If I had to use a word to describe my past experiences with
\nDavid Bowie’s music, it would be “unapproachable”. Sure, the man
\nhas had some great songs over the years, but every time I’ve tried
\nto listen to one of his albums, I’ve always found myself feeling
\nlike an outsider who’s just being shown a small glimpse of the big
\npicture. Maybe that’s why I’ve not found myself willing to take
\nchances with Bowie’s recent releases -after my not-so-pleasant
\nfirst experience with
\nBlack Tie White Noise<\/i>, I all but gave up on his recent
\noutput.<\/p>\n
Then, I decided to take a chance on
\n‘hours…’<\/i>, Bowie’s latest release – and, no, I didn’t base
\nthis review off the Webcasts of the album, I actually got a copy to
\nreview. Much to my surprise and delight, Bowie seems to have shed
\nthe “hipper-than-thou” attitude which torpedoed a lot of his recent
\nwork, and has created one of the most approachable albums of his
\ncareer – one, in fact, that might get him noticed on the radio
\nagain.<\/p>\n
It didn’t start out quite that promising. “Thursday’s Child” had
\na decent enough rhythm section, but Bowie’s vocals seemed to have
\ntaken a dip south, almost becoming slightly out of tune at times.
\n(Having freely admitted I’ve not listened to most of Bowie’s 1990s
\nwork, I don’t know if this is a new development or not.) But his
\nheart seems to be in the right place musically, and things end on a
\nmore positive note.<\/p>\n
For much of
\n‘hours…’<\/i>, Bowie spends the time with
\nguitarist\/collaborator Reeves Gabriels creating music that harkens
\nback to his glory days. Tracks like “Survive,” “New Angels Of
\nPromise,” “Seven” and “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” (I
\ndon’t think this refers to the band of the same name) all are
\nmoments of pure brilliance, showing that Bowie has hardly lost his
\npop sensibilities.<\/p>\n
In fact, I actually found myself disappointed that
\n‘hours…’<\/i> ended after listening to the instrumental
\n“Brilliant Adventure” and the closing track “The Dreamers”. Bowie
\nwas on such a creative roll that I honestly didn’t want this one to
\nend.<\/p>\n
Special notice should be made of the track “What’s Really
\nHappening?”, the song best known as the winning song of Bowie’s
\nCyber Song contest. Alex Grant, who provided the lyrics, might not
\nbe noticed by most of the mainstream press (especially since
\nthere’s no mention of the song or its author in the press materials
\n– at least not that I could find), but his lyrics, combined with
\nBowie and Gabriels’s music, works well.<\/p>\n
Not everything, however, works well on this album. “Something In
\nThe Air” just doesn’t click with me – it kind of suffers from the
\nsame problem that “Thursday’s Child” did, only it doesn’t recover.
\nAnd while it has a few good moments, “If I’m Dreaming My Life”
\nseems to drag on. The tempo change midsong doesn’t help
\nmatters.<\/p>\n
Undoubtedly there are going to be people who try to decipher the
\nwords of this album and try to figure out what story Bowie was
\ntrying to tell about his life. I won’t get involved in this, if
\nonly because I don’t know enough about Bowie to make an educated
\nguess about the songs’ meanings. Besides – who cares? I’d rather
\nlet the songs stand on their own merits and appreciate them as they
\nare, not for what they’re construed to mean.<\/p>\n
Still,
\n‘hours…’<\/i> is a surprisingly good album, even if you’ve been
\nunderwhelmed with some of Bowie’s recent work. If anything, this
\ndisc proves that Bowie is still very much an artist to be taken
\nseriously, and shouldn’t be written off as a musical relic.
\n‘hours…’<\/i> proves that if you’ve done this, you’ve made a
\nterrible mistake.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25082,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5671],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-36287","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-david-bowie","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36287"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}