.” Here were three mega-talents (with apologies to Andrew Ridgeley) all under the age of 28, all primed to carry the industry forward as trendsetters and hit-makers for years to come.
The Upstarts
By 1985, a grassroots movement composed of independent artists and record labels throughout the country had resulted in a thriving American underground of art-rock, punk, and hardcore music. Labels like Los Angeles’s SST, Minneapolis’s Twin/Tone, and the mega-indie I.R.S. had demonstrated proof of concept, moving tens of thousands of units by bands like Hüsker Dü, the Replacements, and R.E.M. (eagle-eyed viewers may have noted the Murmur poster in the bedroom of Stranger Things’ Jonathan Byers). Taken together, they created the contours of what would become known by the unfortunate appellation “college rock,” and which would eventually become the equally sub-optimal “alternative.” Genre categories aside, the indies filled the pipeline with new artists whose talents deepened the best elements of the rock tradition.
Paul Westerberg’s down-and-out take on lower-middle-class escapist rock was a close cousin to Bruce Springsteen, while Hüsker Dü’s high-energy bedlam and inescapable songcraft owed everything to early Beatles and Byrds. R.E.M. was a ready-made hit machine whose mercurial cleverness and raft of outré influences provided just enough misterioso to mask what was, at base, a wonderfully pop veneer. These bands ultimately succeeded commercially to greater or lesser degrees, but the important point is that they all made for good bets within the industry in that moment. In today’s consensus-driven, sales-starved, risk-averse market, it is fair to wonder whether any of them—or any number of their similarly gifted underground contemporaries—would be provided with the opportunity for exposure to a mass audience today”.
With all of this going on, it is a surprise that Bush had a chance to promote. I would be too distracted by everything happening! Hounds of Love reached thirty in America, number one here…and it was also a significant chart success around the world. As you can see on the Wikipedia page for the album, there was some ecstatic and almost breathless reviews! An album so accomplished, dramatic and instantly classic, Bush produced something instantly relatable yet timeless. Mixing synthesisers and ‘80s sounds with her incredible production and the lush and genre-crossing instruments used on the tracks, this was a rich, nuanced and diverse album that has not dated or lost any of its edge – unlike other albums from that time! Perhaps of what was happening with other artists in 1985, there was this new awareness and appreciation for Kate Bush in the U.S. As GRAMMY write, this was a breakthrough year for Bush. She would continue that great run of acceptance and commercial victory on The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993):
“America, on the other hand, was a little more wary of this incredibly precocious enigma whose literate blend of art-pop, prog-rock and folk often needed its own CliffsNotes. Although second single "The Man with the Child In His Eyes" briefly graced the lower reaches of the US Hot 100, audiences weren’t convinced enough to pick up its parent album. And by her mid-20s she’d essentially been consigned to the status of minor one-hit wonder.
By this point, even Bush’s homeland appeared to have cooled toward her increasingly complex singular vision: 1982’s self-produced The Dreaming, once self-described as the "she’s gone mad" record, sold barely a fraction of its three predecessors and the NME would later run a slightly embarrassing piece asking "Where Are They Now?"
Whereas many of her peers would have panickingly roped in a hit-making team to restore their former commercial glories, Bush doubled down on the D.I.Y. approach for album number five. She built a 48-track studio at the 17th century Kent farmhouse she shared with musician partner Del Palmer. She further utilized the Fairlight CMI, the beast of a synthesizer that she’d first dabbled with on 1980's Never For Ever. And she reportedly presented EMI with the finished product before execs had even heard a single note. This was unarguably Bush at her most autonomous, her most liberated, her purest.
You perhaps might not have expected Hounds of Love, therefore, to reverse her chart fortunes on either side of the Atlantic. Even more so considering its ambitious two-suite concept, with the titular radio-friendlier first soon giving way to a nightmarish tale of survival dubbed "The Ninth Wave." However, the record not only returned Bush to the top of the U.K. charts, it also peaked at a then-career high of No.30 in the States, spawning a bona fide hit single in the process.
Bush had to fight tooth and nail to launch Hounds of Love with "Running Up That Hill" instead of the much-preferred "Cloudbusting." However, she did make a rare concession to her label. The battle of the sexes had originally been titled "A Deal with God" before EMI bosses convinced the singer that its religious connotations would scare off the bible belt. It was the first of several signs that Bush wanted as many people to hear the fruits of her labor as possible.
Indeed, Bush has since garnered a reputation for being so reclusive she makes Howard Hughes look like a social butterfly. But in the fall of 1985 you couldn’t turn on late-night cable TV without hearing her softly spoken English tones answering a variety of inane questions about her anything-but-inane career: she has to work overtime to hide her disdain during this particularly awkward interview on USA Network’s Night Flight.
There were also several radio appearances and, even more remarkably, a signing session at Greenwich Village’s Tower Records store. Yet it was Bush’s embracing of the music video that truly helped her connect with U.S. audiences beyond the fringes of the art-rock scene
By the time the promo for fourth single "The Big Sky," a self-directed blend of cosplay, sci-fi imagery and flamboyant stage performance, dropped, MTV was a fully signed-up member of the Bush fan club. They even went on to gift her consecutive Best Female Video nominations at the VMAs.
The critical response, in general, had been much kinder, too. Indeed, while Rolling Stone dismissed Hounds of Love as an album that both “dazzles and bores,” the Boston Globe, Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times were far more complimentary, with the latter describing it as "a dark and dreamy masterpiece”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush signing copies of Hounds of Love in 1985 at Tower Records in New York City
We can see where Hounds of Love fitted into music in 1985. I am going to quote from tat Wikipedia page. If the response from U.S. critics was a little mixed, the consumers there were more attuned and wise! Some felt the lack of boundaries. There were insulting opinions that found Hounds of Love boring. That lack of boundaries and the wide-ranging nature of the album was childish and quite immature, some said. There was snobbish attitude from a lot of the U.S. press. I wonder how many of those reviews are still alive – not many I hope! – who had to eat their words and were embarrassed all these years later when it is seen as one of the greatest albums ever! The kinder U.S. press applauded the visions and ambitions and found it a shame that there was more love for her music in the U.S. than over there. The U.K. press, familiar with and used to the distinct Kate Bush sound, saw Hounds of Love for what it is: a masterpiece of scope and substance; Kate Bush at her peak as a producer:
“Hounds of Love was met with widespread critical acclaim. In the UK, most reviews of the album at the time of its release were overwhelmingly positive. In a five-star review, Sounds called Hounds of Love "dramatic, moving and wildly, unashamedly, beautifully romantic", before going on to state, "If I were allowed to swear, I'd say that Hounds of Love is f***ing brilliant, but me mum won't let me". Record Mirror also gave the album five stars, stating that it "recaptures the ground Kate lost with her last album" and concluding, "A howling success? I think so." NME said, "Hounds of Love is definitely weird. It's not an album for the suicidal or mums and dads. The violence of The Dreaming has turned into despair, confusion and fear – primarily of love, a subject that remains central to Bush's songwriting." The review then went on to scorn the idea that by signing to EMI Records as a teenager, Bush had allowed herself to be moulded in their corporate image, suggesting that on the contrary, it had enabled her to use the system for her own devices: "Our Kate's a genius, the rarest solo artist this country's ever produced. She makes sceptics dance to her tune. The company's daughter has truly screwed the system and produced the best album of the year doing it." Melody Maker was more reserved, saying, "Here she has learned you can have control without sacrificing passion and it's the heavyweight rhythm department aided and abetted by some overly fussy arrangements that get the better of her". It was particularly disappointed by The Ninth Wave suite on the second side of the record, feeling that "she makes huge demands on her listener and the theme is too confused and the execution too laborious and stilted to carry real weight as a complete entity”.
There is going to be a reissue of the magnificent and faultless Hounds of Love. It is the first time one of her studio albums has received this special treatment. A more expansive release that, maybe, will bring together magnificent B-sides like Under the Ivy (a great ‘lost’ classic from Bush):
“Kate Bush’s 1985 album Hounds Of Love will be reissued on CD and vinyl later this year, it has been announced.
The album spawned the hit single ‘Running Up That Hill’ which reached number three back in 1985 and then hit number one in the UK last year thanks to its inclusion in Netflix’s Stranger Things. The album spawned three other top 40 UK singles in ‘Cloudbusting’, ‘Hounds of Love’ and ‘The Big Sky’.
Side 2 is home to the conceptual The Ninth Wave which was performed live on stage in its entirety during Kate’s Hammersmith Odeon residency in 2014 and, from Kate’s back catalogue, only the 1986 hits compilation The Whole Story has sold more copies in the UK than Hounds Of Love.
Hounds Of Love remains the only Kate Bush studio album that has been expanded into any kind of ‘deluxe’ edition when in 1997 EMI issued a new CD edition as part of its Centenary celebrations with a modest six extra tracks”.
The legacy and importance of Hounds of Love is huge. It made Bush an icon and this cool and respected artist from one who was seen as weird and inaccessible to many. Couple that with the fact that there is nothing but wonder and brilliance through the album. Maybe, because Hounds of Love was like nothing in 1985 (maybe Tears for Fears were the closest British comparison?!), critics were not prepared by what came! It seems baffling now that there was ay reservation. Seen by most critics and fans as Bush’s magnum opus, Hounds of Love continues to find success and new listeners to this day. Because Stranger Things used Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in an episode, that meant the song and album got a new wave of sales and streams. A 2021 feature I have referenced before from DJ Mag discusses the impact and legacy of this masterpiece:
“Hounds Of Love’ is quite the opposite of many early electronic music records, where the electronics were designed to draw attention to their new glittery selves and show off the world of machine possibilities. On ‘Hounds Of Love’, everything is subsumed into the music. For Bush, the Fairlight was a new “tool” for writing and arranging, as she explained to Option magazine in 1990, “like the difference between writing a song on a piano or on a guitar.”
The use of the word ‘tool’ is critical: The Fairlight was important for what it did, not what it was. And what it did was to open up Bush’s world to a new range of sonic possibility, as she explained to Option like a proto-Matthew Herbert: “With a Fairlight, you’ve got everything: a tremendous range of things,” she said. “It completely opened me up to sounds and textures and I could experiment with these in a way I could never have done without it.”
What is perhaps most striking about ‘Hounds Of Love’ is that, rather than settling down into a new electronic habit, Bush used her new digital equipment in a number of different ways, depending on the song’s demands. ‘Running Up That Hill,’ the album’s gorgeous opening song, uses a subtly propulsive, rolling tom pattern on the LinnDrum (the work of Bush’s collaborator and then romantic partner Del Palmer) that lays alongside cello samples from the Fairlight, which Bush manipulated to create both the main riff and backing strings.
Music Radar called this one of the 40 greatest synth sounds of all time in April 2021 and it is hard to disagree, the synth both tender and idiosyncratic, while slightly lost in the ether, the perfect accompaniment to the song’s gorgeously dreamy melody. It’s a remarkable achievement that on a song that features one of Bush’s strongest vocal melodies, the synth line is equally iconic, a vital component in one of Kate Bush’s biggest hits. The well-named ‘Under Ice’ has another brilliant synth sound, its chilling tone strangely reminiscent of the glacial eskibeat tones that grime pioneer Wiley would favor two decades later.
The influence of Kate Bush on electronic musicians is there for everyone to see. Rave producers loved to sample Bush’s idiosyncratic melodics, and there is a whole generation of British ravers who will be forever unable to think of ‘Cloudbusting’ without imagining chart-troubling rave duo Utah Saints, who swiped its chorus for their UK hit ‘Something Good’.
Björk, Big Boi and Aphex Twin are some of Bush’s most high-profile musical fans — Big Boi once called her “my favorite artist of all time” — while pretty much anyone who was anyone in British music attended her live residency in London in 2014.
One could think of Kate Bush’s major influence on electronic music, though, as something almost subliminal. You would be hard pressed to name many records that sound like ‘Hounds Of Love’, because recreating the sound at the time would have needed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment, while today the relentless advance of electronic music technology means that the sounds of the LinnDrum and Fairlight have been replaced with newer gear. Besides, who has the talent to come up with a ‘Hounds Of Love’?
For those of us who grew up on the music of Kate Bush, her music was a subtle but important introduction to the power of electronic music, those synths and samples snuck in under layers of glowing pop melody and mainstream radio finesse, like a kind of avant-garde smuggling operation. For a generation of music fans, Kate Bush got electronic music settled deep under our skin, at a time when house music was only just starting to emerge from Chicago and techno was but a twinkle in Detroit’s eye, an innovative wolf in pop sheep’s clothing, twice as deadly and several times more elegant”.
On 16th September, thirty-eight years after its release, fans new and old will celebrate and play Hounds of Love. I wanted to talk about 1985 and the cultural and music world the album arrived in. With major political events and a huge fundraiser in the form of Live Aid happening simultaneously, it must have been a strange time to release an album! Not that it would get overshadowed, but maybe the artists who performed at the event would see renewed interest and sales – maybe burying Hounds of Love slightly. In the U.S., there was awareness of Kate Bush and shoots of green leaves in terms of sustainability. Hounds of Love may have left some critics (or cu*ts) there cold, but the music buyers – many of whom would have been teens or in their twenties – ensured that this classic would not be overlooked. Bush travelled to the U.S., where she did signings and promotional interviews – some of which were quite arduous and strained (interviewers not doing their homework!). She has recently discussed the renewed interest in Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) . Without doubt, Hounds of Love is seen as one of the all-time greats. I wonder if Bush or any of her fans had an inkling of what was going to be unleashed into the world…
ON 16th September, 1985.