David Bowie's Tonight

I put Tonight together with Absolute Beginners in my mind.
Just didn't like the style of either. The Style Counsel did it better.

But the sound quality of Tonight on the Japan for US (CP35 matrix) is demo disc quality.
That, and Loving The Alien is why I kept it.

 

One of the (many) reasons I enjoy this forum is how an album (or artist) can be viewed so differently. If there is a limit to this aesthetic relativism, Tonight might be it for me. ;-)

As a huge Bowie fan, I thought Let's Dance was bad enough, but it's a masterpiece in comparison to this shocker. A great songwriter and performer going through the motions - tuneless fragments stitched together as songs, insipid covers, all wrapped in layer upon layer of synthetic drums, keyboards and treated vocals. A horrid mess of album. How anyone in an audiophile forum would want to subject their ears to this is beyond me - I tremble in fear to think what it must sound like through a good system - the lower the fidelity the better with this wretched thing I'd say.

But hey ho - each to their own!

 

Can't really disagree with that assessment.

 

Oh, them's fightin' words!

"Pin Ups" is great stuff - Bowie sounds invested and he gives the songs good arrangements/performances.

"GOK" sounds uninspired, and Bowie offers a vocal that makes it sound like he hopes someone will put him out of his misery...

 

"Blue Jean" is the reason I bought the album in 1984. I couldn't find the 12" single so I had to get the whole album!

 

My dog is cuter!

 

Is there someone who bought the US LP at the release day that can kindly tell me the vinyl matrix numbers of his first pressing?
Thanks!

 

i can't guarantee it's a genuine first pressing but mine is in the original shrink with a 1984 price sticker, and the "features Blue Jean" hype sticker.
info as follows:
Side 1: SJ-1-17138-Z-14 (etched) then a light "#3" (etched) then MASTERDISK (stamped) then "RL" (etched) then "winchester" logo
Side 2: SJ-2-17138-Z-11 (etched) then a light "#8" (etched) then MASTERDISK (stamped) then "RL" (etched) then "winchester" logo

 

He should have listened to his mother. There's an interview out there, late 70's I think where Bowie states that he used to think he was better than everyone else, but realised now he was just another artist. It wasn't true at the time he said it, imo, but, from Lets Dance on, Bowie became just another artist. To fully appreciate this you have to have been there from the Ziggy Years at least. He sort of lost the thread, or purposefully let go, post Baal, and never really got it back.

 

I think that's spot on. I have often wondered what happened to the dear old Dame. The fall off was extraordinary - SM to LD is a hell of way down. And yet, LD was tremendously popular, so what do I know?

 

You never heard Blackstar?

Tim

 

Well, unlike Dylan , he continued to build his reputation as the guy with the greatest haircuts in rock history. But I'm sure @JohnnyQuest will post an animated gif to prove quite the opposite

 

Even his god given barnet took a knock in the 80s - remember THAT mullet?

 

Inside David Bowie's 1984 Pop Detour 'Tonight' »

 

I like this line up.

 

Cool little article although they could have gone in more depth track by track.

 

Nice and succinct. Thanks.

 

Worst song: God Only Knows (whether intentionally tongue in cheek or not)

Best Song: Blue Jean.

 

... until about 1994 of course.

 

Agree, Pin Ups is great. I love it. It has a uniquely English feel and captures the zeitgeist of that era superbly. Not a fan of Tonight.

 

93 wasn't it? Good memories of BTWN, BOS and Outside (loved Jump They Say and Buddha of Suburbia tracks) but later there was increasingly too much for me that was nostalgic, morose or melancholic.

 

No. Unable to listen to David till early last December with Hunk Dory.

 

He kind of became for a while the entertainer his old manager Ken Pitt wanted him to be. I've no real beef with Bowie, he'd done more than enough by SM.

 

He should have gone to bobdylansbarber.

 

You've probably been warned already, but yeah, don't belly-flop in the deep end with "Blackstar".