David Bowie - the Studio Albums

[Slim]

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.

[The Picnic Wasp]

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!

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[David L]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Thenop]

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. 

[Slim]

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.

[Thenop]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

[Slim]

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.

Highslide Image Viewer

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.