{"id":40932,"date":"2008-05-31T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-05-31T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/reality-2\/"},"modified":"2008-05-31T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-05-31T00:00:00","slug":"reality-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/reality-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a very interesting record. <i>Reality<\/i> is more or less the result of taking the mature, sophisticated-yet-sleepy sound of <i>Heathen<\/i> and injecting it with the inspired melodicism of <i>Hours\u2026,<\/i> some of the energy of <i>Earthling<\/i> (which <i>Heathen<\/i> was sorely lacking, as I noted in my review of that disc), and the quirky space rock arrangements of <i>Scary Monsters<\/i>. Yet another surprisingly strong effort from David Bowie late in his career. <o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p>This is the album that <i>Heathen <\/i>should have been \u2013 it&#8217;s still got a similarly spacey, reflective feel and looks to his own past for musical inspiration, but thankfully, this time out, the music is a lot more diverse. For example, on his cover of The Modern Lovers\u2019 &#8220;Pablo Picasso,&#8221; Bowie sounds like a snotty punk singing along to a bizarre song with playfully silly keyboard runs and soaring guitars; it\u2019s one of the few times I can recall him seemingly enjoying himself and not being overly serious. You might have to go all the way back to 1967\u2019s cult-classic, \u201cThe Laughing Gnome,\u201d for the last example of that.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p>Then just two songs later we are handed &#8220;The Loneliest Guy,&#8221; a haunting, forlorn track that I wouldn&#8217;t hesitate to call one of his best ballads ever. Speaking of forlorn, it looks like <st1:city><st1:place>Bowie<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> was caught in a full blown mid-life crisis judging by how sad and bitter his lyrics are throughout <i>Reality<\/i>, continuing the vibe he started on <i>Hours\u2026<\/i><o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p>Sure, as solid as <i>Reality<\/i> is, there are a few songs that are mild misfires (though not bad, per se) \u2013 &#8220;Never Get Old&#8221; amusingly opens with an intro that makes me want to don my boogie shoes and yell &#8220;Celebration time, come on!&#8221;, &#8220;Try Some, Buy Some&#8221; sounds like an eerie <i>Welcome To My Nightmare<\/i>-era Alice Cooper song, and &#8220;Fall Dog Bombs The Moon&#8221; is Bowie&#8217;s umpteenth &#8220;Heroes&#8221; re-write, but it&#8217;s all worth it just to hear a fantastic song like the moody, slothy jazz number &#8220;Bring Me The Disco King,&#8221; which disappointingly does not actually ever stray into disco territory.<o:p><\/o:p><\/p>\n<p>Despite the glum thoughts of aging that provide much of the lyrical content, it\u2019s safe to say that by continuing to release strong albums like <i>Reality<\/i>, David Bowie\u2019s artistic abilities are intact and he will remain a force in the world of rock and pop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":29,"featured_media":27025,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5671],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40932","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\/40932","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\/29"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40932"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}