Kate Bush

Hounds of Love (1985)

Hounds of Love splits in two: a first side of near-perfect pop songs, then "The Ninth Wave", a half-hour suite about a woman adrift in dark water. Bush built it in her own studio around the Fairlight sampler, Irish pipes and cello, with a drum sound on "Running Up That Hill" that still sounds enormous. The title track's galloping rhythm and the suite's dream logic show how far pop could stretch while still having a chorus. It endures because it is both a hit record and an experimental one.

Sleeve notes

Hounds of Love · 1985

Kate Bush was born in Kent in 1958 and was signed to EMI as a teenager after David Gilmour of Pink Floyd helped get her demos heard. "Wuthering Heights", written when she was 18 and inspired by the Emily Bronte novel, went to number one in 1978 and made her the first woman to top the UK chart with a song she wrote herself. She then took control of her records, producing her own work from The Dreaming (1982) onward and building a studio at home.

Her music is theatrical and strange in the best way: high, shapeshifting vocals, piano, the Fairlight sampler, and songs about ghosts, obsession, housework and the sea. She studied dance and mime, and her videos and her 2014 London run of shows were staged like small plays. She has released few records and toured only once before 2014, but younger artists keep naming her as a reason they dared to be odd, and "Running Up That Hill" found a new generation in 2022.