#68 Kate Bush, 'Hounds of Love' (1985)

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Following the disappointing performance of her 4th album, ‘The Dreaming,’ Bush built a 24-track studio in barn behind her family home, where she proceeded to record demos for the follow up, ‘Hounds Of Love.’ Deciding that she liked the demos so much, Bush chose not to re-record them, but rather enhanced them by adding performances by live musicians in amongst her synth music. ‘Hounds Of Love’ is a concept record of sorts, an LP of two suites; Side 1 ‘Hounds Of Love,’ Side 2 ‘The Ninth Wave,’ about a woman drifting alone in the sea at night.

Considered a Prog Rock album, Bush flipped the genre on its head. Traditionally a male-dominated genre, Bush sang about love and passion from a women’s perspective. Of the 5 tracks on Side A, 4 made appearances in the charts; ‘Cloudbusting’ and ‘Hounds Of Love’ were top 20 & ‘The Big Sky’ top 40 but the major hit was a song that would become one of her signatures, the #3-charting ‘Running Up That Hill.’ Side 2 reminded me a lot of David Gilmour’s ‘80s incarnation of Pink Floyd. I say this purely based on what I hear. Upon doing a little research, it so happens that David Gilmour discovered Kate Bush when she was 16-years-old and was instrumental in her first two records. So there you go.

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