telling lies : 'hours...' print archive

never mind the premillennium panic, david bowie seems to be saying on hours . . ., let's try plaintive instead. bowie's twenty-third album is as nakedly emotive a collection as anything in his iconic catalog; it's a summary statement from the man who invented postmodern rock & roll, so school is in session. but teacher is more concerned with baring wounds than with making big statements: "the pretty things are going to hell/they wore it out, but they wore it well" is as big as it gets. the sentiment sounds chucked from johnny rotten's diary, almost a kiss-off to the rock era. bowie is probably the only cat around with the history, irony and distance to deliver that lyric as self-critique, death sentence, fond reminiscence and party favor all at the same time.

cranking the guitars up some would have made the sex pistols analogy more palpable, but it would have taken away from the album's general air of effervescent melancholy. hours . . . contains that quite bearable lightness of being that comes with bowie's position as a relevant older rock star. having done his bit for future primitivism on his previous two conceptually frenzied outings, outside and earthling, bowie brings the curtain down on the century with a collection of songs that are just, well, hunky-dory. members of the fan base will also hear echoes of ziggy, aladdin sane, heroes, low and even tin machine. first and foremost, though, the introspection of hours . . . is a testament to the serenity that comes with legend status, maturity and endurance.

as was the case with miles davis in jazz, bowie has come not just to represent his innovations but to symbolize modern rock as an idiom in which literacy, art, fashion, style, sexual exploration and social commentary can be rolled into one. while this isn't an idea without its heirs apparent -- the names corgan, reznor and manson come to mind -- bowie makes it all seem so damn easy.

hours . . . wafts into the room, breezily delivers its angsty arabesques and afterlife lullabies, and then luminously bows out in a succinct 45:42. confessional highlights include "survive," with its fragile failed paramour, and "thursday's child," about a life of despair saved by true love. on these songs, bowie's voice, darker and woodier in timbre than usual and on the verge of tears, strains over music gently suggestive of elevator philly soul and the ghost of phillipe wynn: "shuffling days and lonesome nights/sometimes my courage fell to my feet/lucky old sun is in my sky/nothing prepared me for your smile."

as always, bowie's eccentric sense of melody twists around the ear like a space oddity, getting under the skin, plucking the heartstrings and stirring up feelings of alienation we never knew we had. bowie's longtime partner in crime, guitarist reeves gabrels, takes a co-writer credit on everything here. their fertile collaboration yields settings full of atmosphere, spunk, grit and nuance; hours . . . is an album that improves with each new hearing. just when all the pretty young things might have thought their world was safe from jurassic intrusion, here comes bowie, staking an unshakable claim on rock's brave next world. hours . . . is further confirmation of richard pryor's observation that they call them old wise men because all them young wise men are dead.

in 1999, there are those too young to remember british rail, ten-bob notes or the time when you could buy a new david bowie album without a creeping sense of dread. we may be stuck with privatised railways and decimal currency, but the dame's latest long-player is, delightfully, just as good as they used to be.

'hours' is a richly textured and emotionally vivid set. contrast the faxed-in vocals and chattering beats of its predecessor, 1996's earthling, or the conceptual stodge of '95's outside, to see the improvement. while bowie has warned against seeing these songs as autobiographical - although they largely concern a man of his age, in bittersweet review of the passing years - they at least sound inhabited.

for an artist who is always considered distant and contrived, bowie is actually a master of operatic romance. here thursday's child and if i'm dreaming my life have the emotional throb of his tremulous '70s ballads can you hear me and word on a wing. the instrumental brilliant adventure, meanwhile, is a direct echo of side two of 'heroes'. this time around, bowie sounds influenced by nobody except himself, and he couldn't have picked a better role model.

david bowie is feeling reflective and his newest album, hours..., well, reflects this. taking it down a few notches since the techno earthling and his gritty work with nine inch nails, bowie has gotten back to basics. he's gone soft(er) -- in the sense that heís not doing any uber-dark, edgy, "i'm afraid of americans" or danceable "dead man walking" kind of music. on hours..., he's a man who's taking stock of his life and writing low-key, poetic songs about his discoveries.

the artist formerly known as ziggy stardust has ten pensive tracks full of regret about lost love and lost opportunity, but from a mature man's perspective. david bowie is 52-years-old after all, so maturity isn't surprising. perhaps wisdom would be a better term to express the theme of hours..... side note: ironically, with this wisdom, the always brilliant bowie looks even younger than usual, with his new soft longish mop of layered brown hair and understated clothes (changing his look often is just one of the qualities that's made bowie such an interesting artist over the years).

packaged with bowie's middle-aged wisdom is a large dose of melancholia and subtlety. a seductive sadness permeates hours.... nothing exactly clobbers you over the head here, but rather, the album seeps into your system instead. "thursday's child" is a soulful song about a fresh start after a life of failures: "all of my life i've tried so hard/doing my best with what i had/nothing much happened all the same." "something in the air" is a moody rock ballad about mislaid love: "we used what we could/ to get the things we want/ but we lost each other on the way/ i guess you know i never wanted anyone but you." "survive" is in the same love lost vein. and for that matter so is "if i'm dreaming of my life."

"seven" is about facing mortality: "i've got seven ways to live my life/ or seven ways to die." 'what's really happening" sounds like early bowie. he's exhibiting a vocal style here we haven't heard lately, maybe not since the "fame" era. hours... is then infused with a mini-rock shock with "the pretty things are going to hell." could this be bowie's musical retrospective on his glam phase, and a statement on how he's just happy to have survived? "you're still breathing but you don't know why/ life's a bit and sometimes you die/ you're still breathing but you just can't tell/ don't hold your breath but all the pretty things are going to hell." the strongest track on the album is "the dreamers." it throbs and it soars. when his voice takes off in that "heroes" mode, nothing compares. "the dreamers" is a poignant tale of a man who's missed his chance: "so it goes," he sings passionately. let's be grateful david bowie didnít actually miss his chance.

a month after nine inch nails make the best david bowie album of the year, the dame isn't quite feeling himself. bowie and co-writer reeves gabrels haven't sounded so confused about where they fit in the contemporary rock soundscape since the late '80s. "thursday's child" timidly tosses pop to a hairdresser's quartet of backing vocalists. the monotone "something in the air" tries to involve us in heartbreak with lines like "abracadoo, i lose you." the singer says he's consciously attempting to write for his generation, but "new angels of promise" blandly advertises a video game. he may intermittently wander into town like a sacred cow, but when he inhabits the skin of the ordinary joe, he just sounds ordinary. lacking a big idea, hours... is a tired retread of love lost, times regained and, on the din machine of "the pretty things are going to hell," the prettiest thing sounds bored with it all. only "survive" - a mash note to jagger's "naked eyes" - fully titillates. if they can send john glenn back into space, can't major tom get up there too?

or perhaps the great man is convinced that there is some great secret residing deep within cyberspace which will eventually provide the elixir of creative rebirth. hence this record will be available on the internet a week before cd, and there is also the quite chilling prospect of he and his band appearing in a pc computer game called (oh yes indeed) omikron: the nomad soul. not just a new david bowie album, but cyber-gifts for a new generation! really dad, you shouldn't have.

new single 'thursday's child' sets the tone, with sir david in wistful, contemplative, nay downright melancholy mood. in fact, he sounds alarmingly like stuart staples from the tindersticks, all fragile maudlin vibrato, as he croons about how, "all of my life i tried so hard doing my best with what i had... maybe i'm born right out of my time". is this earth david bowie we're talking about here? well, maybe it is for once. and it makes for quite splendid, sweeping stuff, somewhere between 'ashes to ashes' and louis armstrong's 'we have all the time in the world'. there's no sign of of the zeitgeist-chasing menopausal self-consciousness, naff postmodernism or sci-fi pretension we've come

alas, the rest of this album is a pale imitation of the same moody magnificence. 'if i'm dreaming my life' has a certain dramatic presence and the echo of an epic tune, and 'something in the air' has a stuttery, nervously emotional grace to it, but elsewhere there's lots of bittersweet reflections, minor chords and emotional atmospherics, but precious few memorable melodies. meanwhile, every so often he attempts his old faux-cockney voice or inserts some space noise, but it only serves, as ever of late, to make him look like mutton dressed as ham.

otherwise, after all the future-hugging ideas and innovation-hungry experiments that have crippled bowie's records in the '90s, 'hours...' fails not through pretension, over-ambition or trying to be down with the kids, but through time-honoured mediocre songwriting. i think that's what they call irony. let's hope it doesn't catch on.

the returning dame looked fantastic and youthful (the painting in the attic with the rotten sinuses and "old teeth" must be disgusting by now), and hours excitingly marked twin excavations of the acoustic guitar pop of hunky dory/ziggy stardust and the glacial synth textures of his berlin period. bowie pointed out that these ten emotionally-driven compositions were not autobiographical and some cried "faker" but they were no less affecting for it. all too often these characters seemed all too real.

after releasing the techno industrial, trent reznor-influenced earthling in 1997, david bowie came back down to earth on hours. and although this album has an ambient feel and contains its share of loops and programming, it is organic overall. hours manages to be cutting edge and personal at the same time.

"thursday's child," a commercial-sounding single, uses strings and synthesizers to create an atmospheric feel. credible solo performer holly palmer lends her strong voice to the track. "something in the air" features the restrained yet effective guitar talents of reeves gabrels, who has previously worked with bowie on his solo material and in tin machine. "survive" is a beautiful tune that features both mellotron and an acoustic intro and ending. "if i'm dreaming my life" features the formidable rhythm guitar of chris haskett, who has given the rollins band its metallic crunch. the dark rocker "the pretty things are going to hell" is also another standout track. the subdued feel of hours shows a classic rocker who is at ease and introspective. not one to rest on his laurels, david bowie continues to put out vital material.

some albums perfectly suit the season of their release, and this is one of them. 'hours …', david bowie's latest release, is imbued with an autumnal feel. singing in the voice of an aging man looking back not in anger, but with regret and a contemplative clam, bowie has crafted a suite of songs that also makes sense for this year. he's not partying like it's 1999; instead, he's taken the end of the year, the decade, the century, the millennium as an occasion for self-examination.

that said, 'hours' is far from bowie's most ambitious album, either musically or thematically -- at least on its most obvious level. he and his cowriter, guitarist reeves gabrels, have created a lush, luxuriant pop music over which bowie's vocals float, as if he were lost in thought. the album's first single, "thursday's child," epitomizes the restrained emotional power of their approach.

throughout his career, bowie has unpredictably moved back and forth between accessibility and abstruseness, between abrasiveness and pop accessibility. 'hours' finds him easy to reach, a man of accomplishment exploring his past and wondering what, if anything, it all means.

bowie starts this, his first single from his 23rd album. this starts off all swaying synths and chart ballad material before the great warbler himself comes in. and yikes! it's gary barlow!!! with female singers whispering the chorus and poignant lovelorn lyrics!

'thursday's child' is exactly the kind of song that soundtracks the point where lovers' eyes meet for the first time in the worst romantic comedy ever. the point where your popcorn suddenly loses its attraction. the point where you suddenly become murderous before couples holding hands. this is a song you'd play to torture people, not win them over to your charming ways when you bring them in for the proverbial coffee.

welcome to david bowie: the maudlin years. and christ knows what's brought this mood on - as an impending new arrival is supposed to be a time of joy - but here he's created music for manic depressives, funeral requests and for that last song of the evening scenario: the one where a miserable dirge is always played to full effect, thus emptying the venue of the last vestiges of booze-clamouring nightlife, so that the staff can clear up and clear off home. a mix by beck - quirky humour strangely absent - fails to lift this from the doldrums



'hours...' :: q magazine (1/00, p.83) - included in q magazine's "50 best albums of 1999" mojo (1/00, p.30) - ranked #30 in mojo magazine's "best of 1999" :: rolling stone magazine issue 824, us edition 4 stars never mind the premillennium panic, david bowie seems to be saying on hours . . ., let's try plaintive instead. bowie's twenty-third album is as nakedly emotive a collection as anything in his iconic catalog; it's a summary statement from the man who invented postmodern rock & roll, so school is in session. but teacher is more concerned with baring wounds than with making big statements: "the pretty things are going to hell/they wore it out, but they wore it well" is as big as it gets. the sentiment sounds chucked from johnny rotten's diary, almost a kiss-off to the rock era. bowie is probably the only cat around with the history, irony and distance to deliver that lyric as self-critique, death sentence, fond reminiscence and party favor all at the same time. cranking the guitars up some would have made the sex pistols analogy more palpable, but it would have taken away from the album's general air of effervescent melancholy. hours . . . contains that quite bearable lightness of being that comes with bowie's position as a relevant older rock star. having done his bit for future primitivism on his previous two conceptually frenzied outings, outside and earthling, bowie brings the curtain down on the century with a collection of songs that are just, well, hunky-dory. members of the fan base will also hear echoes of ziggy, aladdin sane, heroes, low and even tin machine. first and foremost, though, the introspection of hours . . . is a testament to the serenity that comes with legend status, maturity and endurance. as was the case with miles davis in jazz, bowie has come not just to represent his innovations but to symbolize modern rock as an idiom in which literacy, art, fashion, style, sexual exploration and social commentary can be rolled into one. while this isn't an idea without its heirs apparent -- the names corgan, reznor and manson come to mind -- bowie makes it all seem so damn easy. hours . . . wafts into the room, breezily delivers its angsty arabesques and afterlife lullabies, and then luminously bows out in a succinct 45:42. confessional highlights include "survive," with its fragile failed paramour, and "thursday's child," about a life of despair saved by true love. on these songs, bowie's voice, darker and woodier in timbre than usual and on the verge of tears, strains over music gently suggestive of elevator philly soul and the ghost of phillipe wynn: "shuffling days and lonesome nights/sometimes my courage fell to my feet/lucky old sun is in my sky/nothing prepared me for your smile." as always, bowie's eccentric sense of melody twists around the ear like a space oddity, getting under the skin, plucking the heartstrings and stirring up feelings of alienation we never knew we had. bowie's longtime partner in crime, guitarist reeves gabrels, takes a co-writer credit on everything here. their fertile collaboration yields settings full of atmosphere, spunk, grit and nuance; hours . . . is an album that improves with each new hearing. just when all the pretty young things might have thought their world was safe from jurassic intrusion, here comes bowie, staking an unshakable claim on rock's brave next world. hours . . . is further confirmation of richard pryor's observation that they call them old wise men because all them young wise men are dead. greg tate :: q november 1999 4 stars oh look, he's one of us again in 1999, there are those too young to remember british rail, ten-bob notes or the time when you could buy a new david bowie album without a creeping sense of dread. we may be stuck with privatised railways and decimal currency, but the dame's latest long-player is, delightfully, just as good as they used to be. 'hours' is a richly textured and emotionally vivid set. contrast the faxed-in vocals and chattering beats of its predecessor, 1996's earthling, or the conceptual stodge of '95's outside, to see the improvement. while bowie has warned against seeing these songs as autobiographical - although they largely concern a man of his age, in bittersweet review of the passing years - they at least sound inhabited. for an artist who is always considered distant and contrived, bowie is actually a master of operatic romance. here thursday's child and if i'm dreaming my life have the emotional throb of his tremulous '70s ballads can you hear me and word on a wing. the instrumental brilliant adventure, meanwhile, is a direct echo of side two of 'heroes'. this time around, bowie sounds influenced by nobody except himself, and he couldn't have picked a better role model. november 1999 :: mtv david bowie is feeling reflective and his newest album, hours..., well, reflects this. taking it down a few notches since the techno earthling and his gritty work with nine inch nails, bowie has gotten back to basics. he's gone soft(er) -- in the sense that heís not doing any uber-dark, edgy, "i'm afraid of americans" or danceable "dead man walking" kind of music. on hours..., he's a man who's taking stock of his life and writing low-key, poetic songs about his discoveries. the artist formerly known as ziggy stardust has ten pensive tracks full of regret about lost love and lost opportunity, but from a mature man's perspective. david bowie is 52-years-old after all, so maturity isn't surprising. perhaps wisdom would be a better term to express the theme of hours..... side note: ironically, with this wisdom, the always brilliant bowie looks even younger than usual, with his new soft longish mop of layered brown hair and understated clothes (changing his look often is just one of the qualities that's made bowie such an interesting artist over the years). packaged with bowie's middle-aged wisdom is a large dose of melancholia and subtlety. a seductive sadness permeates hours.... nothing exactly clobbers you over the head here, but rather, the album seeps into your system instead. "thursday's child" is a soulful song about a fresh start after a life of failures: "all of my life i've tried so hard/doing my best with what i had/nothing much happened all the same." "something in the air" is a moody rock ballad about mislaid love: "we used what we could/ to get the things we want/ but we lost each other on the way/ i guess you know i never wanted anyone but you." "survive" is in the same love lost vein. and for that matter so is "if i'm dreaming of my life." "seven" is about facing mortality: "i've got seven ways to live my life/ or seven ways to die." 'what's really happening" sounds like early bowie. he's exhibiting a vocal style here we haven't heard lately, maybe not since the "fame" era. hours... is then infused with a mini-rock shock with "the pretty things are going to hell." could this be bowie's musical retrospective on his glam phase, and a statement on how he's just happy to have survived? "you're still breathing but you don't know why/ life's a bit and sometimes you die/ you're still breathing but you just can't tell/ don't hold your breath but all the pretty things are going to hell." the strongest track on the album is "the dreamers." it throbs and it soars. when his voice takes off in that "heroes" mode, nothing compares. "the dreamers" is a poignant tale of a man who's missed his chance: "so it goes," he sings passionately. let's be grateful david bowie didnít actually miss his chance. © 1999 mtv networks. all rights reserved. :: vh1 a month after nine inch nails make the best david bowie album of the year, the dame isn't quite feeling himself. bowie and co-writer reeves gabrels haven't sounded so confused about where they fit in the contemporary rock soundscape since the late '80s. "thursday's child" timidly tosses pop to a hairdresser's quartet of backing vocalists. the monotone "something in the air" tries to involve us in heartbreak with lines like "abracadoo, i lose you." the singer says he's consciously attempting to write for his generation, but "new angels of promise" blandly advertises a video game. he may intermittently wander into town like a sacred cow, but when he inhabits the skin of the ordinary joe, he just sounds ordinary. lacking a big idea, hours... is a tired retread of love lost, times regained and, on the din machine of "the pretty things are going to hell," the prettiest thing sounds bored with it all. only "survive" - a mash note to jagger's "naked eyes" - fully titillates. if they can send john glenn back into space, can't major tom get up there too? © 1999 viacom international inc. all rights reserved. :: nme 10.08.99 one wonders just what david bowie expects to find on the internet. www.guccipourhomme.com? www.burroughsianlyriculike.com? or possibly www.rentacredpopstarmate.co.uk? or perhaps the great man is convinced that there is some great secret residing deep within cyberspace which will eventually provide the elixir of creative rebirth. hence this record will be available on the internet a week before cd, and there is also the quite chilling prospect of he and his band appearing in a pc computer game called (oh yes indeed) omikron: the nomad soul. not just a new david bowie album, but cyber-gifts for a new generation! really dad, you shouldn't have. but wait! it seems the fearless über-pseud warrior of the future has got back in touch with ground control. why, some of this sounds almost (gasp!) old-fashioned! new single 'thursday's child' sets the tone, with sir david in wistful, contemplative, nay downright melancholy mood. in fact, he sounds alarmingly like stuart staples from the tindersticks, all fragile maudlin vibrato, as he croons about how, "all of my life i tried so hard doing my best with what i had... maybe i'm born right out of my time". is this earth david bowie we're talking about here? well, maybe it is for once. and it makes for quite splendid, sweeping stuff, somewhere between 'ashes to ashes' and louis armstrong's 'we have all the time in the world'. there's no sign of of the zeitgeist-chasing menopausal self-consciousness, naff postmodernism or sci-fi pretension we've come to expect. alas, the rest of this album is a pale imitation of the same moody magnificence. 'if i'm dreaming my life' has a certain dramatic presence and the echo of an epic tune, and 'something in the air' has a stuttery, nervously emotional grace to it, but elsewhere there's lots of bittersweet reflections, minor chords and emotional atmospherics, but precious few memorable melodies. meanwhile, every so often he attempts his old faux-cockney voice or inserts some space noise, but it only serves, as ever of late, to make him look like mutton dressed as ham. the one other exception to that malaise is 'the pretty things are going to hell', which writhes around a chugging designer metal riff and a glammy swagger you've rarely heard this man pull off in years. otherwise, after all the future-hugging ideas and innovation-hungry experiments that have crippled bowie's records in the '90s, 'hours...' fails not through pretension, over-ambition or trying to be down with the kids, but through time-honoured mediocre songwriting. i think that's what they call irony. let's hope it doesn't catch on. :: q 50 best albums of 1999 'hours...' because sometimes three great bowie songs is enough. the returning dame looked fantastic and youthful (the painting in the attic with the rotten sinuses and "old teeth" must be disgusting by now), and hours excitingly marked twin excavations of the acoustic guitar pop of hunky dory/ziggy stardust and the glacial synth textures of his berlin period. bowie pointed out that these ten emotionally-driven compositions were not autobiographical and some cried "faker" but they were no less affecting for it. all too often these characters seemed all too real. best bit- 3.10 into thursday's child. the breathy female whispers that usher in the second gorgeous chorus of "throw me tomorrow" :: onradio.com after releasing the techno industrial, trent reznor-influenced earthling in 1997, david bowie came back down to earth on hours. and although this album has an ambient feel and contains its share of loops and programming, it is organic overall. hours manages to be cutting edge and personal at the same time. "thursday's child," a commercial-sounding single, uses strings and synthesizers to create an atmospheric feel. credible solo performer holly palmer lends her strong voice to the track. "something in the air" features the restrained yet effective guitar talents of reeves gabrels, who has previously worked with bowie on his solo material and in tin machine. "survive" is a beautiful tune that features both mellotron and an acoustic intro and ending. "if i'm dreaming my life" features the formidable rhythm guitar of chris haskett, who has given the rollins band its metallic crunch. the dark rocker "the pretty things are going to hell" is also another standout track. the subdued feel of hours shows a classic rocker who is at ease and introspective. not one to rest on his laurels, david bowie continues to put out vital material. :: some albums perfectly suit the season of their release, and this is one of them. 'hours …', david bowie's latest release, is imbued with an autumnal feel. singing in the voice of an aging man looking back not in anger, but with regret and a contemplative clam, bowie has crafted a suite of songs that also makes sense for this year. he's not partying like it's 1999; instead, he's taken the end of the year, the decade, the century, the millennium as an occasion for self-examination. that said, 'hours' is far from bowie's most ambitious album, either musically or thematically -- at least on its most obvious level. he and his cowriter, guitarist reeves gabrels, have created a lush, luxuriant pop music over which bowie's vocals float, as if he were lost in thought. the album's first single, "thursday's child," epitomizes the restrained emotional power of their approach. throughout his career, bowie has unpredictably moved back and forth between accessibility and abstruseness, between abrasiveness and pop accessibility. 'hours' finds him easy to reach, a man of accomplishment exploring his past and wondering what, if anything, it all means. anthony decurtis :: nme thursday's child bowie starts this, his first single from his 23rd album. this starts off all swaying synths and chart ballad material before the great warbler himself comes in. and yikes! it's gary barlow!!! with female singers whispering the chorus and poignant lovelorn lyrics! 'thursday's child' is exactly the kind of song that soundtracks the point where lovers' eyes meet for the first time in the worst romantic comedy ever. the point where your popcorn suddenly loses its attraction. the point where you suddenly become murderous before couples holding hands. this is a song you'd play to torture people, not win them over to your charming ways when you bring them in for the proverbial coffee. david moans, "sometimes i cry my heart to sleep/nothing prepares me for your smile, lighting the darkness of your soul". nme duly throws up all over the smug, expensive sleeve of his record. :: q seven welcome to david bowie: the maudlin years. and christ knows what's brought this mood on - as an impending new arrival is supposed to be a time of joy - but here he's created music for manic depressives, funeral requests and for that last song of the evening scenario: the one where a miserable dirge is always played to full effect, thus emptying the venue of the last vestiges of booze-clamouring nightlife, so that the staff can clear up and clear off home. a mix by beck - quirky humour strangely absent - fails to lift this from the doldrums :: ::