How would you rate "Outside" (1995) by David Bowie?

"Teenage Wildlife" rules - my 2nd favorite song on the album!

 

I quite like it.

 

"Teenage Wildlife" - I keep hearing/reading about a recycling of "Heroes", but I never heard it myself. GREAT song.
"Scream Like A Baby" - a pretty good song
"Kingdome Come" - one of his better covers
"Because You're Young" - not a favorite, but still decent, average Bowie.
"It's No Game (Part 2)" - another great one

Every song on Scary Monsters is better than anything on the next 3 records, and the movie songs and singles to come in the 80s. But that's just me.

 

Yes! And that is exactly my point. Do you think the guy who recorded Time, Velvet Goldmine and Sweet Thing would have gone for such a sanitised version? Let's Dance had 'sucked him dry' - the art-blood had been drained out of him after selling his soul to become Phil Collins. The process of recovery was a slow one but you can see him struggling to regain consciousness after fainting when his very soul had been sucked out by that chart-chomping Godzilla.
Tin Machine and BTWN was him receiving a blood transfusion, and Buddha had him leave the hospital.

 

Look what happened with China Girl. And Bang Bang was one of the best things about Never Let Me Down, even though I've heard bar bands do versions that smoke either Bowie's or Iggy's versions. It's a good song once you strip it down and sing it and play it like you're not nodding off ( which Iggy quite likely was during the recording of Party ).

D.D.

 

Why do people make it sound as though Bowie made Let's Dance at gunpoint ? Sure, then he was taken with a hood over his head from the studio, to the dentist, the hair stylist and then to pick out a bunch of pastel suits to wear while he was coerced into doing the Serious Moonlight tour, all the while with snipers preventing him from jumping off-stage and escaping to create some "art".
Then they made him do Tonight and Never Let Me Down and then dumped him on the outskirts of town....



So was Tin Machine our trip to Tijuana ?

D.D.

 

I'm not saying that (if your question refers to myself). What I think is that he definitely chose to go for hits, but along with the tour he became so successful worldwide that it changed him as a person - to a degree where he couldn't reset. Throughout the 70s he had changed his characteristics and art with each album, but this time he had strayed so far from his core that his previous chameleon colours had been sort of wiped.

 

Wasn't Bowie less involved in making his records from 83-87? Sort of handing the producer the keys to the studio or much of the time? Like with TMWSTW.

 

This forum is very hard on Bowie from the 80s. "Let's Dance" and "Tonight" are actually excellent for me (9/10). They're very melodic Dance-rock albums. Bowie delivers some great musical hooks and fanfares. I think the critics confuse those hooks with "superficial pop".

 

That is certainly the impression that I got with Tonight, like he was just on cruise control at that point. It seems like he was trying to regain his old arty mojo a bit with Never Let Me Down and the subsequent tour, but he came up short, which made it even more depressing.

 

well i'd like to think Bowie never considered a full-on G&G style cover given how he never resorted to such blatant shock tactics to gain attention. but i disagree with your basic premise and don't see any attempt post-Let's Dance to "make amends" until at least '89 and the Tin Machine recovery model. btw, people need to stop thinking that Tin Machine is some proto-grunge album; it's really quite slick with an '80s sheen. by the second album even the rough edges had been smoothed away. Let's Dance, for me, is and always will be a great album. not necessarily a great Bowie album, but a very good one that i rate higher than anything from the subsequent decade (a few tracks here and there notwithstanding), and on a par with Buddha. 1.Outside is the first in the sequence to better it (and by a big margin). people are quick to notice the dearth of new material which is fair criticism but it was made on Bowie's terms, unlike the next two, and was the album he intended to make. it boasts a great band, producer and engineer and Bowie was on great form vocally. so it has one throwaway (Shake It), two remakes (i'll take Bowie over Iggy Pop every time and the Cat People fight is a draw IMO), but also one of his best covers and four singles, three of which are staples of his legacy.

 

Because I became a fan in the "Let's Dance" era, I'm "easier" on those albums than most, but I think you rate them waaay too highly.

"Let's Dance" is maybe a 6.5/10, and I'd put "Tonight" around a 5/10...

 

What can I say? I like almost all the songs (Ricochet, Criminal World, Neighborhood Threat, Tumble and Twirl, etc). They're pure syncopated dance-rock tunes with prominent melodies.

 

I must be going blind as I thought that was Nick Hayward at first glance and they look nothing alike normally!

 

Well, then we disagree. I remember buying Tonight on vinyl and feeling relieved that not only was the first track by far more ambitious than anything on Let's Dance, when I saw the Blue Jean 20 min video and heard the Iggy Pop covers I knew he was trying to get out of the cosiness of LD. We also disagree on Iggy Pop - there is not one Iggy/Bowie song that works better as a Bowie recording - I know Bowie wanted to help out his mate as he did with China Girl, but if that's all it was why didn't he cover The Passenger or I Wanna Be Your Dog if he wanted to be commercial?. Bowie always admired Iggy's rock & roll animalism and wanted a bit of it to patch over his commercial sheen imo because he realised he'd lost it and he needed it back. He got it back eventually by meeting Reeves Gabrels, 'borrowing' Iggy's backing band from Kill City and Lust For Life and being just a part of a loud Garage Rock band.

If you listen to any Tin Machine live bootleg you will hear full-on raw Garage Rock. It was definitely a self administered shot in the arm.

Let's Dance was popular for a good reason and so was Phil Collins, Paul Young and Spandau Ballet. When it comes down to it, do I want to hear Loving The Alien or Love of the Common People? Neighborhood Threat or She's An Easy Lover? Dancing With The Big Boys or True? Tonight every time.
I know everybody loves LD, but I don't care - it's my personal opinion it was the worst thing that happened to Bowie in his whole career and it is not something I'll ever listen to if I can help it.

The Moroder version of Cat People is much better and more popular than the LD version from what I've read on this forum.

Do a poll and find out.

 

Ahem.

 

Ahem ahem.


D.D.

 

Thanks for your support guys. It's cold Outside.

 

nothing "cosy" about Let's Dance. "cosy" is handing over the reins to the producer and not picking up an instrument as per Tonight. Loving The Alien is the best thing on Tonight and it is better than most of Let's Dance, no doubt, but the production is much worse, and much more akin to the '80s pop mould than Let's Dance. you neglected to mention the duet with Tina Turner which in itself destroys your argument that he was moving away from the mainstream. on the contrary, Tonight was him succumbing to the success of Let's Dance and letting it lead. Blue Jean is the second best thing on Tonight and one of my favourite '80s Bowie moments. the video is great too, but it's a 20 minute music video... another concession to the MTV age.

um, the Iggy covers on Tonight and NLMD are their low points with the exception of Don't Look Down, so if the originals are better that's damning with faint praise. it wasn't about being commercial it was about getting some money for his buddy and getting around his own writer's block. he did I Wanna Be Your Dog on the Glass Spider tour FWIW.

think i don't know this? the albums were slick is all i said, and they are.

bizarre argument, you're losing the plot here. so you'd take Love of the Common People over Cat People, She's An Easy Lover over China Girl and True over Without You?

then shut up about it! it's a 6.75/10 album for me, i'm hardly claiming it's a masterpiece...unless i compare it to Tonight

why would i do that? so i can find out what other people think? i like both versions equally, so i'm already better off than someone debating their respective worth.

a reminder this is supposed to be thread about Outside, so if you want to vent some more about Let's Dance, then you're welcome to the last word.

 

Steering back on topic, with a nod to the past, I always find it amazing that 1. Outside and NLMD (and indeed Buddha) share a producer - David Richards. Arguably two producers, come to think of it, if you count Bowie. I'm not sure if Bowie liked what Richards had done on NLMD, or if it's just that he was the in-house guy at his favoured Swiss recording studio.

Hard to think of two more different sounding albums by the same artist/producer combo. Of course, Eno was a co-producer on Outside too, which explains a lot.

 

Richards owned the studio, i assume his role was more technical. he also worked on some remixes and the Ryko-era bonus tracks plus engineered the first Tin Machine album.

 

I hate it - that's why I didn't mention it. It doesn't destroy my argument because what I am saying is that Tonight shows signs of him struggling to get away from pop pap. I'm not saying he has broken away from it.

They're all awful except Cat People which isn't as good as the Moroder version.
That's my last word. I hope to agree with you on future occasions.

 

This thread can now be retitled to: Let's go Outside



... it's happening outside in the street