After the lukewarm response to his Tonight album, David Bowie kept busy in the mid 80s with film roles and music, Live Aid performance, the memorable “Dancing In The Streets” single with Mick Jagger, etc. When it finally came time to record an album, Bowie chose to work with producer David Richards who he had worked with on “Heroes” and bringing in Bob Clearmountain as engineer for the Never Let Me Down album.
The 80s sounding album starts with “Day-In-Day-Out” clocking in at well over five minutes – punctuated by horn stabs, a good bass groove and call and response vocals, it is a good start. “Time Will Crawl” is a generic yet decent danceable track, sounds like something that would have been played early in the night at the club. Singing in a higher register, the title track brings in a welcome R+B influence.Leaning into rock and roll, “Zeroes” brings in crowd noise with some guitar flexing, “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)” explores love in the rough streets of drug addiction, includes a Mickey Rourke rap.
Comparing Bowie’s mid 80s sound with other bands of that era like INXS and The Cure, those other bands were producing hits by using the path that Bowie created of mixing rock and sound experimentation within a pop format. It’s a wonder that Bowie himself was not following his own lead instead of the middle of the road dance rock on Never Let Me Down. Having said that, the album does sound more cohesive than Tonight and with a few songs that are actually better than they should be.
6/10
The Light Appears 