Bowie’s last album of the 20th century, “Hours…” was 1999’s follow up to “Earthling”. Now, if you’ve already read my thoughts on “Earthling” you’ll know that I think it’s one of Bowie’s very best. “Hours…” subsequently had a lot to live up to. Both “Earthling” and the previous “1. Outside” had been particularly aggressive and experimental records, “Hours…” tempers the aggression and experimentation and sees our hero return to a more personal and dare I say “pop” style. After experimenting with a murderous concept (“1. Outside”) and then going on a hedonistic clubbing bender (“Earthling”) “Hours…” is more of a songwriters album, “songs for my generation” as Bowie described it.

The songs for “Hours…” sprang from some different avenues. Many, including “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell”, “New Angels Of Promise”, “The Dreamers” and “Thursdays Child”, were written in Bermuda, where Bowie was living at the time, with Reeves Gabrels (writing with him not living with him). Others were written for a video game Bowie had been asked to contribute music to and appear in, Omikron: The Nomad Soul. Seven songs by Bowie and his virtual band The Dreamers (featuring Gabrels and Gail-Anne Dorsey) that featured in Omikron would find their way onto “Hours…”, “Thursday’s Child”, “Something In The Air”, “Survive”, “Seven”, “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell”, “New Angels Of Promise” and “The Dreamers”, alongside some instrumentals and songs that would appear later as B-sides. A couple of extra things to note about the songwriting, the whole album was a co-write with Gabrels, something which Bowie had never done before and “What's Really Happening?” has a writing credit for one Alex Grant, a fan who won a competition on BowieNet to finish the lyrics for this song. 

So the music then, the opening “Thursday’s Child” is a lovely tune based on a lyric about a life redeemed. “Something In The Air” is a nice song but is utterly overshadowed by Reeves Gabrels out of place fret-wanking. Time to get something off my chest, I’ve never understood Bowie’s thing with Gabrels. Tin Machine was a disaster and it always struck me that every time you take notice of Gabrels in a song it’s not because his playing is great it’s because he’s doing something that shouldn’t be there, “Something In The Air” is a prime example. As Mark Edwards wrote in a contemporary review in the Sunday Times

“Bowie has been capable of writing songs with all the melodic brilliance and lyrical quirkiness of his 70’s peak. Unfortunately, he then lets Gabrels smother them in unnecessary layers of guitar. Possibly Gabrels thinks he is avant-garde. He isn’t. He just makes pointless noise”.

Anyway I’m glad I got that out there. “Survive” is a beauty, an old style 70’s acoustic ballad with Bowie using his “Cockney Dave” singing voice. Gabrels still manages to stick his nose in where it’s not needed but the song is strong enough to survive it (see what I did there 😉). “If I’m Dreaming My Life” is a bit of a plodder that rocks up for the choruses and features former Rollins Band member Chris Haskett on guitar and fades out on some “Moonage Daydream”-esque guitar noodling.

After the gentle acoustic strum of “Seven” with its vaguely country slide guitar motif, Side 2 rocks out a little more. “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” comes on a little Stooges in style as well as title (and sadly contains yet another wildly out of place Gabrels solo). “New Angels Of Promise” is all heavy and brooding. “Brilliant Adventure” is a short instrumental piece in a similar vein to “Warszawa” and things close out with “The Dreamers” which on initial listens has you thinking he’s resurrected the “Shadow Man” (remember him from “Toy”) but on closer inspection the lyric is “shallow man”. There’s a nice 70’s sounding guitar riff to it and I was going to give Gabrels that one but the he gets all Van Halen to end so…

“Hours…” is about the songs, no overarching thematic concept, no particular musical style being explored, it’s simply a collection of great songs. Sitting down with it, it feels quite short (47 minutes my digital copy tells me but it feels quicker than that when listening). Possibly because it is mostly about the songs and doesn’t sit at some pivotal juncture in his life or arrived in a way no record had arrived before “Hours…” feels like it gets somewhat overlooked, it certainly was by me for a long time. I shall be taking a lot more notice of it from here on.

What’s Really Happening - https://youtu.be/1jFTxyYVATw

Is it a soundtrack or is it a Bowie album ? Well, both statements can be true. It is (almost) very obviously a soundtrack, based on music written for the BBC adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s 1990 novel. But Bowie also regarded it as an album in its own right, saying about it himself

“However, left to my own devices these same pieces just took on a life of their own in the studio, the narrative and 70s memories providing a textural backdrop in my imagination that manifested as a truly exciting work situation. In short, I took the TV play motifs and restructured them completely except, that is, for the theme song.” David Bowie, The Buddha Of Suburbia sleeve notes

Bowie’s own website includes it in his discography as a studio album as do many Bowie writers and websites (Nicholas Pegg and The Bowie Bible website for instance). So what is it ? Well…in early 1993 Bowie was interviewed by Hanif Kureishi for a US magazine feature. Kureishi took the opportunity to ask if he could use some of Bowie’s 70’s music in the soundtrack of the forthcoming TV adaptation of his novel and would he like to compose some new pieces for it himself. Bowie’s answer ? “I thought you’d never ask”.

Around 40 short pieces plus the theme song were prepared by Bowie at Mountain Studio in Switzerland with Kureishi there to oversee things. But once the soundtrack was finished Bowie took these short pieces and extended many into longer works. What was eventually released as the soundtrack to “The Buddha of Suburbia” was effectively a new David Bowie album

“The album itself only got one review, a good one as it happens, and is virtually non-existent as far as my catalogue goes – it was designated a soundtrack and got zilch in the way of marketing money. A real shame.” David Bowie, ContactMusic, 23 September 2003

The recording process was quick and used processes not used since the Berlin years. Short pieces were extended, the key was noted and then everything except the rhythmic parts were muted. New music was written to the rhythm tracks in the original key and, when the original music was re-introduced, any harmonic clashes were noted and extended upon. All very Brian Eno like which is perhaps why this album has a feel of “Low” and “Heroes” about it.

The first half of the album is mostly instrumental, with differing styles like dance music and Jazz, which give it that sense of Berlin. The title song fairly accurately tracks the  narrative of the novel, a mixed race teenager who turns to acting and the theatre to escape early 70’s South London, and is a “lost” Bowie classic. It references “Space Oddity” musically and “All The Madmen” lyrically (repeating the “Zane, Zane, Zane, Ouvre le chien” chant) and possibly more that I just haven’t noticed. 

The second half of the album is more song based including a first outing for “Strangers When We Meet” which would turn up again on “1.Outside” 2 years later. Considering this was only made a year after “Black Tie White Noise” it is a far more forward looking record than its predecessor which still had a foot firmly planted in the 80’s.

Apart from the theme song none of the music released as the soundtrack of “The Buddha of Suburbia” was actually used in the soundtrack and neither was it meant to be. It had virtually no promotional budget, what little promotion that was done positioned the album as a soundtrack and Bowie’s name is almost invisible on the original artwork. It reached number 87 in the UK charts. Q Magazine gave it a four star review noting “Bowie’s music walks a knife edge once again”. Bowie said in interviews over the ensuing years that it was a personal favourite of his and “I really felt happy making that album”.

The Buddha Of Suburbia - https://youtu.be/xHPIAFaKd1I

It’s 1993. David Bowie’s last album as “David Bowie” had been 1987’s “Never Let Me Down”, mercifully bringing to an end his self proclaimed “Phil Collins years”. But then in some kind of musical cleansing process he formed the execrable Tin Machine and made two albums with them (plus the horribly titled live album “Oy Vey Baby”), records I’ve spent the ensuing years trying to erase from my memory. So to my ears we hadn’t had the pleasure of a great David Bowie album for 13 years (“Scary Monsters”, remember that ?).

That’s not to say that “Black Tie White Noise” is one of the great David Bowie albums but my word, it stands head and shoulders above anything from the previous 13 years. It would seem Bowie thought so too

“I personally think my work in the ’90s has been the best that I could possibly do...From Black Tie…, I think I’ve not put out a shoddy piece of work.”

Nile Rodgers was back on production duties, not sure why as Rodgers has said he didn’t enjoy making the album because Bowie wouldn’t let him make “Let’s Dance II”. Reeves Gabrels survived the Tin Machine debacle (and, unbelievably to me, stuck around for a few more years), we encounter Sterling Campbell on drums for the first time who would become a fixture in Bowie’s bands up until his withdrawal from live performance, Jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie plays trumpet (duh!) and gets a tune named after him AND (drum roll please) we have the return of Bowie’s first great sidekick for, on the cover of Cream’s “I Feel Free”, Mick Ronson plays guitar. It’s another of Bowie’s questionable cover versions, a faux funky workout with a half-arsed vocal, but purely for the joy of Ziggy and his guitar god re-uniting on a song by one of Ronno’s favourites we’ll let any moaning pass us by.

There are 4 covers in total in “Black Tie White Noise”, the aforementioned Cream song a try at Morrissey’s (<spit>) “I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday” (originally produced by Mick Ronson so I guess that’s the reason), “Don’t Let Me Down & Down” (originally an Arabic language song by Iman’s friend Tarha from Mauritius) and finally a great version of Scott Walker’s “Nite Flights”. Bowie always professed to being a fan of Scott’s and this song is from the Walker Brothers 1978 reformation album of the same name. Scott was moving toward making more challenging music than the lush orchestral pop he’d been known for in the 60’s and Bowie handles “Nite Flights” perfectly.

The issue of this album I have is the 2022 remaster which does include a couple of songs that weren’t on the original vinyl issue (it lost “The Wedding” and “Looking For Lester” although both were on the original CD release). So if you’re lucky enough to own that original vinyl issue and you’re thinking “That song isn’t on “Black Tie White Noise” what’s he on about ?” then that’s why. The newly married Bowie chose to open and close the album with the same piece of music, starting with the instrumental “The Wedding” and ending on the vocal version “The Wedding Song” (in fact the working title of the album was “The Wedding Album”) an extension of the music he wrote for his and Iman’s wedding. It’s a slow groove based around a window rattling baseline and Bowie’s asthmatic saxophone.

“You've Been Around” was the opening track on the original vinyl version of the album. It’s driven by an intense drum performance which almost foreshadows the style of “Earthling” which will come much later. The vocal is also different in style, Bowie reaching for the voice that he would fully find on “1. Outside” and his final 2 albums (it will also revisit us later on “Nite Flights”). I like this song, a lot.

The title track was inspired by the LA riots, Bowie and his new wife Iman were in LA looking for somewhere to live, needless to say they didn’t stay. The albums lead single “Jump They Say” gave Bowie his first hit single since “Absolute Beginners”in 1986. The song is another about his brother Terry and wouldn’t have felt too out of place on “Scary Monsters”. 

Three instrumentals (almost, “Pallas Athena” has some sampled voices in it), four cover versions and five original new “songs”, there’s much to like on “Black Tie White Noise” and much that isn’t so great, covering Morrissey for one and the, in places, 80’s sound to the backing tracks. You can hear Bowie searching for a new voice here which he would develop over the next few years. It’s no classic but compared to the “Phil Collins years” and Tin Machine it’s a masterpiece !

You’ve Been Around - https://youtu.be/_5VbN1ohDhc