Dogged Determination

Forty years ago this September, Kate Bush released Hounds Of Love. Her fifth studio record reinstated her position as one of the most innovative and creative artists of all time and yielded the (future) chart-topper Running Up That Hill. But its creation wasn't always smooth. Here's the story behind one of Bush's best-loved albums.

- Jo Kendall

It’s 1983 and Kate Bush is, er, frankly, bushed. Five years previously, the symphonically spooky No.1 hit Wuthering Heights was the south London singer-songwriter’s hugely successful breakthrough – making her, aged just 19, the first female artist in global chart history to do so with a self-written song. Next came the astonishing The Kick Inside and Lionheart LPs, both released in 1978; her first No.1 album, Never For Ever in 1980; and, in the autumn of 1982, The Dreaming. On top of that there had been 16 singles, the six-week Tour Of Life in 1979, countless engagements around the world and a clutch of vocal collaborations, perhaps most notably for Peter Gabriel on his third self-titled record, aka Melt.

Each step had seen Bush bloom as a songwriter, vocalist, musician, performer, and now as a producer. In 1979 the 20-year-old tested the water alongside Lionheart engineer Jon Kelly for the live On Stage EP, then dived in further as co-producer with Kelly for Never For Ever. But it was with The Dreaming that the award-winning, fan-adored and muso-revered artist finally fully took the reins, yet this dramatic and theatrical masterwork devoured its architect’s time, energy and recording advance as she moved between multiple London studios, racking up hours of time and many packs of cigs, bars of chocolate and Chinese takeaways.

Increasingly, EMI became worried about their golden child’s experimental bent.

“It [was the] nearest album we ever returned to the artist,” A&R head Brian Southall remembered.

Meanwhile, in the studio, engineer Hugh Padgham, booked because of his work with Gabriel, recalled to Uncut: “I couldn’t bear it after a bit. She didn’t have any idea of the sonics and didn’t understand why, if you put 150 layers of things all together, you couldn’t hear all of them.”