Hounds of Love

Hounds of Love is the fifth studio album by the English musician Kate Bush, released on 16 September 1985 by EMI Records. It was a commercial and artistic success and marked a return to the public eye for Bush after the relatively low sales of her previous album, 1982's The Dreaming. The album's lead single, "Running Up That Hill", became Bush's biggest hit, initially peaking at no. 3 upon its original 1985 release but later giving Bush her second UK number-one single in June 2022. The album's first side produced three further singles, "Cloudbusting", "Hounds of Love", and "The Big Sky", all of which reached the UK Top 40. The second side, subtitled The Ninth Wave, forms a conceptual suite about a woman drifting alone in the sea at night.

Considered to be Bush's magnum opus, Hounds of Love received critical acclaim and often ranks among the greatest albums of all time. It was Bush's second album to top the UK Albums Chart and her first to reach the top 40 on the US Billboard 200. Hounds of Love is Bush's best-selling studio album, having been certified double platinum for 600,000 sales in the UK, and by 1998 it had sold 1.1 million copies worldwide. The album was nominated at the 1986 Brit Awards for Best British Album, at which Bush was also nominated for Best British Female and Best British Single for "Running Up That Hill".

In 2022, the album re-entered various charts, including reaching number one on the Billboard Top Alternative Albums, due to the appearance of "Running Up That Hill" in the fourth season of Netflix series Stranger Things.