David Bowie 30: Hours

Bowie was certainly one of the first artists to embrace the Internet as a social tool as well as a promotional one. His next stunt was to have a contest wherein one of his subscribers would write lyrics for a song he’d then record for his next album. He made good on the offer, too.

‘hours…’ was hailed by some as a return to the Hunky Dory era, but don’t let that fool you. While the overall sound is more low-key and reflective, and his shaggy haircut was impressive for a guy his age, was he happy? For the most part he sounds pensive, a little melancholy, and the tempo isn’t anywhere as frenetic as his last two albums.

The immediate low-key sound of “Thursday’s Child” heralds the return of the Bowie croon, and if only there were less Holly Palmer cooing in the mix. While his take on the Thunderclap Newman song would probably be welcome, this particular song with the title “Something In The Air” isn’t, tethered to his wobbly vocal. Worse, it drags. “Survive”, the mildly grungy “If I’m Dreaming My Life” with its double-time shift, and “Seven” all mine the same depressed territory, though the latter track, for all its simplicity, has the melody that sticks.

Things pick up a bit in the second half, starting with “What’s Really Happening?”, written by the aforementioned contest winner. It does give the album the kick it needs, as furthered in “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell”, a nod to an old Iggy Pop song. “New Angels Of Promise” and “The Dreamers” stay upbeat, but in between comes “Brilliant Adventure”, an instrumental cut from the same cloth as side two of “Heroes” and tracks like “Crystal Japan”.

‘hours…’ isn’t very exciting, but it’s not awful. But after three full decades in the business, it would have been nice if Bowie still wowed us. As it turns out, many of these songs were originally written for the soundtrack of a video game, which shows where his head was at. (Some of those versions appear on the bonus disc of the reissue, alongside demos, remixes and outtakes. Clearly, he was full of ideas, some but not all of them good.)

David Bowie ‘hours…’ (1999)—2½
2005 limited 2CD edition: same as 1999, plus 17 extra tracks

Velvet Underground 2: White Light/White Heat

Nico was gone, and the band carried on. To make up for her absence, they turned the volume up to 11 and didn’t hardly let up at all on White Light/White Heat.

The title track is an amphetamine onslaught, all distorted with quasi-doo-wop vocals up until the big blast of a finish in two minutes fifty—just right for Top 40 radio! The full-on promise of “Waiting For The Man” and “European Son” gets multiplied here. “The Gift” provides a much different listening experience entirely, split into extreme stereo with the two-chord jam on one side, and John Cale’s recitation of Lou’s short story of the rise and fall of Waldo and Marsha in the other. Best of all, it doesn’t get stale on repeat listens. A less penetrable tale is told in “Lady Godiva’s Operation”, where the vocals and vocalizations swap over a near-baroque backing, an approach that continues on “Here She Comes Now”, the quietest song on the album.

Which isn’t saying much, because side two isn’t quiet at all. “I Heard Her Call My Name” is a mere prelude of constantly soloing guitars over a relentless beat and lyrics that almost seem like an afterthought. You can just barely hear the chord changes beneath the guitar. But it’s only a setup for “Sister Ray”. These seventeen minutes of three chords have influenced more than their share of bands, but few can match the steady metronomic beat under the battle between the organ and guitars. It’s not easy listening, and it’s either loved or hated. But if you’ve gotten this far, you’ll want more.

White Light/White Heat can be seen as the antidote to the Summer of Love, starting off a tumultuous year with an assault to the senses. It would be the last true collaboration between Reed and Cale for twenty years, which is too bad, because they work together so well here. In only two albums, this band managed to create a sound that has been so influential in the over forty years since it happened. So much so that the participants have been trying to live up to it ever since.

With impeccable timing, Lou Reed left the planet just after approving the expanded editions of the album, giving the project a publicity boost. The Deluxe Edition added the five songs featuring Cale familiar from VU and Another View, an alternate “I Heard Her Call My Name” and a never-before-heard early take of “Beginning To See The Light”. The legendary April 1967 concert at the Gymnasium is included as well, rather than appearing as part of their stillborn “Bootleg Series”. (The Super Deluxe Edition had all that plus a big book, and a third disc with mono mixes, single mixes and new vocal- and instrument-only mixes of “The Gift”.)

The Velvet Underground White Light/White Heat (1968)—4
2013 Deluxe Edition: same as 1968, plus 14 extra tracks (45th Anniversary Super Deluxe Edition adds another 10 tracks)

Pink Floyd 10: Wish You Were Here

So Pink Floyd were officially worldwide superstars. Now what? Certainly that’s what their new American label wanted to know, and luckily for everyone involved, the band found their way into another exploration of the concepts they’d successfully mined on their big hit. Wish You Were Here is a return to the fabric of the sidelong composition balanced with shorter tracks, but here the idea of an eternal loop is accomplished by splitting the magnum opus in half, with the shorter songs in between.

“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” is that opus, listed as being in nine parts that are pretty easy to identify if you’re paying attention. It begins with some thick synthesizers, eventually joined by a bluesy guitar. Then a four-note phrase appears to stand the hairs on your neck. Another instrumental section eventually leads into the vocal, which takes two verses before giving way to a sax solo. The overwhelming feeling of futility is underscored by the mechanized pulse that drives “Welcome To The Machine”, which for some reason turns into a spaceship landing at a cocktail party.

“Have A Cigar” (a.k.a. the one that goes “Oh by the way which one’s Pink?”) delivers a similar funk feel as “Money” on the last album, but this particular slap at the music biz is sung by folkie Roy Harper. Another whooshing effect gives way to the title track, coming first from a radio speaker before springing to full stereo splendor with the acoustic guitar. The wind returns to blow the song away, leaving the remainder of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” in its place. A slide guitar picks up the pace, skidding all over before bringing us back to the verse and a chorus, followed by a longer exploration of the forlorn arpeggios heard near the end of the first half. An altogether different theme closes the piece, resolving on a major chord.

Thanks to Classic Rock radio, Wish You Were Here is another Pink Floyd album that has suffered from over-saturation, as the three shorter songs are still in heavy rotation. But the brilliance of “Shine On You Crazy Diamond” holds everything together, and makes it worth hearing the “hits” again.

Naturally, thanks to the album’s commercial popularity, it too was blessed with expansion in the screw-the-economy-let’s-rerelease-everything-a-third-or-fourth-time climate of the 21st century. The Experience Edition adds an interesting selection of music. Three more songs from the Wembley show already mined for the 2011 Dark Side sets appear, including “Raving And Drooling” and “You’ve Gotta Be Crazy”, which would be retooled for Animals. The balance is given over to three embryonic tracks: a snippet from the abandoned “Household Objects” project, an early mix of “Have A Cigar” before Roy Harper walked in, and a lengthy “Wish You Were Here” with a clean intro and the famous buried violin solo by Stéphane Grappelli. (Those who sprung for the Immersion Edition got all that plus quad mixes, surround mixes and concert background films on two DVDs. And a book. And a scarf. And a bag of marbles. And some beer coasters. And other stuff.)

Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here (1975)—4
2011 Experience Edition: same as 1975, plus 6 extra tracks
2011 Immersion Edition: same as Experience, plus 2 DVDs and 1 Blu-Ray

Todd Rundgren 8: Initiation

Utopia may have been an outlet for some of Todd Rundgren’s more ambitious musical experiments, but he was still considering himself as a solo entity on its own. Initiation offers a typical grab bag of styles, yet just as determined to test the endurance of his rabid fan base.

“Real Man” is a pop song and obvious single, heavy on keyboards with plenty of soul. However, “Born To Synthesize” takes its soul a little too seriously, an a cappella performance treated with echo and phasing that distracts from the “message”. Before anyone took him to be too far above tangible matters, “The Death Of Rock And Roll” turns up the guitar to complain about critics who complain about him, who “get [their] records for nothin’ and call each other names”. The questioning continues in “Eastern Intrigue”, which namechecks almost as many deity candidates as it does tempos and meters. It still makes a smooth transition to the title track, which hearkens back to the Utopia album, despite a saxophone solo by David Sanborn. “Fair Warning” brings back the Philly sound with a near-Hey Love Soul Classics arrangement, complete with a fake Barry White monologue at the top and a reprise of “Real Man” for the fade.

The fair warning and goodbye stated on side one becomes particularly prophetic on side two, a 35-minute instrumental simply titled “A Treatise On Cosmic Fire”. Mostly performed on synthesizers, it comes in three parts (played out of order) with an intro and outro and pretty heavy sounding subtitles with seemingly Hindu connotations about the seven chakras, until you notice that section two of part one is subtitled “Bam, Bham, Mam, Yam, Ram, Lam, Thank You, Mahm”. It’s all very well constructed, with a few catchy sections and themes that seem to recur, but somehow we get the feeling that it was composed to give him something to meditate to.

With Initiation, Todd’s still determined to see who’ll keep with him; clearly he didn’t have time for people seeking catchy hits. The sound of the album didn’t help; with over half an hour crammed onto each side, the sleeve came with a warning that if you had a less-than-pristine needle the output would suffer. He even suggested taping the album and listening to that instead (horrors!). Maybe he needed to edit himself, because more doesn’t necessarily equal more here.

Todd Rundgren Initiation (1975)—2

Mark Knopfler 1: Notting Hillbillies and Chet Atkins

While the world, or at least part of it, wondered what was up with Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler emerged as part of an outfit dubbed the Notting Hillbillies, with a very Dire Straits-like single in “Your Own Sweet Way”. Unfortunately for listeners, that was Knopfler’s only lead vocal on an album mostly made up of traditional songs and country covers. Missing… Presumed Having A Good Time was presented as a collaboration with British pickers Steve Phillips and Brendan Croker, with Dire Straits keyboardist Guy Fletcher, future Dire Straits member Paul Franklin on pedal steel, and the band’s manager Ed Bicknell credited on drums.

The album does provide a breadth of material made for coffee bars and bookstores of the next decade. With its insistent anvil effect, “Railroad Worksong” is better known as “Take This Hammer”, while “Bewildered” is much toned down from James Brown’s version. “Run Me Down” follows the pattern of “Setting Me Up” and “Sound Bound Again” until the vocals start, though “One Way Gal” has a distinct Caribbean feel, or even reminiscent of a luau. You can almost hear Mark harmonizing on “Blues Stay Away From Me” and “Please Baby”, but only barely. “Will You Miss Me?” and “That’s Where I Belong” bring songwriting royalties to Phillips and Croker respectively, and we presume they’re duetting on the Louvin Brothers’ “Weapon Of Prayer”. Outside of the single, the album’s highlight is Charlie Rich’s immortal “Feel Like Going Home”.

The soft, smooth tone of the album was mirrored a few months later on an album billed as a Knopfler collaboration with the legendary Chet Atkins. Neck And Neck offered more adult contemporary country music played by twenty agile fingers supported by such Nashville legends as Steve Wariner, Mark O’Connor, Edgar Meyer, and Vince Gill. Roughly half the album is vocal; the modern updates of “There’ll Be Some Changes Made” and “Yakety Axe” are cute, if a little cringey today. The balance is made up of more cinematic vocal-less pieces, such as “So Soft, Your Goodbye” and “Tears” by Grappelli and Reinhardt. “Tahitian Skies” is something of a cross between “Why Worry” and “Waterloo Sunset”, while “I’ll See You In My Dreams” is taken at a jaunty pace. Don Gibson is covered twice, in an instrumental of “Sweet Dreams”, then in a Knopfler vocal on “Just One Time”. “Poor Boy Blues” and “The Next Time I’m In Town” (the only Knopfler original on the album) are templates for the solo career he’d start in earnest one day.

While not exactly what fans wanted, these two albums fit well together, both conceptually as well as time-wise on a Maxell 90-minute tape. They kept Mark Knopfler’s name in the trades while the rest of Dire Straits waited for the phone to ring, and were more commercial than his occasional soundtracks. Although the Notting Hillbillies didn’t line the pockets of its “other” members with gold, Neck And Neck brought Chet Atkins back into favor in the ‘90s.

The Notting Hillbillies Missing… Presumed Having A Good Time (1990)—3
Chet Atkins/Mark Knopfler Neck And Neck (1990)—3

Dire Straits 7: Money For Nothing

While it wasn’t revealed in a major press release or even mentioned at the time—despite what Wikipedia says, because we would’ve remembered—Dire Straits had broken up following their lengthy tour promoting Brothers In Arms. The band was exhausted, and Mark Knopfler was happy to concentrate on scoring films.

With even less fanfare, an album called Money For Nothing snuck out toward the end of 1988; this turned out to be something of a hits collection, not that the title nor the video-inspired artwork made that clear. The tracklist ran mostly chronologically through their handful of albums, beginning naturally with “Sultans Of Swing” and “Down To The Waterline”. Then we’re surprised with a live version of “Portobello Belle”, which is dated June 1983 in the briefest of album notes, making it something of an outtake from Alchemy. (In fact, it would have been played right before that little jig that segues into the first introduction to “Tunnel Of Love”.) Just to mess with us, a “remix” of “Twisting By The Pool” comes next, and only after that do we jump back to “Tunnel Of Love” and “Romeo & Juliet”. Then, for no reason we’ve been able to establish, it’s an alternate take of “Where Do You Think You’re Going”. For a jolt, except for those who just flipped their record or cassette, “Walk Of Life” wheezes in, followed by a slightly edited “Private Investigations”. What’s called a “remix” of “Telegraph Road” from Alchemy runs only 12 minutes, followed by shorter versions of the default title track and “Brothers In Arms”.

As nutty as that all is, it’s still a good way to spend an hour, even given the fact that most of the people who bought the album would have already owned the three songs from Brothers In Arms if they owned anything else by the band. Those consumers weren’t part of the marketing plan ten years later when the more pointedly titled Sultans Of Swing: The Very Best Of Dire Straits replaced Money For Nothing as their official compilation. This time the sequence was strictly chronological and filled to capacity, dropping the two alternates representing Communiqué for “Lady Writer” and swapping the live “Telegraph Road” for the live “Love Over Gold”. “So Far Away” joined its brothers, as did three songs from On Every Street and two more later live versions. At least they kept “Twisting By The Pool”. That song was a glaring omission from 2005’s Private Investigations: The Best Of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler, which was made available in single-disc and double-disc versions, both leaning on Knopfler’s solo work. A duet with Emmylou Harris was the only real carrot, at least until their collaborative album came out the following year.

All this has only made the original Money For Nothing album grow in stature, considering that it’s now been out of print for decades, and some of its highlights remain elusive. The band didn’t have a lot of official rarities, but it sure would be nice if they could be revived.

Dire Straits Money For Nothing (1988)—4
Current CD availability: none
Dire Straits Sultans Of Swing: The Very Best Of Dire Straits (1998)—3½
Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler Private Investigations: The Best Of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler (2005)—3

David Bowie 29: Earthling

In a demonstration of the philosophy that fast work equals better results, Earthling appeared with little warning. Recorded very quickly (for Bowie) with his touring band—now including the incredible Gail Ann Dorsey on bass—it was released within a month of his 50th birthday. Apparently the new sound he liked was called “jungle”. While still steeped in modern dance culture, by sticking to songs he ended up with an album that didn’t need a lot of attention to enjoy.

“Little Wonder” was a striking first single, driven by all that speedy percussion, a great Cockney vocal and lyrics that mention all seven dwarves. “Looking For Satellites” doesn’t have much in the way of words, but it moves along with a typically out-there Reeves Gabrels guitar solo. More sped-up percussion drives “Battle For Britain (The Letter)”—there’s that good ol’ Cockney voice again—with a great chorus to match and a trademark Mike Garson interlude. (Our favorite part is the high-speed digital scanning before the track catches up with the chorus.) “Seven Years In Tibet” finally gives us a slowish song, with elements of his past in the saxophone and a Farfisa organ emulating a Stylophone.

With that driving F-to-G riff, “Dead Man Walking” is hypnotic as it is, but particularly worth seeking out is the acoustic version as performed on Late Night With Conan O’Brien. Unfortunately, “Telling Lies”, despite having been released early as an Internet-only single, sounds a little too much like some of the other jungle tracks. Similarly, “The Last Thing You Should Do” comes off as more of a groove than a song. “I’m Afraid Of Americans” got all the attention thanks to Trent Reznor’s appearance in the video (as well as his remixes of the song, some of which are naturally included on the expanded reissue). And yes, it’s a pretty catchy tune. The album ends strangely with the dated synths on “Law (Earthling On Fire)”, which does nothing so much as remind us of some of the less horrible moments on Black Tie White Noise.

Between recording, touring and running his own interactive website, Bowie was having the time of his life. His creativity is obvious on Earthling, leading back to that age-old question, “What’ll he do next?” Even if you didn’t like all the stops on his journey, at least he was keeping it interesting. (The eventual expanded version added a disc full of remixes and alternate versions of varying interest, including “Seven Years In Tibet” sung in Mandarin.)

David Bowie Earthling (1997)—3
2005 limited 2CD edition: same as 1997, plus 13 extra tracks