FEATURE:
The Foundation of Hounds of Love
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush photographed in 1983, in a shoot where she wanted to replicate the cover of Depeche Mode’s A Broken Frame/PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Griffin
15th June, 1983: With Failure Comes Opportunity…
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JULY is a busy month…
for music. You get some of the best albums released this month. I am looking ahead and excited about that. When it comes to Kate Bush, she had some eventful and important Julys in her career. When looking at that timeline, I found an important June date I wanted to discuss more. On 15th June, 1983, something quite important happened. I am going to look back forty years at a key date in Bush’s career. For a bit of context, her fourth studio album, The Dreaming, was released in September 1982. It was a chart success and did earn some positive reviews, though some were confused and befuddled by a denser and more experimental sound. Maybe expecting something more accessible and radio-friendly, some were not sure what to make of the phenomenal The Dreaming. Bush rested a bit after the album, but there was the business of promotional interviews and appearances. It was asked whether Bush – who solo produced The Dreaming – would produce her next studio album. EMI were not happy The Dreaming took a while to complete, and they were hoping for bigger album sales and chart plaudit. As I discussed in previous features, 1983 was a pivotal and important year for Bush. She was finishing promotion of The Dreaming and looking ahead for her next album. Even if she was pleased with the results, she knew something needed to change going forward. Long working hours, very little outside time and a poor diet meant, when she emerged from recording, she was perhaps not in the best state of mind and body. 1983 provided this chance to revitalise, retune and recharge.
1983 was a year of transition and releases. I will come to the releases. After The Dreaming did succeed on the charts and arrived a few years after her first tour, there was pressure on her to tour again. I think a lot of the pressure arose when one considers that only one single, Sat in Your Lap, was a success. All other single releases were a disappointment. Bush has always said she enjoyed 1979’s The Tour of Life. But maybe she needed another album under her belt so that she had more options regarding setlist and concepts. Rather wonderfully, I guess also as a way of getting Kate Bush’s music to new people, there were plans for a memoir. Leaving My Tracks was planned and then scrapped. Some say that was scrapped in 1984, but I think it was as early as May 1983 when she sat that aside. It makes me wonder whether there were moments after that when she thought about picking up pen and paper – though her career sort of got in the way of that I guess! Bush did some writing and demo work for the album that would become 1985’s Hounds of Love. The rest of 1983 was busy with plans of expanding her impact and popularity. In November '83, EMI came up with the idea of touring the Live at Hammersmith Odeon video around the American colleges. It went as far as thirty-two venues being set up. There was a competition for the college radio programmers for the best presentation. The prize was a trip to the U.K. to interview Kate. It was a bit of a nuts idea! I think there was this desire for Bush to connect more with American audiences.
Her music was starting to touch audiences, but I think college-aged music lovers were a particularly key demographics that might not have been fully on board. The Dreaming did get into the US Billboard 200, and there was growing awareness of Bush and her music. Although Bush did not tour and play in America, she did do promotion there. She would be over there in 1985 to talk about Hounds of Love (though some of the interviewees were not that informed or up on her music, causing some awkward moments and facial poses!). Forward to November 1983, and Night of the Swallow is released as a single in EIRE (with very little success). As a way of both completing the promotional cycle for The Dreaming and packaging what she had done so far, The Single File video compilation was released in November '83. Bush did some personal appearances in London and Greater London. There was a lot happening early in 1984. I will cover that in a future feature. Although many in the media asked, mere weeks before the arrival of Hounds of Love was announced, whether Kate Bush has disappeared or gone mad, it was clear that she was very busy and on the radar! Even though she was not releasing albums, there was music out there. Bush was both finishing with The Dreaming, promoting The Single File, discussing plans with America. There was also this look towards making album number fifth birth successful and less strenuous and draining than The Dreaming.
Slap bang in the middle of a very interesting and busy 1983, something happening overseas directly impacted her plans at home. There was a bit of personal hesitation when it came to releasing the Kate Bush E.P. in the U.S. On 15th June, 1983, it was released there. Still relatively unknown, the E.P. peaked at No. 148 in the US Billboard Pop Albums chart. It was also released in Canada too. Bush was better known and loved there (arguably, it took until 2022 for America to fully embrace and get Kate Bush!). The cover, not the very best, I think was designed to be striking and eye-grabbing – and it depicts Bush in a still from the video of Babooshka (from 1980’s Never for Ever). Bush wanted Sat in Your Lap to be included (and it was), but she was not overly-happy with the track selections. You can see that it is a bit random and not concerned with quality. More about the range of her material. She did like that Un baiser d'enfant (the French recording of The Infant Kiss from Never for Ever). Both The Rolling Stone Album Guide and Spin Alternative Record Guide gave it mixed reviews. The Single File box set came in 1984, whilst her first and only greatest hits album, The Whole Story, was released in 1986. It was quite new, in June 1983, for Bush to see her music in a compilation. Maybe dubious of the fact it was a cash-in or a last-ditch attempt to win territory and make her more visible, the thought of promoting the E.P. in the U.S. would have been a bit shoulder-shrugging and ill-timed!
Bush did have to promote her albums, but as this was an E.P., it did seem a bit excessive. After a busy 1982, she was thinking about having some downtime and chance to focus on a new album. After a U.S. tour was booked in promotion of Kate Bush, it was cancelled at the last moment because of engine failure on the Queen Elizabeth II. Kate Bush and the late Queen didn’t always have the best of luck and connection! Maybe it was a blessing in disguise that her ship was grounded. In April 2013, Bush met The Queen when she was awarded a CBE. Years before, in 2005, she met The Queen for the first time and asked her for an autograph that she would give to her son, Bertie. Breaking protocol, she was politely told that this was not possible! Bush took it in good humour but admitted she had made a tit of herself. Bush and The Queen had this interesting and eventful history. Anyway, the fact Bush could not get to the U.S. – she had a fear of flying and guess a flight there was not an appealing prospect! -, that gave her opportunity to focus on her music. I think that she was relieved she could not get to the U.S. during a busy time. She loved her fans there, but priorities closer to home were at the front of her mind. As we mark forty years (15th June) of the Kate Bush E.P., we also mark forty years of a moment when the foundations of Hounds of Love were being built. Quite literally.
Following that tour cancellation, the realisation of a long-planned project begins with the construction of Kate Bush’s own home studio. Initially equipped with 24 tracks, then expanded to 48. Construction and equipping would take six months (an Early Christmas present!). Right near her East Wickham Farm family home, I can imagine Bush discussing American plans and going there for a tour, before being told it was not happening due to the Queen Elizabeth II. She could then use that bit of luck to push ahead with something she had in her mind for a while. Bush did like the idea of working in different studios and getting that experience, though the fatigue and cost of recording ta multiple studios for The Dreaming was a moment of clarity. It was clear, as she wanted to produce her fifth album and not compromise that, recording across expensive studios for months was not happening. Instead, as she had earned a bit of money and had the means to get her bespoke home studio constructed, this was instrumental regarding Hounds of Love’s sound and success. I don’t think the songs and album would have been the same or hit as hard if it were recorded at professional studios where Bush was going through the same experiences and endless hours whilst recording The Dreaming. She needed to make some big personal and professional decisions. Having the blueprints handed over and work started on this studio, it would be this great recording space with a dance studio/area where she could re-focus on one of her great loves.
Rather than heading to the U.S. and spending time on the road pushing an E.P., instead Bush could watch as her idea of a home studio was coming to life! It would take until the end of the year to fully take shape, but she was busy in the second half of 1983. There would have been ideas and seeds of songs. I think that the concept for The Ninth Wave (the conceptual second side of Hounds of Love) was in her mind. I love the fact that summer 1983 saw Bush able to find some personal time and space. The studio was more or less completed by January 1984, so it was a mixture of seeing it grow and become more real by the day, combined with some time with her family and boyfriend. A few months prior to ideas and demos coming about for her to disconnect. 15th June, 1983 was an important moment. If Bush went to the U.S., it would have put on hold the studio. Not that it would have changed the course and success of Hounds of Love, but it would have pushed things back. Would Bush appearing in America have boosted her profile and made Hounds of Love more successful there? As it was, the album reached thirty on the US Billboard 200, in spite of a few less than kind reviews there (Hounds of Love was a number one album in the U.K.). I don’t think Bush promoting in the U.S. would have changed things too much! Let’s celebrate the fortieth anniversary of a fortuitous event that is one of the earliest moments of Hounds of Love: the home studio going from conception to fully being committed to. On behalf of all Kate Bush fans, I felt that this event and important date was…
SOMETHING worth marking!