What are your two favourite David Bowie albums post 'Scary Monsters'?

"Scary Monsters" is probably my fav DB album
After that i put "Outside" and "The Next Day" in my bag

 

I got into Scary Monsters many years after it came out, initially disliking most of it bar 'Ashes To Ashes' and 'Fashion'. It's one of my all-time favourites now. Such a solid album.

 

Post Scary Monsters?

1. Outside
2. Reality

 

why no poll ?

 

Outside
Tin Machine

 

Reality/The Next Day.

 

I always thought Let's Dance was up there with his best albums, I still do.

 

Not to dis the man's earlier work too harshly, but (IMHO) Bowie was never in better voice than in the decade or so following Tin Machine (up until his disappearance in 2004 or 2005).

He was SUCH a better singer in the 90's and early 2000's -- far better than in the 70's. His tone quality, use of vibrato, support, and control were all at their height in the late 90's/early 2000's -- based on the evidence on the live recordings I've heard from those years.

Bowie was as fascinating and interesting artist in the 70's (and wrote some great music), but nowhere near as skilled a performer (vocally). Very expressive in the 70's, I'll grant him that -- but nowhere near as "skilled".

 

There's a reason for that, you know!

 

Mostly all of his stuff post Scary Monsters has been a game of two halves in my opinion: some great stuff mixed with some, not-so-great. Perhaps Budha of Surburbia and The Next Day are perhaps more consistantly good than the others (is that grammatically correct??), but they nealy always had some great moments. Even the much maligned (and deservedly-so imo) Hours..... had some great tunes Like Seven and survive, but was let down but some quite unimaginative production (these tunes particularly sound great live).

 

Absolutely agree.

 

I'm not sure I agree on that. The opening lines to 'Sweet Thing' are pretty skilled IMO.

 

I probably shouldn't have said that like it applied 100% to every tune he ever sang in the 70's. There were certainly some flashes of great vocal-skill in the 70's (Life on Mars is a good example, for instance), and others I'm sure (and that aren't coming to mind immediately).

To be honest, I don't know Bowie's 70's output inside and out, like I do his 90's and 2000's output.

 

I think Let's Dance is uneven. Title track, "Modern Love" and "Cat People" are great, "China Girl" is better in Iggy's original version and the rest feels like filler.

 

I get what you say and i agree, he is such a good singer and when you compare him to some other folks that really lost it when they began to grow old (Morrissey, Ian McCulloch, etc) it makes it more remarkable.

 

I agree that he is still in great voice, especially when you consider how many ciggies he has smoked!

 

That's greedy. Which one goes?

 

"Outside" and "Earthling".

 

This is a hard question. Every post-1980s Bowie effort lives in the shadow of Scary Monsters, and Bowie himself has struggled with this shadow -- didn't some early press liken Never Let Me Down to the continuation of Scary Monsters?? It does feel, in places, like Bowie was trying (unsuccessfully) to get back to that sound on NLMD.

I "came of age", Bowie-wise, c. 1993/4, where every new release was "his best since Scary Monsters!", and tracks like "Teenage Wildlife", "Scary Monsters", and "Fashion" began appearing (or re-appearing) in his setlist. But the fact that the first new Bowie record I fondly remember anticipating many months before its release was Outside probably gives me a bias towards overrating his post-Tin Machine material.

Anyway, I like so much of his post-Tin Machine output that it's far easier to identify the stuff I don't like (just about all of Hours..., which felt very half-baked to me in terms of songwriting, and I hated the "I'm just a regular guy who doesn't cut his hair and dresses like a slob around the house" persona that accompanied it) than choose favorites among the rest, but if I had to...

My Top Two (as per the thread topic)
The Next Day
Reality

Almost Top Two...
Heathen
Outside (perhaps with a few tracks relegated to b-sides)

Things I Play Regularly
Buddha of Suburbia
Toy (deserves an official release)
Black Tie White Noise (again – with a few tracks relegated to b-sides, including the title track)

Eh…
Earthling - I loved it at the time, and about half holds up well, but a number of tracks feel like filler, or half an idea for a song stretched into a 5 minute track
Hours… - ... alas, many tracks feel like filler.

I wrote on this very topic back when The Next Day was released, if anyone is interested: http://drabbo.blogspot.com/2013/03/his-best-since-scary-monsters-or-reality.html

 

Tin Machine
Outside

 

Heathen - following roughly 20 years of what could be called musical "wilderness" (I too only liked a few select recordings from the era in question but rarely an entire album), Bowie finally delivered a set of songs which I thought actually lived up to its "best since Scary Monsters" hype, but I would not say that it in fact exceeded any of the earlier, pre-1980 classics, including Scary Monsters (there's a reason this one has been the measuring stick for so long -- it's arguably one of his best!). I do agree with another poster that despite relatively weaker material overall, Bowie was indeed in fine voice during the period immediately preceding his health scare, and I am glad at least that he appears to have overcome that potential fatality, though I would still like to see him get back to live performing, if possible.

Let's Dance - this one has grown on me over the years, although it was so overplayed at the time, that I hardly felt the need to purchase it, and actually delayed doing so until the mid-90s when a slightly expanded edition appeared. While it was nice to have "Under Pressure" added to this title, I would have preferred seeing the original (imho, superior!) soundtrack version of "Cat People" also included here (I thought the reissue of Tonight had better bonus tracks), and I agree with another post that overall this is still only a half-great album, even if it is fun to re-visit it and its videos occasionally as 80's period pieces.

 

I go a little bit back and forth about Earthling too, but I find it FAR better than Hours..., by a mile.

Earthling is filled with a couple 5-star tracks, and most of the rest are easily 3-star tracks - and the whole thing works pretty well as an album experience too. Maybe not the best thing he did since Tin Machine, but a solid effort that also broke some new ground.

Hours..., on the other hand, has maybe 2 tracks (at most) that I like (i.e. 3-star tracks), and the rest feel like 2-star tracks. Most all the singles are tuneful (as far as it goes), but have worn very thin over time. His only real strikeout since Tin Machine, at least in my book.

 

I have to say that I don't love any full Bowie albums after Lodger (Scary Monsters has a few dudes to me too). I probably think The Next Day is the most consistent which is surprising.
I do like quite a few of his singles and album tracks over that time though. But I never understood the love for Outside and found most of his projects either trying to hard to 'change' into something modern or relying too much on roads he had already taken. I could put together a great playlist of my favorite post-Lodger tracks though and it would be a pretty incredible double-album.

 

You know, I don't "love" any full Bowie albums much at all, actually -- top to bottom, that is. Every one of them have their share of duds, or tunes I just don't (or haven't yet) connected with.

And I totally agree, though, The Next Day is pretty amazingly consistent (one of his very best), and I think I think Reality is too. I rank Reality a little bit higher, overall (and maybe my #1 favorite Bowie album), because more of the tunes have dug their claws into me -- but The Next Day is probably a little bit more consistent.

But nearly EVERY Bowie album has its high and low points (for me). As with most things, there's GREAT, Good, and less-than-good on every album. Most of his post-"Tin Machine" output (except Hours...) -- fully half of every album is GREAT (or nearly so), and the rest some combination of Good or less-than-good. (Hours... is mostly less-than-good, with maybe two "Good" tunes at most.)

But (for me) for nearly every PRE-"Tin Machine" Bowie album is maybe 25% GREAT, 25% Good, and then fully HALF (or close to it) is less-than-good. And for the pre-1975 albums, it's more like 2/3rds is less-than-good.