The David Bowie album he “mistreated”
David Bowie was never complacent enough to stay in one musical place for too long. Throughout his career, The Starman followed his muse wherever it took him, dipping his toes into the world of soul, glam rock, pop, krautrock, and drum and bass, to name a few. Bowie was always proud of his work, but he did admit to being a little too harsh on one of his most mainstream outings.
In the wake of the success of Let’s Dance, Bowie entered what he described as his “Phil Collins years”, where he would make some of the catchiest music he could that he hoped would catch the ear of the mainstream. Though tracks like ‘Modern Love’ and ‘Let’s Dance’ may have worked in the context of the MTV era, Bowie began to tread water a little while making the album Tonight.
Aside from having a decent handful of hits, Bowie tends to sound like he’s on autopilot, either playing songs that don’t go anywhere or, at worst, making songs that make the listener feel dirty for listening to them, like his cover of The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’, for example. Although Bowie could surely get over a lacklustre album like this, the true horrors were yet to come.
As the ‘80s were quickly going out of style, Bowie put out Never Let Me Down, which contained some of the worst final mixes on any album in his discography. Despite some of the retro sounds of his early years, this album may as well have a timestamp on it labelled 1987, containing some of the most ear-piercing snare drums in history and songs that feel toothless coming out of Bowie.
Looking back on the project after the fact, Bowie tended to regret the sound of the record, saying that there were some good songs he “mistreated”. Bowie would also state that he had started to lose the plot and struggled to give his all to the final product, telling American Songwriter: “I didn’t really apply myself. I wasn’t quite sure what I was supposed to be doing”.
Luckily, this would be one of the only terrible albums in Bowie’s discography for a while. After hooking up with producer Nile Rodgers again, the sound of Black Tie White Noise sent Bowie into the ‘90s with a certain amount of class, being in tune with the cultural zeitgeist while still trying to expand his vision past the glittery side of his sound.
Never Let Me Down also recently started seeing a bit of a reappraisal. Despite some of the major screwups behind the scenes, a newly remastered version of the album was released that hoped to clean up some of the blemishes and give a more nuanced look at what Bowie was trying to say. Nevertheless, Never Let Me Down stands beside Bowie’s unintentional debut album as the one project he doesn’t fully stand behind. Bowie had to work out a few problems, but any musician could probably tell there was a problem the minute that actor Mickey Rourke got major airtime on the album.
