David Bowie - The Next Day

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".