Hounds of Love - September 2024

“every time it rains you're here in my head, like the sun coming out”

Hello 👋

This month we’re listening to Kate Bush’s 1985 album Hounds of Love. Of course, you know that because you’ve all listened to the intro episode, right?

I remember my reaction to seeing Kate Bush perform Wuthering Heights on Top of the Pops in 1978.

WTF?

This performance introduced Bush to the British public and I, for one, wasn't ready. I was only 8 at the time so I can be excused but this influenced my view of her for years to come. This wasn't for me, it was too strange, too artsy, too feminine (?).

As I grew up I came to understand that I shouldn't have been so dismissive but by that time I had missed her big releases including this month's classic album - Hounds of Love. So it is with great delight that we are plunging headfirst together into this album. How is it for you?

As always, in our Mid-Month Missive (welcome to new readers 😉) we'll have a rundown of lovely juicy links for you to deepen your appreciation of the album.

This review in Far Out exactly mirrors my own history with Bush, dismissive until I was exposed as an idiot.

A great place to start would be this review, not so much because of the review but because the quotes from Bush's interviews are an excellent introduction to what the album is all about. It also includes links to all of the official videos so that saves me repeating the task here.

As many of you will know I'm a huge Prince fan and he was a Kate Bush fan. So it was a surprise to me when reading this Pitchfork review that I was alerted to the fact that they had collaborated. In the 80s I was a Prince completist, I had all of his output from bootleg copies of the Black Album to 1-800-NEW-FUNK but my Bush blindspot meant that I missed this collaboration.

Not only was Prince a fan but I was delighted to discover via this video that Big Boi was also.

As a young woman making popular but challenging music on her own terms in the 80s, she must have faced obstacles at every point. This interview with Richard Skinner gives an indication as she is subjected to questions about Madonna's image and also about how she avoids being too self-indulgent, both of which she handles with amazing composure for someone of only 27 years of age and presumably without the media training that stars get nowadays.

Of course, we can't wrap up this month's missive without a reminder that this album gifted us one of the greatest vocal samples of the 90s.

I could go on and on with Kate Bush content but I’ll leave you with this quote from Sir Elton John from when she upstaged him at his own wedding - "And there were a lot of very famous people in that room and all anybody wanted to meet was Kate Bush".

Before you go, the poll for October’s album is now open. We’ve not had an album from the Noughties yet, so we’ll fix that next month. Choose your favourite 00s album here

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Keep listening and remember - No Skipping, No Shuffling.

Paul and Tom

The Long Play

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