The album David Bowie played no instruments on
The musical talents of David Bowie rarely adhered to boundaries. Throughout his extensive discography, the Brixton-born songwriter took on multiple different personas, each with their own unique sound and substance. From his early days penning strange novelty songs to the timeless genius of works like Hunky Dory or Aladdin Sane, the songwriter seemed to revel in every opportunity to try something new. However, this endless pursuit of the next new thing did not always lead to compelling records, even for Bowie.
Particularly during the early days of Bowie’s music career, he placed a colossal level of importance on being independent. If you look back at those early records, the musician would write, sing, and play guitar on all his own work, something which was a bit of a rarity back in the music industry of the 1960s. Even when Bowie rose to fame, with the colossal success of albums like Ziggy Stardust and Low a few years later, the heart of his material always lay within his own musical experimentation.
Operating on such an independent basis inevitably takes its toll on a person, particularly when coupled with exhaustive touring schedules and all the admin that comes with life as a rock and roll star. By the time the 1980s rolled around, Bowie was on the verge of a dangerous burnout, and so chose to take more of a backseat role in the construction of his records. While the 1980 album Scary Monsters saw Bowie exemplify his synthesiser skills, he abandoned all instrumentation for the next two records.
On Let’s Dance, for the first time in his career, Bowie stuck rigidly to vocals – in addition to production, mixing, and arranging the tracks. Gone were the days of the songwriter sitting alone with a guitar; now, he was essentially the frontman of a wider band. The album did not suffer too much from Bowie’s step away from instrumentation, although, admittedly, he had the talents of both Nile Rodgers and Stevie Ray Vaughan to pick up the slack.
For his next effort, however, the lack of Bowie’s instrumentation became much more identifiable. Tonight, released in 1984, was a significant step down from Let’s Dance, even if the records were only a year apart. Again, the songwriter stuck solely to vocals and production, but this time, he did not have the artistic visionary Nile Rodgers on board to keep the production going. This time, the resulting album was underwhelming at best and still goes down as one of his weakest recordings.
Tonight arrived at a particularly difficult point in Bowie’s life and career. After recording, touring, and writing for upwards of a decade, audiences still demanded more from the singer, to a point where their expectations became unfulfillable. On top of that, the songwriter was struggling with various personal issues, including a lasting dependency on drugs and alcohol.
These personal issues, alongside Bowie’s artistic burn-out and move away from instrumentation spelled disaster for the album. Even the collaborative help of legendary artist Tina Turner and Bowie’s close personal friend Iggy Pop was not enough to boost the success of the LP. Not only was the album one of Bowie’s worst efforts thus far, it also ushered in a difficult period within his discography.
The follow-up to Tonight, Never Let Me Down was just as lacklustre, leading the songwriter to temporarily step away from the recording studio to reevaluate his career, before eventually partially returning to form on Black Tie White Noise in 1993, which also saw the songwriter return to playing guitar and saxophone, rather than sticking to vocals.
