As a side note, it’s interesting that the idea of a mainstream artist achieving multi-platinum sales with a concept album that keeps the concept part strictly to one side of the record (and puts the potential singles material on the other) would also work for Chris Rea in 1989 with The Road To Hell. One of the crucial differences between the two campaigns, of course, was that Hounds of Love was trailed by a big comeback single, the imperious Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), while Kevin Rowland was arrogant/misguided enough to not bother putting a single out to help promote his album. Lest we forget another act returning from a 3-year absence at the same time – Dexys Midnight Runners – took a similar creative risk with Don’t Stand Me Down (all monologues and extended song suites) but died on their **** despite having a greater degree of credit in the chart bank after Too Rye Aye. For a pop landscape still reeling from Live Aid a month before, this could have been a challenge too far for the public. For some, it was oh god that mad woman with the silly voice is back….for others, the lengthy hiatus (by those days’ standards) had only heightened her mystique and the expectation surrounding what she was going to do next.Īnd what she did next was an album split into two sides/parts, the second of which consisted of a 7-track song suite about a woman’s fight to avoid drowning in the aftermath of some unspecified accident at sea.

Hard to credit it now, perhaps, but when Kate Bush reappeared in August 1985 with her first new material since the commercial misfire of The Dreaming there was a mixed reaction. in 2016 when I last covered my all-time favourite albums:

Kate bush the hounds of love album