I've quite enjoyed these journeys through the studio catalogues of various seminal bands and artists. It's interesting to hear them in sequence and writing a few lines about them helps me to crystallise my thoughts.
I thought I'd have a go at David Bowie next. I've been a fan since I was 14 or 15 and I have all of his records. I've listened to all of them at least once, sometimes through clenched teeth. This will be a lengthy project; there are 26 of them. So let's begin ..
David Bowie [June 1967]
If you're not familiar with this early phase of David Bowie's career, you'd probably be very surprised to hear this first album. It's not easy to describe what this is, really .. very lightweight, very theatrical frothy pop songs with Bowie channelling the voice of Anthony Newley in all its overtly vaudevillian, cockney hamminess. Really strange. Mostly camper than a row of pink tents.
On the plus side, it's clear the young Bowie has an ear for a melody and there's certainly a fair helping of downright oddness. Despite the lightweight, gaily orchestrated music hall mood that pervades the record there's some startling lyrical content here, albeit tongue-in-cheek. Take We Are Hungry Men for example, with its casual references to mass abortion and infanticide. Wild.
This was, until I downloaded it a few days ago, the only Bowie album I didn't have. Back in 1975 or so I did buy a compilation album entitled The World Of David Bowie that has most of its tunes along with the well-known single Laughing Gnome and a couple of other tunes that aren't on here.
I suppose the best-known tune from this era is Love You 'til Tuesday.
A very odd album and quite honestly, it's a bit of a cringe-fest. I don't know who the natural audience for this stuff might have been. I can well imagine that it would appeal to middle-aged folks more than teenagers.
There's no way you could have seen Ziggy Stardust or Diamond Dogs coming. I always think of Bowie as being a few steps ahead of everyone else, but when you think of his contemporaries in the mid '60s - The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd especially - it's hard not to conclude that he was a few steps (or a few miles) behind at this point. This was released five days after Sergeant Pepper.
Looking forward to this tome unfolding, not least because I don't have many of his albums despite always considering myself a fan.
Never really took the time to properly listen to all of his output.
I have some clear favourites going into this, one of which is not under the Bowie moniker at all: Tin Machine, fantastic album that is probably one of his most straightforward ones.
Bring it on.
Huge fan. Looking forward to your deep dive.
That run from 1970-80 is unsurpassed.
Quote from: Thenop on October 06, 2024, 04:21:09 PMI have some clear favourites going into this, one of which is not under the Bowie moniker at all: Tin Machine, fantastic album that is probably one of his most straightforward ones.
I liked the Tin Machine albums as well and I'm not sure why they were so poorly received. Certainly I don't think they're peak Bowie but for me they definitely improved on the couple of albums that preceded them which I've never liked at all. Perhaps I'll revise that opinion when I come to them, but I doubt it.
On their own terms, ie as more down-to-earth rock music, the Tin Machine records definitely work for me (mostly). "Pinstripes and Purple Haze" was the term coined by Q Magazine and somewhere I still have my copy of that issue.
Just found an online transcription, apparently Reeves Gabrels came up with that pithy phrase. Scroll down to
June 1989 - Q Magazinehttps://www.bowiewonderworld.com/press/press80.htm
People were confused by this idea of Bowie as a band member rather than solo artist and I think that was a bit of a sham, given that he wrote most of the songs and I can't really doubt that he was in charge even though he pretended that they were a democratic band. I must admit I hadn't thought about those two albums, I'll add them to the list.
David Bowie [November 1969]
Though usually known as Space Oddity, Bowie's second album was originally, like his first, titled David Bowie - perhaps reflecting a view that his debut, over two years earlier, had been something of a false start. And certainly it's a very different proposition.
It was retitled in the early '70s to cash in on the success of David's big hit single.
I've had this since the late '70s. It's not a great album on the whole. I hadn't listened to the whole thing for years, though I dip into it quite often for its two exceptional tunes - Space Oddity of course, and the brilliant Letter to Hermione which is a beautiful, wistful, atmospheric farewell song to the girlfriend young David had just lost. Best love song ever. I quite like Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud as well, although the musical theatre style orchestration is a bit OTT and puts me off.
I would suppose everyone's heard the haunting Space Oddity, which was a hit single in 1969. The BBC even used it as a theme for some of their Apollo 11 coverage, before someone at the corporation took the time to listen to the lyrics. I can remember hearing it on the radio when I was still in junior school. I still think the Stylophone sounds great; somehow less dated than the synthesisers used on early prog records. But it's used very judiciously. Did Rolf Harris ever use one on one of his own records?
Elsewhere, it's an interesting and quite eclectic record. Some of it seems to foreshadow the Ziggy Stardust sound, and curiously there's some decidedly Ronson-esque guitar work here and there, despite the fact that Mick Ronson doesn't actually play on it. It's mostly definitely a rock album, though there's plenty of folky strummed acoustic guitar and a bit of grand orchestration. It all blends together nicely.
A couple of these tunes are pretty ordinary hybrid acoustic / electric rockers. Some feel a bit drawn out and overwrought.
Years before I had this record I had a David Bowie chord book that featured some of these songs. I couldn't read music so I had no idea what the melodies or the tempo were, but I made up my own versions from the lyrics and the chords. I admit that David's were better.
Promising but patchy. A bit unfocussed. And still nowhere near the quality of some of his later work.
The Man Who Sold The World [November 1970]
I've loved this album since 1975, but I must admit I haven't listened to it much in the present century. There's just too much music, isn't there? But it was a joy to reacquaint myself with it on Tuesday.
I suspect casual listeners, familiar with the great man's later work from the likes of Heroes or Let's Dance might be quite surprised by this record if they were to give it a listen. It's undoubtedly a hard rock album for the most part, albeit an unconventional one. It's quite dark as well, a little unsettling. Clever stylistic touches throughout. Lots of heavy guitar riffola.
It defies specific classification really but it's fair to say that there are elements of prog here as well as well as heavy rock. Take the opening tune Width Of A Circle for example - definitely my favourite from this album. It lasts more than eight minutes, and goes through a few changes of mood and pace. It has a sort of extended jam session as well, with Mick Ronson and Tony Visconti, who plays bass as well as producing the record, going at it like Jeff Beck and Jack Bruce.
Elsewhere there are punchier, more compact tunes - the brilliant, haunting title track, Black Country Rock which reminds me of T Rex, and the psychopathic Running Gun Blues. The lovely After All has a touch of psychedelia. She Shook Me Cold is heavier and nastier than any Sabbath tune I can think of.
The one criticism I have is that the album finishes on what I think is its weakest tune, The Supermen. Feels a bit anti-climactic. I think After All should have been the closing tune, to end on a wistful note - a bit like Rock & Roll Suicide does for Ziggy Stardust.
Anyway - this is a terrific record, the first album from Bowie's classic period.
Hunky Dory [December 1971]
Again, an album that I played to death as a teenager. A year after Man Who Sold The World, David has moved on from his progressive heavy rock phase. This album has more of a singer / songwriter vibe. It's a bit eclectic. It is, I suppose, a hybrid pop / rock record in the main but the most striking thing about it is the sheer quality of the songwriting.
There are at least three tunes on this record, which, had he never written another decent tune in his life, Bowie would be remembered for to this day. I suggest that any one of Changes, Oh! You Pretty Things or (especially) Life on Mars? would be career-defining for any other artist. It's only because the Thin White Duke wrote a couple of dozen other masterpieces that they're not remembered as such. If Elton John or Freddie Mercury had somehow written Changes, it would be their signature song. No question.
Elsewhere there's a sort of electric folk ode to Bob Dylan, a darkly satisfying Velvet Underground pastiche, a partly experimental tune about Andy Warhol that segues from atonal synthesiser oddness into a brisk acoustic ditty. And a very endearing and witty upbeat lullaby to David's firstborn.
The only tune on the album I don't really get is Eight Line Poem which is a bit of a piano dirge with a simple vocal and boring low key bluesy guitar on top.
Clearly the standout tune is Life on Mars?, probably my single favourite Bowie tune of all, perhaps with the exception of Aladdin Sane's title track. But perhaps I shall revise that opinion as I trawl through the canon. Originally conceived as a sort of answer to the Sinatra classic My Way with which it shares a similar structure in some respects, but harmonically even more ambitious. An unbelievably clever song but more than that, I find it so powerful and inspiring. Life-affirming, even.
It's the cherry on top of a spectacular album.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars [June 1972]
Released a mere six months after Hunky Dory, but in some ways a massive step forward, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars represents one of those rare moments in popular culture where unmitigated brilliance meets with mass appeal.
This is where it all comes together for Bowie. The whole album has a single, coherent sound. In keeping with its theme, it sounds like a band. There's none of the eclecticism of his previous work, no whimsical meanderings. Of course it has some light and shade, but it's not a patchwork quilt of different styles like the previous two albums. It's powerful, passionate, focused and there's not a gram of fat on it. The songs are distinctive, clever and very strong.
Is it Glam Rock? Perhaps it is but if so it's operating at a very different level from the Glitter Band and Sweet. There's undoubtedly a certain debt to the New York Dolls.
I bought this album as a teenager and I played it many, many times (I'm trying to avoid using the "played it to death" cliche again here). Listening to it again yesterday I was really impressed by the production - the bass sound has a pleasing bottom end thump with a little bit of growl and the guitars are crunchy and loud.
It's very loosely a concept album although it's not obvious. It's hard to pick a standout tune. Any one of them would be a standout on another record - with the exception perhaps of It Ain't Easy which I've never been fond of. But partly that's because as a kid I was heavily invested in the cult of Bowie as a songwriter, and it's a cover. Maybe Hang On To Yourself isn't quite as strong as the others, either. But it's still a punchy little tune. I definitely like it.
This must surely be one of the top ten most iconic albums of all time. It's comfortably the most iconic Bowie album although actually I don't think it's his best.
Aladdin Sane [April 1973]
Brilliant record, this. Hadn't heard it for years. It wasn't as well-received as Ziggy (and I've never liked it quite that much either), but it has some of Bowie's very best work.
I'd say that the best tunes here (the title track, Cracked Actor, Time, Jean Genie) are as strong as or stronger than anything on Ziggy. But it doesn't perhaps gel quite so well; it's not quite so well-defined. It doesn't have the same artful mystique, and although there is a concept here, it's not nearly so obvious. Bowie himself described his Aladdin Sane persona as a "pale imitation" of Ziggy.
Still - disregarding the point that it's a follow-up to one of the greatest records of all time, Aladdin Sane is nonetheless, in its own right, a pretty fantastic album. The songwriting is clever to the point of sheer genius in parts. There are some powerful, stylish rockers. It's all recorded very nicely.
Bowie recruited a virtuoso pianist called Mike Garson to record this one and he improvises a dissonant, avant-garde jazz solo on the title track. It's a bit like a Gershwin tune being crowbarred in where it shouldn't, and yet it works.
My only misgiving really is the inclusion of a Stones cover, Let's Spend The Night Together. It certainly improves on the original, for me anyway. It swaggers nicely. And yet it seems a bit humdrum, for an album that largely contains stellar, very distinctive tunes.
Pin Ups [October 1973]
I'd never listened to this album until yesterday. One of its tunes, Sorrow, was a hit single a long time ago and I do remember that. But I always found the idea of Bowie doing an album of covers more than faintly ridiculous. On a fundamental level it seems inexplicable to me, like Michelangelo doing a sabbatical as a painter and decorator.
Apparently it was intended as a "stopgap" although it came out only six months after Aladdin Sane.
So anyway I had a listen yesterday. Mostly it's pretty simple, straightforward rock'n'roll. Of course David's highly mannered voice gives it all a distinctive touch. I liked I Can't Explain which has a slow, brooding, heavy feel that the Who original doesn't. I quite liked See Emily Play, which really does work as a nice vehicle for the vocal. It has a bit more rock sensibility than the original, and some of the Bowie out-there production touches.
I was quite interested to hear that Friday On My Mind has a bit of the old Tony Newley vocal affectation familiar from the earliest Bowie albums.
But overall it just feels lightweight and disposable. When you consider that it's sandwiched by the exquisite Aladdin Sane and (as we shall see) the mind-scaldingly brilliant Diamond Dogs, it's really a very odd proposition indeed.
Those titles really transport me to early secondary school days, with the slightly older kids walking around with their purchases from Listen Records in Cambridge St. Thinking back, I was really young for my age and didn't appreciate the benefits of being at a school in the city centre. Fearful days if I'm honest.
Diamond Dogs [May 1974]
This thread collapsed because I knew I was not going to be able to express my thoughts and feelings about Diamond Dogs in a forum post. Actually I don't think I could do that if I attempted to write a book about it. So I kept putting it off until it had hardened into a sort of mental block.
Still - I do want to listen to the rest of the Bowie canon so I decided just to dive in and give it a go.
To me this is an extraordinary record; as I've already alluded it just defies description. It's so theatrical that it almost feels like a multimedia experience. I think it might be the cleverest and most powerful record ever recorded. It's an aural immersion into the most gripping dystopian theatre.
(https://i.ibb.co/k26YfMFy/cover-rca-1080x675.jpg)
It has its cake and eats it - it's catchy and it's glam rock. But it's tense drama at the same time. There are wonderful production touches that make it unsettling in the best possible way - the echoey, backwards piano that bursts into Sweet Thing, the strange, warbly Dalek voice effects in the title track and elsewhere. The faintly out of tune sax, played by Bowie himself. In hindsight it may simply have been out of tune because he wasn't an accomplished player but in effect it just adds to the dark, stark, cold, unnerving landscape that this record inhabits. Bowie plays most of the guitar parts, as well.
This is of course a concept album, based on Orwell's 1984. As it happens I'd already read that book once the first time I heard this album (I think in 1975). It does definitely help, to get the references. To feel them. Especially for We Are The Dead which is an absolutely killer, dark, slow, menacing tune. I got goosebumps listening again today.
There are touches of soul, touches of funk, a lot of glam and yet the whole thing is very coherent. The glam rockers similarly slot into place alongside the other-wordly dystopian sci-fi but in the best tradition of concept albums, it feels like a single, powerful statement. Not a note out of place and it has aged beautifully. It feels no more dated to me than it did fifty (yikes) years ago.
"We are the dead", he said.
"We are the dead", echoed Julia dutifully.
"You are the dead", said an iron voice behind them.
They sprang apart. Winston's entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia's eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.
"You are the dead", repeated the iron voice.
"It was behind the picture", breathed Julia.
Quote from: Slim on November 15, 2025, 06:37:04 PMDiamond Dogs [May 1974]
This thread collapsed because I knew I was not going to be able to express my thoughts and feelings about Diamond Dogs in a forum post.
It appears you just did, quite well I might add. It makes me want to listen to it, I like all things dystopian, although I am not sure like is the best word to describe my weird fascination.
Thank you.
Young Americans [ March 1975]
Well this is a remarkable album, though not necessarily in a good way. I think this must be a reasonable candidate for the most alienating album of all time. Ten months after the progressive theatrics / glam rock / dystopian drama high art of Diamond Dogs, David had teamed up with a bunch of American players steeped in the soul and funk traditions, most notably including the funk guitar player Carlos Alomar. And he made a pretty straightforward mixed bag soul/funk record.
I hated this as a teenager. I still don't love it now although it does have some very classy moments - I suppose everyone will be familiar with the title track, undoubtedly a smooth, well-crafted tune - deservedly a classic '70s hit. My favourite tune though is Win, which has a gorgeous, slow-burning intensity. You can't really not like Fame, either. It funks hard.
Listening back today I was struck by the audacity of the record - for a white singer best known for glam rock to be making a record like this in the company of some very accomplished players with a pedigree in black American music is quite a brave thing, really. I suppose being off his head on cocaine helped. But blue-eyed soul was not the established genre then that it was a few years later.
It's a shame Bowie chose to cover Across the Universe; always a substandard Beatles song. He does funk it up in a manner you wouldn't have believed possible for such a dreary, flat tune. But it's clumsy and his vocal performance on it is hammy.
The then-unheard-of Luther Vandross sings backing vocals here and there as well as arranging vocal parts.
A real outlier.
Quote from: Slim on October 26, 2024, 03:50:57 PMHunky Dory [December 1971]
Again, an album that I played to death as a teenager. A year after Man Who Sold The World, David has moved on from his progressive heavy rock phase. This album has more of a singer / songwriter vibe. It's a bit eclectic. It is, I suppose, a hybrid pop / rock record in the main but the most striking thing about it is the sheer quality of the songwriting.
There are at least three tunes on this record, which, had he never written another decent tune in his life, Bowie would be remembered for to this day. I suggest that any one of Changes, Oh! You Pretty Things or (especially) Life on Mars? would be career-defining for any other artist. It's only because the Thin White Duke wrote a couple of dozen other masterpieces that they're not remembered as such. If Elton John or Freddie Mercury had somehow written Changes, it would be their signature song. No question.
Elsewhere there's a sort of electric folk ode to Bob Dylan, a darkly satisfying Velvet Underground pastiche, a partly experimental tune about Andy Warhol that segues from atonal synthesiser oddness into a brisk acoustic ditty. And a very endearing and witty upbeat lullaby to David's firstborn.
The only tune on the album I don't really get is Eight Line Poem which is a bit of a piano dirge with a simple vocal and boring low key bluesy guitar on top.
Clearly the standout tune is Life on Mars?, probably my single favourite Bowie tune of all, perhaps with the exception of Aladdin Sane's title track. But perhaps I shall revise that opinion as I trawl through the canon. Originally conceived as a sort of answer to the Sinatra classic My Way with which it shares a similar structure in some respects, but harmonically even more ambitious. An unbelievably clever song but more than that, I find it so powerful and inspiring. Life-affirming, even.
It's the cherry on top of a spectacular album.
Don't know how I missed this thread but i just wanted to expand on the connection to My Way by Sinatra.
Comme D'Habitude is a song by Claude Francois. Its a very poignant song about a relationship about to break up. Beautifully sung and wonderful lyrics.
David Bowie was tasked with writing English lyrics to the song which had been very successful in France. He came up with a song called "Even a Fool Learns to Love" - apparently these are the lyrics
QuoteThere was a time, the laughing time
I took my heart to every party
They'd point my way
"How are you today?"
"Will you make us laugh? Chase our blues away?"
Their funny man won't let them down
No, he'd dance and prance and be their clown
That time, the laughing time
When even a fool learns to love
The clown turned around
And saw her smile, oh how she loved me
She'd clap her hands and beg me stay
To make her laugh, to make her life gay
Who wants the love of all the world
When here was love in the eyes of just one girl
That day, that precious day
When even a fool learns to love
But oh, how I dreamed, a marvelous dream
Where all of the heavens or so it had seemed
With thunderous applause looked down from above
On a clown and an angel so much in love
I'll stay with my dream, it takes such a dream
And even a fool learns to love
That day, that hateful day
The joke turned stale, the game was over
Those spiteful words "Oh, go away. Who wants to play?"
"It's getting late now."
My world, my funny world
Had lost its mask and shown a broken heart
A time, a sour time
When even a fool learns to love
But oh, how I dreamed, a marvelous dream
Where all of the heavens or so it had seemed
With thunderous applause looked down from above
On a clown and an angel so much in love
I'll stay with my dream, it takes such a dream
And even a fool learns to love
Apparently there is a demo around of him singing this with the french song as backing track.
Anyway it was considered a bit maudlin and was ditched and Paul Anka won the job with My Way.
David was apparently pretty angry about this and said that Life on Mars was his revenge. apparently the song is subtitled
As a footnote to this I was on holiday with my parents and dad's family in France. A band was playing and started "Comme D' Habitude" Dad said something along the lines of "oh they're singing My Way with French Lyrics" His sister said no this is a Claude Francois song that Frank Sinatra covered. Believe it or not a blazing row ensured. A couple of days later dad had to express a contrite apology
Yes, I remember hearing David's effort some time in the '80s. I can see why Anka's version won out.
Station to Station [January 1976]
I mostly loved this album as a teen. I suppose it could be seen as a development of the black music ethos of Young Americans - it does have elements of funk and soul, although I must admit I never really noticed that when I was fifteen. But it has more intensity, it has some of the drama and art that its predecessor record didn't. And, largely (I think) thanks to guitar player Earl Slick, it rocks a bit.
I've always liked the title track which runs for ten minutes and has a sort of prog epic feel, albeit it morphs into a sort of uptempo funk rock groove. I suppose my other favourite tune is Stay, again a funk rocker and one I've played often over the years. Everyone knows Golden Years I guess - classy, quietly powerful and very accessible - perhaps a forerunner to the likes of Let's Dance and Absolute Beginners.
It's a pretty straightforward album really. I'm not fond of all of the tunes. David's cover of the old Johnny Mathis / Nina Simone tune Wild Is The Wind plods, even if Sinatra claimed to like it. And Word On A Wing has Christian overtones that I find ridiculous. Apparently David had a bit of a crisis while filming The Man Who Fell To Earth. But even without the nonsense lyrics, I think it would be a boring tune.
So not an out and out triumph and actually listening to the whole thing back for the first time for years, I was very slightly underwhelmed. It is though, at its best, a brilliant record.
As soon as I hear Golden Years I'm immediately transported back to the waltzers at the Kelvin Hall carnival, a festive indoor fairground. I think 1976 was the first year I was allowed to go with my friends instead of my parents. I think they must have been relieved.
Low [January 1977]
I first heard this album one evening in January 1977 when, a few days before it was released, John Peel played it in its entirety on his Radio One show.
I was unimpressed by Side One and confounded by Side Two.
As readers will be aware I'm sure, the first side consists of short, punchy, direct, edgy pop songs. I guess you could say "minimalist". I like these songs (or "tunes", two of them are instrumentals), but I don't love them. One thing I could say though is that they're ahead of their time - this is the New Wave a couple of years before the New Wave. The effects on the drums especially give the production a very modern, almost brash sound. Apparently Tony Visconti piped them through an Eventide Harmoniser, a unit more commonly used with guitars I think.
Anyway - I can admire that the Thin White Duke was going for something different, but this - after all - was the artist who created Life on Mars, Starman, We Are the Dead, Aladdin Sane .. compared to which this all sounds pretty disposable.
Side Two is a whole 'nother kettle of spanners. Made in collaboration with Brian Eno this is a set of ambient instrumentals that grew out of the work David was doing for the soundtrack of The Man Who Fell to Earth. Nicolas Roeg went with something else instead. I well remember being gobsmacked on hearing these pieces on my little FM radio in 1977. They defy description really - tone poems? They're synth driven, in parts ghostly, drifting .. a sort of cinematic desolate soundscape. Beautiful. Very enigmatic, especially with the snatches of distant vocal fragments and chanting. I'm not sure what a reference point, a comparison might be, outside Eno's other work. Tangerine Dream maybe?
Listening to this album again today I realised that I haven't spent enough time since 1977 immersed in the Side Two pieces, and I resolved to do that more often. I don't really think that about the first half of the record.
Saw him play low in full at the royal festival hall in full in 2002. Sublime.
'Always Crashing in the Same Car'and 'A new career in a new town' are 2 of my favourite Bowie songs. Side 2 is marvellous and just an incredibly audacious and brave move for him at that time. What a guy.
I really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
Quote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
Quote from: David L on December 02, 2025, 08:56:03 AMQuote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
Oh that's completely irrelevant to me. As soon as you let your art out in the world, it is no longer yours. It changes every time someone listen to it.
Heroes [October 1977]
One of the classic Bowie albums and in retrospect, probably the beginning of a sustained period of critical acclaim and influence that persisted until his death. Ironically: this is where I tune out.
I well remember seeing the album, the LP - in the racks in the record basement in Hartlepool's department store, Binns. I remember too the moment when I said to myself - you know what? I don't think I'm going to buy it. I'd heard the single (the titular Heroes), and wasn't impressed. It seemed ordinary. Low hadn't really grabbed me a year earlier. And by this time I was much more interested in Rush, Yes, UFO, Zeppelin.
I didn't actually buy a copy until the 1990s and I've only listened to it maybe four times. I came to it long after its cultural moment.
Interesting record. I want to say that this is where Bowie edges toward the pop/rock mainstream. Really it's a much more nuanced picture than that. But certainly - Heroes is a lot more immediate than Low. Bolder, more coherent. Classier, or at least more traditional in its production as well, albeit that brittle, minimalist sound on the first side of its predecessor was deliberate. More radio-friendly I guess, but not really conventional. Dancy. In parts, anyway.
Sons of the Silent Age, for example. I'm not going to say it's stadium rock, but it would rev up a big crowd in a way that What in the World wouldn't.
Like Low, this record has interesting instrumental "soundscape" tunes conceived in collaboration with Brian Eno, though I wouldn't rate them so highly. Moss Garden reminds me of Radiohead. Perhaps these ambient aural adventures were an influence. Neukoln and Sense of Doubt feel industrial. Really a bit more experimental, less deliberate, less considered than the Low tunes. A bit grey and airless.
Robert Fripp turned up to record some pretty stellar guitar parts, notably and famously on the title track but also to great effect on Joe the Lion where he wigs out delightfully.
It's a stylish, clever record. I did enjoy it, but it didn't really grab me. I didn't come away thinking I'd made a huge mistake walking out of Binns empty-handed. That said, I do feel a need to revisit it, to pick up where I left off in 1977.
Quote from: David L on December 02, 2025, 08:56:03 AMQuote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
They didn't have a choice, but
Low, more than most albums, is a game of two halves.
Quote from: Slim on December 03, 2025, 10:06:58 PMQuote from: David L on December 02, 2025, 08:56:03 AMQuote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
They didn't have a choice.......
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Quote from: David L on December 03, 2025, 11:20:19 PMQuote from: Slim on December 03, 2025, 10:06:58 PMQuote from: David L on December 02, 2025, 08:56:03 AMQuote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
They didn't have a choice.......
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Yes - albums were released primarily in two-sided form until the '80s. Admittedly there were "non-sided" media like 8-track cartridges. But certainly I think it's fair to say that (in this case) Bowie had no choice but to release his album in LP format, therefore having "side 2" and "side 2". If he'd insisted on an 8-track only release, it probably would have sunk without trace.
Quote from: Slim on December 04, 2025, 01:15:28 PMQuote from: David L on December 03, 2025, 11:20:19 PMQuote from: Slim on December 03, 2025, 10:06:58 PMQuote from: David L on December 02, 2025, 08:56:03 AMQuote from: Thenop on December 02, 2025, 04:52:10 AMI really like how we talk about 'side 1' and 'side 2'. Just showing our age here.
As the artist intended ;)
They didn't have a choice.......
Can you explain what you mean by that?
Yes - albums were released primarily in two-sided form until the '80s. Admittedly there were "non-sided" media like 8-track cartridges. But certainly I think it's fair to say that (in this case) Bowie had no choice but to release his album in LP format, therefore having "side 2" and "side 2". If he'd insisted on an 8-track only release, it probably would have sunk without trace.
I now understand the point you were making.
I'm unsure that it has too much to do with the nop's comment but I was alluding to the fact that in the LP-age, artists (certainly established ones) would have a large say in the order in which the songs were intended to be listened to - ergo, what was to be side 1 and what was to be side 2.
Crossed-wires, perhaps
Lodger [May 1979]
Three things have always defined this album for me: the jokey cover photo and the singles DJ and Boys Keep Swinging. In 1979, they served to reinforce my conviction that Bowie's career, present tense, wasn't really something I was very interested in any more. There was just none of the old grace, the drama, the poise in any of them.
So I listened for the first time today, although I bought it a few years ago for some reason.
Well - it does have its moments. It's quirky, it's fun in parts. We're much closer now I think to the pop/rock mainstream.
It does have two clunkers (Repetition and Red Money, perhaps not coincidentally the last two tracks) but I must admit it's a lot classier, more clever, more imaginative than a lot of what passed for popular music at the time. I think David is dabbling in the New Wave here in parts though at this temporal distance it's difficult to make an assessment like that. Definitely there's an aroma of Talking Heads here and there. Clever, but for me anyway not really affecting.
Adrian Belew contributes some pleasingly anarchic guitar parts.
It feels a bit ordinary. No ambient instrumentals. David changed down a gear for this one. It mostly just washed over me really.
I must give a nod to the first tune though. Smooth, classic Bowie pop: Fantastic Voyage. Actually I've just listened to it again and noticed that it borrows from Word On A Wing (from Station to Station).
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) [September 1980]
I don't know what to make of this, really. I listened quite carefully, because received wisdom has it that this is one of the great Bowie albums. I don't think it is.
There's an immediacy, a boldness, a coherence. A passion, even. A sense that he's in a good place here, or is that part of the problem? Perhaps it's over-confident.
In essence it's a collection of songs - all of them imaginatively produced, most of them clever. There is one brilliant, bona-fide classic tune in Ashes to Ashes - absolutely a career highlight. It was a single of course and I've loved it since the first time I heard it. But the other single, the spiky, stomping Fashion, would have put me off buying the album if I ever considered it. It's arch, ugly, anarchic, even if deliberately so. Like a parody of the new wave.
It's a clever album, yes. But there's not much of the old grace or drama, the light or shade. David just wants to make a big splash. No theatre, no grandeur.
I have to admit, the whole thing does have an impressive momentum. It gallops along with a sense of purpose. For sure there are good songs. And it must have been influential, because I can hear uncanny future echoes of Blur and Sisters of Mercy in here. Robert Fripp's back to provide another helping of guitar anarchy. But on the whole, it didn't really grab me. Maybe I just don't get it.
If one song could ever justify an album's existence on its own, it's Ashes to Ashes. I deliberately didn't split the song title between two lines such is my admiration and love for this work of art. His Live at BBC Theatre 2000 performance of the song, is perhaps the best live performance I can think of. He looked so incredibly happy, freed from his chemical demons and completely revelling in his ability to entertain and drive a band.. Also, Holly Palmer being present is enough of a reason to buy a ticket. I wish I'd been there!
I get what you mean about Fashion. It does have a really angular, uncomfortable shoes feel to it. A bit disjointed in the way Queen's Bicycle Race is, but whenever I hear it I'm immediately transported back to that fleeting time in my life. I think Bowie had that ability, to bottle emotion, encapsulated forever, to be visited at will. What a talent!
Let's Dance [April 1983]
A hugely successful album and one that's best known I think for the three first tunes, the singles Modern Love, China Girl and Let's Dance. All highly commercial, slick, catchy, memorable tunes. Purposeful grooves.
China Girl was originally written with Iggy Pop and appears on his 1977 album The Idiot. I like both versions. Duran Duran stole the beat and rhythm of the title track for Union of the Snake, it's blatant.
David got Nile Rodgers in to produce. He's clearly going for a very mainstream, dance / pop / rock sound - no experimentation, no theatre. For what it's trying to be I'd say it works spectacularly - mostly really classy stuff. At the same time it's probably the least artful Bowie record so far. There's a conspicuous absence of risk.
For me the album does sag after the first three, key songs. The next two, Without You and Ricochet are fillerish. But it picks up a bit with Criminal World (a cover of a 1977 tune by a little-known arty English band called Metro) and Cat People.
I think I remember Cat People being a single way back when and being unimpressed - it sounded just a bit too much like hackneyed American radio rock. Don't think I'd heard Shake It, the final tune before - reminds me of the Young Americans era a bit. Bouncy plastic soul. Nothing wrong with it at all.
Stevie Ray Vaughan plays some stinging Blues guitar throughout, it works surprisingly well on these glossy dance tunes.
On the whole I quite liked Let's Dance, but I don't love it.
Tonight [September 1984]
I bought this album at the end of 1996, really for only one reason. I wanted one of the CD's bonus tracks, Bowie's brilliant 1985 collaboration with Pat Metheny, This Is Not America. However I was also fond of the opening tune Loving the Alien which had a brilliant music video that I'd seen on MTV or VH1 or somewhere.
I probably played the whole album at least once. Might not have done. But if I did I must have thought "nah" and put it away for good, after ripping the two aforementioned tunes to Minidisc. They accompanied me on my various travels to foreign parts in the late '90s.
But Tonight got a run out today and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. That's not a wholehearted endorsement of course. But in parts, I actually rather like it.
David came to refer to this phase of his career as his "Phil Collins period". I can see what he means - it's very mainstream contemporary music. But - mostly I think due to the influence of producer Hugh Padgham - it has a depth and a sophisticated sheen that I found quite appealing. Again - in parts.
I still really like Loving The Alien. It has a delightful electric intensity with a brooding, minor key feel. It somehow combines a light touch with a purposeful momentum. Don't Look Down was an unexpected nice surprise - it combines a reggae beat with a sort of smoky late night '80s jazz feel - almost like Sade or Anita Baker. Polished. Spacious. Distant, quiet horns. Really liked it.
I'd heard David's cover of the Beach Boys' God Only Knows way back when and hated it for being overblown and melodramatic, and yet today it didn't seem nearly so bad. I can hear interesting chord variations in the arrangement. It's not as mawkish and left-footed as I thought it was but I'm still not fond of it.
The title track has to be the low point though - tedious unimaginative reggae.
Elsewhere there's a spirited run-through of a tune that appeared originally on Iggy's Lust For Life album, Neighbourhood Threat. Another single I remember from the '80s, largely because it came with a 21-minute music video directed by Julien Temple, Blue Jean. Another couple of polished pop tunes and a pointless cover of an old Leiber/Stoller tune from the early '60s and we're done.
Once again there's no art here, no grand concept. Just a collection of mostly worthy but mostly unexceptional commercial, polished popular music tunes that in truth don't hang together all that well.
One criticism of the production is that synthesized horns are used here and there where the real thing would have worked so much better. Apart from that it's pretty flawless. Recorded incidentally at Le Studio in Canada, where a string of successful Rush albums were made.
I've always loved This Is Not America and for years it was the only thing I'd heard featuring Pat Metheny. However, in latter years I've familiarised myself with more of his albums and find them very enjoyable.
I remember watching The Falcon And The Snowman years ago and thought it was a good movie.
Never Let Me Down [April 1987]
I downloaded this album yesterday and listened to it for the first time today. It's widely considered to be the absolute nadir of Bowie's career. Certainly, I understand why but at the same time, it's not all bad.
It's another album I think that you have to consider strictly on its own terms. What might they be? Well - this is 1980s stadium rock star product. It's Then Jerico, Go West on steroids. It sounds very dated. The big drums, the synth stabs, the backing singers. Almost a parody of '80s production choices. Lyrically as well as musically there's not much poetry or art here, it has a sort of good time cheerleading feel. Not much subtlety.
Hate to say it, given that this is the artist who bestowed Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane and Low upon the world, but - this is essentially corporate. And yet he sounds really pleased with himself. I think that's probably what might have hurt his fans most.
I only knew two tunes from the record, Time Will Crawl which I'd seen on a video from the Glass Spider tour and really liked. It still sounds great. And Glass Spider, which starts with a bizarre spoken word section - honestly it put me in mind of Alan Partridge - but morphs into an imaginative, energetic hard rocker, albeit blighted by that overbearing mid '80s production. The lead guitar part is strongly reminiscent, to me anyway, of Power Windows era Alex Lifeson, interestingly. It's actually Peter Frampton.
The whole thing does have an infectious drive and energy, even if it sports a mullet. Once again though, you find yourself wondering why David would want to record banal, mainstream stuff like this. But once again, you have to admit that he's making a pretty good fist of it. It's pretty coherent, it doesn't feel jumbled and while it sounds wince-inducingly dated now, it must have sounded immediate and contemporary in 1987. In a shallow sort of way.
We're into the CD era now of course and it's a long album - there's more than 50 minutes of it if you include Too Dizzy which is omitted from the later CD releases - ostensibly because it was David's least favourite tune on the record, but most likely because he fell out with its co-writer, Erdal Kızılçay. Today I used YouTube to fill in the gap, and it's certainly no worse than most of the other tunes.
Tin Machine [May 1989]
Strictly speaking the Tin Machine episode is not part of Bowie's solo career, but I don't really doubt that he was in charge of the band. I would assume that David wanted to retreat into a band identity for the same reason that Eric Clapton had escaped into Derek and the Dominos nineteen years earlier - he was sick of the attention and expectation directed at his solo persona, especially, in David's case, after a couple of albums that had dismayed critics and fans alike.
I'd been very intrigued by this project after reading a Q interview with David sometime in 1989. I recall that the phrase "Pinstripes and Purple Haze" was used.
I bought this album when it came out, played it a few times but it didn't stick.
First thing to say - this is very, very different from Never Let Me Down. It sounds almost unproduced - it's nicely recorded and mixed and all that, but it's a simple, powerful guitar band sound. No MTV sheen. Even Rebel Rebel sounds almost like prog in comparison.
It's nearly an hour long and I confess I did start to get bored. There are some nice songwriting touches, some nice instrumental touches and a couple of really good songs, but generally it's much of a muchness.
It doesn't sound dated at all. But it does sound a little bit flat. Light and shade conspicuously absent and when you consider that this was an artist celebrated for his imagination and craft, it's easy to understand why Tin Machine was not particularly well received. That said, I quite like it. But not a lot.
Special mention to Kevin Armstrong here - he was to most intents and purposes a member of Tin Machine, plays guitar on the record, toured with the band. But he got credited as "additional guitarist" because Bowie wanted to promote the group as a four-piece, as Kevin recounts in his excellent memoir Absolute Beginner.
When the first single Under the God was released I was immediately floored. This was Bowie? Let's Dance Bowie?
This is 1989, I was 19 and in desperate need of broadening my musical horizon. I was 100% METAL, but felt I needed to be more than one dimensional. This felt like the perfect bridge - little did we all know this was probably a blueprint for grunge as it was to emerge soon. This mix of rock, blues and some form of alternative mainly due to the fantastic guitar playing by Reeves Gabrels (who has been playing with the Cure for many years now), lured me in and kept me in a stranglehold. I played the album (that I managed to buy as one of my last pre-cd vinyl purchases) over and over.
Opener Heaven's in Here has a sort of jam type loose feel that I really like, and Gabrels solo seems very undirectional, I loved it!
Other highlights for me were always Prisoner of Love, the fantastic I Can't Read (that waa recorded a couple of more times by Bowie, I know it best from the soundtrack of the movie The Ice Storm), the already mentioned uptempo Under the God, with strong lyrical content, or at least it spoke to this 19 year old, the John Lennon cover Working Class Hero I always liked and I can't help but chuckle at the Bus Stop lyrics, an uptempo double time ditty clocking in at 1:43:
There's a cry that is heard in the city
From Vivian at Pentecost Lane
A shriekin' and dancing till four a.m.
Another night of muscles and pain
I love you despite your convictions
That God never laughs at my jokes
I'm a young man at odds with the Bible
But I don't pretend faith never works
When we're down on our knees
Prayin' at the bus stop
Now Jesus he came in a vision
And offered you redemption from sin
I'm not sayin' that I don't believe you
But are you sure that it really was him
I've been told that it could've been blue cheese
Or the meal that we ate down the road
I'm a young man at odds with the Bible
But I don't pretend faith never works
When we're down on our knees
Prayin' at the bus stop
Hallelujah
This story would already been good enough for me, were it not that I have the CD now as well. When a neighbour passed away some 2 years ago his CD collection was put out for all to pick. He had an eclectic taste and this was in it. I thought it was a good keepsake, in his memory.
Anyway, my favourite Bowie outing this.
Tin Machine II [September 1991]
Recorded over two sessions in 1989-90 and 1991, between which David embarked on an enormous solo tour, perhaps underlining the proposition that Tin Machine was, after all, a side project.
I never bought this album though I do remember a couple of the songs from radio play they had back in the day. You Belong In Rock'n'Roll made it onto Top Of The Pops. I remember Goodbye Mr. Ed from somewhere.
It's a bit less immediate, less blunt than the first Tin Machine outing. There's a bit more light and shade. It's still in essence a fairly simple guitar band sound but it's a bit more produced. In particular Hugh Padgham was brought in to produce the second tune One Shot because the record company wanted a radio-friendly tune on the album.
It's shorter than the first album and I'm sorry to say that's a good thing. Again, there are good songs, nice moments, but there's nothing really exceptional here and I got bored.
I did really like Amlapura which is a delicate acoustic-driven piece that calls back to Hunky Dory. And I really like Goodbye Mr. Ed.
Only one of the tunes was solely written by David. Interestingly lead vocals for two of the tunes are handled by Hunt Sales, the drummer. Bowie's biographer Nicholas Pegg argues that these are (some of the) "most frighteningly bad songs ever to find their way into the Bowie canon". They aren't, the first is a spirited Blues tune with some pretty plausible Texas Blues style guitar from Reeves Gabrels and the other is a thoroughly decent, reflective and intense ballad that Hunt wrote all by himself. I don't mind them at all. He sings well and if nothing else they help to break the monotony a bit.
So: compared to its predecessor it trades a bit of power and spontaneity for a touch of subtlety and craft. Hard to say which I prefer really. Sorry to say that mostly, I find both of them rather banal.
It was probably due to the high anticipation, but I never got into this one. The sound is the opposite of what I liked on the debut. Maybe listened to it twice, then discarded it.
Disappointing.
Black Tie, White Noise [April 1993]
So David resumes his solo recording career in 1993, and he enlists Nile Rodgers to produce his next effort. Niles apparently wants to make another Let's Dance. That's definitely not what happens.
I bought this album after hearing the lead single, Jump They Say in a pizza place in Manchester in 1993. I really liked it. I have a vague memory of listening to the whole CD and not really liking any of the other tunes. I listened to it yesterday and didn't remember any of them. And yet - I was really impressed. This is a very good album. It's bold, spiky.
I think early '90s dance culture must have been an influence and that might be what turned me off back in 1993. That was about the time when I found I couldn't listen to Radio 1, or 1FM as I think it was styled back then, any more. But the songs, the voice, the big production make it work.
There are other influences as well - You've Been Around is very '80s Scott Walker, with those very distinctive, odd vocal harmonies - and as if to prove me right, a cover of The Walker Brothers' Nite Flights in the same style, turns up later on the record.
There's a brilliant, industrial techno / funk cover of Cream's I Feel Free. I loved it. There's jazz. There's jazz funk. I swear Don't Let Me Down and Down sounds like a Level 42 tune with Bowie guesting on vocals. The title track too is a gorgeous, heartfelt outing in a similar style. It's glorious. One of the tunes, Pallas Athena sounds like Prince although it's not one of my favourites.
The whole album is slick, it's clever, it's imaginative, it hints at the experimental Bowie of yore while remaining accessible. It borrows from a variety of styles but doesn't feel like a hotch-potch.
If I listened to this in 1993, then decided not to bother with it - shame on me. We aren't ever going to get anywhere near Diamond Dogs or Aladdin Sane again, but I think this is his best album since Low, possibly Station to Station.
The Buddha of Suburbia [November 1993]
David agreed to compose the music for a TV adaptation of the Hanif Kureishi novel The Buddha of Suburbia in 1993. I watched the TV series, but didn't bother with the album. Actually I only vaguely remember the main theme.
Well - my sense is that as soundtrack elements, these pieces must have worked quite well, and yet - I've just read that only the title track appears in the TV programme. Maybe David was using the propositon of it being a soundtrack album to take some career pressure off, still limping from the critical kicking he'd invited in the late '80s.
Anyway - a sort of mixed bag of styles, only some of which David's fans would already find quite familiar. Some structured, nice pop songs. A touch of jazz. But there's a bit of experimentation, a lot of ambient mood stuff. It's actually very stylish and atmospheric. Really immersive. Low key, in a very good way.
I was really quite surprised. It's not an album to scratch the usual David Bowie itch but it's very well done. I can barely believe this was composed and created less than five years after the casual, corporate MTV rock of Never Let Me Down. There's just so much depth, exquisite good taste and restraint here. Proper art.
I'm definitely finding some very worthy material as I discover these later albums I'd ignored. So far, anyway.
1. Outside [September 1995]
This isn't so much an album of music as an extended exercise in aural theatre. A concept album with a running narrative about a detective investigating the murder of a fourteen-year old girl in a fictional town in New Jersey. It runs for 74 minutes.
It's industrial, it's dense. It's not very commercial. It's nothing if not proper art. It does roll along with a real sense of purpose. There's no doubt that David is very committed to what he's doing here. Got to admire that.
About half an hour in, my detached respect for it being a very original, experimental exercise evolved into finding it very compelling. It really pulled me in, in a big way. I think this is brilliant, actually. It's very diverse. Very dramatic, extremely atmospheric. Moody spoken voiceovers. It honestly feels very profound. There are even touches of melody here and there! Certainly some of the pieces that make up this work would work well enough as standalone tunes, if a little intense. But it hangs together fantastically well. It's almost hypnotic.
I went from "can I really bear to spend 74 minutes listening to a Bowie album?" when I pressed play to "I don't think I want this to end". It is emphatically not overextended.
I had no idea.
I just ignored this phase of Bowie's career completely. What have I done? If I had a Tardis I'd go back and get myself to listen to this in my flat in East Dulwich, although whether I'd like it is an interesting question. I only know this album from the single Hallo Spaceboy, and that was a remix done by Pet Shop Boys that sounds quite different from the original album version. They added some "Major Tom" lyrics and a disco beat for a bit of commercial sugar.
Interestingly, the song Strangers When We Meet is reused from Buddha of Suburbia in a re-recorded version that sounds different. It does sound a little incongruous but perhaps it's intended to wrap things up on an upbeat note.
I think that if I had the attention span to spend an hour and a quarter immersed in this repeatedly, this record will reward that handsomely. I'm not sure I do. Having said that, it might be a fascinating companion on a long bike ride.
Earthling [February 1997]
So it's 1997 and David is still enamoured with industrial and electronica, but he's clearly discovered a liking for drum and bass, as well. I personally quite like the drum and bass sound, but on this album I'm sorry to say that as often as not it sounds superfluous, like a drum part's been painted over a tune that doesn't necessarily suit it.
The album I'm most familiar with that uses this sound, this rhythm is Everything But The Girl's Walking Wounded. On that record, the drum and bass rhythm sounds integral, warm, atmospheric. Inviting, even. On this album it sounds cold, harsh. Like a treatment, not an organic part of the music. Every now and then you feel like you're listening to an indie tune with someone playing a manic drum part that doesn't belong on it. It's actually irritating sometimes, like trying to listen to music while someone is operating machinery in the same room. It sounds dated, as well.
Underneath it's quite hard and industrial, with splashes of noisy guitar, sampling and looping. The very least you can say is that there's nothing banal about the arrangement and production, but it feels constructed rather than inspired. Musically - when you strip away the energy and the chaos, I don't think there's much going on underneath.
Or not much. I was familiar with I'm Afraid of Americans and I still think that's quite a banging tune. Elsewhere there are some nice moments. Clever touches.
I never paid any attention to this album when it came out. Noticed the striking cover (David wearing a Union Jack frock coat, back to the camera) in the record shops but otherwise ignored it.
Did David really like this sort of thing, or is it more about wanting to remain a part of the contemporary soundscape? I do get the impression he's enjoying what he's doing on this record. It's not one that will stay with me.
Hours [September 1999]
I love the cover artwork conceived for this album. Inspired by the Pietà, a Christian trope in which the not-really-a-Virgin Mary cradles the body of Jesus following his death, we see a new David, clean-shaven, hair grown out a little, tending thoughtfully to the body of '90s David. The message seems clear: we've moved on. Doing something different now.
But what? Well the hard electronica and industrial sonic experimentation of the previous few years has been cast aside and the Virgin David has recorded a fairly conventional record, by his own standards anyway. It's pop music, it's rock music, a touch of singer/songwriter fare.
(https://i.ibb.co/fzyWPZBH/hours.avif)
Trouble is, it's dull. He doesn't sound motivated or inspired. If anything he sounds tired. It sounds underproduced, as well. There are some little atmospheric, artistic touches but to me anyway they sounded a bit contrived. I don't think he's phoning it in, I just don't think he has anything in the creative tank at this point. It feels like he's forced this one out.
I knew only one tune from this album, a very decent song called Seven. Can't remember where I first heard it - the radio probably - but I've always liked it. Unfortunately the album version is not the one I knew, which (it turns out) is a remix / rearrangement by Marius de Vries. The remix gives the song what it's crying out for - a rhythm, a beat, some energy. The original version from the album is a slow dirge with a strummy 12-string guitar, perhaps meant to call back to Hunky Dory.
Received wisdom has it that Never Let Me Down is David's nadir; the lowest point of his discography. As corporate and dated as it sounds, for me it's stronger than Hours. This is David's century dying with a whimper.
uǝɥʇɐǝɥ [June 2002]
This gets off to quite a bright start - from the off it sounds more spirited, more inspired than Hours. There's a touch of the old drama, atmosphere and grace. A couple of slow-burning atmospheric pieces, an energetic rocker or two. There's no trend-chasing, no over-arch experimentation. It's pretty straightforward Bowie-style pop/rock.
Unfortunately as the album wears on it does start to drag. The difficult truth is that it's mostly filler.
I was familiar with two of the tunes on this record: Everyone Says Hi, which was a single I remember hearing often back in 2002 - and I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship which is a cover of a tune by Legendary Stardust Cowboy (look him up) in 1968. These are, for me, by a long way the best moments on the album. The former is a mainstream pop/rock meditation on death which is really nicely conceived. It's a really strong tune, tastefully performed and arranged, sung with conviction.
The Gemini Spaceship tune is very pleasingly out-there - it has a bit of drum and bass energy and a sort of brooding, tongue-in-cheek glam power and presence. It sounds nothing like the original, which sounds something like Johnny Cash having a laugh while off his face so although he didn't write it, I do have to give David some credit here.
But I'm not sure what to make of the rest of it. it's in part thoughtful, tastefully done, some quite inventive and atmospheric arrangements. I quite liked the Pixies cover, Cactus. I quite liked David's own A Better Future. All in all this album does improve on Hours, but I'm pretty lukewarm about it. It's just not really very interesting or engaging.
Didn't really like Hours or Heathen...the only memorable thing about them was that we got a tour out of the latter record..
Reality [September 2003]
Well blimey. Against all reasonable expectation, this turns out to be a very decent record.
We're still pretty firmly in the pop/rock mainstream on the whole, perhaps a bit more edgy, more moody in places, but the songs here are catchy, they have a poky energy and spirit. And they're stylish. This is much more like it. It really sounds like David's heart's in it.
I only knew New Killer Star which was a single. Great little tune.
Special mention for the album's closer, Bring Me the Disco King which is a sort of jazz piano piece with a melancholy vocal. Originally intended for Black Tie White Noise but re-recorded for this record in a bare, slower, stripped down form with a melancholy vocal. Lovely.
Reality was recorded with the Bowie touring band - I wonder if that's made the critical difference? More performance oriented, perhaps. The music feels played, not assembled. Alive.
For a long time this looked like David's swansong - he retreated from public life for ten years following its release, although he did appear in Extras in 2006.
The Next Day [March 2013]
So ten years pass, the great man is assumed to have retired and then one day, taking the music world entirely by surprise (it was recorded secretly, everyone involved being subject to an NDA) - here's a new Bowie single, with an album to follow.
I loved the single Where Are We Now? which is a beautiful, atmospheric reflection on David's past and the passing of time. Really excellent. I heard a couple of the other tunes when the album came out, wasn't that impressed, didn't bother with it.
(https://i.ibb.co/5pK35bx/next-day.avif)
It is though a very decent album. I have much the same feelings toward it as I do toward its predecessor, Reality. Again: well-produced, decent songs, his heart is clearly in it. Confident and committed.
No filler. But really only two exceptional tunes for me - the aforementioned Where Are We Now? and Heat, a slow, ethereal piece with a rich, sonorous vocal performance. Scott Walker-ish. David's voice sounded a bit tired and old on the former when it came out, but it must have been deliberate. Some very nice fretless bass on that one as well (Gail Ann Dorsey I assume).
I'd say this is a bit stronger on the whole than Reality. Good album, no question. It must have come out of a fruitful creative period because there are three outtakes on the deluxe edition and they're all thoroughly decent as well. A little more than an hour of good (but only sparingly great) stuff.
Special mention for the cover art - the Heroes cover with a simple blank square and title impsosed on it. Brilliant.
★ [January 2016]
Recorded in secret in 2015, as the great man neared the end of his life. I was knocked out when I saw the video for Lazarus, the first single. I hadn't paid attention to David's new stuff for years. But this was.. clever, powerful, brilliant. I was back on board! Then a couple of weeks later, he was gone.
This is a very good album, recorded with a group of local jazz musicians in New York. It's certainly not jazz but it does have a certain low-key sophistication. Although it's not a concept album, it does feel like there's a thread running through it, an intensity. I think it's largely about mortality. But it's not all ominous gloom by any means, it's somehow engaging and warm at the same time.
It's a relatively short album at 41 minutes. All of it is very strong. Hints of ambience, hints of experimentation, some unusual rhythm but it's very coherent. Strong, interesting songs. Brilliant.
For me the highlight is Blackstar, the title track. It spends over four minutes in a sort of haunting, atmospheric drone .. then somehow morphs into a swaggering, saxophone-embellished, darkly satisfying Bowie pop tune. I think there might even be a suggestion of tongue-in-cheek. Love it.
Oh, and on the very last tune I Can't Give Everything Away there's a hint of the harmonica refrain from Low's A New Career in a New Town. Poignant.
This final Bowie album was released ten years ago today, on his 69th birthday.
I recall quite well what impact the first time hearing Lazarus had on me. I was, like you, blown away. I soon realised I needed this entire album, and see what it was all about.
An ensemble of New York jazz musicians, Bowie and longtime producer Tony Visconti, count me in!
This really is some album, not just by Bowie standards, but by any standard. It really is fresh, exceptionally well sounding, most of the drumsound resonates quite naturally, listen to that snare on 'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore. The right amount of electronics and effects, as an aural paintbrush fills in gaps like Bob Ross painted little clouds always in pairs because everyone needs a friend. Speaking of 'Tis a Pity, what a drive that song has!
Of course the titletrack is a work of art, heavily dealing with his own demise, it sounds unreal to hear him like that.
Lazarus is maybe my favourite on here still though, that horn part in the intro almost sound like a group of teenage girls singing nag-nag-nag in a bored fashion. The lazy feel really does it for me. And again, that snaresound, the close miking of the drums. And that lyric, literally describing how he feels in that instant dealing with dosages of morphine battling his cancer pain. I read an interview with Ivo ten Hove, the director of the Lazarus theater production who spoke extensively with Bowie on the subject. Phrases in here are so literal:
Dropped my cell phone down below
Ain't that just like me?
Seems he was a bit clumsy, he just left it in.
The song itself is a proper pop jazz masterpiece. And not in the Sade way of jazzy laid back feel..
The basslines feel almost like New Order at some point, I can almost hear Pete Hooks spirit float through the room there. Fantastic.
I believe Sue is a somewhat of a divider amongst fans, personally I am very fond of the drum'n'bass part. it has a hyper feel in a hypnotic way, I know I am contradicting myself. It just feels like that.
Dollar Days is very on the nose when it comes to his mortality (I Am Dying To, repeated over and over), as a song it's a relatively simple tune, with Bowie's voice and timing (!) as a shining stars. Again with clear reference to his ever drawing closer death it feels like he really is saying goodbye here.
Fantastic album, probably pushing out the Tin Machine one as my favourite Bowie release.
As an aside, I bought the LP upon release and played it quite a lot. One of those that somehow disappears to the back of your mind, but it's back to the forefront now.
Aside 2: our wedding anniversary is January 10th and I remember getting dressed to go out in the morning (yes, we are weird like that) and reading that Bowie died. It really made the day a little less shiny.
I'm trying to rank the Bowie albums in order of preference. I pasted each of my posts in this thread into ChatGPT and asked it for my ranking. It hasn't got it quite right but it's roughly there.
Your Bowie Albums — Ranked by Preference- Diamond Dogs (1974)
Theatre, dystopia, total immersion. Your clear summit.
- Station to Station (1976)
Intensity, architecture, discipline. Monumental at its best.
- Low (1977)
Art, restraint, mystery. Aesthetic seriousness over emotion.
- ★ Blackstar (2016)
Intentional, contained, sophisticated. Necessary and complete.
- 1. Outside (1995)
Aural theatre, obsession, danger. Flawed but brave.
- The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972)
Iconic, focused, immaculate. Admired more than loved.
- Aladdin Sane (1973)
Dazzling, stylish, uneven genius.
- Hunky Dory (1971)
Songwriting triumph. Career-defining tunes.
- Black Tie White Noise (1993)
Taste, curiosity, rediscovery. Best post-'80s recovery.
- Reality (2003)
Engaged, energetic, played. Poky and spirited.
- The Next Day (2013)
Authority, craft, emotional coolness.
- The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Atmosphere, restraint, immersion. Minor but thoughtful.
- The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Dark, heavy, formative hard rock Bowie.
- Heroes (1977)
Stylish, brittle, emotionally grey.
- Scary Monsters (1980)
Bold, arch, theatrically thin.
- Young Americans (1975)
Audacious but alienating. Classy moments only.
- Lodger (1979)
Clever, lightweight, little residue.
- Let's Dance (1983)
Glossy, professional, un-artful.
- Heathen (2002)
Tasteful, inert. Improves on Hours but mostly filler.
- Earthling (1997)
Energetic, constructed, superfluous.
- Tonight (1984)
Polished, inconsequential.
- Tin Machine (1989)
Honest, flat, monochrome.
- Tin Machine II (1991)
More subtle, still banal.
- Never Let Me Down (1987)
Corporate, dated, energetic — but stronger than Hours.
- Hours... (1999)
Inert, unmotivated. Your clear nadir.
- David Bowie (1969)
Patchy, embryonic.
- David Bowie (1967)
Camp, misjudged curiosity.