Bowie Album-By-Album Thread- Second Run

"Directed at a spy." I guess. If Visconti says so.

 

David seems to upset you quite a bit. And there may be some jealousy involved.

 

Absolutely. The man won the genetic lottery and I'm a little bitter.

Wish I could be a David Bowie- just for one day.

 

I will never forget the shock of the announcement of a new album on his 66th birthday!

I didn't end up liking the album too much overall but love the three singles culled from it (especially the remix of Love Is Lost).

 

Just peeking in from the side to say that I love "Where Are We Now?". It is probably due to me not really being a Bowie head that it reminds me a bit of Rick Wright's Broken China album.

 

I wasn't particularly fond of the single "Where Are We Now?" when it first came out. I was also not a big fan of most of Bowie's post "Let's Dance" albums so I had low expectations for "The Next Day". I read the fantastic reviews so I gave it a chance and was richly rewarded.

1) The Next Day - Strong opening rocker. A big surprise after only hearing "Where are We Now?" before I got the album. 8.0
2) Dirty Boys - Ominous sounding song. 7.0
3) The Stars (Are Out Tonight) - One of my top 3 on the album. Very strong melodies. 9.5
4) Love Is Lost - Another dark track with a briefly uplifting bridge, then darkness again. 8.0
5) Where Are We Now? - Wasn't a fan at first but it's grown on me and sounds better to me in context of the album. Reminds me a bit of "November Rain". 7.0
6) Valentine's Day - Catchy pop rocker with nice hooks. 9.0
7) If You Can See Me - A bit disjointed to me but not bad. 6.0
8) I'd Rather Be High - The title and some of the lyrics put me off as it seems like typical rock star fodder. No denying the strong melodies though. 6.5
9) Boss of Me - Kind of a simple one trick pony kind of song/concept but I like the one trick. 7.0
10) Dancing Out In Space - Odd but pleasant song. 6.5
11) How Does the Grass Grow? - Absolutely love this one. Classic Bowie. 10.0
12) (You Will) Set the World On Fire - Another energetic rocker in the line of the title track, and equally strong. 8.0
13) You Feel So Lonely You Could Die - The darkness returns. Vocals really stand out on this one. The last 20 seconds sound like a U2 song. 6.5
14) Heat - The darkest song on the album. Lyrics really stand out to me here. Almost cinematic. 8.0

I won't get into all the "Next Day Extra" songs but I would highly recommend it, if you like the standard album. "God Bless the Girl" and "I'll Take You There" are worth the price alone. There's a few other strong songs as well: ("Born in a UFO" for one)

Some of the songs are dark, but I don't pick up a distinct/continuous sound or theme on "The Next Day". (Like many of the other classic Bowie albums) It's just a collection of really good songs. It almost plays like a greatest hits of ideas Bowie came up with during his lengthy hiatus. Overall: Strong 7.5/10

 

Bowie pretty much vanished off the face of the earth for about 10 years following his on-stage heart attack in 2004. After a few years of waiting about, like a concert crowd clapping for another encore, his fans slowly began to disperse. Maybe, the thought went, it was just as well. While Heathen and Reality were certainly big steps up from most of his post- Let’s Dance output, they still never felt consistently worthy of comparison to his genre-changing work of the 1970’s. They were recognizable Bowie artifacts, but weren’t quite up to the standards of That Bowie, the one who’d crafted Ziggy, and Station To Station, and who’d gone to Berlin and changed pop music for a decade in the process. That Bowie had been gone for two decades by the time David Jones staggered offstage and collapsed – in Germany, ironically. The universe it would seem has a perverse sense of humor.

But then, so did David Bowie. In January of 2013, completely out of the blue, he dropped a somnolent single and creepy video - steeped in '70s, Berlin-era nostalgia - into the marketplace. And announced that, oh yeah, there’s a new album set to drop in mid-March. Because f*** retirement.

Now, Bowie hadn’t exactly been at the center of the rock / pop universe since about, oh, 1984. In fact he was closer to being the butt of jokes from the mid-‘80s thru the end of the century, more ignored (or worse pitied) than admired. Granted, his albums since 1992 or so at least have all had their moments, and by 1999 with the release of Hours he finally stopped trying too hard – pathetically too hard in some instances - to ride the cutting edge (Hello, Outside. Hi there, Earthling.) and let his songwriting do the heavy lifting. As a result, Hours, Heathen and Reality really were his "best work since Scary Monsters". The overarching complaint I have with them is that the energy level often lags, and there's a feeling he's noodling around on a lot of the tracks. They lack the focus and urgency that characterized a broad swath of his classic albums, from Hunky Dory thru Scary Monsters, as well as the hooks, which he provided thru Let’s Dance. Heathen is the best of the bunch, although Hours arguably has two of the best songs he's written since the early '80s, "Seven" and "Survive", both delightful throwbacks to the pre-Ziggy Bowie of yesteryear. Anyhow, if you took the best 3 tracks off of each of those last 5 albums before The Next Day, you'd have a record at least as good as anything he released in his salad days.

In the buildup to the album's release "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" dropped next, and this thing - the song and the disturbing video, featuring Tilda Swinton - were the most vivid work we’d heard and seen from him since "Jump They Say", waaaaay back in '92. Stylistically it’s not far removed from 2004’s Reality, but its scathing observations of celebrity culture feel a lot sharper, more direct, more concise and effective. That sense of urgency his work has mostly lacked for decades came back with a vengeance. The tinted limo windows that celebrities lurk behind are “gleaming like blackened sunshine”, and he casts celebrities as demonic, undying “satyrs and their child wives.”

The Next Day itself finally dropped, to almost universally strong reviews. The sense that he’s just fiddling about is finally banished – virtually all the tracks are sharp and to the point (and most clock in at 2:30 – 3:30, a blistering pace for an aging rock god and reminiscent of his Berlin-era heyday). He’s in fine voice, and he’s got a lot to say about mortality and war and celebrity and democracy and all the other crap swirling around in a legend’s brain. Even the slow tracks – heck, especially the slow tracks like “Heat” – are focused and memorable (and often deliciously creepy, in a sort of Diamond Dogs stripped of any artifice kind of way).

The weird thing about the record is, Bowie doesn’t even sound remotely influenced by current rock and pop (OK, the title track sounds a little like Franz Ferdinand. Maybe.) Instead, it’s like he took the output of his six decade career and shoved it into a blender, Space Oddity thru Reality. You’ll be listening to a delightful anti-war song like “I’d Rather Be High” which, lyrically anyhow, recalls stuff off Space Oddity, but the sound of the thing is a bit Lodger. “Valentine’s Day” calls out to ‘50s and ‘60s pop like “Drive In Saturday” did all those years ago…but it’s a perky little song about a school shooter. “Dirty Boys” could have crawled off one of his ‘70s records with Iggy Pop, although the delicious sax seems to have bubbled up out of the sewers of Diamond Dogs. The other anti-war song, “How Does The Grass Grow”, reflects his decades old fascination with Kubrick, and sounds like Lodger had a drunken one-nighter with Let’s Dance and produced a mutant love child (a child fascinated with the bass line of “John, I’m Only Dancing”, which crops up here, as do the intro drums from “Five Years”, which sprout improbably from the end of the “Rock & Roll Suicide”-esque track “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die”). And so forth. He’s harked back to his earlier work before, but in a far more coherent fashion. This is more akin to his cut-up lyric technique, only here he’s taken to applying that to his library of styles as well.

Overall, the results are disconcerting and often disturbing, as if Bowie has decided to one-up the legions of Bowie devotees in pop music by ripping off the sound of his entire catalog simultaneously, while grafting it onto better songs than most of them could hope to write. It resulted in his first UK #1 record since, well, forever (OK, 1992 – over two decades), and it feels to me like the first totally vital, connected record he’s released since Scary Monsters.

The record hits on all the traditional Bowie topics. There’s religion on “The Next Day” and the corruption of the Catholic Church. The song is obviously set far back in time, yet it was a timely topic given the sexual molestation scandals rocking the organization during the period the album was recorded. “Dirty Boys” is an obvious nod to glam – there’s violence and sex and homoeroticism implied throughout, all punctuated by a rude sax and resting atop an Iggy-esque beat. “Love Is Lost” is one of the most personal tracks he’s ever recorded, but not about himself but his wife Iman’s journey to America and becoming a star model at the age of 22, and how she had to fend for herself in the fashion industry. “Where Are We Now?” touches on aging (something Bowie has dealt with by the way since he was starting out - there have always been older people scattered throughout his music, and now he’s simply one of them). “I’d Rather Be High” is an effective antiwar track, as is the more stark “How Does The Grass Grow”, while “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” is the latest in a long line of scathing attacks on authoritarians, here showing how their machinations come back to destroy them. Bowie has things to say once again, and is effective at getting them across.

The cliche about each new Bowie record for years was that, "It's his best since Scary Monsters!" but I always found that record (and its predecessor Lodger) to be something of a mixed bag. The Next Day I think is his best record since “Heroes”, and that's largely because it sounds like it's coming from the original David Bowie - the guy who gave us Station To Station, The Man Who Sold The World or Low over three decades ago - and not the somewhat boring interloper who took over toward the end of the '70s with increasingly-tedious experiments (Lodger, Outside), stabs at being commercial (Tonight, Never Let Me Down) and fruitless trendhopping (Black Tie White Noise, Earthling).

What I don't understand is, what the hell happened? Why did that David Bowie ever go away? And what was it about his near-decade away from the limelight that brought him back to us? He'd somewhat recovered by 2003 and Heathen, at least occasionally producing tracks as well formed and urgent as his heyday's ("Slow Burn", "New Killer Star"), but nothing as driving and consistent as The Next Day.

I do have some criticisms of the record. I hate the sonics of The Next Day - it's very sterile and compressed, which makes for a difficult slog (although admittedly, given the nature of much of the material, it’s arguably appropriate). But I could tell right away that the quality of the songwriting was well above his releases post-Let's Dance, so I stuck with it.

The album is also far too long – especially given the sonics – and there are a couple of tracks I'd definitely axe. "Dancing Out In Space" would be one of them. The wildly experimental "If You Can See Me" might be the other, although at least it has the advantage of being different (and unlike most of his post-”Heroes” experiments, it’s memorable). I'm not big on "Boss Of Me", either – seems inconsequential in these surroundings. A couple of the bonus cuts are better - "So She", "Plan" and "I'll Take You There" all best them, and really should have made the main record instead. In fact, I think it might have been better if he'd split The Next Day into two separate releases.

On the other hand, as a sweeping comeback record, a blast from the Bowie firehose, it makes a definitive statement, maybe one of the strongest statements of his career. As with the music it contained, the utter surprise of the release, the carefully managed, mysterious persona, - even the enigmatic cover, crudely pasting over his legacy with the latest product - this was nothing like what we’d come to expect from him post-Let’s Dance. There was simply no denying it; Bowie – the genuine article, all mystique and insight intact – was back, and on top of his game. What would he do next?

 

I just picked this CD up, the deluxe edition. Haven't listened to it yet but plan to yet today. Hope it lives up to my expectations!

 

Absolutely spot on review. Though there is a lot of speculation Love Is Lost is about his break up with first love Hermione, which occurred age 22 (and who was referenced in the video for WAWN); Iman came to the US age 20/21.

On the album's length, I was always disappointed he broke with a string of one-word titles (Very Pet Shop Boys), which started in the mid 90s. In retrospect he could have easily shorn off three tracks from TDN and made THNE a brand new album of a further 11 brand new tracks. Obvious titles Heat followed by Atomica. Including Toy that would have been nine one-word album titles from Outside in 95 to Blackstar in 16. OCD you pretty things!

 

Thanks!

Yeah, I noticed he'd dropped the one-word-title convention at the time.

Well, maybe this was harking back to the pre-Berlin era and titles like "Station to Station" and "Young Americans".

I read over on the Pushing Ahead Of The Dame site that they think "Love Is Lost" is about his breakup, but i don't think it fits as well. The song very much plays like Iman's story to my eye - her first marriage ends, she goes to America, she deals with all these older men in a foreign country in a cold, cutthroat industry. It's all a very exciting time for her but also a dangerous, lonely time, right as her career is taking off when she's 22. "Say hello, you're a beautiful girl."

I guess I can see the other interpretation as well, that this is Bowie's story. Curious isn't it they both had vaguely similar paths in life?

 

The Next Day: Is Bowie back? OMG he is! Mostly.


The Next Day: What a great opener. A great driving beat, aggressive guitars, passionate vocals. I love how the verses start with normal singing and slowly progress to an angry, spittle-filled, slightly muted scream. Throwing darts at organized religion, cloaked in the middle ages, but modern as hell because it's the same old song and dance. David Bowie is back!

Dirty Boys: Musically, this one brings me back to Lodger or Iggy's The Idiot, and would fit nicely on either record. The hesitant beat and bleating instrumentation is really cool. David Bowie is back!

The Stars (Are Out Tonight): This one sounds like it was meant for Reality. That's not a bad thing because I like Reality, but it sounds a bit conventional after the opening one-two punch of artfulness. Not bad, but not a favorite. A somewhat generic Bowie single with a great video. David Bowie is sorta back.

Love is Lost: Aah...back to the good stuff. A menacing song that evokes the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land, where around every corner lurks who knows what new adversity.
You're here now, and it sucks. "What have you done?" Impressive.

Where Are We Now?: I was a bit surprised that this was the first single off of the record. After hearing the rest of the record, I was even more surprised. A slow, melancholic walk down the streets of the past. A good song, but not lead-off single worthy, IMO.

Valentine's Day: A wonderfully light pop ditty about mass murder in school. Bowie does this disparate juxtaposition so well.

If You Can See Me: Beautifully chaotic. The best song on here. Period.

I'd Rather Be High: Considering the circumstances this teen finds himself in, wouldn't anyone?
"Everybody gets got", after all. Another song where the music seems too happy for the subject matter. It fits right in with "Valentine's Day" in that regard, and it's almost as good.

Boss of Me: Love that low sax sound. And the drums. Otherwise, not so much. It seems like it tries to fit into the same space as The Idiot, but it doesn't quite squeeze in. It's okay.

Dancing Out in Space: I never have to hear this song again.

How Does the Grass Grow?: David gets his ya ya's out! This one reminds me of something off of T Rex's Zinc Alloy in parts. Which is a good thing, as that record is criminally underrated.
A crazy mix of ideas stitched together with a blistering guitar underneath. Pretty cool.

(You Will) Set the World Fire: I don't really like the opening guitar lines. It's so...classic rock.
Another song to skip.

You Feel So Lonely You Could Die: I love this one, too. A big FU to the cold war and the wretched players it spawned. Bowie's vocal is top notch.

Heat: Another glorious slow burn of an ending.

So...a really good record perceived as being better than it is because of the long layoff. Some of The Next Day is among his best work (meaning, my favorite work of his), and some of it is kind of, um...crap (meaning I don't like it...but it's just my opinion. No offense intended.) It was good to see him come back to us, though. I still play it a lot, but I often skip a few tracks.

 

It's grown on me since, but yeah - I'd have made "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" the lead single and video. It's certainly more representative of the album as a whole.

 

Neither single is a favorite of mine from this record. I rate them both somewhere in the middle.
We don't always see eye-to-eye on our individual Bowie experiences, but I'm impressed with your detailed exploration of his music. I nod and smile in agreement as often as I scream "b******t!".

 

I think it's one of the better cuts from the record, but the album is fairly non-commercial and "Stars" is one of its few moderately-poppy moments (in a non-deconstructed kind of way, anyhow).

 

Heh, thanks!

Well if we all agreed it would be a pretty boring thread, right?

 

The best thing about the Next Day is that Bowie was back. The first five tunes are great but then it slips quite a bit. Heathen, Reality, and Black Star are far superior.

 

The Next Day's title track sounds like....old dude rock; I dunno how to else describe it.
Otherwise, there's several home runs on the album. Valentine's Day, Dirty Boys, Love Is Lost are fantastic.
It's more even than both Heathen and Reality...it might fulfill that oft repeated fallacy..."best since Scary Monsters".

 

I completely understand. It does have a "old dude rock" type of sound.

 

Guess only Old Americans can make that call

 

I'll keep quiet. Lol

 

Well he was relatively old so that makes sense.

 

I think it's one of his best ever songs. Certainly in my Bowie top 10.

I hope the expectations are not too high. It isn't too great.

I noticed that when the title was announced, but I really liked it. It also makes sense with the defaced "Heroes" album cover, the title track of which spanned a single day if taken literally. The Next Day is a nice follow on, rather than follow up. It also suggested a new chapter after years of silence, but as we know now, it was the penultimate one.

 

Sure. I think was a sonic misstep. It's a decent song.

 

Absolutely!! I love the whole album, but "If You Can See Me" is definitely my favorite song of the whole album. Probably the most explicit nod to his Earthling/electronica phase, of anything since Earthing.