Dusty springfield

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.

1975 was JONI MITCHELL ’ s roller-coaster year: 12 months of romance and heartbreak, adventure and retreat, cocaine and Rolling Thunder. And in the middle of it, The Hissing Of Summer Lawns , her doubling-down on jazz rhythms, exotic melodies and songwriting-as-literature, with (for now, at least) a simpatico crew in tow. “It was just a good vibe,” they tell GRAYSON HAVER CURRIN . “And Joni was at the centre of it, at the peak of her powers.”

WE WERE THE first band of our generation that started to grow up,” Billy Corgan says, reflecting on the making of the Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 grand opus, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. “The b

The newly reconfigured band throw open the doors on an expansive sixth album. By Victoria Segal. Illustration by Quinton Winter.

Kate Bush ’s fifth album combines hit singles with a seven-song conceptual suite, all expressing the unmistakable style of one of progressive music’s most uncompromising visionaries. To mark 40 years of inspiration, The Anchoress, Within Temptation’s Sharon den Adel, Auri’s Johanna Kurkela, The Blackheart Orchestra’s Chrissy Mostyn and Exploring Birdsong’s Lynsey Ward celebrate the enduring magic and influence of Hounds Of Love .

IT’S THE ONE THAT WE WANT. OOH. OOH. OOH.