Your Family is a Football Team - The David Bowie "Tonight" poll

A rather lousy album and harbinger of things to come. I find less to like about this one than the much maligned (and deservedly so) Never Let Me Down. The two covers "God Only Knows" and "Neighborhood Threat" are both reasonable stabs, I'll vote for the former just because of Iggy's relationship to the latter.

"Loving the Alien" still sounds good.

"Blue Jean", although there's still something slightly lacklustre about it, particularly the backing vocals. The video is pretty good: Bowie's dancing is kept to a minimum, and there's a good piss take of his "Let's Dance" persona. Or it might be Robert Palmer or Bryan Ferry, I don't know.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrVShsFB40Q

I find less to like about this one than the much maligned (and deservedly so) Never Let Me Down.

This is my vote for his worst album, and "God Only Knows" the worst thing he's ever sung in a career full of bad singing. NLMD at least has a fascinating badness.

yeah this is probably his worst album. loving the alien and blue jean are good though,if both a bit anemic. NLMD is pretty bad but the title track and "time will crawl" are really good, better than anything on Tonight.

I like the simpler versions of "Loving The Alien" he's done over the years. The string arrangement on the original is as hysterical as the vocal; it's like he has something to prove.

'god only knows' is fucking dire

what was the b-side to blue jean? i think it was as good/better than any album track.

nevermind it was dancing with the big boys.

This was the first 'new' Bowie album I bought after being introduced by the "Let's Dance" single as a 11 year old. Between that and this album I became familiar with some of his back catalogue (Low, Man Who Sold the World) and the "Blue Jean" single warmed me up nicely for a new album. It was a bit of a dissapointment - it sounded very 'slick' (can't find the correct word) to me, hardly anything to hold on to, bar "Blue Jean" and the synths on "Loving the Alien". I agree with Alfred (threadstarter, of course ;) that later (live) versions of that song are superior to the album version - loved it when he played it on his Reality-tour.

this album would have benefited by including 'this is not america' and losing...almost everything else

"This is not America" is awesome yes. I just saw it's on a '95 Virgin reissue (on which "As the World Falls Down" "Absolute Beginners" are added bonuses as well).

(..." and "...)

yeah this is probably his worst album.

Have you heard Never Let Me Down?

it is worse than that

No, nothing's worse than that. Not even the second Tin Machine album.

pretty bad album it has to be said.
but even now i still adore loving the alien.
not heard the new stripped down versions you're all on about, so i'll just have to drop my vote on that one track.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlKwCZDGKb0

No, nothing's worse than that.

rong-o.

"Time Will Crawl," "Never Let Me Down," and "Zeroes" are Official Good Songs. "Beat of Your Drum" is a weird attempt at Springsteenian tubthumping that almost works. The now-deleted "Too Dizzy" didn't deserve its fate, especially when the Iggy Pop cover and "New York's In Love" survived. "Glass Spider" and "Shining Star" need to be heard to be believed.

So NLMD wins.

re the stripped back live version :
thats very good.
however, there is a little part of me that actually prefers the big OTT arrangement of the album version, the 80s bassline and looped backing vocals.
i guess the 20 or so years have ingrained the productions ingredients deep into my psyche ..

glass spider gets points for the ludicrous way he did that live

glass spider gets points for the ludicrous way he did that live

i rate bowie very highly and can live with most of his bad stuff, but i could not sit through the whole dvd of the glass spider tour.
those reinterpretations were just dreadful.
truly dreadful.

First ever concert I attended (may 31st, 1987) - loved every minute of it, even though binoculars were required to see what actually went on on-stage. Chair coming down from spider - I don't think anybody's made a more woah-type of entry in the 20 plus years since

Bet you could see his hair.

Candy floss ahoy!

only good song on album is "Blue Jean," which sounds like it was written circa Heroes and then left lying around for the better part of a decade. I remember hearing it tho and thinking "fuck, maybe he's come to his senses" (having hated Let's Dance, as I still pretty much do) and then being pretty bummed by the resounding "no"

How many Bowie impersonators have made better Bowie albums than this? I reckon we could come up with 100.

The problem is, most of the time Tonight doesn't sound like anyone at all.

I remember hearing it tho and thinking "fuck, maybe he's come to his senses" (having hated Let's Dance, as I still pretty much do)

Why, John?

No, nothing's worse than that. Not even the second Tin Machine album

I really, really like NLMD! I'd rate it in the top 5 Bowie albums.....honestly. I like Tin Machine as well, TM2 is the third worst Bowie album, just ahead of Tonight and streets ahead of his worst, the truly appalling airbrushed hell of Black Tie, White Noise.

I was too young, but no doubt there were Bowie fans who grudgingly allowed him the huge transatlantic success of Let's Dance after years in the pop wilderness, thinking that he'd pull a Low on the next album...

Face it, the real Bowie was abducted by aliens after 'Low'.

The alien made intermittently great music on Heroes, Lodger, and a few other things anyway.

the only thing good about Black Tie White Noise is the album title (which i think is fantastic, fwiw)

Voted "Loving The Alien", which will walk this poll.

Not his worst album though. That (if you don't count the Tin Machine ones) would be "Never Let Me Down".

the only thing good about Black Tie White Noise is the album title

"Jump They Say" obv.

The problem is, most of the time Tonight doesn't sound like anyone at all.

it sounds like a really bad rip off of Avalon to me

I meant the particular staging of the "glass spider" song during that tour, with bowie coming out of a spider...oh it was supid alright. funnily enough had he done that 7 years earlier everyone would have thought it was classic bowie staging. With a bigger budget and a few years later it just looked dumb

black tie white noise is mostly good

I like half of BTWN.

it sounds like a really bad rip off of Avalon to me

Really? "Dancing With The Big Boys" and "Neighborhood Threat" are altogether too loud and thwackety for Roxy; and "Don't Look Now" and "God Only Knows" are way more fourth-rate cocktail bar smooth than Ferry ever stooped to.

it was DLN/GOK/LTA I was thinking of, as fifth-rate ferry mawkishness

This is the only defense of the album I've read in recent years, and he champions songs, not the album.

Alfred, I thought Scary Monsters was a triumph, plus I loved the version of "China Girl" that had appeared on The Idiot - I thought the Bowie version was just a terrible reading, and suspected at the time that he only did it to throw some publishing money Iggy's way. Beyond that, I just don't care for any of the songs on it except maybe "Modern Love," which I only like 'til it gets to the chorus, which I just can't stand. For me, Let's Dance was pretty much a renunciation of everything I liked about David Bowie. It wasn't a question of being "too pop," as it was for some friends; I always loved "Young Americans." It was a question of making shitty pop, and squandering the talents of Nile Rogers.

Also the new version of "Cat People" eats dick.

true; only knew 'blue jean' from that circa 90 changesbowie (even though it was a hit right, and somehow i definitely knew - and still prefer - 'absolute beginners' (which does that 'let's keep dancin and modern lovin' milk better), 'this is not america'. sounds to my ears very mid80s - 'love my way' xylophone, 'head over heels' level frantic. i don't know, maybe i do remember it somewhere. very curious what you hear of heroes in it. listening to 'loving the alien' now it seems this weird glimpse of actual bowie versus world's best bowie imitator. the ott aspect makes it - his name was always buddy/wild is the wind belting, he doesn't really do this anymore right? q: the honeydrippers, everybody's rockin, whatever other examples you can think of - were these responses to 1) i'm a lil bit older and 'ave always wanted to sing this old thing 2) morning in america 3) bowie having megamegasuccess w/ let's dance 4) something else i'm forgetting (maybe springsteen - he seems to be the key to the rise of rock 80s sax, which definitely is a portal to 50s tribute)?

anyhow nearly voted 'blue jean' cuz of julien temple but having just listened to 'loving the alien' no way do i vote for anything else.

listening to 'loving the alien' now it seems this weird glimpse of actual bowie versus world's best bowie imitator. the ott aspect makes it - his name was always buddy/wild is the wind belting, he doesn't really do this anymore right? q: the honeydrippers, everybody's rockin, whatever other examples you can think of - were these responses to 1) i'm a lil bit older and 'ave always wanted to sing this old thing

A good way of putting it.

Voted for "Blue Jean," in large part cuz of the awesome video.

I can defend individual songs on Never Let Me Down (my biggest problem with it is the production) and Black Tie White Noise but I have difficulty extracting any joy from Tonight.

The album that killed my love for Bowie for many years, to the extent that I didn't even bother to get Never Let Me Down or any of the Tin Machines, and have to this day not heard them. It is just relentlessly mediocre and without character or verve. Bad though 'God Only Knows' is, the title track is worse, it is truly an abomination. Then again, I haven't actually heard this album in many years, and can't even remember a couple of the tracks, maybe it's improved with age. But I suspect not. Let's Dance/Tonight: an object lesson in how to destroy your artistic mystique.

I actually really like the first Tin Machine record.

I'm voting for "Tumble and Twirl" because, a.) nobody else will, and b.) I actually like it a lot.

And if there was a Never Let Me Down poll, I'd probably vote for "Shining Star" for the same reasons. It would certainly go on my Top Ten list of completely fucking stupid songs that I love to death (somewhere below "Kung Fu Fighting" and "Emotional Rescue").

"Life is like a broken arrow/Memory a swingin' door."

I actually like the title track. Not up there with "Loving The Alien" of course, but a nice reggae-ish pop tune. Would have been better without Tina Turner though.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Would have been better without Tina Turner though.

Most things are.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

a tie!!

haaaaaaa

Actually a bit surprised (and disappointed) that "Loving The Alien" doesn't own this alone. It's so much better than anything else on the album, really. But the lurkers went for the biggest hit, I guess....

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

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61K5jDNoQFL._SY355_.jpg

I've recently started to listen to the Loving the Alien boxset.
For me, it's quite interesting for the post "Let's Dance" stuff and I found out there are some pretty great songs from that era which I had always avoided (I basically knew "Absolute Beginners" and "This is not America" and may have tried to listen to Tonight once...).
I've made an "album" from that period which I love (I put it on another Bowie thread before finding this one... and it's evolved since !) :

Side A
Absolute Beginners (long version)
Julie
Neighborhood Threat
Girls (extended edit)
Loving the Alien (remixed version)

Side B
Blue Jean
That's Motivation
Tumble and Twirl (extended dance mix)
This is not America
Loving the Alien (extended dub mix)

I had to put these two versions of "Loving the Alien" since they're very different and I love them both (plus it kinda works as a reprise on the album).

“Don’t Look Down” is so VH-1 Dream of the Blue Turtles 80s Manhattan that it works as a relic.

I'd include the "Dancing with the Big Boys" remix.

The extended dance mix ?

I heard the title track at Publix this morning.

a more colourful, multifarious and enjoyable album than the metallic sameyness of never let me down and yet... still probably worse than never let me down somehow, if i'm honest. nlmd he's at least sorta trying sorta (esp on the awesome "glass spider"), which he isn't much on tonight beyond the "loving the alien".

i may have said this on the major informal albums thread but even the genre experiments here, they don't sound like 'oh, this will be a reggae song' came into the question until they'd put other jackets on the songs. i don't dislike that as an approach at all but it's a bit distracting when it's bowie. it feels relatively spontaneous but it's partly by design.

Bowie was an elegant liar. He said he was barely involved in NLMD yet he recorded detailed demos with Erdil Kizilcay where they played everything, then told the band to play them exactly.

Tonight is another story.

Feel like NLMD is quite superior to Tonight, but maybe that's because I haven't listened in ages?

Tonight was the first album I was ever disappointed with. Walked literal miles in the rain, taking a different route home, so I could buy the cassette at South Main Place in Fall River, MA. Was very confusing finding out that artists I love could make bad (or at least quite inferior) albums. Oh to be that innocent again...