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Kate Bush - Hounds Of Love CD (album) cover

HOUNDS OF LOVE

Kate Bush

 

Crossover Prog

4.18 | 533 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

Slartibartfast
5 stars Anyone who feels the '80's were a wasteland for progressive music might want to reconsider. On Hounds of Love Kate showed that you can successfully (commercially speaking) mix pop into prog. It appears that only four other tracks than Running Up That Hill made it into the UK charts, so I think it's fair to characterize this as primarily a progressive album particularly if you consider the substance in the music.

As much as I had started to lose interest in broadcast radio and stick to vinyls and cassettes of prog music, I do recall Running Up That Hill getting decent local airplay. I had already taken an interest in her music after hearing the track from The Dreaming on college radio. I tried Never So Ever next. I've never been enthusiastic about her first two, though, to this date. It's entirely possible that the single would have caught my attention if I hadn't already gone nuts over the previous two albums.

For LP (vinyl) purposes, this album was divided into two sides, the Hounds of Love side being the more pop oriented. I think Mother Stands for Comfort probably belongs more on the Ninth Wave side. This side really moved me and if I hadn't become a solid Kate Bush fan already this music certainly cemented it. It's really a continuous piece of music, but still divided into distinctive songs. A concept side, if you will. Not a piece of music you want to listen to if you're feeling depressed, necessarily. The theme is about the process of dying, the songs don't tell a continuous story, though. It's like several different characters at various steps going though the process. It ends on really bright note, the song Morning Fog, which has a John Williams cameo (the classical guitarist not the film score composer, of Sky fame, progressively speaking) on acoustic guitar.

I'm on my third copy, solely for upgrade purposes, which is the EMI100 edition, which comes in a heavy cardboard sleeve (could do without that, takes up too much room in my collection). On the plus side it does have a CD booklet with some nice extra pictures of Kate. This version also comes with six bonus tracks: The Big Sky [Meteorological Mix] (7:44) Running Up That Hill [12" Mix] (5:45) Be Kind to My Mistakes (3:00) Under the Ivy (2:08) Burning Bridge (4:38) My Lagan Love (2:30)

The Big Sky [Meteorological Mix] is a basic remix with a nice dijerido and percussion intro added. This is the '80's so the mixes are dance mixes and has added cloud commentary from unidentified people. Running Up That Hill (Ruining Up That Hill ?!?, just kidding) [12" Mix]. I haven't taken the time to analyze that track, but it seems to be some kind of disco version mix. I might be wrong. I haven't done a comparison, but it might have just been a rearrangement of the beats to something less complex. Be Kind To My Mistakes is one of the better bonus ones. It might have fit in with side one, probably didn't seem as prog appealing. Under the Ivy is interesting, but honestly a weak track, and no surprise that it didn't make the original cut, still a nice little song. Burning Bridge is probably the most raw of the bonus tracks, more interesting as an artifact, but ok on occasion. The last bonus track, Lagan Love is a beautiful solo vocal rendition of the traditional song.

Slartibartfast | 5/5 |

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