David Bowie - The Next Day

as I posted on facebook...Scott Walker fronting the Soft Machine in 1969. Or 70. I can't remember which I said. Whatever.

that must be jazz -- i can't stand it

ha, definitely was not expecting live drum n' jazz but i'm not mad at all.

hrmmmm, not sure about this. There's certainly some cool stuff going on in the orchestra, but there's something a little too plodding about the way his vocal moves over the band, and maybe the band is just a hair too busy for his vocal.

Some neat little D&B loop quotes going on in the drums, and I like the sound of the whole thing.

New song Tis A Pity She Was A Whore is actually really good fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32okU676_Q

http://wp-images.emusic.com/assets/2014/11/david-bowie-tis-a-pity-she-was-a-whore-lyrics.jpg

I like it.

Is there another thread discussing Nothing Has Changed? The first disc (on the 3 disc set) is the first time I've really unselfconsciously enjoyed a sustained side of post-Scary Monsters Bowie. The sequencing probably has a lot to do with it. And suddenly "Sue" has clicked, possibly due to being the kick-off track rather than a stand alone. I'm curious how this would do in a poll of Bowie best-ofs.

I haven't listened to it but that is a pretty great track selection, limited though it is.

WTF is Dancing in the Street on this comp?

it just seriously ruins Disc 2

"Dancing in the St" was included either out of charity (do proceeds still go to some sort of relief fund?) or perversity. The real oddball missing track on disc 2 is "Cat People," which Tarantino made hip again

iirc that track has always been hip, weird omission

It's really the first disc that I find most interesting, as it's so strong and also so unfamiliar if you haven't been paying attention. (I'd given cursory listens to the albums it pulls from, but never *loved* any of them). The other two discs just strike me as a grab bag...definitely feels like the most thought went into the first.

agree, tho' 1st disc shortchanges Reality (a pretty strong record) in favor of Hours (a really not v. strong one). the opening 1-2-3 is a great sequence.

on "Where Are We Now": https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2015/06/24/where-are-we-now/

Reading that has reminded me I haven't listened to The Next Day for a long, long while... I'll have to give it another listen and see how it's held up. Looking at the tracklisting now, I can recall near enough every song on it, so that's a good start!

I love this album.

Finally listened to this over the last week. It's quite good, isn't it? Has struck me more than Heathen, the other recent(ish) Bowie I've picked up since he died. Surprised at the lack of talk about the title track, which was my immediate favourite.

otm

As already written in another thread: For me, the title track is putting everything from hours to Reality to shame in terms of sheer vitality, force and also fun. His voice is so strong, remarkable lyrics and generally it sounds like an unreleased b-side from Lodger, like an excellent mix of Repetition and Red Sails.

I gave it another go before and after he died and it still sounds tentative and a couple of times actually embarrassing.

Is there any collection / writing about Bowie b-sides anywhere? I assume PAOTD covers them but are they all listed together anywhere or something?

Revisiting this again - 'Heat' is so fucking good.

Weird to think this album is five years old now. THAT time passed strangely quickly.

Yeah, agreed - one last, quick burst of creativity and then he was gone foe good.

*for

There was this little record called BLACKSTAR that came before he was "gone for good", you cretin.

Yeah, and I include Blackstar in as part of that one last, quick burst of creativity. It's a record that I like a lot, as the thread about the record will show. You dumb little fucking cunt.

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.