Tag: David Bowie

Included in the Loving The Alien (1983-1988) boxset is the Dance album, a collection of remixes/extended versions of tracks that David Bowie released in the mid 80s. The period is not well regarded in Bowie’s legacy with a few mediocre albums.  Oddly, it’s not the smash hits from Let’s Dance that get the remix treatment, instead it’s mostly tracks from Tonight and Never Let Me Down.

The first two tracks from the Tonight album fare the best on this collection. “Blue Jean (Extended Dance Mix)” is the best of the bunch with “Loving The Alien (Extended Dub Mix)” being solid listen.  Neither sound much different from the originals, the extended version of “Loving The Alien” comes in a whopping 2 seconds longer than the original.  The horns on “Tumble and Twist (Extended Dance Mix)” are fine and “Never Let Me Down (Dub/Acapella)” takes good advantage of the extended time, “Underground (Extended Dance Mix)” is terrible. Overall, the dated 80s productions of average songs that basically sound the same as the originals makes for an unsatisfying hour+  long listen.

5/10

A few months after releasing the wildly successful Let’s Dance album in 1983, David Bowie followed it up several months later by recording a live show in Vancouver, BC that was  released on VHS at the time with the two-disc audio CD later included in the Loving The Alien (1983-1988) boxset. Mixing songs from throughout the 70s along with a few tracks from Let’s Dance, Serious Moonlight (Live ’83) does a very good job of mixing with the old and the new, the experimental with the hits.

“”Heroes”” gets tossed out early as the second track on the album, thrillingly a few songs later “Fashion” segues beautifully into “Let’s Dance” eliciting loud cheers from the crowd.  The menacing rock and roll of “Scary Monsters (Super Creeps)” pushes the concert into a new direction before the glam guitar of “Rebel Rebel” gatecrashes the affair.

The last half of disc two really sees things start to cook.  His 1980 UK #1 single “Ashes to Ashes” is followed up by “Space Oddity”, the oldest track here.  An excellent version of “Young Americans” is well received before the one two punch of “Fame” and “Modern Love” (recorded at another concert) wrap up the show.  Oddly, there is nothing from the The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and Spiders From Mars album but minor quibbles aside, this is set that surely would have pleased both his older fans of his 70s material and new fans of Bowie’s MTV area.  Great stuff.

8/10

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