Published on Oct 11, 1999
If I had to use a word to describe my past experiences with
David Bowie’s music, it would be “unapproachable”. Sure, the man
has had some great songs over the years, but every time I’ve tried
to listen to one of his albums, I’ve always found myself feeling
like an outsider who’s just being shown a small glimpse of the big
picture. Maybe that’s why I’ve not found myself willing to take
chances with Bowie’s recent releases -after my not-so-pleasant
first experience with
Black Tie White Noise, I all but gave up on his recent
output.
Then, I decided to take a chance on
‘hours…’, Bowie’s latest release – and, no, I didn’t base
this review off the Webcasts of the album, I actually got a copy to
review. Much to my surprise and delight, Bowie seems to have shed
the “hipper-than-thou” attitude which torpedoed a lot of his recent
work, and has created one of the most approachable albums of his
career – one, in fact, that might get him noticed on the radio
again.
It didn’t start out quite that promising. “Thursday’s Child” had
a decent enough rhythm section, but Bowie’s vocals seemed to have
taken a dip south, almost becoming slightly out of tune at times.
(Having freely admitted I’ve not listened to most of Bowie’s 1990s
work, I don’t know if this is a new development or not.) But his
heart seems to be in the right place musically, and things end on a
more positive note.
For much of
‘hours…’, Bowie spends the time with
guitarist/collaborator Reeves Gabriels creating music that harkens
back to his glory days. Tracks like “Survive,” “New Angels Of
Promise,” “Seven” and “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” (I
don’t think this refers to the band of the same name) all are
moments of pure brilliance, showing that Bowie has hardly lost his
pop sensibilities.
In fact, I actually found myself disappointed that
‘hours…’ ended after listening to the instrumental
“Brilliant Adventure” and the closing track “The Dreamers”. Bowie
was on such a creative roll that I honestly didn’t want this one to
end.
Special notice should be made of the track “What’s Really
Happening?”, the song best known as the winning song of Bowie’s
Cyber Song contest. Alex Grant, who provided the lyrics, might not
be noticed by most of the mainstream press (especially since
there’s no mention of the song or its author in the press materials
– at least not that I could find), but his lyrics, combined with
Bowie and Gabriels’s music, works well.
Not everything, however, works well on this album. “Something In
The Air” just doesn’t click with me – it kind of suffers from the
same problem that “Thursday’s Child” did, only it doesn’t recover.
And while it has a few good moments, “If I’m Dreaming My Life”
seems to drag on. The tempo change midsong doesn’t help
matters.
Undoubtedly there are going to be people who try to decipher the
words of this album and try to figure out what story Bowie was
trying to tell about his life. I won’t get involved in this, if
only because I don’t know enough about Bowie to make an educated
guess about the songs’ meanings. Besides – who cares? I’d rather
let the songs stand on their own merits and appreciate them as they
are, not for what they’re construed to mean.
Still,
‘hours…’ is a surprisingly good album, even if you’ve been
underwhelmed with some of Bowie’s recent work. If anything, this
disc proves that Bowie is still very much an artist to be taken
seriously, and shouldn’t be written off as a musical relic.
‘hours…’ proves that if you’ve done this, you’ve made a
terrible mistake.