Today in Music History: September 16th, 1985

“Hounds of Love” Album cover

In the iconic album cover of “Hounds of Love”, Kate Bush is pictured lying in hazy purple linens, and next to her two dogs: Bonnie and Clyde. According to the photographer, who was also Bush’s brother, getting her two dogs to lie still in the photo was quite the hassle; they took the dogs on several long walks beforehand, hoping to tire them out before beginning the shoot, though they struggled to get them to stay still. Eventually, after perfecting Bush’s makeup and the background, they finally captured the perfect photo.    

The result, and the process itself, perfectly reflect what I believe makes “Hounds of Love” so special. The cover strikes a balance between intimacy and drama, blending a theatrical, dream-like aesthetic with one that feels deeply intimate and personal. “Hounds of Love”, which was released 40 years ago today, matches this aesthetic on a musical level and is remembered today as one of the most important musical releases of the 1980s. 

Kate Bush and David Gilmour, 1987

Before the release of “Hounds of Love”, Kate Bush had already established herself as a star presence in pop music. On January 20, 1978, she released her first big hit, “Wuthering Heights”, which she wrote in one evening at just 18 years old. The song spent 4 weeks atop the UK singles chart in 1978 and, to me, is one of the best songs of all time. Following several other charting releases, like her 1980 hits “Babooshka” and “Army Dreamers”, Bush caught the attention of Pink Floyd co-vocalist and guitarist David Gilmour. Gilmour received a demo tape of Bush when she was just a teenager, and was “intrigued by [her] strange voice.” He would be a crucial mentor in Bush’s early career, fronting her recording costs and even providing background vocals on her later albums “The Dreaming” and “The Sensual World”.

“The Dreaming” by Kate Bush, 1982

In 1982, Kate Bush took a highly experimental approach to her discography. On September 13, she released “The Dreaming”, her fourth studio album, which received mixed critical reception. Pitchfork, in a more or less positive review, stated that the album was “audibly very queer”, but still represented an artistic transformation of someone “very obviously in love with pop music.” A different review from “Smash Hits” described the album as “very weird…She’s obviously trying to become less commercial.” In many ways, critics were right in their assessment; despite my love for “The Dreaming”, it marks a fairly drastic change in artistic direction for Bush, taking a baroque, more experimental approach to the pop ballads she was previously known for. Despite being heralded as a classic today, many viewed her fifth album as a much-needed return to form for Bush.

However, “Hounds of Love” took the experimental nature of “The Dreaming” and ran with it. 

In every shape of the word, “Hounds of Love” is an “experience album”, as music critic Anthony Fantano puts it. The tracklist is split into two main sections, the first of which is titled “Hounds of Love” and consists of the album’s first five tracks. The first half of this album contains most of the album’s pop ballads, most notably “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)” and “Cloudbusting”, with the former earning her the second UK #1 hit. While decidedly more radio-friendly than her previous releases, the album’s first half maintains the structural and lyrical genius that made her music special. “Running Up That Hill” explores themes of empathy and the longing to truly understand another’s pain by imagining a swap of gender roles. The second track, “Hounds of Love”, is another love song but focuses on the feeling of trepidation before falling in love. In this disc, Kate Bush pushes the boundaries of traditional pop music, creating an expertly-layered instrumental backing with lyrical content that calls into question how popular music was traditionally written. 

Kate Bush, “Wuthering Heights” music video, 1978

Where things really get weird, though, is in the album’s second half, “The Ninth Wave”. The final seven tracks of “Hounds of Love” are sonically daunting, switching from stripped-back instrumentals to sea shanties. The lyrical content of these seven songs is about a woman floating in the sea at night after being involved in a ship wreck, beautifully introduced by the piano ballad “And Dream of Sheep”. For example, “Under Ice”, the seventh track, tells the story of the author drowning under ice, and a song about being in space and seeing storms around earth, all while the protagonist slowly slips out of consciousness. In an interview with the BBC, Bush described “The Ninth Wave” as a “film” of sorts, wanting to utilize this “horrific imagery” to create a listening experience like no other.

I also wanted to shine light on what, to me, is the best song on the entire album: “Hello Earth”. There is something subtly beautiful about this song, featuring an atmospheric instrumental mixed with a grandiose orchestra. It also features a striking choral section taken with German lyrics that translate to “Deeper deeper/Somewhere in the depth/there is a light.” “Hello Earth” is a deeply spiritual track, with lyrics telling the story of a woman looking down on earth, becoming one with the universe while fading out of consciousness. To me, this song is the culmination of everything beautiful about this album, completing the narrative of the album and acting as the perfect sonic climax.

Critics and fans alike, for the most part, saw the potential of “Hounds of Love” even at its first release. NME, an entertainment publication, released a positive review of the album in 1985, commending Bush as “a genius, the rarest solo artist this country’s ever produced.” Critics also herald it as one of the best albums of all time; Rolling Stone ranked it as #68 in their list of “The 500 Best Albums of All Time”, citing it as “one of the greatest examples of an artist enjoying Top 40 success while luxuriating in her own eccentricities.”

I wanted to focus on “Hounds of Love” in this week’s music history because I truly think it is one of the most innovative albums of all time. Merely calling it a “pop album” doesn’t do the music justice; it’s so much more than that: “Hounds of Love” broke away from the typical conventions of pop music at the time, blending synthpop classics with artistic, avant-garde moments. What culminates is a psychedelic, spiritual journey in what I think is one of the best albums ever released. 

Sources: 

Admin. Hello Earth – Kate Bush Encyclopedia. August 16, 2017. https://www.katebushencyclopedia.com/hello-earth/.Adminn. Ninth Wave (the) – Kate Bush Encyclopedia. August 17, 2017. https://www.katebushencyclopedia.com/ninth-wave-the/.

Brackett, Nathan, and Christian (Christian David) Hoard. The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. With The Archive of Contemporary Music. New York : Simon & Schuster, 2004. http://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac.

Kendall published, Jo.”For the First Time, I Was Meeting Resistance Artistically. People Were Saying, ‘She’s Gone Mad Now.’ I Was a Complete Wreck – I’d Wake up in the Morning and I Couldn’t Move”: How Kate Bush Answered Her Critics with Hounds Of Love’. Louder, September 16, 2025. https://www.loudersound.com/music/albums/kate-bush-making-of-hounds-of-love.

Myers published Ben. ‘”She Has Managed to Maintain Her Position without Ever Once Being Sucked into the Creative Vacuum of Celebrity Culture”: The Less We See of Kate Bush, the More We Want to Know’. Louder, January 2,2, 2024. https://www.loudersound.com/features/kate-biush-prog-and-pop-star.

Quietus, The. 2012. ’30 Years On: The Dreaming by Kate Bush. The Quietus, September 11. https://thequietus.com/opinion-and-essays/anniversary/kate-bush-the-dreaming/.

‘Kate Bush: The Dreaming Album Review | Pitchfork’. n.d. Accessed September 16, 2025. https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kate-bush-the-dreaming/.

‘Looking Back On Kate Bush And David Gilmour’s 2002 Rendition Of “Comfortably Numb”‘. n.d. Cosmic. Accessed September 16, 2025. https://cosmicmagazine.com.au/news/looking-back-on-kate-bush-and-david-gilmours-2002-rendition-of-comfortably-numb/.

‘The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time’. n.d. Accessed September 1,6, 2025. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/.

Solanas, Jane (21 September 1985). “Krufts Original!”. NME. p. 35.

The Story Behind Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” Album Cover Shoot, 1985. n.d. Accessed September 16, 2025. https://www.vintag.es/2024/08/hounds-of-love-album-cover.html.

Official Charts. 1978. ‘WUTHERING HEIGHTS’. February 11. https://www.officialcharts.com/songs/kate-bush-wuthering-heights/.