My Dad's Records #1: Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

My dad has a pretty impressive record collection, which he's always been annoyingly precious about. His paranoia meant that they were stashed in his cupboard since the dawn of the CD, only emerging once to be ripped onto the computer, then shoved away again. However, something must have changed, as I now have in my possession three boxes full of vinyls. So, whilst I'm here for three weeks, with plenty of time for music, I thought I'd have a bash at getting through the collection. I'm pretty sure I can't get through every single record, but I'll see what I can do, and pick it up somewhere down the line.

Some brief ground rules:
- I can't skip an album. However, when the same artist comes up twice in a row, I may flip a coin to postpone that record.
- I must listen to the album in its entirety. If I have to stop for whatever reason, I'll come back to the beginning of that side of that record, even if it was the last track.
- Exception to the skipping rule: comedy albums. Only music counts. However I can listen to the comedy albums if I really want.

SO: #1: Kate Bush - Hounds of Love.

I'd describe myself as a moderate Kate Bush fan. Not an enthusiast by any means; I can go for ages without fussing over hearing a song. But as I say, a fan. This is possibly the first time I've actually sat down and listened to a KB album from start to finish, at least by my own choice. Firstly, looking at her discography, she's clearly less than prolific. Without finding the wiki page again, it seemed she had like four or five albums before this one (1985), then very slowly released further LPs every couple of years. I'm pretty sure she still tours, but in terms of releases she's really dried up. Which really isn't a problem - her ouvre is pretty much free of genuine duds, which obviously is preferable to a, say, Morrisey style career (not really sure why I went for Morrisey there, but there are parallels I think). Hounds is an album of two halves, like Bowie's Berlin stuff - pop fun on side one, and a kind of spooky, Eno-esque suite on side two, full of floaty synths and an odd Irish breakdown bit. Overall, a good first record. The pop songs are at times stunning, and the second half has more than enough ideas and song craft to soothe the fears of anyone put off by the promise of an experimental B-side.

I'm going to give each record a score, and I'll try to be a little harsher than I ususally am, so:

SCORE: 72/100