His best since “Scary Monsters”, or… “Reality”

I’ve been following David Bowie’s career avidly since 1993 or so. As anyone who follows Bowie knows, it was widely assumed – until his 66th birthday this past January – that DB had silently retired. It’s been a full decade since his last studio effort, 2003’s Reality, 9 years since he abruptly cut his last tour short due to emergency heart surgery, and 2006 since his last public performance.* Rumors that he was dying were common. As it turns out, it’s not true, and on his 66th birthday Bowie announced the release of his new album, The Next Day, the product of recording sessions held secretly over the last 2 years working with a cast of familiar Bowie sidemen and producer Tony Visconti.

I’ve had the good fortunate to listen to an MP3 copy of The Next Day for the last week – a real change from my “preview copy” of Outside back in September of 1995, which was a nth generation cassette copy of part of the album snail-mailed to me by a fellow fan – and I have only good things to say about it. With The Next Day, Bowie’s delivered a coherent, lyrically and musically engaging record that has no obvious weak spots; it holds up well to repeat listening. Sonically, I hear a lot of Lodger (especially on things like “The Dirty Boys”), and bits of “Heroes” (from where the new album appropriates its artwork), and published reviews have drawn many of the same parallels. Like other reviewers, I also hear Scott Walker’s “The Electrician” echoed clearly in “Heat” (sonically and lyrically), and I hear the (multiple) references to the Ziggy Stardust album in “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die”.

Inevitably, as with every Bowie release since 1980, some are calling it his best since Scary Monsters; while I think the new record sounds great, I’ll need a few years to determine whether or not I think this is true – no small thing. But there are plenty of post-1980 contenders for this title now, including Outside, Heathen, Reality, and perhaps even the The Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack. Likewise, each new Bowie release since (at least) the 80s leaves reviewers trying to find a “classic” Bowie album to which is sounds similar, often making simplistic comparisons that do a disservice to everything that’s innovative or interesting in the new release, like saying Black Tie White Noise was the new Let’s Dance, Outside was the Berlin trilogy redux, and (most galling to me) that Hours was a return to the songwriting style of Hunky Dory. (In that last case, it’s definitely the newer release that suffers (terribly) by comparison). My memory of “new” Bowie releases only goes back to the 90s, but presumably when Tonight came out they were saying it was the new Young Americans, too.

Yet the most obvious point of comparison for The Next Day is one I don’t see reviewers making: Reality. While it’s been a decade since that record, it features the same producer and much of the same crew. (In fact, along with Heathen, this constitutes a 2nd Visconti-produced trilogy, though not sure there is a nickname or misnomer like “The Berlin Trilogy” to describe them… any suggestions?). To my ears, The Next Day hews closely to the template laid-out by Reality.

Both albums start with uptempo, anthemic, somewhat sinister tracks, with “New Killer Star” and “The Next Day”. To my ears, they have very similar rhythm tracks. Both albums ruminate on fame, with  ironic tones, at track #3, with “Never Get Old” and “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”. Both albums feature introspective ballads relatively early in the running order, though Reality’s “The Loneliest Guy” is less specific about its setting than “Where Are We Now?” (but both are clearly set in urban environments). “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” seems to be the showstopper right before the quiet dénouement of “Heat”; in this, I hear a mirror to “Try Some, Buy Some” and “Bring Me the Disco King”, though the latter pairing is interrupted by what always felt like (to me) the incongruous title track of Reality.** “Heat” and “Bring Me the Disco King” are an obvious, brooding pairing to close out each album.***

There are some other (to me) likely pairings between the two albums, though not quite as overt as those I identified above, like “Love is Lost” and “Looking for Water” (tempo, relative positive in the running order) or “Valentine’s Day” and “Days” (again, tempo – not topic material – and position in running ordr). Finally, while not loved by all, the highlight of Reality for me was probably Bowie’s reworking of The Modern Lover’s “Pablo Picasso”, with its wild sonics, slotted in the #2 spot on the record. While “The Dirty Boys” doesn’t have much resemblance in terms of tempo or content with “Pablo Picasso”, it does stand out on TND for interesting sonics, leading me to wonder if Bowie/Visconti think that sort of thing always goes as the #2 track an an LP, right after the catchy opener.

Is this all just coincidence? Is it an intentional formula? Or is this just a nonsense analysis? You can decide on your own, but take a second to consider Heathen against The Next Day and Reality to see how closely the latter two compare. For starters, “Sunday” is a far, far different opening than “New Killer Star”/“The Next Day”. (Or, for that matter, “Thursday’s Child”, or “Little Wonder”, or “Outside”).

In summary, I think The Next Day is overall a superior record to Reality – but ask me again in a year or two – yet  I can’t shake the idea that it’s also a conscious or semi-conscious attempt to remake/remodel Reality a decade later.

If nothing else, for critics still obsessed with 1980, it’s worth remembering that Bowie’s career from 1993 onwards (a full two decades, offering 8 official studio releases – pretty good for a guy who took 10 years off) has brought us plenty of good if not always great material. Speaking personally, if I had to divide the last 20 years up into three arbitrary categories, it would look something like this:

Great (no particular order)

The Next Day
Reality
Outside (perhaps with a few tracks relegated to b-sides)
Heathen (tough call on Good vs. Great here)

Good (no particular order)

Toy (deserves an official release)
Buddha of Suburbia
Black Tie White Noise (again – with a few tracks relegated to b-sides, including the title track)

Eh…

Earthling
Hours…

Some final thoughts relegated to footnotes:

*If you count the Tin Machine years and output, Bowie’s longest break between albums prior to this was the three years between Scary Monsters and Let’s Dance, or perhaps the three years between Hours… and Heathen, though the latter period should have included the aborted Toy album c. 2000. Point being, Bowie’s been pretty prolific since his debut back in 1967. As far as performing live goes, again including the Tin Machine years, Bowie’s longest performance break was between 1978 and 1983, unless you count a few TV show appearances in that period.

** Speaking of “You Feel So Lonely” – numerous reviews have noted the “Five Years” drumbeat that closes the track; I’m also pretty sure I hear part of the guitar line from “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” buried in the track. This reminds me of another showstopper in the second-to-last position on a Bowie LP,  “I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday” from Black Tie White Noise. This track is a cover of a Morrissey track that openly interpolated the melody of “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide”; Bowie covered the track, but omitted the reference to his own back catalog! Perhaps he’s making up for it now.

*** Like many Bowie fans, I spent the last few years assuming that “Bring Me the Disco King” would be the last song on the last new David Bowie record we’d ever get. While I’m glad that isn’t the case, it would have been a strong capstone to his career. Though the same can easily be said of “Heat”.

If you haven’t heard it yet, be sure to check out the excellent remix of “Bring Me the Disco King” that appeared on the soundtrack to Underworld around the time of the release of Reality. The rare remix that equals the original while introducing new elements.