Defend the indefensible: Bowie's Never Let Me Down

You're a crack-smoker!

"Heaven's In Here," "Tin Machine" and "Under the God" all take a giant, runny dump all over Never Let Me Down.

There is no way it's better than Let's Dance. LD might be commercial rubbish or a come down from the experimental phase, but at least the pop songs are classic pop songs. NLMD is embarassing. Except for Time Will Crawl which I love.

I've said this before elsewhere but I'm positive that when this record came out it got a lot of hype as Bowie's return to experimentalism, blah blah blah (this happens with every Bowie album now), and even was well received when it came out. Am I wrong? ON the other hand, Tin Machine got slammed by critics and it's one of his best records of the past twenty years. Oh well.

This is untrue.

Anyway, I truly do love Never Let Me Down. I listen to it fairly often and I have boughten it three times so far. (once on CD; lost it; got it on record, then CD again.) Saying I like it is one thing but defending it is much more difficult. So, I'll just say why I like it. Bowie's vocal performances: good examples on "'87 and Cry" and "Glass Spider" (the whoa oo oo oo) He get's really emotional and has some of his best 80s style yells. Thermelodies are as melodious as ever especially on "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)." Some of the songs have a really good party feel e.g. "Day-In Day-Out", "87 and Cry", and "Time Will Crawl." I honestly think people don't really give it a chance and really listen to it before they dismiss it (It took me a while to actually like it). I bet it's the really dated production (mostly in the snare drum: sound and mix volume) that turns people off from it right away. Maybe I have some speical ability to like the so-called badness or maybe it really isn't as bad as people like to claim (or joke)

Worst Bowie Albums:
1. Never let me down (worst cover as well)
2. Tin Machine II
3. Tin Machine
4. The Outside/Earthling/Hours/Heathen continuum
5. Black Tie White Noise

As stated by Velvet Goldmine, Bowie died in 1984.

1. Low
2. Outside
3. Hunky Dory
4. Heroes
5. Lodger
6. E a r t h l i n g
7. Tin Machine I

Worst Bowie Albums:
1. ...hours
2. Never Let me Down
3. Tonight

I don't think Black Tie/White Noise is anywhere NEAR Bowie's worst album. It has the sublime Jump They Say on it for starters (and a good version of Night Flights too).

I saw the Glass Spider tour at Giants Stadium, btw.

I'm really happy with this typo.

whory/hoary donkey

(I don't need no Tin Machine to do that)

A terrific post on the Glass Spider tour:

http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2012/04/12/i-wanna-be-your-dog/#comments

Indeed, and his whole take on the album song for song is just witheringly perfect -- he argues for it being better than Tonight but song for song is able to show how his best impulses were either strangled at birth, compromised or at best misunderstood.

and he's right! Having spent half an hour listening to Glass Spider renditions of unexpected deep catalog favorites ("Sons of the Silent Age" wiht Frampton singing the "Baby, baby..." part like he thinks it's "Show Me The Way"), I think he's right about the tour too: song for song those live versions ain't bad either.

Having never seen the tour or the video from same, I was honestly surprised to learn about those choices (not latest because "Sons" is one of my all time favorites from him).

Of course now I wonder what would have happened if he had just gone for it and done a crazy tour on that scale based around Labyrinth the previous year.

he does "All The Madmen" and "Up The Hill Backwards"!

Thirty years!

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-david-bowies-disappointing-never-let-me-down-lp-w479033

Ngh. I don't really think I can bring myself to listen to this record again. Or Tonight. Or hours...

iirc i like this record more than tonight or hours

i wanted to find something redeemable in hours when i went through his whole discography last year but woof

I agree. I remember Alfred saying once that the album had no production, and god yeah is the overall sound of the record really shitty. What makes hours... even more inexplicable is that the two records at either side are his most underrated post-Let's Dance and pre-Blackstar work!

Despite his ambitions, Bowie was ultimately unhappy with the finished product... sales soon stalled and reviews were lukewarm. Looking back, Bowie considered the response "a bitter disappointment."

Was he unhappy that the record is not very good, or that the response to it wasn't very good? Is guess it's possible the answer is both.

To guarantee that no one ever takes me seriously, let me say that I looooove "Shining Star"--it's both utterly ridiculous and ridiculously catchy. It's up there with "Kung Fu Fighting" and "Emotional Rescue" as my favorite indefensibly stupid songs.

The title track is really good but it's got a crap chorus. "Time Will Crawl" and "Zeroes" also very good.

Erdal Kızılçay, otm:

Even though he has yet to hear the new version, Alomar approves of the idea. “I take this to mean that the innovation of Bowie is still there,” he says. “If anything, this will force you to reflect on the fact that things aren’t always what you perceive them to be. Let me prove it to you by keeping the same vocal and changing everything else up. Now do you like the song?”

But Kızılçay, who just learned of this new mix days ago, has an extremely different take on it. He despised the 2008 redo of “Time Will Crawl” (“Rubbish!“) and is so angry about not getting paid for the recent release of a “Let’s Dance” demo that he’s contemplating a lawsuit. “It’s OK to do new versions of the songs, but they have to at least tell me about it,” he says. “On [Never Let Me Down’s] ‘Glass Spider,’ it’s my string arrangements on the synths. If they repeat what I did without crediting me, I’ll sue them. If they don’t put my name on ‘Time Will Crawl,’ I’ll sue them again.”

He’s attempting to hash out these issues by reaching out to Bowie’s management firm in New York, but so far hasn’t had any luck. “I have written them four times and they never got back to me,” he says. “It’s very difficult here in Switzerland, since I have to find a music lawyer in New York. But I’m going to try. This is not right.”

I 100 percent do not agree with the purpose of these re-recordings.

Yeah it's...strange. To say the least.

search for Jon Marsh https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=videos

OK it's the Boys On Film channel... I give up

I was under the impression the nosebleed got edited out of everything after 87? The mystery deepens!

Haven't seen any Jon Marsh interview about the Happiness VHS so I'll search for that shortly thanks. I did see an old Record Mirror that explained it originally got a PG (I assume for the Time After Time nosebleed, as inferred above) because the BBFC weren't aware of what Jon snuck on after the credits. So it exists in both PG and 18 versions, like Saturday Night Fever, except with exactly the same content both times.

From what I remember in the interview, JM makes it sound like he went along with the naughty scene and I don't think it was necessarily his idea

Nosebleed is 100% in the Singles Collection VHS from 1993

About 12:30 in btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrU5xPXJi9I

so let's talk about "Beat of Your Drum."

swapped in an alternate version of a scene where the couple's child spells out "Mom", "Food" and "Fuck" in building blocks (words which represented the child's cycle of dependency; the alternate version had the child spell out the meaningless words "Mom", "Look" and "Luck"),[4]

Ha I was thinking that

after Glass Spider my favourite is New York's in Love

The first minute of Beat Of Your drum resembled some kind of 80s update of the Diamond Dogs album's drama. Then the dumbest chorus you've ever heard follows

'Never Let Me Down' is the worst Bowie album for me. There's not much in it though. It's worse than 'Tonight', but only because that album has 'Blue Jean'. It's worse than 'hours', because even though I don't like that album either it at least sounds like Bowie is trying to do something.

Basically I'm a Bowie rockist and don't much care about anything after Lodger aside from a handful of songs, but the mid-late 80s period is his worst.

'Never Let Me Down' is the worst Bowie album for me. There's not much in it though. It's worse than 'Tonight', but only because that album has 'Blue Jean'. It's worse than 'hours', because even though I don't like that album either it at least sounds like Bowie is trying to do something.

Quite the opposite imo. On NLMD he's trying, down to playing instruments and submitting finished demos. It does sound worse tho.

It's a bit amusing he always said he let other people make this album for him while he cruise controlled, when there's more original material here than on the two before it put together

NLMD vs Hours is tough but I would rather listen to the former. It’s at least bad in a cluttered, wacky way that is sort of amusing. Hours is just a slog with heinous guitar slop.

I thought the title track was pretty good. "Day-In Day-Out" and "Time Will Crawl" get mentioned in defense of it, and they're fine. I don't think I can sit through the entire album though, those three are about all I can mildly enjoy.

on a recent discog runthrough i found my way into both nlmd and hours. hours has some gorgeous stuff on it if you just resign yourself to how sleepy it is. tonight still the hardest bowie to get through

He said -- emphasized -- in 1987 that NLMB sounds pretty close to his own demos with Erdil Kizilcay, on which the two played every instrument; it's disingenuous on his part to say he wasn't "involved." Maybe he did go party while David Richards assembled the takes, but Bowie didn't have to be there if he let Alomar, Frampton, etc. professionally played his demo parts.

*play

Just realised "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" would make a great Haircut 100 record

Anyone else see this? Just me ok

https://i.ibb.co/QFWxWC4Z/Screenshot-2026-11-01-084433.png

Did Gett get got?

can't stop humming the damn song!

What winds of change would the Robert Palmer/Scorps timeline have wrought?

"the team that worked on Blah Blah Blah" (which everyone also hates)

I remember this being the first album where the advance word was "best since Scary Monsters" which was then applied to every subsequent album

Electronic press kit for the Glass Spiders tour:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7BARc5al_s

"the team that worked on Blah Blah Blah" (which everyone also hates)

Dude. Blah-Blah-Blah is, like, top five solo Iggy.

agreed

ok I'd maybe put it in the top 10 but it doesn't belong in the top five when you have the idiot, lust for life, zombie birdhouse, instict, no values, and post pop depression in the catalogue.

like never let me down and tonight, it has two excellent songs (cry for love and the cover of wild one).

wait what the hell
is this “Never Let Me Down 2018”?

Hahah yes a different thing

wait what the hell
is this “Never Let Me Down 2018”?

― Zeppelin Avenue Breakdown (Boring, Maryland)

yeah don't

My top five Iggy solo albums:

1. Lust For Life
2. New Values
3. Blah-Blah-Blah
4. The Idiot
5. Kill City (the restored edition from the 2000s)

the 2018 redo of NLMD was interesting to me for about two weeks after it came out and I don't think I ever listened to it again.

unperson I'd just swap Post Pop Depression for Blah Blah Blah there

Apart from sounding worse than the original, the project offended me by wiping the names and instrumental parts of the original musicians.

I'm listening to Post Pop Depression now, because I honestly didn't even remember what it sounded like. (I am a major Josh Homme skeptic, and have been for decades; the s/t Queens of the Stone Age album was the last thing I liked by him post-Kyuss.)

I'm not the only person who thinks Bowie contributed better songs to Blah-Blah-Blah than he did to his own albums after 1983.

yeah I don't care about Homme either but he did a good job on that record

maybe I should give blah blah blah another listen, it's been at least a decade.

the revisionism of the NLMD remix in theory doesn't bother me, I'm all for these types of experiments, particularly when the original wasn't done very well. It's a really heavy approach though and I was hoping for it to be more revelatory; but all the remixing in the world doesn't help when the songs themselves just aren't great; even the lyrics and vocal tracks leave something to be desired.

ok I made sure to listen to the OG Never Let Me Down and it is not nearly as bad as reputation. Glass Spider *is* ridiculous though.

that's the one song that I thought worked really well with the overblown stage presentation (which I didn't see live, but I did see on TV)

I will forever pretend that Sons of the Silent Age with Peter Frampton singing the chorus never happened

When NLMD was released, I could start to imagine how the 1977 punks felt about the "gods of rock". With Tonight and then this awful record, Bowie became a big whatever. Have since revisited and appreciated some of the the interim albums but wow, what a disappointment he became in the 80s.

tim machine definitely does not hold up. Bowie did way better hard rock in 1970

I kinda hope a Tin Machine box never comes out because I’m a Bowie Box completist but please no thank you

Reeves is hideous with Bowie.

for all its undoubted faults I really like the first Tin Machine LP and still listen to it for pleasure quite often

love Reeves Gabrels' demented art shredding on that record, see it in a continuum with Steve Vai on PiL's Album - maybe a little bit Dave Navarro?

I liked that album a lot in high school but haven't listened to it in forever. And I've never heard the second one (which is currently absent from streaming services).

the second one is much better with at least three tolerable songs

i like both of them a lot