Hounds of Love.....The Ninth Wave gives me chills and Cloudbusting is my favourite single; soon as I hear those strings I go a bit funny; in a good way. Sublime.

Never Forever and The Kick Inside close behind, but there isn't an album of hers I didn't like.

When I first bought The Dreaming way back when, I must admit I hated a lot of it but because I loved some tracks I persevered with it and ended up being absolutely obsessed with it. I listened to it again recently and still find some of it 'challenging' but it's still one of my favourites, along with Hounds of Love and the second half of Ariel. Actually I love all her albums although I did find The Sensual World the one I least connected to, love the title track and This Woman's Work though (of course). The Ninth Wave is still, all these years later, perfection (imo).

I always liked Top of the City, for some reason it always made me think of a rainy Saturday.

Me also and it was nice to see some love for Lily earlier in this thread.

i often wish she'd take some of her best songs (what a huge catalogue that would be) and record them with just a piano and minimal production, a more 'raw' Kate, I think I'd love the results. Not a Director's Cut type reworking but just stripped back, no frills.

For me, I like her huge, studio loving sound.

Take Running up that Hill: a beautiful song in any way but that faint breaking glass that runs throughout just takes it to another place for me. It would be an amazing without it but just not the Kate I love.

To the original question:
Hounds of Love
Closely followed by The Dreaming and The Sensual World
More distantly followed by Never for Ever and Aerial.

Could never really get into 50 Words though.

I adore Kate Bush and choosing a best album is pretty much impossible for me as I swing back and forth between them depending on my mood but if absolutely forced I would have to say Aerial. It's the album that made me notice her and I became an instant fan, and listening to it makes me so happy.

I was lucky enough to see one of her Before The Dawn shows a couple of years ago and seeing her perform the entire Sky Of Honey suite live was the most amazing thing ever.

Hounds...

Hounds of Love - But closely followed by Aerial and The Dreaming.

It was REALLY hard to choose between Aerial and Hounds for me, but I picked Aerial solely because it was the album which lead to me "discovering" Kate's other work through.