The liner notes for this album say, "This album was made to be played loud," which might surprise someone who comes in on the song which features someone braying like a donkey. But playing this album loud is actually necessary to understand this music. Bush has always been fascinated by the range of possibilities in music, having made her debut mark on the public consciousness with the juvenile yet affecting paeon to Bronte, the hit single "Wuthering Heights." In that song, besides the audacity of making a rock song from the point of view of an 18th century literary heroine, Bush's voice went through nearly four octaves. The Dreaming also contains songs that go through all those four octaves, but also tests the dynamic range of her voice from soft to loud, or smooth to rough, from sweet to raucous, accented, filtered, overdubbed, screaming, and whispering. The result is uneven, but I feel that's part of her point, and for me the album is interesting partly because it's not all of a single piece.

The first song, "Sat in Your Lap," starts the album off strong, with a drumbeat that's infectious and impossible to ignore. There's three separate vocal sounds in this song: the opening breathy verse, the follow-up higher-pitch and much more strident portion of the verse, then the near-screaming chorus. Each separate vocal delivery varies also in its relation to the ear, with the breathy voice seemingly next to you, the higher-pitch voice as if it was across the room, and the chorus somewhat in your face, all accomplished in the mix and how much of the vocal is contained in each speaker. It's these kinds of distinctions that come through only if you hear the album loud (earphones are especially useful in that they also reduce any outside noises so you can focus on the music mix). A later song, "Suspended in Gaffa," plays with the same strange mix of vocal deliveries with music that's more string-based than drums.

While every song tests the listener's indulgence at times, the single song that incorporates the most extreme experimentation is "Get Out of My House." The music is reminiscent of the opening song, but from the beginning voices of the background men's voices baying, "Heeee-hawwww," this song anounces that it's not normal fare. Middle sections of Bush speaking French in a Marlene Dietrich-ish voice filtered as if through a telephone connection as well as constant screaming in the background are hardly leavened by the occassionally silky vocals layered on top. The return of the donkey at the end simply underscores the weirdness. Yet, like some of Laurie Anderson's more outre offerings, there's something fascinating about the song at the same time. Bush epitomizes Anderson's concept of "difficult listening music," as opposed to the radio genre of "easy listening." This is not a song or an album that one plays in the background at a party, unless you want your guests to riot. It's meant for the listener to actively follow, to hear those strange noises and try to puzzle out just why this song has a donkey bray. (Personally, even after reading the lyrics over, I'm still as confused by this song as ever, but still feel that there's something there.)

Bush's live shows had also been as eclectic as her music, and the different accents she adopts in the songs here mirrors her interest in combining drama, dance, and dialogue with her drumbeats. For example, the title song incorporates the digerdoo and Australian mysticism. "There Goes a Tenner" is dramatic song with Bush adopting a Cockney accent of a rough burgler engaging in a bit of a caper, one in which the criminal is afraid will go awry and which does. "Houdini" is a song about that famous escape artist with the point of view being Houdini's wife and assistant, flipping back and forth through time from her memories of kissing him and passing the key to his shackles in that kiss to his and her focus on debunking spirtualists' claims to be able to contact the departed. Even more surprising, and no less dramatic, is "Pull Out the Pin," where Bush takes on the role of Vietcong explaining why he must throw a grenade at the unwelcome Western soldier.

Sometimes the songs are anthemic, such as the chorus of "Night of the Swallow," which foreshadows some of the songs of Hounds of Love in its incorporation of multiple tracks of Bush's voice in combation with a heavy emphasis on an Irish-tinged violin. "The Dreaming" also comes across as something of an anthem, with its call-and-response lyrical structure.

The Dreaming is not for every listener; in fact, it's not for many listeners at all. It's not that Bush is inaccessible. Later songs and albums were much less experimental in nature. But The Dreaming was Bush at her most playful and erratic, her ideas, styles and themes as varied as the notes she choses to sing. Tori Amos once described her own music as anchovies to the pizza-hungry world--it's just not to some people's taste. To extend that analogy, The Dreaming is tonight's special pizza, a dish that sounds weird from the menu but just might work for some tastes, and likely won't be made a regular feature of the menu. Some people are willing to give it a try, and even if parts aren't that palatable, they admire the thought behind mixing those particular ingredients together.