Tag Archives: Never Let Me Down (2018)

David Bowie’s Never Let Me Down redux part three

I wrote already about my interest in the new David Bowie Box Set coming out in October and focusing on his mid-late 1980’s output, specifically in the fact that it features a completely redone version of his album Never Let Me Down, which many, including Bowie himself, viewed as his worst album.  (You can read my previous ramblings about that topic here and here)

Slowly, tantalizingly, reworked songs from that album have been released.  You have the inspiration for reworking those songs with the release, a number of years ago, of the song Time Will Crawl, which I thought was incredibly good in its remade version.

Then, after the announcement of the reworked album, we got to hear the reworked version of Zeroes, which I very much liked as well.  Today, we have a third song, Beat of Your Drum.  Here is the reworked version which will appear on the upcoming boxed set:

As a comparison, this is the version which appeared on the album originally…

Ok, so far I’ve been very much impressed in each new remade version of the songs from Never Let Me Down but this time… I dunno.  I like the new version quite a lot but I have to admit: I’m not all that down on the original, so while this new version is interesting I find the difference not quite as startling as that with the previous two songs.

I’m still looking very much forward to the full album, though!

David Bowie’s Never Let Me Down remake, redux redux

Ok, third time I’m (over) dwelling on this topic that likely few care about outside of myself, but I stumbled upon this interesting article by Kory Grow and Andy Greene on RollingStone.com concerning…

How David Bowie’s biggest “disappointment” became a posthumous, reworked album

To those (1 or two out there, at least?!) curious, the article offers a history of Never Let Me Down, David Bowie’s 1987 album which he, and many fans out there, feel was his “worst” album, yet one that he also felt could be reworked/saved.  This was done with the album, albeit posthumously, and the reworked album, along with a remastered version of the original, will be released in October along with plenty of other stuff in David Bowie’s mid-1980’s Loving The Alien box-set.

What I found most fascinating about the article is they go into what exactly was done to “rework” the album, essentially stripping down everything until all they had was Bowie’s singing and then adding things to it to create these new versions of the songs.

Equally fascinating is the fact that, inevitably, there would be those who are not happy with the fact that the album is as badmouthed as it is and, further, that it “needed” any fixing.

And in this case that individual would be… multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kızılçay, who in the article offers this nugget, found in the above article:

“(Never Let Me Down, the original release, is) like 80 percent me.  I’m playing bass. I’m singing background vocals. I’m playing guitar. I’m playing acoustic guitar, keyboards, viola, trombone, trumpet, everything. And I had to arrange them and put some harmonies and (David Bowie) loved it. He really loved it. He was so proud of that album. That’s why he called me his ‘Invincible Turk.’ He praised it until the minute the reviews came in. Then he said, ‘It wasn’t me. It was the other people on the record.’”

Ouch.

I’ve noted before my love for David Bowie’s albums and further the fact that I would consider him my all time favorite musician… but as a person, I’ve read bits and pieces here and there about him which paints a picture of David Bowie -the person- as this: An almost otherworldly talented musician but something of a cutthroat when it came to relationships and projects.

Niles Rodgers, who was called in by David Bowie to produce Let’s Dance, polished the work and helped create what was David Bowie’s biggest selling album which launched him into what was his most successful era.  Yet when it came time to produce the album’s follow up, I recall an interview (hope my memory isn’t faulty!) with Mr. Rodgers where he said he was willing and eager to get back into the studio with Mr. Bowie on his next album… but Bowie snubbed him and never called.  He felt he was essentially dumped despite working so well with him.

Similarly, David Bowie famously dumped the “Spiders of Mars,” the band he had his first big hits with, and retired the “Ziggy Stardust” character while in a concert and to the shock of not only his fans but most of his band mates.  This was their bread and butter and he didn’t feel the need to inform several of his band mates this would be it until announcing it for all in concert!

Further, when he grew bored with a style of music and/or it didn’t succeed as well as he hoped (and the above quote certainly hints to that), he was quick to dump it and move on to other things.  This served him well at times, when he transitioned from the Glam Rock era to Soul to the “Berlin” trilogy but, again, it often involved cutting people he worked with -and who were making money/earning a living doing these projects- out.

He famously worked with Iggy Pop for a long time in the mid to later 1970’s, producing albums for him and, later on, doing cover songs of several of his (and Bowie) compositions, the most famous of which was China Girl.  To be clear, he did this for the nicest of reasons: To help Iggy Pop get some residuals for his works.

And yet I recall an interview given by Iggy Pop a few years ago (and well before Mr. Bowie’s passing) where he was asked about his current relationship with David Bowie and he noted there essentially was none: that they hadn’t spoken in a number of years.  I got the impression (again, if my memory isn’t faded/wrong) that Iggy Pop felt like Bowie dropped him and that was that.

The album 1. Outside, my favorite Bowie album from the later part of his career, was intended to be the first of at least two, perhaps three albums dealing with the turn of the Century.  While the album has come to be looked upon as one of Bowie’s best by some such as me, the fact is it didn’t do too well when it was originally released, both critically and commercially, and Bowie dropped the project and any possible future albums involving this subject.  For his next album, he moved right along to the electronica heavy Earthling (also quite a great album).  1. Outside was in the rear view mirror.

What does this all mean?

In the end, I suppose it is a source of curiosity if little else.

Erdal Kızılçay, in that same article, feels the remake of Time Will Crawl is awful -I don’t share that opinion- and I strongly suspect he’ll not like the remake album at all.  He’s understandably proud of the work he did on the album even if many don’t like it all that much.  Further, he states that if he doesn’t receive the proper credit for his work, even on the remade version of the album, he intends to sue.

Clearly, the man is angry about the whole thing and who am I to tell him he shouldn’t be.  I wasn’t there during the recordings and I take his words at face value.

Still, it is a fascinating look behind the curtain and, if you’re as interested in these type of things as I am, you may want to give the article a read.

About the upcoming David Bowie Box set, redux

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.

Good stuff and I can’t wait to hear the rest!

David Bowie’s Mid-Eighties Box Set…

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:

David Bowie’s Mid-Eighties work collected in massive Loving the Alien boxed set

P.S. UPDATE:

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.