Hounds of Love

Huh? I don’t understand the rave reviews. Did we listen to the same album?

Paljon saanut viime vuosina soittoa, mutta onhan tämä sekä upea pop-levy ja samaan aikaan monella tapaa konventiosta poikkeava. Nelosen ja vitosen välillä pallottelen, mutta kyllä tälle nyt femman sit antaa.

Kate Bush is an artist whose name I’ve heard for decades but whose music I never searched out. But this was good! She loses me a bit on the second half of the album, which follows a bit of a more experimental concept theme. It feels a bit more inconsistent than side A- but also more ambitious.
I’m glad I got to hear this!

This was definitely ahead of its time. A very cool album, and it stood the test of time.

A lot more interesting and entertaining than I thought it would be. Very intense in places. "The Ninth Wave" was metal. Eclectic and surprisingly rhythm centered. I found it all more fascinating than I thought I would, having pretty much ignored Kate Bush this whole time. I'll probably listen again, the hits (Running Up That Hill and Cloudbusting) are actually really great songs that have aged very well.

Like many people, I first heard of Kate Bush when her single "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)" saw a resurgence in popularity after being used in the soundtrack for the show Stranger Things. I genuinely enjoyed that track and was amazed to hear it on modern-day pop radio, what with its percussive gallop, the accompanying synthesizer made to sound like a cello, and Kate's profound lyrics about having man and woman "swap places" to understand one another better and bridge the gender divide. It was extraordinary to experience, and after listening to Hounds of Love, I can say that specialness extends to the rest of this album.

Starting on side one, Hounds of Love is front-loaded with the pop bangers Kate crafted and self-produced. Each of these tracks is accompanied by pounding drum beats, light synthesizer motifs, Kate's soprano vocal delivery that's as comforting as a pillow, and some commanding distinct elements. Whether it's Kate's crooning dog barks on the title track, the full band accompaniment on "The Big Sky", the somber piano and theremin on "Mother Stands for Comfort", or the string arrangement on "Cloudbusting", these songs offer a unique perspective into the eloquent soundscape created. If this album were just side one, it would have been a standout in my book. But, the addition of side two takes it to the next level.

Kate has spoken about how side two, The Ninth Wave, is comparable to a film, wherein the tracks tell a larger narrative about a person lost in the water and the arduous journey of getting back to land. Without giving the full story away, this is some of the most ambitious work I've heard in a pop record, as Kate took full command of this narrative in evoking her nightmares and invigorated spirit in the lyrical imagery. Accenting the story are various musical elements that help paint the scene, including the tense string accompaniment to signify the coldness of the water in "Under Ice", the vocal effects to represent the character's subconscious in "Waking the Witch", and the Irish folk swell of "Jig of Life" for the character's increased adrenaline. It is a narrative that captures the sense of one's survival in a turbulent situation and what goes on in their mind, executed rather beautifully.

Hounds of Love is an outstanding album, and I'm glad Kate Bush has seen renewed popularity in recent years. This record stands among the greatest of them all.

I had never heard this one before. I only knew Running Up That Hill from the radio. Pretty interesting, solid album. Especially considering this was from 1985, it was a pretty fun listen.

Ah yes, the running up that hill album, that song got played to death a couple of years ago, making it go from rediscovered gem to overplayed. 2*, only because not really my jam.
Highlights: jig of life (love the irish influence)

The Good: The Queen of odd!
The Bad: sometimes odd is meant to be good.
The Ugly: it took "Stranger Things" to bring this to the masses...

During my college days a good buddy of mine handed me a mixed-tape, cause that is what one did back in the days when we still used tapes...
Anyway, the song Cloudbusting was on it, and I recall really appreciating the tune, however, as one would need to purchase an album for 1 song, I never did. So, this was a great trip down memory lane for me, and more interestingly was that I really enjoyed the LP.

4*

I respect that everyone seems to love it, but I just really, really don’t get it. “Running Up That Hill” is great, but otherwise…meh. Just not my thing I guess.

2.5/5

Some fun 80's ballads. Running Up a Hill has had a moment in the past couple years and it deserves it. A few of the songs on the album had a strange demonic/culty energy to them. I enjoyed it, made it more unique.

Finally, I've already landed on The Dreaming and The Sensual World prior to this and its the big payoff. Hounds OF Love is a certifiable masterpiece, its got the monster hit in "Running Up That Hill" but it's also got "Cloudbursting", "The Big Sky", and "Jig Of Life", its got production for days, like that gated reverb drums on the title track.

Kate deserved to be a pop star, shame she released this 20 or 30 years before its time.

was about to give it a 2 then a damn medieval solo IN A POP ALBUM appeared, bumping it to a 3

not really my thing but, but the second half (except the first track obviously) was better and i must give it to her for the artistry.

read a review mentioning this influencing bjork, and man idk how this kind of music is so popular, but to each his own!

First half is phenomenal and then takes a weird turn....

A simply good album with songs that admittedly took some growing for me to appreciate, such as the extremely famous Running Up That Hill. The whole album does feel a bit of that 80s age, but it goes for a surreal tone just enough for it to stick out, especially how the instrumentals are a tad more sparse than your average 80s pop song. I think the album gets a little too full of itself during the back half, as while some great songs do still appear, the pseudo-instrumental tracks feel odd and repetitive, even boring at times, and it sours the experience for me. However, there are so many good pop tunes on the A side that I still come away from this album with a positive mindset. I don't think it is one of the best albums of all time, but it's good, and that's satisfying enough for me.

Her most maximalist and most accessible album, Hounds of Love cannonballs deep into the pool of 80s pop production to immerse the songs in gated drum machine beats, whoompy bass, massive synth lines, huge gospel backing vocals, riffs on the strings, and a kitchen-sink load of sounds and samples. It feels like Peter Gabriel at some points, in the best way. For all the lush production though this is a very cold album, icey and blue and windswept.

Not bad enough to get the abysmal 1/5, but not good enough to even get a 2

perfection. no notes.

Love this album! While Running Up That Hill (Deal With God) is the single, I honestly think the title track is the better song. That bass sound on Big Sky. Cloudbusting is such a killer song. The back half of the album is where this puppy gets weird. lots of ebbs and flows. The back half of this album is where the real meat is, it just takes concentration and a dedicated listen to in order to parse it, which I just can't do in the context of this challenge. Will need to come back to. The Morning Fog is like a minute too short.

It’s an odd album. I thought it would be big standard 80s pop but it’s not. There’s a darkness to it that sort of seems like a precursor to emo. I liked it, for what it is.