History Music / HoundsOfLove

[[caption-width-right:350:''Is there so much hate for the ones we love?\\
Oh, tell me, we both matter, don't we?'']]

-->"Wave after wave, each mightier than the last\\

Roaring, and all the wave was in a flame."

--> ''"Can't you see where memories are kept bright?\\

With the thrust on the strand."''

[[caption-width-right:350:''"Tell me, we both matter, don't we?"'']]

''Hounds of Love'', released in 1985, is the fifth studio album by British art pop musician {{Music/Kate Bush}}.

Following the release of the highly experimental ''Music/TheDreaming'', Creator/{{EMI}} urged Bush to go for a more commercial sound with her next release as well as taking less time to make it. Ignoring both of these commands, Bush built a studio in the backyard of her house and recorded demos there throughout 1983 up to the start of 1984, spending the next year and a half fleshing them out with session musicians and the Fairlight that played a major role in the making of her previous record. The result was a middle ground between ''The Dreaming''[='s=] percussive avant-pop and the BaroquePop of her earlier work.

''Hounds of Love'' was the album that [[BreakthroughHit broke Bush from underground cult favorite to commercial smash in the United States]], giving her her only top 40 hit there ("Running Up That Hill", which peaked at No. 30 on the Billboard Hot 100). It also [[CareerResurrection brought her back into the mainstream]] in her native UK, all four singles reaching the top 40. The album itself was also a major success, topping the charts in the UK and the Netherlands and peaking at No. 30 on the Billboard 200, going on to become the 14th highest-selling album of 1985 in the UK. The album was later certified double-platinum in the UK, platinum in Canada and Germany, and gold in France and the Netherlands.

** "Running Up That Hill" is largely an elaborate dance piece done as a TakeThat at those critics who slammed the "Wuthering Heights" video.

* OminousLatinChanting" "Waking the Witch" has a chorus of female voices in the background praising God. And it is ''creepy'', especially given that this occurs while the demon taunting the narrator is accusing her of witchcraft.

** "Running Up That Hill" is mostly a interpretive dance routine, but has an element of surrealism to it, like when Kate and her partner get separated from each other in a sea of people [[UncannyValley wearing masks of their faces.]]

* AdaptationalHeroism: Wilhelm Reich is depicted in a much more overtly positive light in "Cloudbusting" and the video for it than what was actually the case in real life. General understanding of the actual Reich is that his ideas were pure pseudoscience, based in delusions possibly rooted in schizophrenia. In the video, however, not only are his projects fully functional, but he's also depicted both there and in the base song as an underdog wrongly pursued by TheMenInBlack. Given that the song is sung from the point of view of Reich's young son, who's implied to be narrating it not too long after his father's arrest, this may be a JustifiedTrope.

* CallBack: Several over the course of the "Ninth Wave"; for example, the quiet "little light" in the beginning "Waking the Witch" is a call back to "And Dream of Sheep". [[{{Foreshadowing}} It goes both ways though]].

* AdaptationalHeroism: Wilhelm Reich is depicted in a much more overtly positive light in "Cloudbusting" and the video for it than what was actually the case in real life. General understanding of the real-life Reich is that his ideas were pure pseudoscience, based in delusions possibly rooted in schizophrenia. In the video, however, not only are his projects fully functional, but he's also depicted both there and in the base song as an underdog wrongly pursued by TheMenInBlack. Given that the song is sung from the point of view of Reich's young son, who's implied to be narrating the song not too long after his father's arrest, this may be a JustifiedTrope.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The video for "Cloudbusting", which dramatizes the arrest of psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich by the feds for practicing quackery (the title refers to the cloudbuster, a machine Reich invented to harness an invisible energy he called orgone and control the weather, which was just one of his many kooky ideas). In the video, as the [[TheMenInBlack government agents]] drive off with Reich in the back of their car, his son activates the cloudbuster and causes a rainstorm, and Reich is overjoyed to see the machine works. In real life, of course, the thing never worked, and Reich was just delusional ([[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes ironically, considering his profession]], he may have had schizophrenia). He was arrested for violating an FDA injunction that prohibited him from shipping his creations across state lines after they were deemed fraudulent.

* ConceptAlbum: The second side of the album, ''The Ninth Wave'' is a concept piece about a woman spending a night in cold water.

** "Cloudbusting" - this one is based on the life of Wilhelm Reich. The reclusive scientist pursued by naughty government types is played by Donald Sutherland, Kate Bush plays his eight-year old son (in a hilariously unconvincing child costume) and the design of the very cool rain machine (Cloudbuster) was inspired by Creator/HRGiger.

** "Hounds of Love" opens with a sound clip from the film ''Film/NightOfTheDemon:'' ''"It's in the trees... It's coming!"'' Due to a longstanding fan/urban legend that she wrote an episode under a pseudonym, this is often mistakenly said to have come from an episode of ''Series/DoctorWho''.

The record is unique in the way it is presented. Side one (tracks one through five on CD) is labeled "Hounds of Love" and acts as an anthology of unrelated vignettes, ranging from stories of personal introspection to childhood memories to biographical tales. Side two (tracks six through twelve), labeled "The Ninth Wave," is a hazy, nightmarish tale of a woman lost at sea after a shipwreck. Over the course of the story, set across a single night, she is visited by the ghosts of her past, present, and future selves while nearly freezing to death, ultimately regaining the will to live and being rescued as the sun rises. Bush would feature a similar model on ''Aerial'' a decade later, with that one being split across two discs rather than two sides.

[[caption-width-right:350:''Tell me, we both matter, don't we?'']]

''Hounds of Love'', released in 1985, is the fifth studio album by British art pop musician {{Music/Kate Bush}}. Following the release of the highly experimental ''Music/TheDreaming'', Creator/{{EMI}} urged Bush to go for a more commercial sound with her next release as well as taking less time to make it. Ignoring both of these commands, Bush built a studio in the backyard of her house and recorded demos there throughout 1983 up to the start of 1984, spending the next year and a half fleshing them out with session musicians and the Fairlight that played a major role in the making of her previous record. The result was a middle ground between ''The Dreaming''[='s=] percussive avant-pop and the BaroquePop of her earlier work.

This would be her last regular studio album released in America under Creator/EMIAmerica records, after which Bush would depart for Creator/ColumbiaRecords stateside. Her final release with the label was her GreatestHitsAlbum, ''The Whole Story'', in 1986.

* ArtisticLicenseHistory: The video for "Cloudbusting", which dramatizes the arrest of psychiatrist Wilhelm Reich by the feds for practicing quackery (the title refers to the cloudbuster, a machine Reich invented to harness an invisible energy he called orgone and control the weather, which was just one of his many kooky ideas). In the video, as the [[TheMenInBlack government agents]] drive off with Reich in the back of their car, his son activates the cloudbuster and causes a rainstorm, and Reich is overjoyed to see the machine works. In real life, of course, the thing never worked, and Reich was just delusional ([[TheCobblersChildrenHaveNoShoes ironically, considering his profession]], he may have had schizophrenia).

* DistinctDoubleAlbum: A single-disc variant The first side, ''Hounds of Love'', is a compilation of several unrelated songs. The second side, ''The Ninth Wave'', is a mini-ConceptAlbum about a woman caught in a shipwreck.

''Hounds of Love'' is the fifth studio album by British art pop musician {{Music/Kate Bush}}.

Disappointed by the commercial and critical failure ([[VindicatedByHistory although the latter of those would reverse course later]]) of Bush's fourth album ''Music/TheDreaming'', her record label urged her to go for a more commercial sound with her next release as well as taking less time to make it. Ignoring both of these commands, Bush built a studio in the backyard of her house and recorded demos there throughout 1983 and 1984. Taking over a year in a half to perfect, ''Hounds of Love'' was finally released to widespread acclaim and commercial success on September 16, 1985.

The record is unique in the way it is presented. Side one (or tracks one through five on CD) is labeled "Hounds of Love" and contains unrelated songs about a variety of subjects such as understanding in relationships ("Running Up That Hill"), cloud gazing as a child ("The Big Sky"), and even a biographical tale on the life of Austrian philosopher Wilhelm Reich ("Cloudbusting").

Side two (tracks six through twelve), labeled "The Ninth Wave," is a hazy, nightmarish tale of a woman lost at sea after a shipwreck ("And Dream of Sheep"). She is visited by the ghosts of her past ("Waking the Witch"), present ("Watching You Without Me"), and future selves ("Jig of Life"), almost freezes to death ("Under Ice"), and eventually gets rescued ("Hello Earth"/"The Morning Fog").

** Blues Incorporated double bassist Danny Thompson provides double bass parts on "Watching You Without Me".