Last Good Bowie Album

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Blue Jean is great, but side one of Let's Dance was it.

"Good"? Reality and Black Tie White Noise are listenable. I can make a decent CD-R or iPod playlist of listenable Bowie since 1979.

Lodger is his last great one. Scary Monsters is about half crap, I'm afraid.

after Lodger nothing on this list is essential.

scary monsters is the last one i love

Let's Dance is the last one I would miss if I lost my copy, even though I have been a partial defender of Outside over the years. There's a good song or two on most of the other albums, and a single CD-R of the best cuts off them would constitute an album that's almost as good as Let's Dance.

is there a good compilation of the post Let's Dance years?

there's disc 2 of the best of bowie DVD, but it's just really depressing

Scary Monsters is a great album, the last great one imo

honestly I prefer it to Lodger

same

I'd like to fire up some support for Let's Dance (LP):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gjZP8OPH-U

Side A
"Modern Love" – 4:46
"China Girl" (Bowie, Iggy Pop) – 5:32
"Let's Dance" – 7:38
"Without You" – 3:08
Side B
"Ricochet" – 5:14
"Criminal World" (Peter Godwin, Duncan Browne, Sean Lyons) – 4:25
"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)"[5] (lyrics: Bowie, music: Giorgio Moroder) – 5:09
"Shake It" – 3:49

If that is not "Good" (see thread title), not sure what to say to y'all (except "y'all are deaf".)

lodger is probably my favorite bowie album, but scary monsters was the first one i got. it took me about 15 years to get into it, but i'd say it's as good as anything he did from station to station on. i don't know how i made it over that first hurdle, seeing as how i pretty much hated the second side (which is awesome) for 15 years. (actually, i do know... i wanted to convince my mother i wanted to see bowie, who was touring with nine inch nails, so she wouldn't think i wanted to see a nine inch nails show... anyway, by the time i got to the show, i was a bowie freak arguing that a warm place was just crystal japan. i think.)

i voted let's dance, by the way. that first side is classic and there's some fine stuff on the second. plus nile rodgers is a god, even if he isn't at his most godlike on that album. i can't listen to outside anymore and haven't really heard much past that jungle thing he did. i probably should.

Outside is my favourite of his, so, that.

"Scream Like a Baby," "Teenage Wildlife," and "Because You're Young" are sounds looking for songs. It's funny how I've grown less tolerant of Bowie's singing as I've aged.

None of them are irredeemable imo - even Tonight and Never Let Me Down have a couple of great songs each.

can i just...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2zZgA6Xgc4

(Heathen)

I like Heathen but most of it's too slow -- maybe slow is all he can do these days?

Reality, it and Heathen were pretty good. Between them they would have been great

The real heart of the matter is that Bowie made like 13-14 great albums in a row ... not many artists can make that claim

haha. I'm as big a Bowie fan as you'll find but that's madness!

Lodger, Heathen, and Reality are all about '50% good/50% skip-able'. Everything else in this poll is '1 or 2 tracks are OMK, skip the rest'.

Lodger, Heathen, and Reality are all about '50% good/50% skip-able'.

which is true about almost every Bowie album.

no, that's an overstatement. During the best years (Man Who Sold the World through Scary Monsters) 80% is average imo.

Let's Dance is terrible.

The only Bowie albums I can listen to cover to cover are STS, Low, and Lodger. Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, Heroes each have one to three songs I skip. But I've realized that looking for Great Albums from Bowie is irrelevant: the gesture -- the manner -- matters as much if not more.

Anyway, without overstating his success rate the albums I mentioned comprise one helluva run.

I can make a decent CD-R or iPod playlist of listenable Bowie since 1979

Please propose a tracklisting, I'd be interested in giving it a spin!

Start with this:

Modern Love
Ashes to Ashes
Criminal World
This is Not America
Strangers When We Meet
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
I'm Deranged
It's No Game
New Killer Star
Beat of Your Drum
Ricochet
Jump They Say
Time Will Crawl
Heathen (The Rays)

The entire Scary Monsters album?

Scary Monsters is his last album I liked all the way through.

Let's Dance is almost great, the singles are obviously classic but Criminal World has always been my favourite song it should really should have been a single.

Heathen is quite good but is let down by some awful lyrics and pointless cover versions. He really sounds like he's trying to sound just like Scott Walker on a lot of it especially on the opening track Sunday. It sounds like he tried to make an album like Nite Flights but with modern production, of course the songs on Heathen sound more dated than Nite Flights does. I can't remember much about Reality, New Killer Star was a good single but I think it was pretty much the same album as Heathen.

a more fun Heathen!

I like it a lot -- maybe the first album since Lodger which consists of, "Let me throw a bunch of tunes without purpose or theme that consolidate all I've learned in the last twenty years."

Looking at the tracklisting to Reality I do remember liking Looking For Water and She'll Drive The Big Black Car. He probably could have a made a good ten track album using the better songs from the two albums. He could lose the four cover versions for a start, I remember the Pablo Picasso cover being really awful.

it's C+ whereas the Harrison cover is a D-

ah, i still like quite a few tracks from outside and earthling - maybe 80%. i remember i played hours all the time but then i hated it suddenly. these later ones all have glossy unlikeable production but at least there's less reeves gabrel on them.

"Scary Monsters" is the only one I bought 'contemporaneously'.

Even then, because it was a cheapie in a closing-down branch of Rumbelows.

Was quite impressed, to be fair.

Since then, I have found junkshop copies of Ziggy, Low, Station2 and ChangesOneBowie.

don't play them a lot, but like 'em. (Actually, don't think I've played Zig at all).

Rumbelows? Did you get a washing machine thrown in?

Yes, Rubelows. I nearly got a job there manning the record stall, but apparently I was overqualified!

Hours and Heathen were both pretty damn good, if not a little too polished. I haven't heard Reality. Black Tie White Noise is the only Bowie album that is irredeemably awful. So I voted for Heathen.

Will he record again?

The Morrissey cover on BTWN is terrible. In an interview Bowie claimed that it sounded like "an Aladdin Sane outtake". No it doesn't, it sounds like a load of overblown over-produced shite that totally trashes the emotion and human scale of the original.

Will he record again?

Has any artist ever come back after a long break and actually been any good? The Stooges' 'The Weirdness' was passable-to-OK. Even the later Kraftwerk stuff is underwhelming. It would be nice of Bowie made another album, but the possibility of it genuinely blowing everyone away is remote.

Has any artist ever come back after a long break and actually been any good?

yes. Kate Bush.

The Stooges record was just about passable if you ignored the lyrics. Iggy was never really away though, was he? I agree about Kraftwerk, much as I want to love Tour De France. Same for The Who - Endless Wire is good, in a few places VERY good, but it's not thrilling.

I do have a soft spot for Never Let Me Down, but there are one or two horrific tracks on there.

Bark Psychosis!
Portishead!

i thought 'i. outside' was amazing at sixteen but now .. eh .. i dunno

bowie seems to have a catalogue designed for contrarianism

like, i thought 'actually lodger is the best' was a fairly contrarian thing but apparently these days you can say 'actually i think scary monsters was better'

like the contrarian stuff (lodger, whatever, 'the 90s were one of his best periods', liking tin machine) seems to be the new consensus

I only got to hear The Buddha Of Suburbia for the first recently... It's reputation as something of a lost classic is a tad exaggerated, but there are a few highlights that deserve more attention than 'Black Tie. White Noise' (first Bowie and third album on CD I bought) at least:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObM_zUBd14A

^^^^ yes, good song.

Black Tie White Noise is pretty solid: "The Wedding," "You've Been Around," "Jump They Say," "Pallas Athena," and "Miracle Goodnight."

outside has not aged well.

Well, he lost interest in his career for the next five years. He was quite interested in Tin Machine.

Well at least someone was

Bowie coming in the studio with no songs

So many great albums have come from great acts after they went AWOL, from the Soft Boys to Tom Waits. Lots have bands have been on layaway much longer than Bowie has. Just 8 years since the last one, no? It's been longer than that since the last album of original Peter Gabriel.

I thought Tin Machine was DBowie kickin' back and doing an easy thing, min effort, having fun?

right, but Bowie isn't like those guys: he has no talent for singer-songwriter solipsism or observation. He needs contexts and concepts. As a man in his sixties I can't imagine he's interested enough in anything besides chilling in NYC.

xpost

Yeah, I thought Carlos A had to do much of the heavy lifting on a lot of the albums he was involved on, for example.

Has any artist ever come back after a long break and actually been any good?

Scott Walker

"haLOL spaceboy"

even with Eno's involvement and sympathetic press from Mojo, to my ears Outside sounded pretty half-baked

There was that track where he ran a competition for someone to supply the lyric.

The winner was pretty good, mine (judging by all the other ones I saw during the 'voting' process which were pretty bad iiss) must have come second.

Tonight, obviously.

Among other things, because you just can't beat the full-fledged Iggy-vacationing-in-Borneo-piece of madness that is Tumble & Twirl.
Listen to it at least 10 times in a row (the recording thankfully is done in a way to ensure a smooth continuous loop (thanks, D. Bramble)).
Try it. We do it all the time, mostly while spending time in the sauna, it rewards you in ways you can hardly imagine.

Listen to it at least 10 times in a row

sorry but this has never been done

I don't think I've even listened to that track 10 times in total.

Like I said: Go on, try it.

Concerning 'Hours...'/Heathen/Reality, although there is the occasional admirable effort here and there, not often I can bring myself to listen to them these days. His voice sounds irritatingly strained on them, just tired and sad and completely lacking the fascist vigor. This may or may not be a deeply subjective view, but for me this pretty much ruins songs like Slip Away (along with the shitty saccharine production, of course).
Where's the point in making an album about the fear of aging when everything overshoots like this and all you can do while listening to it is sigh along and wishing to pat Bowie's back, reminding him of his trillions of bucks?

It's definitely time for him to go full circle now, ditch the cozy family life, embrace the gloom again and finally record his The Drift.

Heathen for me, which I think is a great album. Reality was only 1/2 ok, seemed kind of tossed off; but it was leagues better than the awful hours.

let's dance is a wonderful album, don't understand the hate. Tonight is very bad though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8NZa9wYZ_U&ob=av3e

^^Might be his last song before ditching the horn section?

Production is dated, but I love the chord progressions.

i think Scary Monsters is the most over rated Bowie album by some distance. take Ashes.. and Up The Hill Backwards off and i don't think there's a thing to recommend it at all.

this is *great* and justifies the Tonight era all on it's own
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl8mqKRrOts

There's room for only one Bryan Ferry.

I've said before: at least he attempts some kind of AOR-art rock hyrid on NLMD. Tonight is a big zero.

let's dance has such an odd production job, everything is way compressed but still has a lot of definition + pulse, also the songs don't sound like anything else of the period

there are some bizarre instrumentation choices here, sometimes it sounds like stevie ray vaughn jizzing over an album by the fall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5PbUMGRQ9U

I've never delved much into his catalogue beyond Scary Monsters.

Growing up in the 80s and just hearing his singles on the radio, I never got a good feel for some aspects of the timeline, the Young Americans stuff in particular seemed to my youthful ears more or less of a piece with Let's Dance. Finding out when YA was actually recorded and what came in-between was something of an eye-opener.

And fwiw although all his 80s movie music got airplay - This is not America (nooooooo!), Absolute Beginners, Labyrinth - I don't recall ever hearing any Tonight or Never Let Me Down singles on the radio, except for Day-In Day-Out perhaps.

(And hearing them now, I'm not surprised)

not even "Blue Jean"?

Well, based on my memory which is entirely formed from radio listening back then. Tbf I was only 10 or 11 but if it got any I doubt it lasted beyond its natural chart lifespan. Ashes to Ashes, Scary Monsters, all the film ones I remember well. Blue Jean, nothing.

Looking at other chart hits of the time, they're all huge, radio friendly bangers, burned into my skull. Wouldn't be surprised if Blue Jean struggled for airplay alongside them.

I don't remember "Day-In Day-Out" on the radio at all, although it apparently got sufficient MTV air time.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Not heard enough of the latter stuff so I have to vote for Let's Dance. It's great.

Gonna check out more of the stuff mentioned above. I'm pretty sure I'll love it.

I remember being scared of the Lodger album cover when I was 4 or 5.

Going for "Reality" here. Actually shame he would begin such a long lasting hiatus after releasing some of his best albums for ages.

At the time it came out, when Bowie sings "One day, I'm gonna to write a poem in a letter/One day, I'm gonna get the faculty together," I assumed he was a Sting-type tortured teacher who was going to call a staff meeting and profess his love grandly and publicly.

("Blue Jean")

day in/day out got a lot of airplay on AOR stations, so did "never let me down", which is also a pretty good song. "time will crawl" is the best track on the album though. everything else on the record is TERRIBLE. TERRIBLE!!!

i definitely recall 'day-in/day-out' and 'never let me down' getting alot of airplay. voted earthling fwiw. if i define good a little less charitably (7.0 or better lol) i would answer scary monsters. i do think he's made a handful of great singles post-scary monsters.

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

wow @ at the Reality votes.

No wonder. "Reality" was a good album, even though "Heathen" was even better. "Heathen" IMO was his best album since "Scary Monsters".

And I am not rejecting his 90s experimentalism - I prefer "1.Outside" and "Earthling" way more than I do the horrible Tin Machine ones or "Never Let Me Down". But those were not as essentially Bowie as his 70s experimentalism always was. Thus, he was better to do a return to form rather than try to reinvent himself. And that is what he did on "Heathen".

wow @ at the Reality votes.

Well the thing is it's not "when did Bowie stop consistently writing good music" but "what was the last good Bowie album" which doesn't mean all the albums in between are any good.

I haven't heard Reality but I thought Heather was alright. Whether "alright" counts as "good" is a different matter.

Or what Geir said I guess.

Finally bought Tin Machine 1 for a pound the other day. Good god, it's hard work. It goes on for what seems like several hours. 'I Can't Read' stands alone like an oasis in a sea of faeces - it's brilliant. The dull acoustic version he brought out a few years later, not at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-EcEH31Y2o

Yeah, but the voice he employs to sing "I can't read shit anymore" should give you Ke$ha skeptics pause.

Dunno what that means, but I find it to be a damn good song.

My problem with Bowie's 90s-present day output is his Pixies obsession
His interpretation of What Frank Black Does-- abstract body humour non-sequiturs, unhinged, with a moment of clarity somewhere to make it all 'make sense'-- sounds unnatural, calculated, and even to my teenage ears, embarrassing
Does anybody else hear this?

and Bowie's voice is as un-Pixie-like as you can get.

Not the delivery, the lyrics.

Whoops, missed your "and", Alfred
Thought you were ?'ing me