Kate Bush – Hounds of Love: A Classic Album Under Review (2009)
Studio: Pride PGDVD113
Video: 1.33:1 full screen color
Audio: Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Extras: 12-minute 1985 audio interview with Kate Bush, “When Kris Met Kate”; contributor biographies
Subtitles: None
Length: Feature – 93 minutes, with extras – 104 minutes
Rating: ****
Many Kate Bush fans consider her 1985 release, Hounds of Love, to be her best effort. It combined an experimental edge with her mainstream intuition, contained four chart-topping singles and several hit videos, and expanded her international audience. Kate Bush – Hounds of Love: A Classic Album Under Review makes plain that the album was a labor of love for Bush and continues to resonate with listeners and fellow musicians. This American DVD presentation reproduces a British 2006 DVD, retaining all of the original material but not adding any new segments.
The story of Hounds of Love is told mostly through astute track-by-track analysis via interviews with music historians and writers, including drummer Charlie Morgan, who worked on various Bush albums, musicologist Chris Ingham, British journalist Kris Needs, documentarian Len Brown and academic Ron Moy. There are no current interviews with the notoriously media shy Bush, but the filmmakers do intersperse parts of rare archival Bush audio and video interviews from the 1980s.
The video begins with an overview of Bush’s early career, tracing her development from teenage wunderkind to studio maven, and some of the historical, literary and cinematic ingredients that have influenced and been assimilated into her music. The narrative also outlines Bush’s progress through the four albums preceding the release of Hounds of Love. The DVD’s primary objective, however, is to put Bush’s Hounds of Love under a magnifying glass, relating the album’s evolvement, production, release, and impact. The examination focuses chronologically on each song from the record, with penetrating insights on melodies, harmonic dimensions, arrangements, lyrical content, and conceptual themes. Moy and Morgan are especially engaging. Moy utilizes piano and Morgan his drum kit to physically demonstrate Bush’s innovative uses of layered percussion, early digital electronics, and melodic chords, which afforded Hounds of Love an arresting and memorable musical foundation. The DVD ends with a summary of how Bush’s music has continued to stimulate and affect listeners and other artists.
Unfortunately, despite the feature’s description, there are no complete live, studio or video versions of the tracks. There are tantalizing tidbits from Bush concerts (she stopped touring in 1979 and has only sporadically performed on stage since then), and edited pieces from her inventive music videos. The bonus Kate Bush audio conversation with Kris Needs has atrociously bad audio that requires subtitles, but they are not provided.
Kate Bush – Hounds of Love: A Classic Album Under Review is one of the more comprehensive critiques in the ongoing in-depth dissections of timeless albums. Although this project is obviously geared toward long-time Bush fanatics, non-fans will learn some meaningful perceptions about Bush and her legacy.
— Doug Simpson
