REISSUES
David Bowie
Brilliant Adventure 1992-2001 PARLOPHONE/ISO
Bowie goes back to the future in a decade full of knowing nostalgia and risky reinvention.
Dusting himself off after his mullet-haired late-80s slump and unloved Tin Machine side project, David Bowie spent most of the 90s fighting to regain his high cultural standing as a godlike art-rock innovator. Looking backwards to move forwards, he reconnected with key figures from his imperial phase including Mick Ronson, Brian Eno and Nile Rodgers. He waxed nostalgic about Bromley and Berlin, but also embraced cutting-edge electronica and industrial noise, wisely resisting full surrender to the lucrative but deadening conservatism of Britpop.
Spanning 1992 to 2001, this latest addition to the ongoing flood of posthumous Bowie box sets is full of qualified gems and rare treasures, notably the first official release of the fabled ‘lost’ album Toy.
Black Tie, White Noise, Bowie’s first solo album in six years, reunited him with Let’s Dance producer Nile Rodgers and Ziggy-era guitar legend Mick Ronson. Informed by contemporary trip-hop and house music, the high-gloss production sounds airless and dated today, but the Marvin Gaye-quoting title track stands up better than expected, and the rousing, gospel-infused version of Morrissey’s I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday is a deliciously camp improvement on the original. Behind its sexy sci-fi dance-pop sheen, Jump They Say pays elliptical tribute to Bowie’s schizophrenic half-brother Terry Burns, who committed suicide in 1985. This solid comeback album scored Bowie a rare No.1 just weeks before Ronson died of cancer.
Citing both Bromley and Berlin as inspiration, Bowie revisited his South London roots for The Buddha Of Suburbia, a partial soundtrack to the 1993 BBC drama series. Overlooked by critics but cherished by Bowiephiles, this autumnal collection is a little too heavy on anodyne funk-pop tastefulness. That said, the roaringly dramatic title track feels like a sequel to Absolute Beginners, and features winking quotes from both Space Oddity and All The Madmen. There is an eerie Eno-ish beauty to electro-jazz audioscapes The Mysteries and Ian Fish, UK Heir, while the shimmering synth-pop gallop Dead Against It is a genuine underrated classic.
For the first time since 1979, Bowie then reunited with Eno to make Outside, a neo-Brechtian cyber-goth concept album narrated by multiple characters. Channeling Trent Reznor with its snarly mesh of electronica with industrial guitars, this boldly experimental 1995 album was later talked up as an unsung avant-rock masterpiece in Diamond Dogs mode, not least by its creators. Alas the passing decades have not improved its overstuffed theatrical clutter and dearth of strong tunes. Even so, the gleaming electro-blues ballad Wishful Beginnings is a gorgeous slice of late-period Scott Walker pastiche, and I’m Deranged a slice of vintage Bowie melodrama.
A rich feast for connoisseurs, a rewarding research project for curious casual fans.’
The 1997 album , a more convincing mix of beats, loops, samples and shredding guitars, marked Bowie’s 50th birthday with a bold detour into mutant drum’n’bass. and are classic Bowie blends of discordant art-rock noise with hook-heavy space-cockney melody.
