Black Tie White Noise by David Bowie: classic or dud?

Apart from 'Jump They Say', I really don't like this record. Outside is where he "got it back", for me.

In fact, if you ignore the fact that hours... unfortunately exists, then Outside, Earthling, Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and Blackstar isn't that bad of a series of albums.

Big dud.

David Bowie didn't release anything listenable between some tracks off of 'Tonight' and 'Earthling' imo.

In fact, if you ignore the fact that hours... unfortunately exists, then Outside, Earthling, Heathen, Reality, The Next Day and Blackstar isn't that bad of a series of albums.

i agree wholeheartedly with this statement.

Maybe Bowie needs to do a Scott Walker, go away for ten years then hit us over the head with some wild liminal thang.

― Humberto C. Antunes, Tuesday, March 21, 2006 12:42 PM (thirteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Only The Next Day wasn't some wild liminal thang, it was Bowie picking up where he left off. Only once he'd got that out of his system could he produce his final masterpiece.

As for BTWN, it's mediocre Bowie at best.

There were a couple of bits of The Next day which were more along those lines - but yes, I'm talking about Blackstar.

this album is ok. it does have a bit of a cheap feel to it in the production and the packaging though. like Pallas Athena is fine, I don't mind it, but it's wholly unnecessary and generic. But I really love his version of Nite Flights, as good as the Walker Brothers'.

I had the cassette version and the packaging seemed fine, perhaps a step above most new albums on cassette at the time. 'Miracle Goodnight' seemed a bit tinny, but I thought it was a stylistic choice rather than cheap production.

i meant the artwork in general. it's just kind of ...cheap looking. maybe par for the course for those years, they were not the best years for graphic design and amazing album covers, but it's just boring looking. Miracle Goodnight is another one...great song, but it sounds so thin. Anyway, the album certainly isn't 'bad'.

Bowie wore more face powder on the sleeve than my grandma.

I guess there's an early Photoshop feel to the packaging, especially as there was a uniform look to the different formats the album was released in, as well as video packaging and in-store displays. There's also the release around the same time of the Singles Collection, whose cover used a picture of Bowie in a hat singing into a 50s style mic that seems to have been taken at the same photo session as the pictures for BTWN. Overall there's the feeling of a lot of promotional material all being created at the same time in a blizzard of copy & paste and image filters.

they used that mic image in the rolling stone article at the time too (one of a series of 'next album is his best since Scary Monsters and back to the Bowie we knew!) articles that started showing up with NLMD and never stopped)

Photoshop?!

More like Corel Draw '93.

Never Let Me Down is simply fantastic - one of Bowie's best 5 records.

Just seen this at the top of the thread, from 13 years ago. Holy christ.

The sentence that immediately preceeds that, about 'Tonight' having two good singles, is right if you can stand 'Loving The Alien' (I can't). If you remove 'Blue Jean' from the tracklist, then arguably 'Tonight' is worse than 'Never Let Me Down'.

(but every other Bowie studio album is better than NLMD, even 'hours')

I can see why hardcore Bowie fans would dislike Loving The Alien, but in the context of his largely awful 1980s it sounds like manna from heaven.

It's mad that he somehow managed to come up with Absolute Beginners, one of his very best songs, in the middle of easily the worst creative trough of his entire career.

The sentence that immediately preceeds that, about 'Tonight' having two good singles, is right if you can stand 'Loving The Alien' (I can't). If you remove 'Blue Jean' from the tracklist, then arguably 'Tonight' is worse than 'Never Let Me Down'.

otm

(but every other Bowie studio album is better than NLMD, even 'hours')

― Being cheap is expensive (snoball),

not otm

Was there any kind of consensus reached about the remixed version of NLMD?

I was excited to see that Nico Muhly was involved (I"m a big fan), or could it not be revived from the operating table?

All three albums are terrible. 'hours' at least sounds like Bowie had a clearer idea of what he wanted the album to sound like, even if the songs individually are worse then anything on Tonight or NLMD. I appreciate a songwriter with an overarching ambition for a record, even if the result falls totally flat. Trying and failing seems better to me than calculated attempts at Phil Collins arena audience blandness. That's why I rate both Tin Machine albums highly even though I'd probably never want to listen to either of them again - Smashie & Niceie Backman Turner Overdrive LET'S ROCK is NAGL but it's preferable to trying to fit into a late 80s yuppie record collection.

The poor songwriting and shoddy design (that sleeve! those sandals!) reduce hours into his worst album since NLMD. No Jacket Required has vim, production adequate to its songs.

the remixed version of NLMD is an improvement for the most part, yes, but it's still not great.

hours is his worst since NLMD yes. I actually fault the arrangements and production more than the songwriting; I think something better could have been made of those songs. It was just time for Reeves Gabrels to leave.

Dud, but "Jump They Say" is all right and the Morrissey cover's a gem.