A few days ago (you can read it here), I noted the latest David Bowie Box Set (#4) to be released in October covers his mid-1980’s work, focusing in particular on Let’s Dance, Tonight, and the album many -including Mr. Bowie himself- considered his worst album, Never Let Me Down.
But, as I noted, Never Let Me Down’s main problem, at least to me, was the fact that it was waaaaay overproduced. It seemed too many songs had too much going on in them and noted that Mr. Bowie felt there was still a good album underneath the clutter of the production. This was proven, at least in one respect, by the reworking of the song Time Will Crawl in 2008, which to me was a BIG improvement over the original found on the album.
Anyway, to make a long story short, this upcoming box set will not only include a remastered version of the original Never Let Me Down, but also a complete REWORKING of that album, something I’m salivating over.
Welp, the first reworked song has appeared online for people to check out and, once again, it represents to me an improvement over the version presented on the original album release.
The song is Zeroes and here’s the original version of the song…
And now, the reworked version of the same song which will be found on the upcoming Box Set release…
Once again and as with Time Will Crawl, I’m pleased with the reworking of the song, which seems to be based on the “less is more” philosophy.
I’ve noted it before and I’ll repeat it here: David Bowie, for me, is my personal favorite musician. His albums, almost all of them, hold a special magic to my ears, and I love just about all of them.
With one notable exception.
Released in April 27, 1987, Mr. Bowie’s album Never Let Me Down has to have the most ironic title of any of his albums for there are many, including myself and, reportedly, Mr. Bowie himself, who consider it his worst album.
Never Let Me Down? How about: A complete let down, amiright?
Well… not so fast.
While I stand by my statement and do feel that, as released, Never Let Me Down is Mr. Bowie’s “worst” album, there is nonetheless plenty on it to like. The problem I had with it back when it was released and the problem I have with it today is that the album feels… wonky.
It’s like Mr. Bowie, after the mega-success of 1983’s Let’s Dance and decent reception/sales of 1984’s Tonight, an album some critics felt Mr. Bowie was “coasting” on with too many cover songs, felt he needed to re-establish himself -as he was wont to do- and create something truly great and more personal.
Never Let Me Down featured 10 songs and all but one of them were original to the album (the song Bang Bang was a cover of an Iggy Pop song). Compare that to Let’s Dance which had 8 songs and of those, 3 were remakes/covers and especially Tonight, which had 9 songs but of those a whopping 5 songs were covers/remakes.
Clearly Mr. Bowie was trying to do something great and more fully “Bowie” at the time but, ironically, the end result felt like he was trying a little too hard. The album was all over the place -overproduced and, IMHO, overcooked.
And yet… and yet… it fascinates me.
I felt there was a good album hidden in the clutter and buried under the production. Curiously, in subsequent interviews before his passing Mr. Bowie himself noted the same thing and, further, his desire to one day go back to the album and rework/reproduce it.
A few years back, the possibility that something good could be made of something considered so bad was made clear when Mr. Bowie released a remake/reworking of one of my favorite songs from the album, Time Will Crawl. This is the original version of the song (and music video!) from the Never Let Me Down album:
And here’s the reworked version from 2008 and released on the iSelect album…
I find the later version an incredible upgrade from the original and, having heard it, any doubts that Never Let Me Down could be a more successful album were gone.
Which brings us back to what I wanted to talk about here: The fourth David Bowie Box Set album, titled Loving the Alien, will feature a -surprise, surprise!- re-working of Never Let Me Down!
That’s right, folks, not only will we get remastered versions of Let’s Dance, Tonight, and the original release of Never Let Me Down, along with two live shows and a bunch of b-sides/singles, we’ll also get a complete re-working of that much maligned album.
If it winds up sounding like the Time Will Crawl re-working, I’m so there.
But a word of caution: The re-working of the album was created, it is stated, in 2018, which is obviously following Mr. Bowie’s passing. Clearly Mr. Bowie wanted to do this but one has to wonder how much -if any!- of the album’s re-working was done and approved of by him before his passing.
Still, of the now four boxed sets of Bowie’s work released, this is the one that has me the most curious.
Perhaps something many consider very bad might just get another critical look… and prove itself better than it originally was.
October, the boxed set’s release date, can’t come soon enough.
If you want to read more about the boxed set, including what exactly will be on it, here’s a link to an article by Daniel Kreps and found on RollingStone.com:
Interestingly enough, I realized -belatedly and after originally posting- that the Never Let Me Down album, both as originally released and the 2018 version in the upcoming box set, does NOT include the song Too Dizzy, which was on the original album’s release.
Why?
It’s been said that of the songs on Never Let Me Down, Mr. Bowie really, really hated Too Dizzy and decided, after originally releasing the album, that it would be banished from any future re-issues.
So what does the song that Mr. Bowie hated enough to strike from Never Let Me Down album sound like?
Glad you asked:
Yup. I can see why he wouldn’t want it back. Pretty generic pop and certainly not up to the level of other Bowie works.
In the last years before the passing of David Bowie, I noticed he had an affinity to “celebrate” his birthdays by giving his fans something special.
His birthday is January 8, 1947 and he would pass away two days after his 69th birthday on January 10, 2016. His last two albums, The Next Day and Blackstar, were announced on his 66th birthday (2014) and released on his 69th birthday, respectively.
After his passing, the No Plan EP album, featuring his final recordings was released on January 8th, 2017.
When January 8th neared this year, I figured something would be released to celebrate what would have been his 71st birthday. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I missed the release, which turned out to be a demo version of one of his biggest hits, the song Let’s Dance.
If you’re like me and you missed it, here it is!
Clearly a “rough”, pre-Niles Rogers (the producer of the album) version, which he considerably funked up. And yet, everything is pretty much there, lyrically and in terms of how the song “flows”.
For comparison, here’s the version that made it to the album…
Watched only a few minutes of it (obligatory “I’m really out of synch with today’s music, etc. etc. grumble grumble get off my lawn) but afterwards read how the late David Bowie won every Grammy his last album released a mere two days before his passing, Blackstar, was nominated for (the below link is for the article found on Slate.com and was written by Matthew Dessem)…
While astonishing to find Mr. Bowie’s final album won all five Grammys it was nominated for (Best Alternative Music Album; Best Rock Performance; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Rock Song; and Best Recording Package), it was disheartening to read in the very same article the following, the very first lines in this article:
Over the course of his decades-long career, David Bowie earned critical and popular acclaim for his extraordinary songwriting, singing, and performance. What he didn’t earn was a Grammy—at least not for his music. (He won in 1985 for Best Video, Short Form, and was given a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2006.)
He previously won Grammys for Best Video?! In 2006 he received a “lifetime” achievement?
Yet not one of his albums, many of which are stone cold classics, merited any Grammy love until now?
Mr. Bowie, of course, isn’t unique in the entertainment field with respect to getting respect. A couple of days ago I found a short interview on the Guardian with Mel Brooks (you can read it here) and he noted this regarding Alfred Hitchcock…
In his opinion, Hitchcock is “the greatest director ever. The stories, the way he set up shots, everything.” Yet Hitchcock never got the respect he deserved. “In France they worshipped Hitchcock,” Brooks says. “But as he once told me, ‘In England and America they view me as an entertainer.’”
While Mr. Hitchcock was nominated for “Best Director” for five of his films (Rebecca, Lifeboat, Spellbound, Rear Window, and Psycho), his only Oscar, kinda/sorta like what Mr. Bowie received, was the Irving G. Thalberg Memorial given in 1968 for “Creative producers, whose bodies of work reflect a consistently high quality of motion picture production.”
Like Mr. Bowie (until this Grammys, of course), he was awarded for his body of work yet was never given an award for his individual works
Mr. Brooks goes on to talk about how good actor Gene Hackman was in his hilarious cameo role in the movie Young Frankenstein and why he didn’t do more comedies. Mr. Brooks talked about how hard it is, as an entertainer, to pull yourself out of audience expectations:
So why didn’t Hackman make more comedies? “…it’s all baggage. Once they (Hollywood) see what you can do, that’s all that they’ll let you do. I could produce The Elephant Man as part of Brooksfilms. But Mel Brooks couldn’t direct The Elephant Man. I had baggage.”
Its worth mentioning, as if the above should clear any doubt, that Mr. Brooks loves film and, while primarily known as a comedy writer/director/actor, he has produced some very serious films yet is forced, because of his name and, as he puts it, the “baggage” attached to it, to hide his involvement in more “serious” works because of fears audiences will think its a comedy or at the least couldn’t possibly be serious.
Mr. Bowie, during the first decade of his career, was a trailblazer. He flaunted his sexuality (and possible homosexuality/bisexuality) when just about no one dared do so. But while the images he projected were daring, his music was, IMHO, incredible. Especially for those times, he was a controversial figure and I can’t help but think because he was so “out there” in his looks and stage presence that staid organizations like the Grammys perhaps didn’t dare take note of him.
In doing a Google search of David Bowie nominations for Grammys, it was even more shocking to find the following: Mr. Bowie had a total of 19 Grammy nominations, the first three of which came for his 1984 album, and two songs on, Let’s Dance!
So, get this: Mr. Bowie’s first nominations to the Grammys happened to be for what was arguably his most audience friendly (some say it was his first “sell out”) album.
Think about it. Until Let’s Dance, the Grammys never thought him worthy of nomination for his glam rock years (The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Diamond Dogs), his venture into soul (Young Americans), his incredible -though drug fueled- album Station to Station, his highly rated “Berlin Trilogy” (Low, Heroes, and Lodger), and the early new wave Scary Monsters.
While The Man Who Sold The World was all but ignored by audiences and critics alike upon its initial release (though it gained much more love since), all ten of the albums following that one were critically and, for most, commercial hits. There is a wealth of great music in all those albums and, while not denigrating Let’s Dance (I happen to love the album even thought others do believe Mr. Bowie was selling out), it is astonishing that each and every one of those albums didn’t merit any Grammy love.
Ah well.
I suppose its better late than never and I suppose it helps to die just days after releasing your last (and, again, critically lauded) album.
Yesterday, January 8th, would have been the 70th Birthday of David Bowie. Last year tomorrow, on January 10th, Mr. Bowie passed away.
Last year Mr. Bowie released his final new album, Blackstar, on his 69th Birthday. For his 70th Birthday, No Plan, a four song EP, was released to mark his passing and give fans the last music the artist worked on before he passed. Though the songs aren’t really “new” -they can all be found on the Lazarus soundtrack and the actual song Lazarus, the fourth on the EP, was part of the Blackstar album- this is the first time you can buy them on their own and outside of that Broadway soundtrack.
Since I truly didn’t care to buy the entire Lazarus soundtrack -sorry but I like to hear David Bowie singing David Bowie- I didn’t bother getting the Lazarus soundtrack but jumped at the chance to buy the EP (for those wondering why I didn’t just buy the other songs on their own, the three “new” songs could not be purchased separate from the full soundtrack).
Anyway, the EP was released, I believe, on Friday though the Amazon listing states its release is for tomorrow, January 10 (I guess they wanted to keep with the David Bowie birthday theme).
I picked up the EP yesterday and, if you like Blackstar, you’ll like the three new tracks presented. It’s hard to point out which of the three is the best (and if I were to consider all four, I’d probably tilt toward the already released Lazarus, a song that feels like an eerie coda to David Bowie’s life and then upcoming passing).
Of the other three, No Plan is pretty damn good. So much so they even made a video…
I suspect in the near future we’ll see more “unreleased” David Bowie material appear. There is apparently quite a bit of it -excluding, of course, the vast amount of live shows that were surely recorded.
I know I’ve written before about some of the better never “formally” released David Bowie songs (at least songs that weren’t part of any of his actual albums), but of those songs I’m familiar with my favorite remains the alternative version of the song Candidate…
As can be seen in the graphic, this song was created for what eventually became the Diamond Dogs album. Originally, Mr. Bowie intended to create a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984 but the late author’s wife refused to give him permission to make the album and therefore he was forced to make some changes (no pun intended) and, viola, Diamond Dogs.
There are still hints to the unmade 1984 album in Diamond Dogs, including…
There’s a Big Brother song as well and the Sweet Thing/Candidate medley (very good stuff but I have to say, I prefer the unreleased version of Candidate to it!).
Anyway, those who are fans of David Bowie, the bottom line is this: There’s a “new” EP out there and you get one more taste of what David Bowie was up to just before his untimely passing.
Perhaps other buried treasures will be found among his previous recordings and “new” and interesting Bowie songs will also appear in the near future.
The above is the full length version of the song which appeared on what I consider David Bowie’s best overall album from his later years, 1. Outside. The song, however, originally appeared in a slightly different version on David Bowie’s previous album, The Buddha of Suburbia…
Looking around, I found this, an early demo of the song. Though intriguing, I’m kinda glad they moved away from using the demo’s intro. Otherwise, the song is very close to The Buddha of Suburbia’s version…
Finally, the official video to the song when used to promote 1. Outside. I believe the video cuts the song down a little, timewise…
Finally, a live version Mr. Bowie did of this song…
By God, listen to how smooth his voice was here!
Really sad to think there’s nothing “new” coming out from this extraordinary man anymore.
Finally, the lyrics to Strangers When Me Meet:
All our friends Now seem so thin and frail Slinky secrets Hotter than the sun
No peachy frairs No trendy rechauffe I’m with you So I can’t go on
All my violence raining tears upon the sheets I’m bewildered, for we’re strangers when we meet
Blank screen tv Preening ourselves in the snow Forget my name But I’m over you
Blended sunrise And it’s a dying world Humming Rheingold We scavenge up our clothes
All my violence, raging tears upon the sheets I’m resentful, for we’re strangers when we meet
Cold tired fingers Tapping out your memories Halfway sadness Dazzled by the new
Your embrace It was all that I feared That whirling room We trade by vendu
Steely resolve is falling from me My poor soul, poor bruised passivity All your regrets ran rough-shod over me I’m so glad that we’re strangers when we meet
I’m so thankful, cause we’re strangers when we meet. I’m in clover, for we’re strangers when we meet.
Heel head over, cause we’re strangers when we meet.
A week or so back I wrote about David Bowie’s The Leon Suites, three roughly 20 minute long musical -what? Plays? Musical stories? I’m truly not certain how to categorize them- which Mr. Bowie created along with collaborator Brian Eno back in 1994 and presented to record companies for consideration as a formal release. (Read about that here)
The music companies rejected the material and Mr. Bowie reworked it for the 1995 album 1. Outside. SInce Mr. Bowie’s passing earlier this year and now that all his “official” albums are out there, I’m of the opinion that 1. Outside is the very best album Mr. Bowie produced in the later parts of his career.
Having said that, I was always curious about the album and what went into its making. I’d heard rumors that there were some 20+ hours of recordings in vaults which were the genesis of the work. Along with the rumors of a wealth of recordings created for 1. Outside, there were rumors Mr. Bowie intended to release more albums in the world he presented there.
Of course, Mr. Bowie never did.
The critics weren’t kind to 1. Outside. While I loved the album upon its release, I was dumbfounded to read review after review savaging the album as being too much (Ironically, over time the sentiment has turned and I suspect most people now consider the album a high point of his later career). Even worse for Mr. Bowie, when he toured in support of the album with NIN, there was word the audience cheered and demanded NIN but had little to no interest in Bowie…
Whether true or not, after the tour Mr. Bowie abandoned the 1. Outside project and instead released several albums -none concept albums- before his passing. Along with the justifiably famous The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, it appears 1. Outside is the only other full “concept” album he released in his lifetime.
(ASIDE: I suspect people might argue both Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs were also concept albums. I don’t believe they were. Not entirely, anyway. While Diamond Dogs originally started as a musical version of George Orwell’s 1984 and parts of that original idea remain in the album, to me there isn’t enough of a coherent “story” for it to be considered a proper concept album. Likewise, Aladdin Sane offers something of a loose story and has been labeled, -justifiably!- “Ziggy Stardust goes to America” but like Diamond Dogs I just don’t think there’s enough there to consider it a proper concept album. All this, of course, is IMHO)
Last week I learned the three Leon Suites, the genesis of the 1. Outside album, were released to the internet a short time before Mr. Bowie’s passing and it is suspected by many the person who released this was Mr. Bowie himself…
At the time I wrote about this, I just learned of the three “Suites” and therefore hadn’t heard them. Now I have and wished to offer some comments.
The first comment is going to be the cruelest: I agree with the record companies in their rejection of this material. Whether you consider the material great or good or terrible, one thing is clear: It is not very commercial. At all.
Having said that, the three Leon Suites offer a fascinating early look/rough draft of what became 1. Outside. In having the original Suites rejected, Mr. Bowie turned his creativety on high and took bits and pieces from these Suites and used them in 1. Outside. Out of a decent -but very artsy- work he created something even better -IMHO!- in 1. Outside.
Now that the Suites are available, they serve as a fascinating bookend to the 1. Outside album. If you haven’t listened to it and are a fan of David Bowie and 1. Outside, do yourself a favor and give it a listen.
I’ve made my love of the late David Bowie’s music known for just about as long as I’ve been posting here.
For those who share this awe for his music, I recently stumbled onto a couple of websites that are incredibly fascinating.
The first, presented at DavidBowieworld.nl, offers an intriguing look at The Leon Suites, a project David Bowie and Brian Eno worked on in 1994 and presented to the record companies only to get it rejected. The material they made was re-worked into what I consider the absolute best of David Bowie’s late career releases, 1. Outside.
Before Mr. Bowie passed away earlier this year, the three Leon Suites were released to the internet (Toy, another aborted album, was released a few years back as well). It is thought that Mr. Bowie himself decided to release this material as there was little likelihood -and probably not a lot of money to be made- on doing an “official” release.
It’s intriguing stuff and I haven’t yet listened to it all but there are parts that are very recognizable that made it to the 1. Outside album. So, if you like David Bowie as much as I do and also feel 1. Outside is a classic, here’s your second link, to the Complete Leon Suites…
An interesting article regarding the above written by Priscilla Frank and found on Huffington Post regarding the above, an examination of photographs taken of Mr. Bowie in 1974 and how Mr. Bowie brought back certain ideas -and clothing!- from that moment in time for his last music video, Lazarus:
They mention one particular photograph which was eventually used on the Station to Station album but isn’t included in the article itself. This is the photograph:
The clothes Mr. Bowie is wearing there are the ones he re-used (or had very similar ones) in the Lazarus video. I’ve embedded the entire video below and he appears in the clothing at the two minute mark…
I have to say, as a really big fan of David Bowie it hurts to watch this, his final video, and realize he likely intended it to be that. When the video was first released he hadn’t passed yet and the images, morbid though they were, didn’t resonate as much as they did after the sad announcement of his passing.
I find it fascinating he went back to the clothing and invoked the ideas he was interested in (Kabbala) from so very long ago here with this video.
While I don’t think the revelations are necessarily “earth shattering” it does show how Mr. Bowie’s interests remained throughout most of his life. Though he often stated he wasn’t religious, he did appear to grapple with the idea of spirituality, something an atheist like myself can understand.
A fascinating man and a fascinating artist. It still hurts to realize he’s gone.
After the incredible rendition of the National Anthem at this past Super Bowl, I was curious to see/listen to Lady Gaga’s tribute to David Bowie at yesterday’s Grammys.
The current music scene, to me anyway, is akin to watching a foreign movie without subtitles…For the most part I don’t understand it at all. (Get off my lawn!!)
After the show was nearly over I headed to YouTube and found the Lady Gaga tribute in its entirety (this morning, however, I’m seeing the tribute has been washed from YouTube and, instead, we get plenty of reviews of it).
My thoughts on what I saw?
I didn’t like it much. In fact, I shut it off after a couple of minutes.
Don’t get me wrong, I know Lady Gaga put a great deal of effort into the production and she certainly tried hard to get as many of Mr. Bowie’s “hits” presented in bit sized fashion as quickly as she could. It is also obvious she has a great deal of admiration for Mr. Bowie. I’ve always felt that she, and Madonna for that matter, are among the artists who most directly copied/adapted David Bowie’s evolution of style into their acts. Though they may have copied Mr. Bowie in that respect, they also brought powerful songwriting/singing skills to the mix which allowed them to not just copy Mr. Bowie’s style but also find their own and soar in their own directions.
Having said that, the Lady Gaga tribute was…it was cheesy.
That word screamed to my mind as I watched all I could handle before turning it off after a minute or two. Despite the great makeup and clothing and computer graphics what you had was basically a “best of” version of David Bowie’s hits/styles and it felt too curt and rather…depressing.
By giving us small samples of his songs while changing clothing every few seconds to mimic some Bowie style, it felt like we were getting some Vegas version of Mr. Bowie’s career. It was not unlike seeing Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees do The Beatles in the dreadful Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band movie.
Please understand, I’m not a Lady Gaga “hater”. I’ve heard some of her popular songs on the radio and, frankly, like them for the most part even though I’m hardly into today’s music “scene”. I also recall hearing her on Howard Stern a while back, singing a couple of her songs with only her piano to accompany her and was blown away by how good she sounded. Hell, as I mentioned above, I absolutely loved her National Anthem rendition.
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