Kate Bush: Hounds of Love
Barney Hoskyns, Rock's Backpages, 1997
FEW WOMEN HAVE expanded the vocabulary of rock as bewitchingly as Kate Bush; among male stars, only Prince may have taken as many risks. Hounds saw Bush reining in the kookier aspects of The Dreaming, channelling them into epic electro-pop that tackled big issues of life and death and God with gripping drama and intensity. Running Up That Hill was one of the great singles of the '80s; Cloudbusting was string-driven, magically pretty; Jig of Life showed that Bush is one of the few pop artists who can flirt with Celtic mysticism without sounding twee or trite. Forget the riot grrrls: Bush was the real thing.
Total word count of piece: 107