David Bowie

[armogi]

I like it a lot too, somehow it reminds me of outside.

[frankie teardrop]

i tried to make it through this one, but i'm not feeling it. i'm not a huge fan of free jazz, and when i want this kind of loose structure experimentation, his idol scott walker does it ten times better... i applaud bowie for trying something different, and for abandoning the mostly dry rock n' roll cliches of the next day (which i didn't care for either), but otherwise...

[thevoid99]

I dig it for the element of jazz as I think it's Bowie just implying his love for jazz. After all, it was his older half-brother that introduced him to John Coltrane.

[fillow]

Bowie had many jazzy tracks in his career. Disco King, A Small Plot of Land, half of BTWN and Buddha tracks. Certainly a familiar territory for him.

[Digital Twilight]

I quite like it but to be honest the vocals don't seem to gel with the song all too well.

[frankie teardrop]

Bowie had many jazzy tracks in his career. Disco King, A Small Plot of Land, half of BTWN and Buddha tracks. Certainly a familiar territory for him.

definitely. the first two especially are fantastic. buddha has some great moments as well. this new track just doesn't gel for me. perhaps a bit too overlong, a bit too avant garde without urgency (again, see scott walker for better examples of this- or even 'small plot of land'), and as @Digital Twilight suggests, a disconnect between vox and music. it just sounds dull and uninspired to me, which makes the jazz elements extra grating.

it's less that it's a completely different direction for bowie, since that would be a stupid complaint given his career arc. i just don't think the track is very good. on a side note, i often wonder if anyone would have cared about the next day or this new compilation if he hadn't disappeared from the business for 10 years... reality was a superior album (no masterpiece, but i liked it better than the next day), but it was mostly ignored and dismissed when it came out. it just shocked me when most of his 90s and 00s work was dismissed outright yet this comeback is generally praised across the board. absence makes the heart grow fonder for some? for me, it just makes me extra critical.

[implanted_microchip]

i often wonder if anyone would have cared about the next day or this new compilation if he hadn't disappeared from the business for 10 years... reality was a superior album (no masterpiece, but i liked it better than the next day), but it was mostly ignored and dismissed when it came out. it just shocked me when most of his 90s and 00s work was dismissed outright yet this comeback is generally praised across the board. absence makes the heart grow fonder for some? for me, it just makes me extra critical.

That definitely has a lot to do with it, considering there was an entire decade where everyone had grown to accept that Reality was the final Bowie album, that there'd not be anything else and we should all learn to live it, with Bowie himself rejecting any comments about writing another one. Couple that with the constant health rumors, and when a surprise single and album announcement dropped, of course it was hyped as all hell. It felt like a total gift and surprise that everyone had grown the think wouldn't ever come, and it automatically got a lot of attention and people wanted to love it ahead of time. In the 90's and early 00's he was releasing an album almost every other year and they were more taken for granted, nowadays anything he puts out could very well be the last thing he ever makes, and there's a sense of urgency and importance surrounding that. It's like how fans might skip a tour for a band, but if it's the "final tour ever" everyone and their mother will come out to see it.

(That said I personally love TND, don't want to sound like I don't.)

[SarahConnor]

The internet knights anyone whose career was established pre-internet.

[botley]

Most of the internet is full of fucking idiots.

Bowie doesn't need to do ANYTHING, now, and the Scott Walker comparisons are getting tiresome (yeah I also read Pushing Ahead of the Dame, and he's doing a great job of drawing out these parallels between their careers without scorekeeping like their music was some fucking football game). Yes, The Next Day and this new track do feel like a gift. It's nothing like what I would have expected given the neoclassicist approach of Reality & Heathen. I'm still reeling from his career resuming. Really excited to hear the Toy tracks and the new song in a properly-released form on Nothing Has Changed. All the web rips floating around sound like total ass.

[frankie teardrop]

Pushing Ahead of the Dame

if anything, momus leads the pack on commentary, and kind of nails it on this track. otherwise, if the shoe fits on the walker comparisons... as a huge fan of both artists, it's not hard to make that connection here and elsewhere. it's less about keeping score as i'm trying to say that this new track kind of lacks the conviction and intensity that walker channels when he heads into this territory, whereas the bowie cut just sounds discordant and plodding. someone else mentioned that the track was the most jazz-driven track yet, embracing and channeling coltrane head on instead of dabbling with flourishes like south horizon, small plot, aladdin sane, etc. there's some truth to that. i didn't mind the dabbling as a tool combined with the usual kick-ass songwriting, but hearing a full fledged jazz track is not my taste.

while we're all feeling cantankerous today, i'll add that my issues with the next day are the same i have with modern morrissey records. there's less of the magic that attracted me to their work in the past... and the sounds are more conventional, more predictable, and honestly, without the name behind it sound little more than a bar band playing every saturday down at the local pub. stock rock cliches, standard riffs, with the obvious star power on vocals. it's the first time i haven't found more than one track i've enjoyed on a bowie record (even hours had a handful of decent cuts). the only song that does anything for me is 'heat'- and well, i guess i can't mention why i like it without sounding like i'm keeping score .

as for a final statement, i thought heathen was nearly perfect. ditch the abysmal gemini spacecraft cover and add in some of the toy outtakes or b-sides and it's a really wonderful era. i guess the same complaints i have about the next day can easily be made about heathen- with 'slow burn' having a bit of that 'heroes' vibe and the production focusing heavily on the rock side of things, but the songwriting sounded stronger, bowie was confident, and there were enough interesting tracks (sunday, 5:15, heathen) that added weight to the record. or maybe it was just the right record at the right time...

meanwhile, i'm not going to dog bowie for coming out of retirement should the creative spark hit him, but i wish the new material was judged more on its quality (or lack thereof) than being cherished and grandfathered in on the comeback aspect. it's similar to giving someone an oscar for a lesser film because you snubbed the other, superior ones in the past.

[Jinsai]

I don't know... I like the new track better than anything off The Next Day.

[frankie teardrop]

the funny thing is that i do too, though i still don't like it!

[botley]

my issues with the next day are the same i have with modern morrissey records. there's less of the magic that attracted me to their work in the past... and the sounds are more conventional, more predictable, and honestly, without the name behind it sound little more than a bar band playing every saturday down at the local pub. stock rock cliches, standard riffs, with the obvious star power on vocals. it's the first time i haven't found more than one track i've enjoyed on a bowie record (even hours had a handful of decent cuts). the only song that does anything for me is 'heat'- and well, i guess i can't mention why i like it without sounding like i'm keeping score .

Apart from a couple of the keyboard patches (not the playing, just the sounds), it doesn't sound much like any pub band I've had the good fortune of hearing. Maybe I need to move to New York, if all the local axe-slingers actually do sound like Earl Slick and Tony Levin, with monster colossus drummers like Sterling Campbell and Zach Alford bashing away behind them. What's most important to me is the songwriting, and on The Next Day I find Bowie's most jaw-droppingly personal and viciously incisive songcraft in at least twenty years.

I would love to hear more innovative production techniques, too, but I honestly just don't expect to hear those from older pop stars; they may have been able to keep up with the industry in their youth, and push the envelope each time, but it's near impossible after a certain point — everyone eventually becomes set in their ways. I'm not apologizing for this, or giving Bowie a pass for it. It goes the same for other artists of his age and status; even Walker hasn't entirely escaped it. You simply have to be willing to put up with some 'old fogey' sounds from these guys, or else be embarrassed by Madonna-esque grafting-on of someone else's hip production style. Lucy can't dance, dat dat dah-dah-dah-dah.

We at least agree on this: "Heat" is an amazing piece. Reckoning with the ghost of one's father is such a powerful trope, and it really speaks to the quality of that album that I sometimes forget how amazing the closing number is when, given the strength of its front-loaded first half, that's what springs immediately to my mind. Yes, the album's production style was hard to get past at first, but I now tend to play the whole of The Next Day Extra CDs back-to-back. Just wish they had included the two very spooky videos for that "Love Is Lost" remix on the DVD, too, but I guess they weren't completed in time.

[allegro]

I would love to hear more innovative production techniques, too, but I honestly just don't expect to hear those from older pop stars; they may have been able to keep up with the industry in their youth, and push the envelope each time, but it's near impossible after a certain point — everyone eventually becomes set in their ways. I'm not apologizing for this, or giving Bowie a pass for it. It goes the same for other artists of his age and status; even Walker hasn't entirely escaped it. You simply have to be willing to put up with some 'old fogey' sounds from these guys, or else be embarrassed by Madonna-esque grafting-on of someone else's hip production style. Lucy can't dance, dat dat dah-dah-dah-dah.

Is Bowie maybe afraid of high-tech production because he's afraid that it would be perceived as "tricks" like a face-lift, ala Tony Bennett duets? Although, I've seen Tony Bennett live recently and he still has it except he gets tired pretty fast. Sinatra should've retired WAY before he did, he was embarrassing. My point is that our aging idols are never gonna sound like they used to sound and if we're lucky they age like fine wine and we get subtle nuances of what they used to be plus something different added with age, and they go in new and interesting directions that aren't too embarrassing (e.g. auto-tuned to death, or Rod Stewart lounge act old standards)? I think you really hit the nail on the head, though, @botley , with the songwriting / songcraft being the most important element. Bowie's strong younger voice is forever lost. People need to cut him some slack, and embrace his current voice and focus more, as @botley said, on songwriting / lyrics. This is the final "season" of Bowie. The guy's approaching 70. Enjoy the guy while he's still here.

[frankie teardrop]

well, we did have higher tech production with earthling and the like, but ever since (and perhaps as a reaction to the blasting that record took from its detractors), he's settled into a more mature songwriting style and production techniques to match. i don't fault him for that so much but to me, heathen sounded so much more alive and fresh comparatively. but i'd wager that earthling was the last truly innovative and wild bowie album, even if it was chasing a trend at the time.

i actually think bowie's voice is solid, all things considered. i've always liked (and often preferred) his deeper croon.

[allegro]

well, we did have higher tech production with earthling

But, wasn't Earthling released 17 years ago? When Bowie was 50? 1 year older than Trent Reznor is now?

Heathen was released 12 years ago, when Bowie was 55?

None of these older singers' voices (meaning, over 60) are as strong, except maybe for Tony Bennett who seems to be some weird exception to the rule (save for outdoor cold Christmas specials, but Tony is 88).

[allegro]

speaking of Bowie and Bennett, I'll just leave this here ...

[BenAkenobi]

...i'd wager that earthling was the last truly innovative and wild bowie album...

i'd wager hours... (well, not exactly jaw-droppingly innovative, i just appreciate that style more)

[Charmingly Miserable]

New Bowie up. Tis A Pity She Was A Whore. 2:49:37 mark.

[botley]

[botley]

As expected, the 3-CD version of Nothing Has Changed is tremendously good, and at full lossless quality, it's the best that these songs have EVER sounded (original single version of "Starman", anyone?) — four hours of Bowie bliss.

[onthewall2983]

[henryeatscereal]

I'm such a victim of commercialism, bought "Nothing has changed" (3 CD's), even though i own most of these songs, at least the collection looks very nice and the sound is great, the new track is so-so (weird because i loved "The Next Day").

[Substance242]

3 CDs "Nothing has changed" will be delivered to me today, including 2 LP version - a gift for dad. When I was a child (70s/80s), parents listened to some good music like Foreigner, Genesis, Pink Floyd, Rolling Stones, but for some reason not Bowie. I had to discover him myself around Earthling album, Afraid of Americans, then Hours... which I see a lot of people are not keen on but I like it, moments like famous song is playing and I'm "wait, this is also Bowie? cool", buying Uncut magazine special (together with The Cure and Joy Division), and I was quite happy when he suddenly appeared again. Nothing has changed. Or, hasn't it. :-)

Update: I forgot to mention - so for me this release is good because being somewhat late follower, I am not THAT crazy to buy everything he released so far, and this compilation looks quite nice.

[elevenism]

i'd wager hours... (well, not exactly jaw-droppingly innovative, i just appreciate that style more)

what about heathen?

i fucking LOVED that record. The first song with the strange, strange guitar part, the grooviness of I Would Be Your Slave (or whatever it's called,) and the way the bits of futuristic sound mixed with traditional style...i found it fairly unique. Someone said Neo-classicist, or something like that...that's a good way of describing it.

I'm still waiting for Outside 2: Contamination, goddamnit. Outside was the Bowie album that hooked me...i was sixteen and OBSESSED.


Bowie blows my mind because he created music that my father loved and my grandfather couldn't stand, (Ziggy,) and decades later, was creating music that i loved and my father couldn't stand (outside, earthling.)

Is there a good album or bootleg of bowie remixes, BTW?

[henryeatscereal]

I'm still waiting for Outside 2: Contamination, goddamnit. Outside was the Bowie album that hooked me...i was sixteen and OBSESSED.

i would love a follow-up for "Outside" too, or at least a new deluxe edition for "Outside" with a bonus disc with all the B-sides and outakes that would have been the "Contamination" album. I'm not even sure if Bowie recorded any tracks for it before he decided to do "Earthling"

[fillow]

There is for sure enough unreleased/unfinished material from original 94 Outside sessions to fill at least a CD.

[armogi]

I am also in for outside 2, I seem to remember reading it was supposed to be a troligy actually, wasn't it?

Along with se7en and that era's NIN stuff, I was hooked!

[fillow]

[Space Suicide]

LOL I was about to post that amazing gif.