| Kate Bush - Hounds of Love | Label: Capitol Records Release: 1985 Tracklisting: Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) Hounds of Love The Big Sky Mother Stands For Comfort Cloudbusting And Dream of Sheep Under Ice Waking The Witch Watching You Without Me Jig of Life Hello Earth The Morning Fog |  (View Larger Image) 
|
Average Blamo User Rating:   (17 votes) |
|
| Her massive 1985 comeback, and at the end of the day, her best album. This album, in a way, is Kate refining what she did on the Dreaming to total perfection, and well...in doing so, she creates the greatest album ever written. No. 2 in the ultimate holy trinity, it's also her biggest album, having sold millions upon millions worldwide. A reason for this is the huge success of the single "Running Up That Hill". A great single, with one of Kate's best vocal performances, and a brilliant hook...oh, i love this song. Truly brilliant. The next one is the title track- an incredibly catchy song, and it warms my cockles. I love the ending too...this is probably Kate's best vocal album, for all the ways that it's used - although the Dreaming is right up with it. Next up is The Big Sky, a song that is, quite simply, infectious as hell - and i really enjoy the lyrics. It's all about day-dreaming and looking at the clouds, and has some memorable lines like "You want my reply?/What was the question?"...and i love the ending too - one of the most incredible, funky, uplifting beats...it'll make you dance to crazed extremes as Kate screams her head off. After all these happy songs, we come to "Mother Stands For Comfort", which is a lot more downtempo. A lovely cold synth sound on this one...it's quite macabre in it's way, but the general feeling of the song is that Mother will always love you, regardless of what you've done. Really great song. However, on side 1, the best song has to be "Cloudbusting". Once again, Kate goes to the printed word for inspiration, and comes out with this wonderful song, based on Peter Reich's "A Book of Dreams". Some of her best lyrics, and a wonderful melody - I really love this song. A wonderful Kate classic to finish the first side. And now we move on to the altogether different matter of the second side, subtitled "The Ninth Wave". The Ninth Wave is a story, about a woman drowning in the sea. She goes to sleep, has a nightmare...it's a simply wonderful story. It makes your dearest reviewer cry loads...oh, it's amazing. I'll try and keep descriptions of the music and story down to a minimum here, so as not to spoil things. We start with "And Dream of Sheep", a lovely ballad...we then go right to "Under Ice" which is pretty brooding - these first 2 songs deal with the slip into unconsciousness. A short interlude, and were right into the massive nightmare of "Waking The Witch". Crazy doctored-voices abound, and some evil sounds...this is the nightmare part of the journey. The nightmare continues with "Watching You Without Me" and then we go to the "Jig of Life", which is very melodic. "Hello Earth" is very powerful, and very spacey...and then finally we have "The Morning Fog" which is rescue. Although you don't know for sure whether she lived, or whether she died. All in all, it's easily the greatest concept ever. Such an amazing story - i just love it so much...i didn't think that this album couldn't get any better than the first side, but it did. Probably the greatest thing that Kate's done, alongside "Breathing". Without a shadow of a doubt, this gets a 10. If i could give it any more, i would. In my opinion, this is the greatest album ever recorded. Reviewer Rating of CD : | |
| her biggest hit in the USA and it's not hard to see why. it's BRILLIANT and lush. much much less fragmented than teh dreaming (even though that's part of it's brilliant charm) the first side, the "hounds of love" side is endlessly catchy. hell, i heard the song "running up that hill" in a mall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the songs still have weird ass structures, and weird ways of getting melodies, but they flow so smoothly, it's amazing one person produced this. another song of note, is big sky, probably the catchiest song on here. the second side however, is a suite and it's called "the ninth wave". now, i don't have a lyric sheet for this, but it does a great job of showing a woman on the verge of drowning, and her saving. comparssins to the suite on abbey road are possible. kate is no beatles, but she still does an amazing job on this. my favorite part is the "waking the witch" part because there's silly deep voices that's the devil. Reviewer Rating of CD : | |
