30 Years, 30 Days: Day 6, 1985

So here's the thing. I was in my bed, getting ready to fall asleep when I realized the thing I forgot to do tonight. This whole blog series is as much an exercise in discipline for me as it is a brief amusement for those who read it. And here we are. Consider this a kind of shotgun version of the day's musings.

Album number one: Hounds Of Love by Kate Bush. I was first alerted to Kate Bush's existence through my father's constant spinning of Peter Gabriel's So, which features her as a vocalist (Gabriel has an amazing knack to pick female vocalists). I was always drawn to the particular sound of her voice; it was full and rich while not being operatic or overly dramatic. I came across Hounds Of Love years later, and it's one of my favorite "solo-female-singer-with-full-production" albums ever.

While there are a ton of elements on the record that clearly make it dated to 1985 (the synth sounds, the fake strings, the drum machines, etc.), Kate Bush's songs and delivery just transcend all of it. "Cloudbursting", "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)", "The Big Sky" and "The Hounds Of Love" make up most of the first side, and I've got to be honest, I had a hard time making it past the first side for a long time. To tell you the truth, I can't recall most of the latter tracks, which is not to say they are not also amazing. She just has an absolutely outstanding songwriting skill, coupled with equally great arrangements that make each song ethereal while also very grounded and resonant with me personally. I truly understand why males (like the lead singer for Placebo) choose to cover her material; it's just straight up good, no questions. Kate Bush was one of the early female singers that broke down my walls of a male-oriented music world.

Lastly for the evening is Husker Du's New Day Rising. I am fully aware that they were well into their career at this point, but this was the first album I ever heard of them, sometime around 24 or so. It was a real bonding point between me and my much older bassist at the time that we

both had a huge love for Husker Du (sorry, I can't make the keyboard make those little dots above the "u" in "Du"). It was fast, it was brutal, it was loud, and most of all it had melody. They always got lumped in with a lot of early 80s underground acts: Black Flag, The Minutemen, The Replacements (who had moments of melody early on, but I wouldn't seek them out until after I heard Paul Westerberg's solo work). I had huge respect for a band that could play like an 80s punk/hardcore band, yet still retain a sense of melody and coherence in their songs. Being a big Buffalo Tom fan, I could see where the Husker Du influence had taken the band, and it made me appreciate them even more.

If I had to pick one song, it would be "I Apologize", a real barn burner of a power pop track. That's the thing; I don't lump Husker Du in with the early 80s hardcore scene (despite this record being engineered by Spot, Black Flag's engineer, and being released on SST records), but with the growing series of power pop bands into the 90s (Bob Mould's solo work helped color that was well). It was rough around the edges, and was incredibly noisy, but underneath all the grit and chaos were finely crafted pop songs. And that's what I'm always looking for: a well written, melodic song that cuts to the core. "I Apologize" is possibly the most friendly song on the whole record, and it's chorus hook is fantastic. It almost seems like the came across the "pop" part of it by complete accident, but knowing how Mould would write after the demise of the band, you know that's not true. It sounds just as good played on a solo acoustic guitar as it does on the record, and that's the key to a really good song: arrangement and instrumentation don't really matter if the soul of the song is catchy and resonant. I have an appreciation for all of Husker Du's records, but this is the one I would keep over all the others if forced to make the choice.

I gotta say, I almost went to sleep thinking "I'll just write two entries tomorrow." But that would be against the whole spirit of this undertaking, and would simply open the door to more lapses and laziness. So here's hoping that it is enjoyed, and maybe makes you take a closer look at records you might not have thought much about.

-Dan