David Bowie - The Next Day

c'mon, he invented sexual tourism!

Christ, the Dschungel club on Nurnburgerstrasse, near KaDeWe... instant nostalgia for my year in Berlin. The place was a bit up itself, though.

Is this his 'When We Was Fab'?

^^Good call - he should have got Iggy and Brian to appear in the video.

It's a bit overwrought and at the same time doesn't really say anything. Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to like this. If it had been anyone but Bowie I wouldn't have patiently sat through all of it. But it comes out shortly after a new Scott Walker album, and Walker does this kind of lyric and singing a lot better, and also, crucially, with a sense of humour.

Did he just wait until the day after Suede put out their big comeback single or is that a coincidence? Anyway way to steal their thunder.

You can sing Fantastic Voyage over this.

xp kind of backfired, because the Suede track is way better.

Yeah that's true. Pretty sure he put out Black Tie White Noise the week after their debut too and Suede won that round too.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/PorkysII.jpg

it sounds a bit like that song from Drive

wait, was it from Drive. it sounds like an unspecified song that I think was in Drive. stay tuned.

STAY RETIRED

the whole sound and look of the video gives this an 'outside' era feel (the twisted face effect in the video).

its not an immediate hit-you-in-the-face song, but as an album track, i think its rather lovely.

on another point of interest, can you imagine the secrecy clauses that folks have had to sign in order to be involved - i mean, in the last 12 months there has been a lot of pressure/interest re new material, and not a word has leaked out from anyone involved in this.

in this day and age, i think that's mighty impressive.

^^^ My other half talks to Bowie's management all the time and she and none of her work colleagues knew nothing.

ugh dbl neg, sorry

Good call on When We Was Fab! Amazing spot.

Will listen in a few minutes but I'm disappointed he didn't stay retired -- what a brilliant move it was.

Here's the joke (or at least until I actually hear the song): today's his 65th birthday.

yeah, i think i said on another thread that i quite liked the idea of him just disappearing off into the sunset never to be heard from again.

66th birthday.

I am so glad there's not supposed to be interviews/tour happening, just a record.

66th birthday. It's a crazy week for b'days... Sandy Denny (she'd also have been 66), Scott Walker, Bernard Sumner, Michael Stipe, Beth Gibbons, Robin Guthrie, Mark Hollis... (I only know this because it's also a crazy week for friends' birthdays, so you tend to look this stuff up).

xp

And of course, at least seventeen more entries for the Bowiesongs blog to expect.

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, January 8, 2013 5:39 AM (6 hours ago)

It would be great if the rest of Bowie's career was just dedicated to messing with that guy. "There, finished! I've written a blog entry for every single Bowie song ever... dammmit he's just released a new album!!!"

there was also that Paolo Hewitt coffeetable book which came out a few weeks ago, covers all his albums in an entry-level kind of way and concludes with a slightly gloomy "well we've not heard shit from him for years, guess that's that then"

66th birthday. It's a crazy week for b'days... Sandy Denny (she'd also have been 66), Scott Walker, Bernard Sumner, Michael Stipe, Beth Gibbons, Robin Guthrie, Mark Hollis... (I only know this because it's also a crazy week for friends' birthdays, so you tend to look this stuff up).

Today would've been Elvis's 78th birthday as well.

I'm kinda surprised that he's still associated with the major label, or affiliate or whatever it is, that he hooked up with in the early 2000s…I would have thought until earlier this morning that one reason for his sabbatical is that he wanted to sit a contract out…

I interviewed him as he was finishing Reality: I was terrified, but he couldn't have been more friendly. Thought he would be sporting an avant garde japanese suit, but was wearing a rugby shirt and khakis…

The new single is currently number two on the UK itunes chart inbetween Will.i.am and Taylor Swift, have to say I'm pretty shocked by that.

Bit of a dreary song, sorry David.

song is boring, but it's no surprise

I don't like the song very much, but I'm very happy it has come out because there had been a lot of rumors around that he was very ill. Hopefully the song/album disproves that.

Please say there will be a vinyl release of this.

all together now..

I've liked the lead singles from his albums for a good long while so I don't put a lot of stock in how much I like this - which is "a good bit"; I wish it had no "as long as there's me/as long as there's you" climax, the meandering vibe is stronger. Is this a song about when he was making Heroes/Low/Lodger or about the fall of the Berlin wall? I think get bent is otm, it sounds quickly written, and I think that's good - old men working on music seem to dither until there's nothing interesting left, I don't think the digital age has done any favors for aging musicians in this regard. he's singing well to my ears but there's also lots of treatment on the voice, no idea what besides compression but it's a little offputting to me.

I dream of this being a really interesting record.

You're right, 66th--speaking of old people losing their memory, who went and changed the calendar on me?

he's singing well to my ears

Definitely still in good (and highly distinctive) voice.

it's a mysterious achievement that Bowie and co. succeed in keeping the recording process so secretly till now.

on another point of interest, can you imagine the secrecy clauses that folks have had to sign in order to be involved - i mean, in the last 12 months there has been a lot of pressure/interest re new material, and not a word has leaked out from anyone involved in this.

Yeah, lame humblebrag but: I had just heard a few weeks ago that almost certainly something was going to be announced on his birthday, and that he had been busy recording this past year, but was keeping quiet since that news would have blown up pretty quickly, obviously. In fact just before the news broke I was texting my source going "Hey, any further word on that?" And lo and behold...

SO WHY DID YOU KEEP IT TO YOURSELF?

This is actually supposed to be the cover art for the album!

http://new.assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/11057/the_next_day_1357633247_crop_550x550.jpg

(If that doesn't work, check out http://thequietus.com/articles/11057-david-bowie-where-are-we-now

xpost -- One source, close friend. Not about to torch that for the sake of a fucking exclusive!

I actually kind of like this, I have to say.

Please say there will be a vinyl release of this.

A post here says there will be.

yeah, but who reads ilx anyway..and i'm sure you trust us not to tell..
xxpost

if we knew, we'd have told you, ned.

boring tracklist, too:

01. The Next Day 3:51
02. Dirty Boys 2:58
03. The Stars (Are Out Tonight) 3:56
04. Love Is Lost 3:57
05. Where Are We Now? 4:08
06. Valentine's Day 3:01
07. If You Can See Me 3:16
08. I'd Rather Be High 3:53
09. Boss Of Me 4:09
10. Dancing Out In Space 3:24
11. How Does The Grass Grow 4:33
12. (You Will) Set The World On Fire 3:30
13. You Feel So Lonely You Could Die 4:41
14. Heat 4:25

covering They Might Be Giants is a curveball tbf

some of those title sound like rejected Deram-era songs

pretty excited for "I'd Rather Be High"

1) I also think this sounds a bit like Robert Wyatt, or could have used a touch of Wyatt

2) It also sounds more than a little like his "Silly Little Fat Man" song from Extras, in terms of vive and cadence.

09. Boss Of Me 4:09

I hope this a cover of the Malcolm in the Middle theme tune.

Well this revive is all going swimmingly.

The Next Day is a special case. I've wondered if Bowie at the time might have already thought it could have been his swan song? In any case Blackstar more or less obliterated it in its force. Which takes away some of The Next Day's appeal and shine, because it's probably underrated and really good.

As for The Next Day, I still like the record a lot, although definitely not as much as Blackstar. Last time I listened to the record I really enjoyed it, particularly 'If You Can See Me', which always felt like it had a Scary Monsters vibe about it. It'd be great to hear what everyone thinks about the record now, preferably without Le Bateau Ivre turning up and acting like an utter weapon. I know Alfred in particular was cold on it.

(xxpost)

reality, the next day and blackstar is an extremely good run

I'm not convinced that The Next Day was ever designed to be a swan song, rather the next chapter of Bowie's career, although the last song on The Next Day sounds like it would have made a perfect career closer. If Bowie hadn't fallen ill, I believe we would have had more music from him by now, but at the same time we may not have had Blackstar in the form that it was released.

This record still is not very good, an enthusiastic retread of modes and instrumental choices he had even by then discarded.

Reality is underrated, IMO... I probably like that and Heathen more than The Next Day, and Outside over all of 'em. In fact, if it wasn't for hours... I'd say Bowie's work from 1995 onwards was quite strong... not 1971-1980 strong, but a very good run of LP's in their own right.

That's about right.

oh heathen, i forgot about that record. It was not bad iirc

Heathen is my favorite late-period Bowie next to Blackstar, for sure.

I get what Ned's saying, though... five years before The Next Day was released, I think pretty much most people considered Bowie retired and had come to terms with the fact that there may have not been any more new music from him. Five years after The Next Day and here we are knowing that there won't be anymore new music from him. The comeback feels like it lasted in the time it takes to blink your eyes, yet in Blackstar we're left with one of his best albums.

He revisited Low live in full during the Heathen era, if I remember correctly.

He did

https://vimeo.com/171621712

10 years old this week. I wrote about it for BA, mostly reprinting my original review from 2013, with a few new thoughts:

Ten years ago, on March 8, 2013, David Bowie released his next-to-last studio album, his first in 10 years. Bowie had always been an artist beloved of critics because he spoke their language, and flattered them. He was (apparently; I never spoke to him) a great interview subject — he knew a lot about art and pop, and could combine the two in beguiling ways. But to beguile means to deceive, and the illusion often faded quickly. Bowie knew this, and would frequently disavow previous work when selling the new stuff. On The Next Day, though, he made the links to his past explicit, almost as if he needed to remind people who he was (or had once been). The cover was literally the cover of 1977’s “Heroes”, with that title crossed out and a white square with the new album’s title slapped across it.

(Personally, I think Phil Collins pulled a much better version of this trick when he reissued his albums Face Value, No Jacket Required, and …But Seriously in 2016 or so, with new cover art that duplicated the originals, but now featured the old-man version of himself. A shot of old-man Bowie re-creating the “Heroes” pose would have been cooler than this.)

Some of the lyrics on The Next Day were about Berlin, too, and/or about subjects he had tackled in the old days, which allowed reviewers to flex their knowledge of his late ’70s albums (admittedly, his best work). And naturally, some writers took the bait. Rolling Stone called it “a triumphant album…the comeback Bowie fans feared would never happen” while explicitly citing Low, “Heroes”, Lodger, and Scary Monsters. The Guardian, meanwhile, did a deep dive into the lyrics and the sounds, attempting to spot as many references and bits of arcana as possible, like one of those conspiracy theorists’ yarn-and-Post-It-note charts that take over entire rooms, but ultimately came to the conclusion that “for all the pointers it offers in that direction, The Next Day isn’t the equal of Bowie’s ’70s work.”

Unperson I enjoyed reading your review yesterday & it prompted me to give this one another listen, which I also enjoyed. No smart things to say about it, but I'll probably listen again today/this week.

Thanks!

I never liked the cover of The Next Day, exactly, but it's hard to think of another cover from a "legacy artist" from the last couple of decades that's so bracing, so much of a slap across of the face to nostalgia. "It's not that anymore, now it's this".

I no longer think, per my original SPIN review, the album shouldn't have been recorded, but at the same time it's not a Bowie album I think much about.

I never liked the cover of The Next Day, exactly, but it's hard to think of another cover from a "legacy artist" from the last couple of decades that's so bracing, so much of a slap across of the face to nostalgia. "It's not that anymore, now it's this".

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41jSMXYTU+L.jpg

Yeah, but Neil Young is just lazy.

The Next Day has got no more or less reason to exist than Reality, with a few more good songs on it than the earlier record.

Nah, Reality's the better album. Nothing embarrasses me like "Boss of Me" or "Valentine's Day."

Now I want to listen to Heathen again.

I will say this about "Valentine's Day," John Cale did a pretty good version of it at one of those various Bowie tribute concerts.

I like Valentine's Day.

Looks like the bonus tracks aren't streaming?

Shame.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0uw06jPCqY

Yeah, I like "Valentine's Day" too. I kind of like the video too - Bowie's still a good pantomime.

I also like Valentine’s Day. Feel you could comfortably snip tracks 8-12 and have a much much better album though.

Would be on the short side but still an album (I think somewhere between 33 or 34 minutes)

Definitely too long and uneven, but I think the album is OK, albeit nothing special. Blackstar is special and I could hear that even in the few days I had listening to it before his death changed its meaning.

I think the problem with The Next Day is that he'd been so long out of the game that he was probably worried whether he could pull it off, and so he consciously made a 'Bowie album', in the neoclassical rock mode of Heathen and Reality. It's of a piece with those two (although not as good as Heathen), whereas Blackstar is a new direction right at the end.

It's definitely another album that tries to reconsolidate his strengths rather than breaking new ground, but I thought it was better than Heathen and Reality. Those previous two weren't bad albums, but they weren't all that consistent either and I remember thinking they were overhyped. (Jim DeRogatis, who was always a bit skeptical of Bowie, gushed on the radio over Reality, saying "I never thought I'd recommend a Bowie album again.") I was very skeptical and dismissed the lead-up to The Next Day as more marketing hype, but to my surprise I enjoyed it quite a bit and I didn't think anything was terrible on it either - it was the first Bowie album since you-know-what where I didn't have to skip anything, I was fine letting the lesser parts play through. I thought that was the best I could ever hope for from Bowie, but Blackstar proved me wrong, and the weekend before he died, I played the shit out of it. It really sent my hopes though the roof, like we'd be getting more great albums going forward.

I thought it was better than Heathen and Reality. Those previous two weren't bad albums, but they weren't all that consistent either and I remember thinking they were overhyped

The Next Day for me

I think it's fascinating that it ends with "Heat" which really does point the way to "Blackstar".