Any love for Bowie's Hours ?

I see that many people dislike this album. I listened to it recently and for me it's a pretty good album ,especially the first 5 songs. The second side doesn't relly grab me but it's good too.
I think that it contains some great classic Bowie ballads like Thursday's Child, Survive, Seven.
What do you think about it ?

 

I think it's a great album, and that it has a unique sound.

 

Love it - I understand some tracks are a bit slow, but I really enjoy this album in a way that I can't with Heathen, Reality and TND. I can play it all the way through and enjoy every track. esp Something In The Air. The best version of that track IMO was done on the UK tv show Later - his singing is unusually passionate on this:



(8.35m after Ashes To Ashes and the interview).

 

Does anybody else think that Seven sounds very much like a George Harrison song ? Gabrels's guitar is just sublime and it sonds a lot like George's.

 

I still think "Thursday's Child" is one of his worst songs, but I did really like "The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell". Mostly I think this is one of his least albums, but it has a few okay tracks.

 

I love Hours. I agree with the OP that the first side is stronger, but I like the second one too. The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell rocks!

It's a medium-paced kind of album overall, but it suits Bowie's older, crooning style voice.

The album seems to be ranked somewhere between Tonight and Never Let Me Down on Bowie fans hate lists. I honestly don't get it.

 

New Angels of Promise is one of the best things ever.

Something in the Air | If I'm Dreaming My Life | What's Really Happening | The Pretty Things are Going to Hell | The Dreamers are very, very good.

Seven | Survive were better live or remixed.

Thursday's Child annoyed me for some reason, I think it's the babyish vocals more than the song. But I think he sang it like that intentionally. The song is named after Eartha Kitt's autobiography that he bought when he was 14.

The first edition CD looks cool with its holographic cover for the wonderful design / photo of the current DB caringly cradling the worn out or dead Outside / Earthling DB.

 

It's a gentlemen's hour. It's good.

 

After writing my post I listened to tracks 6-10 and I like them all ! Probably I didn't pay that much attention to them earlier.

 

What's Really Happening is very good too.

 

I'm listening to the Marius De Vires Mix of Seven and it's pretty good too. I think that Seven would have sounded better if it had mellotron instead of synth. It would sound totally like a late 60s ballad. And while Seven reminds me of Harrison, What's Really Hapenning has a guitar intro which is very similar to Fripps intro to Heroes.

 

Hours was the first Bowie studio album I bought, and I think it's great. Thursdays Child, from the VH1 storytellers gig, is the specific song that got me hooked on Bowie.

 

Great album, and I agree that Thursday's Child, Survive, and Seven are classic Bowie tracks.

 

Yes. All 604484 of them.

 

It was a good idea for Reeves Gabrels to tone down his usual style for this one. Could have been ugly otherwise.

He and Bowie never recorded together again, did they?

 

Probably most underrated Bowie album.

 

I like it!

New Angels of Promise is pretty Prog if you ask me.

I also like the fact that there are a variety of styles on this album: Pop, quasi-Metal, an instrumental...

 

For the most part, I love it.

"What's Really Happening?" is the weakest song on the album, IMO, but the other tracks range from very good to excellent.

Really enjoyed the mini-tour to promote the album. I saw every gig except the NYC one. Dublin remains one of my all-time favourite Bowie shows.

 

Also like New Angels of Promise.
When he died I put that album sleeve (vinyl) on display. Seemed appropriate.

 

Heaps and heaps

 

It's a beautiful, moving cover. It was powerful at the time for me as Bowie's Buddha, Outside and Earthling era helped me through some tough times in the 1990s, periods where I didn't want to listen to any music whatsoever, but Bowie got through that and got to me again, first with Buddha and was there for the rest of the 1990s for me. ...hours seemed a conclusion, comedown, going up? Maybe he was feeling emotional at that time, he'd had a powerful musical journey from 1994 onwards, old friends back (Eno), a new band he became close to (Gail Ann and co), and in life.. Iman either pregnant or about to be, his son approaching his 30th birthday. The cover's now powerful for other reasons as you rightly say

 

That's Buddha of Suburbia, which was ignored everywhere, even in the UK. The Black Tie, Outside, Earthling and ...hours albums all did very well in the UK, ...hours and Earthling got a few nasty, sneering reviews from idiots but they still sold well and pleased fans. But the Buddha album.. nobody gave a toss, despite the TV series that inspired it being high profile here.

 

Buddha probably wasn't well received as it was his most experimental album. I like it and the title track and Strangers When We Meet are essential Bowie tracks for me

 

Only reason I can smile at the Hours album is 'cause I got my hands on the album promo in the greatest record store in the world, Amoeba Music on Haight Street several days prior to the official release date on the last day of a US trip. Spent hours listening to it on the flight back to Europe ; listening to stuff few people knew.
The album has a sort of naieve ring to it ... they didn't do the extra mile.

 

I bought it after I saw Bowie perform songs from it on Saturday Night Live when released. It had been years since I had bought a Bowie album (I have no earlier 90s albums and no Tin Machine), and the SNL performance convinced me that I needed to give current Bowie a chance. I enjoyed Hours a lot at the time, but in recent years my Bowie listening has been either Hunky Dory, Station to Station, or the BBC Radio Theater 2000 concert disc packaged with Bowie at the Beeb. That the BBC show includes both "Seven" and "Survive" means that even though I do not listen to Hours much anymore, I still appreciate it as part of the Bowie canon. When I surveyed the web after Bowie's death to see if/how his albums were being ranked (which brought me to this place, btw), I was surprised, too, by its generally low position. Then again, it has some pretty tough competition.

I like Hours, and I always have. Favorite song is "The Pretty Things are Going to Hell." Just listened to "Pretty Things" through "The Dreamers" and it's all good. "The Dreamers", btw, would be great with Donny McCaslin & crew backing, but that is not to take away from the fact that Bowie made a pretty nice record when he made this one.