When David Bowie picked out his most “awful” album
David Bowie enjoyed a breathtaking five-decade career in which he soared through the stratosphere as the Starman, climbing the snowy peaks of both commercial success and creative vitality. However, Bowie’s prominence as a recording artist can be whittled down to around a decade in which he released his most essential and enduring material.
Unlike many of his peers in the 1960s rock scene, Bowie’s rise to fame and fortune was more akin to a Lancaster bomber’s lift-off than that of a Spitfire. His 1967 eponymous debut album was something of a false start; the whimsical nursery rhyme lyrics were delivered in a style very few were ready for at the time.
The tide began to change in 1969 with the release of Space Oddity, an album that still wasn’t critically lauded, but its eponymous lead single was timed to perfection with the moon landings of 1969 and became his first major hit. The gravy train would reach full speed at the turn of the decade with Hunky Dory and its star-bound follow-up Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars. Bowie championed the burgeoning glam scene with the latter, introduced his first alter ego and, most importantly, broke America.
By 1972, Bowie had secured three square meals a day for the foreseeable future, but he had a legacy to build and much more to say as an artist. The dynamic creative restlessly shuffled through a series of albums and personas over the remainder of the ’70s, bringing us slick soul in Young Americans, funk-rock in Station to Station and something unprecedented in his celebrated Berlin trilogy.
As the 1980s rolled around, Bowie looked to pump a little commercial value back into proceedings. He lined his pockets handsomely with 1980’s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), which perfectly bridged the dichotomy between commercial impact and artistic merit thanks to timeless hits like ‘Ashes to Ashes’, ‘Fame’ and ‘Teenage Wildlife’.
So, where did it start to go wrong for Bowie in the studio? Of course, it would be difficult for him to revisit the crucial peaks of the ’70s, but the ’80s started to show a creatively weary Bowie as he surrendered himself to pop and his dwindling bank balance. Bowie once referred to this period as his “Phil Collins years.”
In 1983, we were treated to Let’s Dance, Bowie’s most popular album of the decade. It was a little on the tacky and overpolished side, but it certainly had its redeeming features. If little else, the album offered some great party playlist fodder and an intriguing second look at ‘China Girl’, which was originally recorded for Iggy Pop’s fabulous 1977 album, The Idiot.
This “Phil Collins” phase stretched across the ’80s, and while there were small pockets of fresh air, a nasty stench prevailed. As Bowie and many fans agreed, his career hit its creative trough in 1987. If 1967’s debut LP was a hiccup, Never Let Me Down followed through with the acerbic taste of stomach lining two decades later.
According to Bowie, he was in a “mire” while writing and recording his ironically titled 1987 album. “Never Let Me Down had good songs that I mistreated. I didn’t really apply myself,” Bowie once reflected on the album, pointing out the unscrupulous production. “I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be doing.”
In another retrospective review of the album in 1995, Bowie told Interview magazine that it was his lowest point artistically. “I felt dissatisfied with everything I was doing, and eventually, it started showing in my work,” he said. “Let’s Dance was an excellent album in a certain genre, but the next two albums after that showed that my lack of interest in my own work was really becoming transparent. My nadir was Never Let Me Down. It was such an awful album.”
Listen to ‘Glass Spider’ below; perhaps the best of a bad bunch.
