Detailed review of "Hounds of Love"

[Doug Alan <nessus>]

Here's a copy of something I just posted to net.music:

From: nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (Doug Alan)
Newsgroups: net.music
Subject: Detailed review of "Hounds of Love"
Keywords: Kate Bush's new album

["Hound me down"]

As previously advertized, what you are now reading is a track by track
review of Kate Bush's new album, "Hounds of Love".

Side 1 -- "Hounds of Love"
--------------------------

Kate's foray into commercial music.  Four of the five songs on this side
have strong commercial potential.  It seems likely that they will all be
released as singles eventually.  In the past, Kate has had the tendency
to take one of the most uncommercial songs on an uncommercial album and
release it as the first single.  This backfired with "The Dreaming",
though.  Will an uncommercial song be released as a single from this
album?  Probably not, but we'll see...

(1) "Running Up That Hill"

	It doesn't hurt me
	Do you want to feel how it feels? 

The first single.  Kate's only disco song.  As good as disco ever gets!
Throbbing mechanical drums mixed with erratic subtle drumming form the
background texture for a strange mixture of guitar, balalaika, and
gentle to firm melodic vocals about the philosophical problem of never
knowing what it is like to be anyone else, anyone other than oneself,
and how this relates to art and love.  The twelve inch single extended
version contains vocal echoes whose rhythms clash wonderfully with those
of the drums.

Major flaw with song: silly Fairlight sound playing out a four note
hook.

A certified hit.  Currently number 2 in England.  Number 1 on WFNX (the
trendy new wave radio staion in Boston).  Receiving radio play on AOR
and pop stations.  Will certainly be Kate's first song ever to make the
Top-40 in the U.S.  Might make Top-10.  Has firmly put Kate back in the
limelight in England after five years away from it.  Will guarantee that
the album sells millions.  Profits from this song will pay off
mortgage on Kate's new 48 track recording studio.

(2) "Hounds of Love"

	I found a fox -- come back ducks
	I'm gonna take him in my hands
	His little heart, it beats so fast
	And I'm ashamed of running away

The third single?  Will pay to have new 48 track recording studio
converted to digital?

Nice rhythm.  About being scared of love (and fans?) and overcoming that
fear.

On "The Dreaming", background vocals were haunting and incisive phrases,
e.g. "Lock it -- lock it up" and "I want it all".  Here background
vocals are "Doot doot doot doot doot".  Not so inpsiring.  Song's still
excellent, though.

(3) "The Big Sky"

	That cloud
	That cloud -- it looks like ivy!

The second single?  Will pay for disk-based editing system in digital
studio?

Very up, positive, jubilant, celebrative song recommending a positive
attitude.  Overly cute backgrounds vocals (Himinee down, himinee down)
evolve into better background vocals.  Builds up a very very nice and
complex rhythm, but kind of thrashes it to death at the end.

(4) "Mother Stands For Comfort"

	And by the cat that takes the bird
	To hold the hunted

Beautiful!  Amazingly beautifully haunting!  Amazing background vocals.
Can you listen to this without crying?  A love song to mom.  Piano
ballad with with slow, strange, and erratic drum beat.  Breaking plates
and other sounds form parts of the rhythmic backbone.  Inspirational
fretless bass playing -- must be Eberhard Weber!  Beautiful!
Wonderfully strange and atmospheric Fairlight work.  So beautiful!  So
beautiful!  So beautiful!  Send a tape of this song to your mother on
her birthday.  She'll never forget.

(5) Cloud Busting

	You're like my yo-yo
	That glowed in the dark
	What made is special, made it dangerous
	So I buried it
	Forget

The forth single?  Will pay for life-time operating expenses of studio
so that Kate will never have to write a commercial song ever again?  The
best of the commercial songs on the album.  Better than any commercial
song can possibly be!  How'd she do it?  A love song to a fugitive.
Nice violins!  Rhythm evolves into military marching snares at end.  The
charts will never before have seen such a great song.

Side 2 -- "The Ninth Wave"
--------------------------

The deeply moving story of a shipwrecked woman alone in the water at
night.  Supposedly based on the poem "The Holy Grail", by Tennison.

(1) "And Dream of Sheep"

	Like poppies, heavy with seeds
	They take me deeper and deeper

Gentle and sad piano ballad with acoustic guitar.  The struggle is too
much.  Let it be over.  "Let me be weak.  Let me sleep.  And dream of
sheep."  So good!

(2) "Under Ice"

	Splitting -- splitting sound
	Silver hairs spitting -- spitting snow

Bass violin dirges.  Sonar.  Kate chants.  Digeridu.  Trapped under the
ice!  Haunting.  Scary!  Scares me shitless!

(3) "Waking The Witch"

	You will burn!
	(Red red roses)
	You won't breathe!
	(Pix and posies)
	Confess to me girl!
	(Red red roses go down)
	Guiltly!  Guilty!  Guilty!

Undescribable!  Totally.  All of "The Dreaming" crammed into three
mintues?  Whales sing.  Space and echoing piano playing over clips of
expressions used to wake people up mutates into a battle between Mother
Goose and Satan on the mixing console until they are carried away by the
helicopters!  Unbelievable!  Unbelievable!

(4) "Watching You Without Me"

	I'm not here
	But I'm not here

Starts off a little slow, but builds eventually into something quite
interesting.  Nice bass playing.  More strange drum rhythms, especially
for a slow tempo song.  Backward vocals and strange digital effects.

(5) "Jig of Life"

	Now is the place where the crystals meet
	We will look into the future

The most bizarre Irish jig you will ever hear.  The Bothy Band meets the
Talking Heads meet Richard Burton meets Run DMC meet Heart in Kate
Bush's mind.  I burst into tears the first time I heard this.  It's that
awesome!  It's that awesome!

(6) "Hello Earth"

	I was there at the birth
	Out of the cloudburst
	The head of the tempest
	Murderer!  Murderer of time!
	Why did I go?

Paddy Bush overdubbed into an entire Greek ritual chorus alternates with
celestial all-seeing, sadly warning Kate, U-boat space music and German
whispers of the deep.  Infinitely effective. Infinitely bizarre.
Infinitely haunting.  Infinitely wonderful.

(7) "The Morning Fog"

	Know what?  I love you better now
	...
	I kiss the ground
	I tell my mother
	I tell my father
	I tell my lover
	I tell my brothers
	How much I love them

The happy results of the traumatic experience.  Gently celebrative
music.  Beautiful guitar and bass playing.  Very very touching.

The end.

And the beginning.

Doug Alan
 nessus@mit-eddie.UUCP (or ARPA)