I love you. I'll survive.: the David Bowie 'hours. . .' poll.

Thursday's Child by some margin. Always wonder if this is the worst Bowie album as he evidently was trying to do something good, unlike on Tonight. The production is absolutely brutal for the most part.

I mean, I find Tonight an overall more enjoyable listen, despite the utter drivel that made it. Hours is such a sad listen with how misguided it is. There's some potential in the material but the ghastly 90s synths and horrendous drums are just too much to bear. A good few of the songs would have been very interesting to hear, had Visconti worked on them.

I don't know. Is it just another one of Bowie's adult contempo albums? Or is he straining to reach for some sort of art pop masterpiece? I can't decide.

In any case, I will proudly defend the first half of this album, even though the production has not aged it especially well.

Also was not aware of this interesting tidbit:

It was the first complete album by a major artist available to download over the Internet, preceding the physical release by two weeks.

I'm kind of fascinated by this: What's Really Happening? is the one with the lyrics written by a teenage fan who won an online competition and got to join Bowie in the studio while it was being recorded. The recording session was livestreamed, and the accompanying BowieNet chat thread is archived here:

http://www.bowiewonderworld.com/chats/dbwrh0599.htm

and I like this album, even with (or because of) its dated-five-minutes-after-it-came-out production

set this album on fire

There is no production. It's Bowie and Gabrels with terrible synths and acoustic guitars.

his worst album since Tonight.

this album sucks. unfinished and overworked

even the fucking cover art is ghastly: the flip-flops, costumes, poses, fonts, design, call the FBI.

i forgot just how much of a kicking this got in some places (You Know Where giving it 4.7 etc). interesting that not a year later when i saw him live at Glastonbury he didn't go near any of it.

those white coats remind me of Goldie and end of the millenium superclub 'brands'.

some versions of the album apparently came with a "Lenticular Hologram" of Bowie

https://youtu.be/tHqlLLXz_rQ

Sometimes wonder how he would have been regarded had he tragically passed after releasing this instead of everything to come (ie, two albums of enjoyable if not totally deathless work plus well regarded tours, the Big Break and its mystique followed by a steady-as-she-goes return and the last amazing transformation).

I don't think Blackout is much better than Earthling and Reality (and I'll take the former's concluding title track as an epitaph or "I Can't Give Everything Away") but we can argue about it.

er Heathen, not Earthling.

his worst album since Tonight.

― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, August 17, 2016 7:29 PM (1 hour ago)

'Tonight' by comparison is worse overall, but it does have 'Blue Jean' on it. 'hours...' doesn't.

This one's quite difficult actually... which of these do I least object to listening to?

Went with 'If I'm Dreaming Life' which has some stellar —and noticeably understated— guitar work.

I have a hard time working up much hatred for this album. It is pretty faceless, I'll admit. And I don't care for the thrash Gabrels here (I'll take Tin Machine II any day over it). But I enjoy Thursday's Child and Seven. And coming after Earthling, which felt so shamelessly trend-hopping to me, I distinctly remember that I was kind of relieved to hear that 'hours...' sounded so different.

I totally love If I'm Dreaming My Life, especially the ending, so that gets my vote.

Alfred otm about the dreadful cover art, but really pretty much every album after Lodger has abysmal art.

gabrels is really the culprit on this record, I think he cowrote a lot of it, and not well. thursday's child is good, the rest is ugh.

oh, survive is a pretty good song too

One of my least favourite Bowie lps although (or perhaps because) circumstances had it that I heard it a lot when it was released. All of these songs are just so unremarkable and seem overly lengthy.

Yeah I went in for that lyric competition. I reckon mine was 2nd.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

whoops i like this album now

I can't foresee a day where I'll ever think this is anything more than a poor record. Easily the worst of his 1995-2016 run, if not one of his worst albums full stop.

Turrican otm

i agree. this belongs in a bin with most of tonight and NLMD as almost completely unredeemable outside of one track each. I'm glad Gabrels got the boot after this.

Yeah this probably my least favourite, maybe tied with his first album. There was a thread on these recently but Tonight and NLMD at least have some songs I really like on them even if they aren't very good albums. This is just boring.

idk, i kinda got more curious about this album bc i finally got to its section in chris o'leary's blog. i don't think i'm necessarily wrong upthread, it does sound bizarrely empty, simultaneously unfinished and overcooked, but i still really like some of these songs even though they're trapped in a weird transparent fog and are only faintly animated by bowie's deliberately disengaged vocals. the original omikron version of "new angels of promise" is pretty awesome (they overdid the song on the album), i love the interaction between the verses and the chorus, and "something in the air" is a really desperate, sad song trying to stir itself to life (i especially like the american psycho remix where mike garson weaves deranged spirals of piano into the texture of trip-hop) and bowie's vocal on it is weirdly both introverted and extremely intense, it could've been the power ballad on earthling. "thursday's child" is ridiculously gorgeous too. "pretty things are going to hell" is still one of the most unnecessary songs ever, a boneheaded gabrels riff that they stapled a "song' around

i really love "seven" too, it's a v sweet song. the album version is maybe the worst version of it but i still think it's pretty great

fantastic post, brad

..."something in the air" is a really desperate, sad song trying to stir itself to life (i especially like the american psycho remix where mike garson weaves deranged spirals of piano into the texture of trip-hop) and bowie's vocal on it is weirdly both introverted and extremely intense...

Bowie was pretty self-deprecatory about aspects of his career. I wonder if he himself would have admitted that Hours is a dog’s breakfast, had he not stopped giving interviews fairly soon after.

I think he felt that the record had honest ambitions, so I don't know if he would have felt confident running it down. I remember him making a bitter comment at the time that he might as well not have made a video for the record because he wasn't receiving any airplay in 1999. Parting with Gabrels at the end of the recording and not doing a full tour shows his diffidence about the final product, but I think he would have felt he invested enough emotion (or the appearance of unguarded feelings) in these songs that he wouldn't have dismissed them.

there was a pretty good VH1 Bowie Storytellers segment that had the two best songs from this LP alongside a nice selection of back catalogue - probably my preferred mode of acknowledging this LP's existence - nice interesting version of the late-era Bowie band with the Dorsey/Cambell rhythm section and Gabrels clearly reigned-in and on the way out... have always liked Holly Palmer's contributions to Thursday's Child, better showcased in the live version. ok.

Here's an album where O'Leary's explaining Bowie's odd chording diminished my interest. Such simple tunes with such contortions.

It would be a shame if listeners couldn't hear how harmonically rich "Thursday's Child" is underneath the uninspiring arrangement. I love how the movement from the III to the II chord gives "Everything's falling into place" such a combined feeling of hope and fear.

...and Bowie's melody is taking advantage of every shift in the chord pattern, it's not just icing.

i like that song but I'm not a fan of the female vocals (Holly Palmer, I guess), they are a cheese too far