David Bowie - the last thirty years
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Other music related lounges
Forum Name: Proto-Prog and Prog-Related Lounge
Forum Description: Discuss bands and albums classified as Proto-Prog and Prog-Related
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=92537
Printed Date: December 18 2024 at 17:49
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: David Bowie - the last thirty years
Posted By: Stool Man
Subject: David Bowie - the last thirty years
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 05:56
|
Now that we have a new David Bowie album, it must be time for a poll to measure the new album's popularity against the Dame's recent output. I'm omitting the old 70s classics because this poll isn't about Low vs Hunky Dory etc. I'm asking, in the form of a poll, what is David Bowie's best album of the last thirty years. ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Replies:
Posted By: ole-the-first
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 06:33
|
Outside. Earthling is terribly underrated, BTW.
------------- This night wounds time. |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 07:14
|
Let's Dance ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: hellogoodbye
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 07:15
|
Posted By: akamaisondufromage
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 07:36
|
I'm afraid I haven't paid much attention to David Bowie since Let's Dance so I won't vote. It would be for Let's Dance as I really like it. Since then it seems to me pretty much Bowie By Numbers. Mind you Bowie By Numbers is a lot better than any other chart stuff ! ------------- Help me I'm falling! |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 08:26
------------- What? |
ole-the-first wrote:Posted By: Snow Dog
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 08:34
|
Only one I have or know is Earthling...which is a great album. I fact I must dig it out sometime soon ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/Snow_Dog" rel="nofollow"> 
|
Posted By: HarbouringTheSoul
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 09:22
|
I guess it's actually The Next Day, although Outside, Heathen and Reality all come very close.Then there's Let's Dance, which is decent (just horridly inconsistent), and the rest, which... let's just say nothing about that except that each album has at least something I like. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 11:18
|
For this set it is a tossup between Outside and Heathen. Outside was the one that really sparked my interest in Bowie.
------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened... 
|
Posted By: The Doctor
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 11:23
|
hours is my favorite from his last 30 years. But I'm still waiting for the Next Day to arrive. I really loved about 2/3 of Outside, but thought it dragged on in parts. But I pretty much like everything listed here, even Never Let Me Down.
------------- I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you? |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 12:22
|
I'm cracking up about hours. That one really didn't click with me. I do like Earthling, go figure. General rule of thumb for me is that when he works with progressive artists, I'll like what he did better than when he doesn't. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
|
Posted By: lucas
Date Posted: March 17 2013 at 13:23
|
Outside is the obvious choice with its mix of techno, jazz, pop and indus rock.
------------- "Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood) |
Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 03:32
|
What's indus rock? Abbreviation of industrial? ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: Jim Garten
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 03:49
|
Earthling for me - great album, great production; a Bowie classic to these ears (and not just over the last 30 years either) ------------- 
Jon Lord 1941 - 2012 |
Posted By: Tom Ozric
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 03:53
| The only album I have of these is 'Let's Dance', which was a respectable release, although I fear that his later efforts won't measure up to his 70's works............. |
Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 03:59
Indeed - which is why the poll omits the earlier albums. ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: tamijo
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 04:42
|
1/ 1. Outside 2/ Black Tie White Noise------------- Prog is whatevey you want it to be. So dont diss other peoples prog, and they wont diss yours |
Posted By: Guldbamsen
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 07:20
Earthling for me. I really don't get the rating it has here on PA Maybe it's because I watched Bowie's 50 year old birthday, - y'know the one he held in Madison Square Garden with guests like Frank Black, Sonic Youth, Lou Reed and the likes - and it was on the backbone of Earthling. A good deal of music played that night was from the album, and I absolutely loved it. I bought the album afterwards, and it has become a latter day fave from Bowie.------------- “The Guide says there is an art to flying or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.” - Douglas Adams |
Posted By: ole-the-first
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 08:24
Same here. Melodically Earthling is fairly close to perfection: 'Battle for Britain (The Letter)' and 'Dead Man Walking' are amongst my favourite Bowie songs, 'Seven Years in Tibet' contains a very nice jazzy atmosphere. The production in quite excellent too, it just doesn't sound like some wanted it to be, but heck, time ain't standing still, Bowie couldn't play 'Changes' for 25 years without any changes. ------------- This night wounds time. |
Posted By: Slartibartfast
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 13:47
|
I was pretty impressed by Outside, so I was onboard when Earthling came out and I still like it. It's great music for the headphones when mowing the lawn for some reason I can't explain. ------------- Released date are often when it it impacted you but recorded dates are when it really happened...
|
Posted By: lucas
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 16:29
indus rock = industrial rock ------------- "Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood) |
Posted By: Dean
Date Posted: March 18 2013 at 18:31
 ------------- What? |
Posted By: LinusW
Date Posted: March 19 2013 at 10:24
Indus rock = Pakistani rock?  I like Heathen and 1. Outside. The Next Day doesn't sound bad. But to be honest I haven't really listened to any of these albums enough to really crown a favourite. Some I haven't even heard. And I'm a Bowie fan.
Shame on me. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/LinusW88" rel="nofollow - Blargh |
Posted By: The Doctor
Date Posted: March 19 2013 at 10:32
^Yes shame on you.  He's produced some brilliant stuff, and ok, some not so brilliant stuff, over the past 30 years. If you liked Outside, Earthling in sort of in the same vein, but not as long or as strange and it has some great tracks on it. Although I seem to be alone in this, I think hours is his peak of the last 30, but it is much more mellow than Outside or Earthling. ------------- I can understand your anger at me, but what did the horse I rode in on ever do to you? |
Posted By: LinusW
Date Posted: March 19 2013 at 10:35
I'll do better in the future, starting with those two  ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/LinusW88" rel="nofollow - Blargh |
Posted By: refugee
Date Posted: March 19 2013 at 13:54
|
I’m a bit like Linus here – I sort of lost interest in Bowie after Let’s Dance (which is OK, but a lot weaker than Scary Monsters imo). 1st Outside was a very pleasant surprise, and Bowie looked so young and enthusiastic on the tour. But I can’t vote since there are too many albums I never really cared to listen to.
------------- He say nothing is quite what it seems; I say nothing is nothing (Peter Hammill) |
Posted By: Mirkwood
Date Posted: March 20 2013 at 10:56
| Not Bowie solo, but I liked the Tin Machine albums, the second one especially. |
Posted By: HarbouringTheSoul
Date Posted: March 22 2013 at 16:53
Well, you were very careful to mention only the better songs. I would hardly call stuff like "The Last Thing You Should Do" or "Law (Earthlings on Fire)" melodic at all (and I hate that random-words "chorus" that is repeated ad nauseam in "Looking for Satellites", but that's a different story). I mean, I like some of the stuff on the album ("Dead Man Walking", "Seven Years in Tibet", "I'm Afraid of Americans" and even "Little Wonder" a bit), but overall I think it's fairly crass and contrived. Kind of like Bowie took some regular songs of varying quality and slapped some drum'n'bass rhythms over it in an attempt to stay hip. And this is coming from somebody who thinks Outside is one of his best albums.There are worse Bowie albums though. Like Hours, whose rather positive reception on PA absolutely puzzles me considering it's much further away from prog than the preceding few albums. I think it's very mediocre - not because of the low prog concentration, I couldn't care less about that - but because I can find only two good tracks on it: "Thursday's Child", which is recorded like a schmaltzy adult contemporary ballad, but you can't deny that melody, and "Brilliant Adventure". The rest suffers from horrible singing (listen to the flaccid, tone-deaf vocals on "Survive" and "Seven" or the caterwauling on "What's Really Happening?") and extremely dull songwriting. There are some tracks I could theoretically get behind: "Something in the Air" starts off with a similar mood as "Seven Years in Tibet", and although it lacks the melody, I do find some entertainment in Bowie disoriented vocals (the way he sings "I know you hold your head up high" in the second chorus is brilliant) and the alien-like thing that accompanies him. "If I'm Dreaming My Life" is really dull, uneventful and overlong, but I guess it's basically pleasant. And "The Dreamers" might struggle for a majesty that isn't there, but I do enjoy the overdriven vocals in the verse ("shallow man"). As for the rest, especially that stretch from "Seven" to "New Angels of Promise", it's among the worst I have heard from Bowie. And two good tracks, three average ones and five awful ones just don't make even a decent album. Triggered by the new album, I've recently been going through the whole Bowie catalog again, especially the post-Scary Monsters stuff which I was only partially acquainted with. On the whole it's been uneven, and sadly the better albums are the ones I had already heard. But still, it was interesting to delve into even the weaker albums. I should write some reviews when I have the time. Edit: By the way, just today I found a concert recording on Youtube from a 1996 appearance at the German Loreley Festival that I had on CD as a kid. In retrospect it's a pretty dismal concert (the bass is almost completely inaudible, Reeves Gabrels is more interested in noisemaking than playing the actual guitar riffs, and as much as I like Mike Garson's piano playing, he does clutter up an already cluttered mix at times), but it was fun to hear it again because that's how I first got acquainted with these songs. There were some nice (and not so nice) surprises though, like the way the introductory guitar riff is played in "Diamond Dogs" (gives a bit of a melancholic twang to it), the head-smashingly awful Earthling-like rendition of "Andy Warhol" which turned me off a good song for years, and a similarly odd rendition of "The Man Who Sold the World" which I guess Bowie felt obligated to play again because Nirvana had made it so popular. |
Posted By: Melomaniac
Date Posted: April 03 2013 at 15:33
|
Outside was utterly amazing. ------------- "One likes to believe in the freedom of Music" - Neil Peart, The Spirit of Radio |
Posted By: Barbu
Date Posted: April 08 2013 at 19:40
|
Heathen ------------- |
Posted By: humor4u1959
Date Posted: April 30 2013 at 01:41
| Bowie hasn't done a truly good album since Low and Heroes, so who cares? He's finished as an artist. He takes a 10 year break and comes out with this crap?! Forget him. He's done. And, I used to love Bowie. |
Posted By: Stool Man
Date Posted: April 30 2013 at 01:59
This is exactly the point of this poll - omitting his greatest period, which of his later labums is best? Just because you like none of them doesn't mean they're equally bad. I don't like any Bob Dylan albums, but I'm willing to concede that some are less horrible than others. ------------- rotten hound of the burnie crew |
Posted By: ole-the-first
Date Posted: May 02 2013 at 20:46
So 'Scary Monsters' and 'Outside' are not truly good?  ------------- This night wounds time. |
Posted By: octopus-4
Date Posted: May 03 2013 at 01:42
|
Let's Dance is totally commercial and beongs to a genre of music that I usually dislike, but it has many good moments so I put it in the "good" column. The only thing of that album that I don't like is the cover of Criminal World because the original version featuring Duncan Browne is really better. ------------- I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution |
Posted By: The Mystical
Date Posted: May 12 2013 at 04:44
|
Let's Dance is my favourite, but I also love Tonight, and Never Let Me Down is one of my favourite albums. ------------- I am currently digging: Hawkwind, Rare Bird, Gong, Tangerine Dream, Khan, Iron Butterfly, and all things canterbury and hard-psych. I also love jazz! Please drop me a message with album suggestions. |
Posted By: Green Shield Stamp
Date Posted: May 15 2013 at 15:13
|
Hours for me, but The Next Day comes a close second. ------------- Haiku Writing a poem With seventeen syllables Is very diffic.... |
Posted By: Intruder
Date Posted: November 04 2013 at 10:13
|
His Tin Machine albums are, IMO, the best things he's done since Scary Monsters, which isn't saying much. I liked Hours because it wasn't a blatant attempt to maintain his arty airs or remain on the hip list. Still, none of his albums over the past 30 years add much to his legacy, not like some of his peers like Lou Reed or Brian Eno. ------------- I like to feel the suspense when you're certain you know I am there..... |
Posted By: The.Crimson.King
Date Posted: November 04 2013 at 16:17
|
^ I love the 2nd Tin Machine album...some great songs and Reeves Gabrels is a fantastic guitarist. Anyway, went with Labyrinth ------------- https://wytchcrypt.wixsite.com/mutiny-in-jonestown" rel="nofollow - Mutiny in Jonestown : Progressive Rock Since 1987 |