David Bowie 42: Loving The Alien

Bowie’s switch to the EMI-America label in 1983 brought him possibly his greatest mainstream commercial success, but it also inaugurated a period where he found himself torn between taking the paycheck and thinking he was actually innovating. His own commentary after the fact only worked against whatever good emerged from the music collected on the Loving The Alien box set. Covering another five- or six-year stretch, this volume encompasses three studio albums, two associated tours, and just about everything else from that high-profile arc. Plus, of course, a book.

As could be said for many artists of his longevity, there was a lot of good Bowie in the ‘80s; the trouble was, you often had to endure some horrible music to find it. Side one of Let’s Dance is still solid, and the aftertaste of side two is nicely wiped away by Serious Moonlight (Live ’83), which is basically two CDs of audio from the VHS tape of the tour of the same name. Led by Carlos Alomar, the band was mostly new, with Tony Thompson on drums and the Simms Brothers on backing vocals, plus a horn section. The sound is a tad boomy, but the setlist is surprising deep, opening with “Look Back In Anger”, and leaning mostly on music from the second half of the ‘70s. (“Modern Love” was always the encore, and the live B-side version of same is included as a bonus here.)

Up next, the low good-to-bad ratio on Tonight doesn’t do him any favors, but this box set was more concerned with the drastic reimagining of Never Let Me Down alongside a remaster of the original album. Both versions ignored “Too Dizzy”, leaving it lost to time, or those of us with vintage copies. The other tour from this period is commemorated by the two CDs of Glass Spider (Live Montreal ’87), which had previously only been available as a companion to the DVD version, which itself was an upgrade from an earlier VHS. The set leans much more on ‘80s work, exceptions including a revved-up “All The Madmen” and a strangely placed “Big Brother”. Without the visuals showcasing the dance troupe onstage, the listener isn’t as distracted from concentrating on Peter Frampton’s lead guitar work. He even gets to sing the chorus of “Sons Of The Silent Age” (and yes, he does work “Do You Feel Like We Do” into one of his breaks).

The ‘80s also saw an exponential rise in the frequency of the 12-inch dance mix, to the point where a standalone Bowie compilation called Dance had apparently been planned and scrapped. The disc of that title in this set is not that aborted release, but a CD’s worth of extended mixes of various songs from the period. As with most excursions of this type, most of these remixes are pointless, and unfortunately not unintentionally funny.

Dance was a nice way to declutter what would make up the mop-up portion of the set. The two discs of Re:Call 4 consist yet again of single edits, a couple B-sides, and his musical contributions to various soundtracks, including “This Is Not America”, plus his three songs from Absolute Beginners and the five from Labyrinth. For good measure, the shorter mixes of six tracks from the LP version of Never Let Me Down are included, but still no “Too Dizzy”. Yet the compilers made room for the perennially embarrassing remake of “Dancing In The Street” with Mick Jagger and two duets with Tina Turner from her 1988 live album.

There’s just enough good spread throughout Loving The Alien to make it enjoyable. If anything, it shows he was able to be productive, if not necessarily creative, without the stimulus of cocaine. After all, he knew when to go out, and he knew when to stay in, and get things done.

David Bowie Loving The Alien (1983-1988) (2018)—3