Great stuff right there. Looking forward to reading your future installments. Or at least ones that aren't about "hours..."
Thanks
Hours will get a write-up just like all the others.
And here's my thoughts on Earthling.
Earthling
In kind of an inversion of the previous record, while I gather that this isn’t the most loved later Bowie record, I do love it. Like, for most of my first listen of it, I was thinking to myself, ‘why doesn’t this one get more love?’ It is perhaps the most ‘rock’ record he put out post-Berlin Trilogy(not counting the Tin Mans which I haven’t listened to yet). I’m amazed at how he managed to pretty much capture the spirit of alternative rock in the mid-late 90s while still sounding distinctly like himself.
He said that the record musically(along with Outside) was supposed to be a “textural diary of what the last few years of the millennium felt like” and that lyrically it was a spiritual record tackling the subjects of his atheism and his gnosticism, and I think the record very much succeeds on both counts.
Whereas the previous record was intentionally cold and alienating, this record, while still rough and in no way shape or form easy-listening, is warm-blooded and sweaty and alive. Bowie said he wanted “to produce some really dynamic, aggressive-sounding material” and boy, did he succeed. It’s very sonically dense and fascinating, an exploration of sound, really.
From the nearly Marylin Manson-esque industrial head banging of I’m Afraid Of Americans to the vaguely distorted guitar assault of Seven Years In Tibet to the keyboard breaks that come out of nowhere in Battle For Britain and Dead Man Walking(the one in the former is all kinds of awesome), the record is an all-you-can-hear buffet of sounds.
Or how about the plucked strings and the vocal near-chanting going on in Telling Lies?
Or those strings that almost sound like a harp(but are probably actually a guitar) in Battle For Britain?
Or other little things like that little riff that repeats at the end of the chorus of Dead Man Walking?
Or that guitar solo in Looking For Satellites that for some reason sounds to me like something you could’ve heard on Zooropa? (Along with more chant-like vocals).
Or the way he just decided to put about a minute’s worth of heavy guitar in the middle of the otherwise fairly spacey The Last Thing You Should Do? Talk about adding a dynamic to a song.
If I’m picking favorites, they’re probably Seven Years In Tibet, Dead Man Walking, Telling Lies, and I’m Afraid Of Americans.
Seven Years In Tibet in particular is just a huge track. The alternating dynamic between the quiter bass/drum/acoustic strumming in the verses and the punch-in-the-face guitar and bass in the chorus is extremely effective, and then the horns after each chorus, and the what-sounds-like-an-organ that starts during the second chorus and then persists for the remainder of the track, and the siren(probably another guitar) in the later portion of the song. I mean, this thing is like a master class in how to effectively mix a ton of instruments and sounds together and make it sound awesome.
Dead Man Walking and Telling Lies were good choices for singles, as they have probably the most melodic choruses on the record - the former sung more directly and the latter chanted. If these weren’t hits, they should’ve been. They manage to be catchy and accessible while simultaneously being sufficiently avant-garde. Great stuff.
I don’t need to say too much about I’m Afraid Of Americans I take it, as it seems pretty well known, but yeah, it’s great. Big, thick alternative guitar and bass that would’ve been at home on the Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream, and vocal in which Bowie strikes just the right balance between mechanical and human for this track. I imagine this one would’ve been embraced by all the Manson and NIN fans and fans of other industrial/techno rock acts of the late 90s.
It’s just a really raw, primal, hypnotic record that just drips rock and roll to me. The sonic palette is immense(I also love the Eastern tinge permeating the whole thing). A record you’ll always hear something new in. This record manages to rock hard, have a few tracks with legitimate pop hooks, while still being creative and artistically vital and incredibly cohesive, and I would say that that’s not the easiest thing to do, particularly in recent decades. It’s also a great work-out record - listen to it while on a run or in the gym or whatever, it really gets the adrenaline flowing. How is this not more revered?
As a final note, there’s a quote where Bowie says he played most of the guitar on this record himself. If that’s true, it might be one of his finest moments as a guitarist.