Kate Bush resurgence leaves listeners craving more

Sept. 16 was the 37th anniversary of Kate Bush’s classic 1985 album “Hounds of Love.” Now, a 37th anniversary isn’t the type of thing that typically receives a lot of fanfare, but this instance is different for two reasons.

For one, Kate Bush is a famous British woman. And since the world’s most famous British woman just kicked the dust, I think Kate Bush has probably moved up a slot in that category. But perhaps more importantly, “Running Up That Hill” – by far the well-known song off the album – has resurfaced in popularity lately. I’ve yet to see “Stranger Things,” but I’m culturally literate enough to know that it is the cause. Given this combination of factors, I think it’s fair to ask the question—does “Hounds of Love” hold up as a cohesive project, or is “Running Up That Hill” as good as it gets? I had to drive to and from my hometown a few days ago, which provided the perfect opportunity to throw the album on for a relisten.

The one thing I noticed first and foremost was how many little countermelodies and harmonies are thrown into the background. There are a lot of moving parts going on under the surface beneath the main vocal lines and chord progressions, and it helps to contribute to the overall atmosphere of the album.

Modern producers tend to prefer very loud mixes with a lot of compression—a problem already evident in 1985, but certainly not as prominent—which risks drowning out subtler elements. There’s a good amount of dynamic range across “Hounds of Love,” which helps give the sections farther back in the mix a bit of room to breathe. Certainly, the production is worth lauding here.

One interesting choice was the use of samples across this album, primarily in the form of various spoken word sections injected at various points throughout the album. It kind of gives the whole album a somewhat anxious feeling, which is further amplified by some ambitious dynamics and unorthodox instrumentation.

There’s an instrument used on “Mother Stands for Comfort” that sounds like a theremin, but when I dug through the performance credits, I couldn’t find anyone credited as playing the instrument. This implies that Kate Bush hired somebody to take a synthesizer and do a theremin impression with it. Whatever it is, it’s creepy. There are a lot of orchestral instruments used as well.

“Hounds of Love” is, on paper, supposed to be a pop album. That’s the keyword, here: supposed. It’s dark and anxious. The lyrics lean away from the obvious and relatable and tend to fit the format of esoteric poetry. There are a bunch of weird drumbeats that aren’t four-on-the-floor grooves you can dance to. And not to dwell on it, but there is the creepy pseudo-theremin thing.

Put bluntly, this album seems aggressively anti-pop in every way, yet it went on to sell over 1,000,000 copies and reach No. 1 on several different charts, and it’s had enough apparent staying power to be the soundtrack to television almost four decades later.

There are a couple of tracks that blur together. “Running Up That Hill,” the opening track, is strong enough to somewhat overshadow most of the album. But at the end of the day, I still think this album deserves the acclaim and the attention it’s gotten over the years.

There’s sort of a three-way tie in the Kate Bush community between this, her debut and “The Dreaming”—the album preceding “Hounds of Love”—for the best Kate Bush album. If you’ve managed to release an album of this quality three times, I think you can rest easy knowing your place in pop culture is secure