"David Bowie The next day album thoughts?" Fri Mar-01-13 02:36 PM by Menphyel7
They say its the best album since Scary Monsters but that's what they always say but have yall heard it what's your thoughts. I'm halfway through its interesting.
5. "I was honestly excited for this" In response to Reply # 0
Then I got maybe two songs in and thought, ehhhh maybe not. Someone convince me it's worth the full listen with one song you think is undeniable (hopefully not the first two tracks).
7. "there were some songs in the middle I liked, I listened with some" In response to Reply # 5
headphones one night & recall feeling like he might have some cuts in there but I can't really remember which ones by title outside of 'I'd Rather Be High'.
It felt like a Bowie album though, need to spend more time actually listening to it with my undivided attention before making a full judgement.
I wasn't crazy about the opening of the album either, for what's it's worth.
The single/video was 'eh' but felt welcome in the context of the album playing in full.
8. "The title track is probably the worst thing on it" In response to Reply # 5
It gets better from there, though there are a few too many tracks on the whole. If they'd trimmed it down to 10 or 11 songs, it would be a solid record. As it is, it's just another late period Bowie album, no better than Reality or Heathen.
9. "what was the last great Bowie album? Let's Dance?" In response to Reply # 8
>It gets better from there, though there are a few too many >tracks on the whole. If they'd trimmed it down to 10 or 11 >songs, it would be a solid record. As it is, it's just another >late period Bowie album, no better than Reality or Heathen.
11. "hard to say 'aside from the singles' tho when 5 of 8 songs were singles" In response to Reply # 10
(that number can go up to 6 of 9 depending on if you got the reissue that slapped 'Under Pressure' on it).
of the remaining three that weren't: -'Criminal World' is a dope cover (with a mean bass line & some nice SRV solos) that exposed Metro to a whole new audience.
-I don't love 'Ricochet' but it's a more *Bowie* sounding song than most of the other stuff on it and one the 'he's my guy, not yours' type of devoted Bowie fans often cite as their favorite on the album. To me it sounds a bit out of place in the context, the one song on the album where the Bowie/Nile mix sorta clashes rather than meshes.
-Shake It is undeniably funky, that song could have surely worked as a single if they tried to milk one more or hadn't tried to switch it up with a more ballad-leaning single for 'Without You' which sorta stalled the momentum after 'Modern Love' commercially even tho I love it. But Shake It would have been a bigger commercial success, sounds almost like a Young Americans song fed thru a 80s/Prince-synth-filter.
I think Let's Dance gets a bit unfairly hated on in retrospect by diehard Bowie fans because of the success it had and the after effects that seemed to derail his career during the mid-80s (though who's to say that there wouldn't have been slippage anyway the same way there was for Stevie Wonder in the same time frame or Prince in the decade after......there's only so long you can sustain the level of creative peak & cultural zeitgeist they were at during the 70's & 80's respectively).
But on its own merits?
With three of his biggest hits ever, overseen by Nile Rodgers during his production/session-work post-Chic peak, the studio band featuring a then-unsigned Stevie Ray Vaughn as it's lead guitarist, the melding of blues licks with dance music drums, Bowie clearly enjoying himself in yet another incarnation.......it sorta fits most objectively-subjective qualifications for a 'classic album'.
I think sometimes Bowie's fans & some revision-inclined music journalist tend to conflate this album along with 'Tonight' as if they're the part of the same record when they're really not.
Let's Dance was a monster that almost or to some degree did seem to eat Bowie but that stuff was all triggered by the album being strong enough to be able to have that affect on the public in the first place.
But yet every Bowie album since the 90s features at least a few early critics to call the new album 'his best album since Scary Monsters' as if Let's Dance is a tiny hurdle, which I can't help but think is in big part rooted in it being his biggest commercial success along with some of the comments he later made about how he became confused/uncomfortable with the new audience this album gained him.
14. "RE: hard to say 'aside from the singles' tho when 5 of 8 songs were sing..." In response to Reply # 12
>Yeah, I meant Let's Dance/Modern Love/China Girl. > >I'd forgotten that Without You was a single too, and wasn't >the Cat People single the original version from the film? > I think so but I still counted it, love both versions of that song & Inglorious Bastards gave it a revival (can't remember which version they used in the theater scene but it was perfect).
>I had no idea that Under Pressure had been added, either. When >did that happen? > one of the CD reissues sometime in the 90's.
13. "I came in late so yea I don't see the problem with Lets Dance" In response to Reply # 11
I think cause Bowie blames that album for his downfall and he said he was tryin to please his new fans the rock critics turn on the album 2..it was one quote he said something like "I was standing in front of a sea of fans and i knew these people had never heard of Velet Underground and I felt a real disconnect with my audience I did'nt know what they wanted"
but I can just listen to the music and LEts dance is increidble espically with Stevie RAy Vaughn killing it...I heard all the sessions from that album with Vaughn and you can tell they was having fun.
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