Continuing a countdown of my favorite albums of 1985…

#8 – Hounds of Love – Kate Bush

English singer-songwriter Kate Bush’s fifth studio release, Hounds of Love, was her biggest success and is widely considered her best album. It sits squarely in her avant-garde, art pop comfort zone while remaining accessible to mainstream audiences.

Kicking off with undeniable masterpiece ‘Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God),’ the album dedicates its first half to a series of offbeat pop songs (including today’s SOTD). Four of those tracks reached the to 20 in the UK, with ‘Running Up That Hill’ giving Bush her first top 40 his in the U.S.

I was happy to see Bush get a late-career boost when ‘Running Up That Hill’ was used in the fourth season of Stranger Things. The song gave Bush her second #1 hit in the UK (44 years after her debut single, ‘Wuthering Heights,’ topped the charts) and made it all the way to #3 in the States.

The album’s second half is a whole different animal. Subtitled The Ninth Wave, it’s a continuous song cycle about a woman’s near-death experience while lost at sea. Haunting visions are brought to life through an off-kilter soundscape that somehow manages to go down easy.

I’ve written before that I’m not the typical audience for an artist like Kate Bush, and I haven’t spent a ton of time with her music. But Hounds of Love has always been the exception. It’s thrilling and weird, the sort of album that demands attention and rewards it.