FEATURE:
Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love at Forty
Twenty: The Legacy and Influence of a Masterpiece
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THIS is kind of bittersweet…
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
as I am ending this twenty-feature run of features marking the fortieth anniversary of Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. It turns forty on 16th September. In two days, we celebrate a masterpiece. The fifth studio album from Bush, I have covered all the songs and various aspects around the album. The final salute to Hounds of Love will look at its legacy and influence. I am going to source from a few different places. I will return to a recent edition of PROG, where multiple artists talk about Hounds of Love and how Kate Bush has inspired and helped shape them. I will also get to Leah Kardos’s 33 1/3 Hounds of Love book. I will drop in a feature or two. However, starting out, I want to source from Graeme Thomson’s Under the Ivy: The Life and Music of Kate Bush. Thomson writes, in his amazing book, how “Hounds Of Love was enormously significant in determining the path of Bush’s future career and her subsequent media profile. It is both her best-selling blockbuster and her escape route, amassing the kind of sales and critical hosannas that allow an artist to do whatever they want, whenever they want”. At this point, just before Hounds of Love was released, EMI left Kate Bush alone. Letting her get on with things. There would have been nerves that the album would have sounded like The Dreaming. The predecessor to Hounds of Love, that 1982-released album was lacking natural singles and was not seen as a massive commercial success. Regardless, and credit to them, EMI were not really forcing Bush to move in a different direction or work with another producer. The fact that Kate Bush was a producer and was almost showing the world why she was the right person to guide her own music, she proved any doubters and critical voices wrong.
Graeme Thomson notes how Kate Bush, and the way she handled fame and new attention, could have taught “Madonna a trick or two about how to be an emotionally and intellectually engaged female Pop phenomenon”. If someone like Madonna was embracing that stardom and toured, acted, and pretty much got her name and face everywhere, Bush recognised that this exposure and vulnerability was not desirable. Hounds of Love’s success, and Bush having her own home studio, meant that she did not have to work at a series of other studios, pay God knows how much, and very much be in the rat race. She never looked back. Thomson ends his chapter on Hounds of Love by writing the following: “Making and recording Hounds Of Love was not just a creative peak, but the first practical application of Bush’s working ethos: her career hereafter has become a self-sufficient cottage industry conducted in real time, at home, alone or among friends, keeping the industry and most other observers at several arms’ length”. Thomson observes that, once the heat and energy around the album started to die down after 1986, we would see less of her. Bush herself noted in an interview how she came out into the world to say that an album is out and then she would go away. Rather than be on this treadmill like most Pop artists, she was happier writing and being away from the spotlight. This is a legacy and aspect that has impacted so many artists. Maybe some would say it is impossible to be a major Pop artist today and not constantly being engaged and on social media. I will talk more about the legacy of Hounds of Love in terms of how it affects artists today. Or at least how it has enforced the ethos and sound of so many artists.
I shall quote a bit from the absolute final section of that Graeme Thomson chapter. He says how Hounds of Love “marked the birth of the Kate Bush we all now take for granted: an unimpeachable goddess, the critic’s darling, iconic, influential, a national treasure. Before 1985, the jury was divided. Hounds Of Love eventually settled the matter once and for all. It was a high watermark of artistic and aesthetic excellence – those songs, those videos, the languidly erotic sleeve, the mastery of technology – which she found almost impossible to better”. It is clear that Bush was at her happiest making Hounds of Love. You can hear and feel it in every note of the album. The same can be said of 2005’s Aerial. Another vast album with a conceptual aspect, this was when Bush was a relatively new mother and was infused with love for her new son, Bertie. I am going to skip to Leah Kardos’s words from her 33 1/3 book. How she goes so deep with Hounds of Love. She notes how “It’s a pop-historical monument; visionary, complex yet accessible, a high watermark in Kate Bush’s career, an ethereal masterpiece by all critical consensus. And yet the middle-aged record still vibrates with freshness in the continually evolving zeitgeist”. No doubt the new success for Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) in 2022 - and 2023 - following its appearance in Stranger Things helped bring new eyes to the album it is from. A younger generation picking up the 1985 L.P. “But it’s also true that the reason Hounds Of Love remains so vital is because artists from every successive musical generation since it came out have carried its influence and embodied its legacy into the cultural fabric”. It is fascinating how Leah Kardos writes how (Hounds of Love’s) “impact on self-producing singer-songwriters, particularly non-male ones, has been seismic. The stunning triumph of Hounds Of Love cleared a path for future would-be innovators who now had less to fear from being labelled ‘eccentric’ or ‘hysterical’ by the misogynistic music press”. Bush’s stubbornness for advocating for herself and staying true to her vision also resonates through the years. Kardos writes how this belief and strength kicked doors open for artists who followed. “Her imagistic songwriting and immersive productions stretched the boundaries of what pop could be”.
Many have commented how Tori Amos’s debut album, 1992’s Little Earthquakes, bares similarities with Hounds of Love. Although a lot of the comparisons are lazy, there is no denying that Kate Bush’s influence is in there! From the sound of the album to its cover art, you can feel Bush and Amos’s heartbeats entangled. Amos shared in an interview how The Ninth Wave, the second side of Hounds of Love, changed her life and turned it inside out. It made her brave enough to leave the man she was living with at the time. Leah Kardos asks us to look beyond Tori Amos and the other artists who have been inspired by Hounds of Love. They include Florence Welch, Natasha Khan (Bat for Lashes), Cat Power, Fiona Apple, Regina Spektor, Annie Clark (St. Vincent) and even Taylor Swift. Björk, Grimes and Imogen Heap are also inspired by Bush and Hounds of Love. In terms of how it showed that you can produce your own work in an industry that is sexist and often dominated by men. Bush, this role model for D.I.Y. artists “wishing to control every aspect of their presentation, from studio construction to image curation”. It is not only that autonomy that has influenced a wave of artists but its “emotionally articulate artistry”. Artists like Jenny Hval Julia Holter and Brian Molko (Placebo) talked about how Hounds of Love shaped their lives. For Suede’s Brett Anderson, Hounds of Love was the album that made him want to make albums. Leah Kardos ended her book by saying, even though she is not a famous musician, Hounds of Love had a profound impact. In terms of how it allowed her to follow her muse and work the way she wanted to. The success of Hounds of Love allowed Bush the opportunity to wait three or four years between albums (twelve in fact between 1993’s The Red Shoes and 2005’s Aerial). “All evidence suggests that Hounds Of Love will continue to remain relevant, resonant and alive. Its beauty and generosity are timeless. Its message of love’s triumph over pain, isolation and darkness is something we need to hear, to feel, now more than ever”.
IN THIS PHOTO: The Anchoress (Catherine Anne Davies)/PHOTO CREDIT: Lily Warring
I cannot quote everything from the section of PROG’s celebration of Hounds of Love, where we get some reaction and insight from artists and how Hounds of Love has affected them. The Anchoress, Within Temptation’s Sharon den Adel, Auri’s Johanna Kurkela, The Blackheart Orchestra’s Chrissy Mostyn and Exploring Birdsong’s Lynsey Ward explored the magic and influence of the album. Mostyn spoke about how Bush’s “songwriting and sonic choices feel sophisticated and wholly deliberate”. She continued that Hounds of Love “feels like every facet of Kate Bush’s artistry at the very peak of its powers”. Chrissy Mostyn also raised an interesting observation: “Kate builds songs like Roman roads, not letting the hills and rivers of convention or comprise get in the way and not getting tempted by the gentle slopes and easy valleys”. She concludes how “Every song is a cathedral of creativity”. The Anchoress (Catherine Anne Davies) bought Hounds of Love from Fopp in Covent Garden (which is still there today). The first Kate Bush album in her collection, it was a revelatory moments: “I fell headlong in love with the album as an example of how you could be completely in control of your own vision as a songwriter, producer and performer”. The Anchoress was also moved by the unity of technology ambitiousness and the raw emotions explored and exposed through the album: “What was startling to me was the uncompromising collision of her playful sonic imagination, as heard in the dense production and use of Fairlight samples, alongside the emotional heft of her vocal performance. I was hooked. It’s been a touchstone for me ever since”. Lynsey Ward was a teenager when she first heard Hounds of Love. Captivated by Hounds of Love and instantly struck, she was not expecting an album like this, having heard Wuthering Heights (from 1978’s The Kick Inside) and the sound of that single. “I knew from the first listen that I’d carry her influence with me every day for the rest of my life”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Lynsey Ward (Exploring Birdsong)/PHOTO CREDIT: Tom Pallant
The Anchoress commended Hounds of Love, and it was influential in terms of her debut album, 2016’s Confessions of a Romance Novelist. The Ninth Wave more compelling to her than the A-side of Hounds of Love. As it was the first Kate Bush album she heard, there was this feeling that this more experimental side was normal. So it was natural that The Anchoress would harness this in her own music. A review did also say how The Anchoress’s debut is a Hounds of Love for the twenty-first century, something that delights The Anchoress. A very flattering description from someone who adores Hounds of Love! Johanna Kurkela was born when Hounds of Love came out. However, she admires Kate Bush and her explorative and experimental nature. A pioneering and explorative artist. Her band, Auri, has the same energy and ethos. “The best music is always born from authenticity and freedom”. The Anchoress highlighted how Hounds of Love shows how you can write more commercial songs like Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God) “whilst simultaneously satisfying your more experimental urges” on tracks like Mother Stands for Comfort. Obviously, go and buy Hounds of Love and experience this album. Many of you will have heard it multiple times, though many are coming to it new in 2025 – forty years after its release. It is this masterpiece that continues to influence artists sonically, emotionally or visually. Even Taylor Swift’s cover art for her new album, The Life of a Showgirl, distinctly nods to Kate Bush and her promotional images for Hounds of Love’s second side, The Ninth Wave.
I will actually end with one feature. It is from Rolling Stone UK from last year. In fact, this it is an extract from Leah Kardos’s Hound of Love book. However, I think it relevant when considering how the album became universally adored and went on to become this classic:
“As years pass, the album continues to accrue cultural value. Music publications like Rolling Stone, Q, NME, Uncut and Mojo have voted Hounds Of Love among the greatest albums of all time. In their 2016 retrospective review, Pitchfork gave the album a perfect ten out of ten, with critic Barry Walters lauding it as ‘the Sgt. Pepper of the digital age’s dawn; a milestone in penetratingly fanciful pop’. In a 1985 interview with Musician, Bush said her newest album was ‘the one I’m most happy with’. Twenty years later, speaking to Tom Doyle for Mojo, she admitted that she still felt proud of how Hounds Of Love turned out, calling it, ‘probably my best album as a whole’.
It is significant that her 2014 London concert residency Before The Dawn, the artist’s late, and so far only, return to live performance following a gap of thirty-five years from her last shows in 1979, the Tour of Life, had a setlist that included all but two songs from Hounds Of Love (the exceptions being ‘The Big Sky’ and ‘Mother Stands for Comfort’). Nestled in the middle of a three-act structure, The Ninth Wave was presented in its entirety as an immersive, music-theatrical experience, fulfilling Bush’s long-held aspiration to develop the piece in a visual direction (‘for me, from the beginning, The Ninth Wave was a film. That’s how I thought of it.’) Those lucky ones in attendance at Before The Dawn could finally experience something of the artist’s personal vision for the work. Bush’s unexpected return to the stage saw fans from all corners of the globe making pilgrimages to the Hammersmith Odeon (known today as the Eventim Apollo, formerly the Hammersmith Apollo). It was the same venue where she performed the final Tour of Life show in 1979, which was, until that point, assumed to be the last show she would ever do. Tickets sold out in a matter of minutes, and as a result of the incredible amount of buzz the concerts generated, Bush saw eight of her albums enter the UK top 40 chart simultaneously, becoming the first woman to have ever done so. On this particular statistic, she reigns alongside rarefied male company: Elvis Presley (with twelve entries in 1977 following his death) and The Beatles (eleven entries off the back of their 2009 reissues).
As of late, Hounds Of Love has been experiencing a fascinating renaissance in popular culture. During the summer of 2022, ‘Running Up That Hill’ reappeared on the worldwide charts due to a sudden and dramatic surge in its popularity, sparked by a prominent sync placement in the fourth season of Netflix’s sci-fi fantasy series Stranger Things. ‘Running Up That Hill’ (or ‘RUTH’, as the artist herself later referred to it) became a global phenomenon. Within weeks of the first seven episodes being released on 27 May, it was clocking eight-million-plus streams per day. Across June and July, it was the most-played track in the world, twice topping the Billboard Global 200 and reaching number one spots in Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Sweden, Ireland, Belgium, Lithuania and Luxembourg. Even though it was a significant hit in the UK back in 1985 (reaching number three), the song eclipsed itself in 2022, staying put in the number one spot for three weeks. ‘Running Up That Hill’ was named the UK’s Song of the Summer by the Official Charts Company, and its latent success broke a number of Guinness World Records: the single that took the longest time to reach number one (thirty-six years and 310 days from date of release); at sixty-three, she became the oldest female artist to reach number one, snatching the title from Cher, who was fifty-two when ‘Believe’ hit the top spot in 1998. In a Christmas message posted to her website, Bush reflected on her ‘crazy, roller coaster year’, saying, ‘I still reel from the success of RUTH, being the No 1 track of this summer. What an honour! . . . It was such a great feeling to see so many of the younger generation enjoying the song. It seems that quite a lot of them thought I was a new artist! I love that!’
The contemporary resurgence of ‘Running Up That Hill’ was surely a confluence of many factors and not purely reducible to the lyrical and musical qualities of the song itself, stunning as they are. Part of it was immaculate timing: 2022 was a difficult year, beginning as it did in the grip of the Covid variant Omicron, with people reeling from the fog and fatigue of lingering lockdowns, tentatively re-emerging into a terrifyingly altered world at war. In our collective experience of that fear and uncertainty, with the forced separations, traumas and losses of the pandemic’s stolen years, and in the face of a truly frightening ecological future, all the while we continue to be forced to navigate an increasingly toxic, socially and politically polarized reality, Bush’s song of radical empathy, trust and determination felt like a tonic. But the song was only one part of a larger work of art that many newcomers would soon discover. Hounds Of Love is a journey through the beautiful and difficult terrains of vast and complicated emotional landscapes. Within it are songs of stubborn desire, bravery and cowardice, magical thinking, guilt and innocence, cold love, childlike joy, darkness and whimsy, self-doubt, surviving something extremely difficult and emerging on the other side of it stronger, wiser, transformed. It’s a work of sweeping, thrilling ambition with a wealth of meticulous detail rendered in widescreen cinemascope – a work that was borne from a major work-life change that allowed the artist to write and record privately, in time with her own creative rhythms, returning to the same spaces where she sought emotional refuge in music as a child. Literate, musically elemental and atmospherically complex, the material strikes a balance between the accessible and strange, commercial and conceptual.
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1985/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
Structures are confidently grounded in intensifying repetition and the whole is elegantly stitched together with subtle, recurring themes, familiar harmonic angles, imagistic echoes. The music and lyrics are supercharged by Bush’s virtuoso vocal production and stunning use of the Fairlight CMI sampling synthesizer, with which she creates immersive soundworlds and sumptuous arrangements that combine the precision of cutting-edge music tech with the warmth and energy of rock and folk instrumentation. Familiar images return: pleading ghosts, sea, sky, night, land and dreamscapes; references to romantic literature; horror movies; books; Arthurian and folkloric symbolism; and uncanny animalia. The blackbird appears, a potent symbol that becomes a repeating reference in Bush’s work from this point onwards. From the album art on the front and back covers, we recognize the correspondence between different points of view from above and below; with the stars in her hair and the sea around her legs, we see the female body in the water and of the air”.
I will end it there. In two days (16th September), all Kate Bush fans will remember Hounds of Love. Many will share their opinions on social media. Why they love the album and how it touches them. For me, although it is not my favourite Kate Bush album (that is 1978’s The Kick Inside), it is one I recognise as flawless. The fact it has this first side with more commercial singles that are astonishing in their own right, but also this conceptual second side. They both fit together but are very different! I was not lucky enough to see Bush mount most of the songs from Hounds of Love for her 2014 Before the Dawn residency, though those who went attest to how moving it was! In this twenty-feature run, I have explored the album’s songs and I have learned so so much. I have new appreciation and love for Hounds of Love. Kate Bush as a producer. How it is timeless and so relevant today. These amazing artists who have all been affected in personal and distinct ways. We will be listening to and discussing this phenomenal album...
FOR generations more.