Autobiographical Order No. 1285: David Bowie, and entirely too much music

Hey friends, I meant to publish this post last week, on January 8, which is David Bowie’s birthday. But stuff came up: Richmond had a water outage and boil water advisory which sort of interrupted everything, plus our cat had surgery. That was stressful, but he’s doing much better now, little trooper.

In any case, this is an unusual entry in Autobiographical Order because most box sets I’ve covered are either just really long albums (Kamasi Washington) or expanded reissues (Songs: Ohia), and even most of the box sets I’ve picked up since are just around three LPs. The benefit of box sets, generally, is being able to grab everything in one fell swoop, but while my Bowie collection isn’t complete (I still don’t have Space Oddity or The Man Who Sold The World, curiously enough), there was a big enough gap in the form of a solid block that I decided against trying to fill it piecemeal.

This is a box set comprising all of David Bowie’s material from the ‘90s, which is massive. He released five studio albums in the ‘90s, all of which are here, as well as a “lost” album, a live album, and non-album tracks, singles, b-sides and remixes. Altogether it’s 18 records, which is kind of ridiculous. Honestly, I was mostly interested in having Outside and Earthling, and the rest was just gravy, but neither was available individually at the time, and I could afford it at the time, so after moving into our new digs, I said “fuck it” and got the whole shebang. Let’s dive in.

Black Tie White Noise

What a strange place to begin. Black Tie White Noise is somehow both a significant and a minor album in Bowie’s discography. It was his first solo album in six years at that point, after the critically reviled Never Let Me Down and then a couple of harder rock records with his band Tin Machine. Those didn’t get good marks from critics either. But more importantly, BTWN saw Bowie once again working with Nile Rodgers, who produced 1983’s Let’s Dance, his first album to become certified platinum in the U.S.

Knowing all this, it seemed like it probably should have been a bigger deal than it was, but it didn’t sell like hotcakes and received OK to middling reviews from critics. They liked it better than Never Let Me Down, though. 

This was the first new album of Bowie’s that I was cognizant of when I was younger. I remember seeing videos for “China Girl” and “Dancing in the Street” on MTV when I was a kid, but this was getting promoted on the alternative stations like 91X that I listened to, and “Jump They Say” got some airplay. Plus it was around this time that Bowie got married to Iman, which I remember being sort of big news. But the magic that Rodgers and Bowie captured on Let’s Dance isn’t quite there. There’s a quasi-electronic, trip-hoppy kind of sound to it. At the time I vaguely remember hearing that it was inspired by more jazz than anything, but it’s more like the acid jazz of a group like Us3 without the rapping.

All of which is to say it’s a perfectly fine album but by no means a great one. It has its highlights, my favorite being his cover of Scott Walker’s “Nite Flights.” He also covers Morrissey’s “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday,” which is pretty decent too. Also Al B. Sure is on this record, which just goes to show how odd this era was for Bowie, but it started something interesting, and what followed was even more thrilling. Also, it’s the first Bowie solo album to feature guitarist Reeves Gabrels, who worked with him throughout the decade, before eventually becoming a member of The Cure. Quite the resume. Rating: 7.1

The Buddha of Suburbia

I’d venture that The Buddha of Suburbia is one of the least-heard albums in the David Bowie catalog. And I’d imagine that I’m right. I’m not sure how to access those stats, but at least according to Last.fm, it has 47,000 listeners as opposed to Black Tie White Noise’s 107,000 (and Hunky Dory has half a million). So I suppose that’s plenty of proof for my liking. And it’s not one I reach for that often, but it’s a fascinating record, and by no means a bad one for that matter.

Released the same year as Outside, The Buddha of Suburbia is a soundtrack to a British TV miniseries, and if the name of the show doesn’t ring any bells either, you’re not alone there. I’ve never seen it, and there’s a good chance I’d have gone much longer without hearing about this album if my brother hadn’t introduced me to it in the late ‘90s, mostly as a curiosity rather than a “you have to hear this” kind of thing, though it’s a pretty good album, certainly. 

Among the album’s offerings are a Lenny Kravitz collaboration and an alternate version of the song “Strangers When We Meet,” which is also featured on Outside. Plus it has some fascinating oddities like “Sex and the Church,” which I suppose is kind of a preview of the electronic direction he’d be going in through the next few years. But this record is more of a traditional rock record than either Outside or Black Tie White Noise, despite some interesting diversions, which is maybe why it’s not quite as memorable. It’s not as experimental as the former, certainly, and given that they were released so close to one another, there’s a reason that one received more attention. (Plus soundtracks sometimes don’t have the benefit of being seen as proper studio albums.) But it’s a pretty decent record regardless, and an interesting if lesser heard chapter in Bowie’s catalog. Rating: 7.9

Outside

I’m going to make what I don’t think is a very controversial statement: Outside is Bowie’s best album of the ‘90s. Moreover, when it was released, it was the best album he’d made since Scary Monsters. Which also probably isn’t that controversial. And it would remain true if he hadn’t released his swan song, Blackstar. 

Indeed, Outside is an invigorating and visionary work. It’s ambitious sometimes to a fault—its Twin Peaks-like murder mystery theme can get a bit hard to follow, and Bowie’s spoken interludes maybe are a bit much. But its songs are some of the best he’d written in 15 years up to that point, and the fact that he was taking inspiration from industrial rock (and Twin Peaks) while working with Brian Eno and pianist Mike Garson for the first time in forever made it a significant milestone in his catalog. I’m not sure it had much mainstream success, relatively speaking—it didn’t go gold or platinum in the U.S. from what I can tell. But it coincided with a tour with Nine Inch Nails and launched a thrilling new chapter in his career. 

I was sold pretty much by the first time I heard “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” which was the first single, and a dark and abrasive song that, in 1995, had me kind of rethinking what I knew about David Bowie. And then when I heard “Hallo Spaceboy” afterward, with its punishing industrial thump, I could reach no other conclusion than “This kicks ass!” Which it does. 

There’s a lot of good songs here, some of which appeared elsewhere, like “I’m Deranged,” as featured in David Lynch’s Lost Highway, or “Strangers When We Meet,” which showed up in slightly different fashion on The Buddha of Suburbia. And its length does suggest that it could be trimmed a bit and perhaps even gain .1 or .2 on that score below. In 1995, its original vinyl release was actually a shorter version, trimming about six tracks, some of them songs and some of them the spoken segues. I’m actually curious to try that edit, because it might be a little stronger, plus the idea of ending on “I’m Deranged” does make it a little more compelling. But as it is, it’s an awesome album. Rating: 9.2

Earthling

Bowie had already been pretty well into his ‘90s exploratory era by the time Earthling was released, but this album got a lot more attention and airplay than his previous two. Part of it was the company he kept; Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor, who toured with Bowie in 1995, remixed “I’m Afraid of Americans” and it became something of a radio hit (I also recently-ish heard it at a goth night, so it’s still got juice). There was also more of an MTV push, and I saw the video for “Little Wonder” on both 120 Minutes and AMP, the short-lived electronica program that came on around 2 a.m. 

Bowie, always one to adopt a new persona, a new sound, had plumbed techno and jungle for new inspirations and Earthling is more heavily steeped in electronic sounds. For a while, I thought that might mean it wouldn’t have aged as well, as those sounds would surely fall out of fashion. But to my surprise, years later when I revisited it, it sounds as strong as ever, in part because ‘90s electronica kind of had a resurgence of its own, but also because the songs are just good. 

Those two singles are two of the best, in fact, and while “Americans” is the one that’s best known from this album, I probably like “Little Wonder” a bit more, with its mixture of skittering breakbeats and train whistles and a big climactic bridge. “Dead Man Walking” was also a single, and it feels a little bit more tied to its era (it was featured on the soundtrack to the Val Kilmer movie The Saint, which also had Sneaker Pimps and Moby), but it’s still pretty great. And the manic industrial rock of the closer, “Law (Earthlings on Fire)”, reminds me of the first Garbage record, which is a very good thing from where I’m sitting. 

Earthling is just a hair shy of being Bowie’s best album of the ‘90s, and a great record on the whole, certainly the second best reason for picking up this huge ass box set. Rating: 9.1

Hours…

Of all the records Bowie released in the ‘90s, Hours… feels the most out of place. It’s not a bad record by any means, but it’s also some distance from being a great one. It’s by and large a quiet, gentle album, most of its songs going out of their way to be unimposing. They’re pleasant, sometimes pretty, even soulful in the case of the leadoff track and best song, “Thursday’s Child.” The one big rock song, “The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell,” almost doesn’t belong here, its big riffing coming across as a bit gaudy in the context of the rest of the album. An odd juxtaposition. 

This album was released when I got into Bowie in a big way in high school, and it seemed like a fortuitous coincidence that, when I was picking up copies of Ziggy Stardust and Scary Monsters and all that, he should also happen to be releasing a new album. But it didn’t really leave much of an impact on me at the time. Truthfully, it’s just not an album that leaves much of an impact period, but now I think I appreciate its restraint a little more. It’s a good first album of the day, a pleasant record while you’re still drinking your coffee and still getting everything in order. I’m sure for a rock legend that’s not terribly flattering, but look, once you’ve released about a dozen of the greatest albums of all time, you can make a polite, easy-going late-career breeze. Rating: 6.8

BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27, 2000

There are a lot of great live albums with David Bowie’s name on them. Stage is probably my favorite, but A Reality Tour, from his final tour in 2004 (though not planned to be his final tour) is honestly one of the best of his career, in terms of performances, recording quality and song choice. BBC Radio Theatre, London, June 27, 2000 has a lot to compete with, and yet it’s honestly a great set, benefiting greatly from the fact that it’s not in a big arena but rather a smaller indoor theater and giving his backing band the opportunity to showcase their chops in a more intimate setting.

It sounds fantastic, but what stands out to me is the idiosyncratic nature of the song choices. There’s quite a few you wouldn’t necessarily expect, several of them non-album tracks like “Absolute Beginners,” “This Is Not America,” and “The London Boys.” There’s at least one song represented from most of his best albums, and it’s less a greatest hits than a tour through each of his various styles and approaches over the years. It’s fun to listen to and a reminder of just how much great Bowie music there is. Rating: 8.7

Toy/Re:call 5

I’m combining these two releases because there’s just too much to write about. Toy is, like with one or two previous Bowie box sets, a “lost” album. (See also: The Gouster.) The cover art is kind of disturbing, but the album’s decent. Basically it’s a set of “new” recordings of songs from his mid-’60s mod era. Notably absent: “The Laughing Gnome.” (“ha ha ha, hee hee hee…”) But it’s pretty solid. He hadn’t quite grown into the songwriter he became on his greatest albums, so it’s still mostly almost-there-not-quite material given a makeover, but it’s an interesting alternate history kind of thing. He recorded it in 2000, and I remember watching Bowie’s Storytellers on VH1 in 1999 which included “Can’t Help Thinking About Me,” with some witty tales about Marc Bolan and so on, so clearly these early songs were resonating with him at the time. Anyhow, that’s probably the best song here. 

Re:Call 5 is all the non-album material from this era, some of which is great (the Trent Reznor remix of “I’m Afraid of Americans,” for instance), others offering reminders of the weird cultural growing pains of the early ‘90s (“Real Cool World,” from the much-reviled movie Cool World) and some kinda just neat artifacts, like the version of “Seven Years in Tibet” sung in Mandarin. It doesn’t have the remix of “Americans” with Ice Cube (which rules, so that’s a little disappointing) or the Photek remix, but it does have the Pet Shop Boys remix of “Hallo Spaceboy.” And the shorter radio edits of songs on the studio albums probably weren’t necessary, but it’s a cool collection regardless, with plenty of gems to make it worthwhile. Rating: 7.5 (Toy)/8.4 (Re: call)