Since “Heathen” Bowie had released “Reality” in 2003 (another I don’t currently own in the popular vinyl format), had a heart attack, retired from live performance and was living the life of a happily married man in New York City with his wife and daughter. To all appearances he had quietly “retired”. 

Then one morning in January 2013, ten years since we’d heard a peep from him musically, he released a new single and there was news of a new album. The greatest Rock star of our lifetimes had recorded a new album, in the heart of New York City and NOBODY KNEW !!! (remind me again all you internet era pop singers WHO leaked your new album online ???).

The album was recorded under a cloak of secrecy. Musicians, studios, studio staff were told to keep schtum and asked to sign Non Disclosure Agreements. The first studio booked leaked the news to a photographer and the booking was immediately cancelled (way to go guys !). Those involved were people Bowie had worked with before and he trusted, Tony Visconti, drummers Sterling Campbell and Zachary Alford, guitarists Gerry Leonard and Earl Slick. 

The first anybody else heard was the release of “Where Are We Now”. Its video was released to the world at 5am GMT on Tuesday 8th January 2013, Bowie’s 66th birthday, via his website. There was also news that you could buy the track as a download and it would be followed by a new album. The media world went crazy, after 10 years Bowie was back. News programmes gave him the kind of coverage usually reserved for Royal or Presidential visits or births or weddings, or deaths. He did no promotion for the single, he didn’t have to. 

“Where Are We Now” is beautiful, sung in a very fragile manner by an obviously older Bowie. He appears in the video for the most part as the face on the head of a doll and when he finally appears in the video in full, leaning against a wall wearing a t-shirt bearing the legend “…song of Norway” (the title of the film ex-girlfriend Hermione Farthingale scored a part in that caused her to leave him and inspire the song “Letter To Hermione” in the late 60’s trivia fans) it’s a shock to see this older man. On the surface the song is a reflection of his time in Berlin in the late 70’s. But it feels like more, a lament to something lost, something to lose. After the initial surprise of a new release it feels like exactly the sort of music an older David Bowie should be making, haunting, sedate and I’m sure the word ethereal got chucked about a lot in contemporary reviews. But it was a strange choice as a single as it’s not really representative of the whole album.

As an album “The Next Day” is a quite uptempo, if doom laden, affair. The lyrics are dark and allude to death, violence, oppressive tyrants and carnage. Apart from maybe a couple of songs there’s nothing else as maudlin or downtempo as “Where Are We Now”. Other singles taken from the album were “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)”, title track “The Next Day”, the superb “Valentine’s Day” which has the feel of a sequel to “Absolute Beginners” with darker subject matter and “Love Is Lost”. Side 1 (“The Next Day” was issued in a number of different formats, the one we’re dealing with here is the 2xLP, 17 track DeLuxe Edition) is positively rollicking. The title track, which would have sat easily on “Low” or “Heroes”, is followed by the sleaze of “Dirty Boys” who could well have been inhabitants of Poachers Hill and LoveMe Avenue, the pop thrill of “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” and “Love Is Lost” reportedly Bowie’s favourite on the album and a contender for its title. They leave you in no doubt Bowie is back with a lot to say.

After “Where Are We Now ?” Side 2 gives us more pop wonder with “Valentine’s Day”, seemingly, a look inside the mind of a high school mass shooter, and then one of my favourites on the whole record “If You Can See Me”. It was originally at the dead centre of the initial 14 track release and harks back to the lyrical themes of “1. Outside”, sacrifice, serial killing and an old favourite, vengeful gods (see “Saviour Machine”). Side 2 comes to a close with the floaty “I’d Rather Be High” sung from the point of view of a young soldier at the battle front (a subject previously approached in “Running Gun Blues”).

I’m not going to step-by-step you through every track, the second half of the album includes highlights like “The Boss Of Me” and “(You Will) Set the World On Fire”, if you are unfamiliar with it then I urge you to have a listen. If Bowie had just issued the first 8 tracks as an album after 10 years (asleep) it would have been more than we ever expected and a great return. The fact that he put together (in this case) a 17 track album which was followed by “The Next Day Extra EP” which had a further 5 new  songs (according to Tony Visconti there is more, another 7 “songs”, that didn’t get finished) points to the creative fountain that had poured out of him over the 2 years it took to record “The Next Day”.

Even after the albums release Bowie kept quiet. He did no interviews leaving Visconti and the musicians involved to talk to the press about “The Next Day”. The closest he came to speaking about the record was responding to an e-mail request from author Rick Moody for a list of words to help explain the themes of the album, a thesaurus to guide you through the album if you like. Moody says he asked in hope, never really expecting a response. Bowie replied and supplied a list of 42 words by e-mail with no further explanation. You can see the list at https://www.bowiebible.com/albums/the-next-day/2/.

There was a running joke with Bowie since the release of “Black Tie White Noise” in 1993 that journalists would describe each subsequent album as “his best since “Scary Monsters””. To me that was “Earthling” but “The Next Day” was definitely the best since “Earthling” and stands amongst his very best.

If You Can See Me - https://youtu.be/hPsn5Y0Np8c

Almost all of Bowie’s albums that we’ve visited thus far I could have written about without even listening to them again. I’ve told you previously I struggle with his 90’s output (we’ve skipped “Hours” as it’s another I don’t have on vinyl) and the same goes for much of the 2000’s too. So here we are in 2002 (the album, I am of course in 2023 and not claiming to have discovered the secret of time travel) and I’m sitting down with “Heathen” to try and make sense of it.

I think I’m coming to something of a realisation/revelation about these 90’s and early 2000’s albums I’ve had such a hard time with. When I first heard “The Next Day” and “★ Blackstar” (both of which we will get to very soon) I “got” them immediately. I now think I have to listen to these records from 1993 to 2003 with those two records in mind as a final landing point that I had no way of knowing at the time. 1971 to 1980 Bowie was easy to fall for. From then until “Black Tie White Noise” it seems to me he was lost and made some very lazy records, or records that were expressly made to make the money the Mainman exit deal had denied him, and he can’t be blamed for that. But if you take 1993 to 2003 as him building a new musical framework for himself culminating in those last 2 superb records the period makes a lot more sense, to me at least. Coming back to “Heathen” after something of a recent revelation with “1. Outside” has helped, I can’t compare post 1995 Bowie to 71-80 Bowie, I have to compare forward, not back. And when these records were released I could not know what was to come.

“Heathen” starts very gently with “Sunday” and then explodes into life with a cover of the Pixies “Cactus”. One thing that does surprise about “Heathen” is that there are 3 covers on this album (“Cactus”, Neil Young’s “I’ve Been Waiting For You” and of course The Legendary Stardust Cowboys “I Took A Trip On A Gemini Spacecraft”) and none of them are bad, had he finally got the hang of covers ? I’m not a fan of the Pixies which gave me the advantage of not knowing initially that “Cactus” was one of their songs. The Neil Young song, again I didn’t originally know this was a cover, didn’t know the original and Neil Young is a master songwriter. It’s fair to point out that the Legendary Stardust Cowboy tune is not so much of a cover but more Bowie lifting a title, some lyrics and writing a complete new song around them.

The centre piece of Side 1 is “Slip Away” (aka “Uncle Floyd” originally recorded as part of the “Toy” album sessions) a beautiful ballad sung brilliantly. It was inspired by, and mentions a 1980’s children’s TV show, “The Uncle Floyd Show”, which aired on New Jersey cable TV. The song is a meditation on lost life and opportunities. It’s an absolute stunner.

Other highlights include “Slow Burn” (featuring Pete Townshend on guitar) which comes on all “Heroes” for a second on the intro, it does cause a double take when you first hear it; “Afraid” starts out sounding very late 70’s New Wave until Visconti introduces a string section; “Everyone Says Hi” and “Better Future”, an argument with god apparently, are perfectly warped Bowie pop songs.

I’ll admit it, I’ve been wrong all these years, “Heathen“ is a great album. It picked up mainly great reviews, lots of “best album since Scary Monsters” types. After restoring his reputation post Tin Machine this record harked back toward the Bowie of Berlin and “Scary Monsters”. Bowie said of the album. 

“I know how good this album is. It’s an incredibly successful album for me creatively. I wouldn’t change a note of it…I almost feel that I will be writing some of my very best work over the next few years”

Little did he, or we, know that after his next album (2003’s “Reality” which we won’t cover here just yet as it’s another of the holes in my collection) circumstances would present us with no Bowie work over the next decade.

Slip Away - https://youtu.be/oFtNAXxwn-I

I have only owned “Earthling” on vinyl for a couple of weeks (a gorgeous Green vinyl limited edition if anyone is interested) but it’s an album I know well as I bought it on CD when it was originally released and I bloody love it. It was Bowie’s first album to be recorded completely digitally (which makes me wanting it on an analogue medium kinda stoopid). I can’t think why I bought it at the time as I really had lost interest in him, as discussed during my musings on “1. Outside”.

“Earthling” should get more love, it is one of Bowie’s very best albums. It wears its influences very obviously (drum and bass in general, Goldie, A Guy Called Gerald, The Prodigy) but this time those influences were already mainstream, Bowie as follower rather than leader. What it does have is some absolutely wonderful songs, the opening “Little Wonder” and it’s furious drum pattern, “Telling Lies” the first song written and recorded for “Earthling” and its first single, “Dead Man Walking”, “Seven Years In Tibet” and “I’m Afraid Of Americans” an outtake from “1. Outside”.

No discussion of “Earthling” would be complete without particular focus on the absolutely incredible “Battle For Britain (The Letter)” which for me is right up there with “Heroes”, “Look Back In Anger” and “Life On Mars ?” among Bowie’s finest songs. There, I’ve said it. Bowie felt it was the the very essence of the album, featuring cut up drum loops alongside live drumming by Zachary Alford. On this song, as on most of the album thankfully, Gabrels worst excesses have been reined in but his big crunching, distorted chords rip through this and Bowie serves up a great, great song discussing his take on nationality (he left Britain for the USA on the Ziggy Stardust tour and never permanently returned). 

“ “Battle for Britain” is another cut-up, but it probably comes from a sense of  “Am I or am I not British?’, an inner war that wages in most expatriates. I’ve not lived in Britain since 1974, but I love the place, and I keep going back”.Bowie, 1997.

I struggle with much of Bowie’s 90’s music (I’m getting there, slowly) but “Earthling” is a fantastic record and I commend it to the house…

Battle For Britain (The Letter) - https://youtu.be/K0suv6Ci-a8