And so another edition of random bowie, look you see. Unless I am mistaken, this is episode or if you prefer edition 18. Despite me loving doing this, motivation is getting tough. This is for one reason, and one reason only – because, I, or rather we, move close to having done them all.
In that respect, this is the last of the 90s albums for me to do. So yes, it is the turn of Earthling. The album that is, arguably, the single most polarising and divisive in the body of work David Bowie gave us. We will no doubt touch on that as we go.
Fantastic, quick fire facts to start (sort of) off with? Sure. By the commonly agreed method of counting them, this was album number 20 by Bowie. Released in early 1997, making it 21 years and a bit old at time of writing, it was something of a “spontaneous” recording. David was, apparently, still buzzing after the lengthy tour to promote 1.Outside, and wanted to channel the energy into some new music. So, he and his chums and merry band of musicians hit the studio.
A fair bit of the 1.Outside tour was, of course, highlighted by the blossoming friendship between Bowie and Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Trent was perhaps drawn in by the more aggressive, bombastic electronic noise elements of Outside; Bowie perhaps felt he could learn from Trent how to push that further. And that’s the basics of the sound of Earthling for you.
I remember one review at the time – and I think it was in the usually conservative, middle of the road, safe as houses Q – suggesting that the record should in fact be called “Hey Kids, I Am Down On This Drum And Bass Thing”. The implication of that, I suppose, is to suggest this was the Bowie “mid-life crisis” album. If only that were true; if it were so then by my maths he would still be with us.
In a bizarre reversal of the critics and reviewer types trend, only one person is known to have called Earthling Bowie’s “best and most important work”, and that was David Bowie. A recurring trend in these episodes / editions of random bowie has been his love for subverting. I thought I’d throw that anecdote in to highlight that.
But what of polarising and divisive? Well, I know some people who will listen to and perhaps own absolutely everything by Bowie except this record. And then I know some who have no interest whatsoever in any Bowie record other than Earthling
Yes, I will get to the music just now, but in terms of the above there’s something I have pondered for about 4 years. When Bowie, in a rare public statement (issued by Kate Moss, I think), said he wanted Scotland to vote to remain part of the UK, one angry Scotsman said he was going to delete his (presumably illegally downloaded) Bowie collection off his laptop. I’ve often wondered if he had Earthling in his collection, and if so did he make an exception to his self imposed patriotism and keep that one. Maybe we will never know.
Anyway, then, the music. I can remember when the lead single came out, Telling Lies. My reaction sort of verged from “what’s all this then” to “what the bloody hell is he doing”. Further, I can recall dismissing the song, remembering it mostly as a monotonous beat, with Bowie sort of shouting / singing “telling lies” over it. Also, him making some “ooh” and “aah” noises, as if he were trying to have a go at making the kind of sex noises he imagined normal, ordinary boring people made and not the presumably most smart ones he and his few peers, such as David Lee Roth, made.
Maybe I am turning into a rose tinted glasses wearing apologist, now wanting to love absolutely everything Bowie did, or perhaps having heard Telling Lies for the first time in many years ahead of writing this I’m discovering it was much, much better than I remembered. Not one of his greatest, sure, but still good.
The sentiment of the above is perhaps true of the whole album, really. I would suggest it’s easily 15 years since I had last played Earthling, who knows maybe 20. What I found is that it felt a lot better than I recalled it – far more positive, optimistic energy to it. Also, the vocals are cool, crisp (hello, Faye) and clear, when for some reason I always remembered them being subdued and hidden away.
For me the best song on the album is now also the most difficult to listen to. Difficult, to be sure, but not impossible. That would be Dead Man Walking. Knowing now what we do, listening back to years before anyone could have known an end would one day come, to hear Bowie sing “and I’m gone” with such clarity, such energy and perfection is a bit of a tough ask.
One or two of you, I suspect, quite like anecdotes. Now seems an appropriate time to share one, then. It was when I first attempted to buy Earthling that I was told, for the first time, that David Bowie was dead. Yes, this was back in 1997, and no, he was not. A rather misguided record store employee in the southern most area of South Africa informed me that he had died "many years ago" when I asked if they happened to have the record in stock as such as of yet.
Sometimes I get told off for not discussing the actual music in these editions of random bowie. Well, sorry, but I never claimed they were anything but a devout, acolyte like set of ramblings by a simple fan. But for those who like such, yes indeed, Dead Man Walking is another instance of Bowie very much “looking back” despite certain biographers trying to claim he never did such. The basic melody and guitar is all the rather obscure 1970 Bowie track The Supermen. Rock legend and music myth says that it in itself is a “gift” Bowie got from Jimmy Page in the 60s.
If we take as a given that every musician has a Spinal Tap moment, it would be fair to say that Bowie has had several. With Earthling, musically, he evoked going up to 11. Bowie made a big fuss that his drum and bass voyage was "different" as they recorded the music they sampled to make the sound, rather than "simply" sampling others. Why not just make 10 louder, and leave 10 as the loudest, many asked. Quite a few fans would have preferred just proper, played straight music here, and that would certainly have allowed the rich lyrics to flow rather more freely. Apparently Bowie liked the idea of them going up to 11 more.
No, Dead Man Walking seems to have no real relation to the hard to watch but all the same brilliant film of the same name. Also, from what I can gather, the song Seven Years In Tibet is not linked to the film of that name which came out a little while after the Earthling album. With regards to the latter, maybe Bowie was a fan of the book, or perhaps he in spontaneous mood just grabbed titles for the songs which took his fancy. This would seem to be the case with Little Wonder, ostensibly random lines about the seven dwarves out of Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs. More innocent times, then – today one could not, you would think, do songs about vertically impaired people and call it Little Wonder……
The cover art for the album is at once amongst his most simplistic and yet also the most intriguing. Why, for instance, is Bowie stood with his back to us? Is it him wanting to watch what he is watching, or is it him saying he’s turning his back on expectations and doing what he wants? Or is it that it just looks really, really cool? Also, the Union Jack jacket. A strange time, the 90s. In the early 90s, Morrissey got labelled “racist” for waving a Union Jack on stage; Paul McCartney got roundly applauded at the same time for wearing a Union Jack jacket to do encores in. The (actually very good so nice one they got attention) band Cornershop got gifted a career when NME decided to run seemingly weekly interviews with them about what they thought of it all.
By the mid-90s, different story. An explosion of British bands, whether or not they did or did not see themselves as part of the media made up “Britpop” phenomenon, Euro 96, the promise PM in waiting Tony Blair gave of a bright, new, different way and Ginger Spice’s dress made the Union Jack all of a sudden the coolest thing ever, or at the least as cool as it once was when Pete Townshend wore a Union Jack jacket in the 60s. Perfection in Bowie subversion dealing with it all, then. I can’t quantify why, but the sight of Bowie wearing a tattered and torn Union Jack (or Union Flag) jacket with his back turned to the world seems to be the perfect answer.
A return to the music? Sure. One other highlight of the album is undoubtedly I’m Afraid Of Americans. Quite a strange song for 1997, for at that time as hard as it is to believe now America didn’t attract worldwide scorn or all that much hatred. Cold war “won”, a poor man’s JFK in the form of a seemingly harmless Clinton in power, most armed conflicts engaged in seemed to be correct. Anyway, the music is sinister and the lyrics are genuinely scary and haunting. Worth looking for across the net is an earlier version of the song, when it was I’m Afraid Of The Animals.
One song recorded for Earthling never to be released – and I’ve not found a bootleg, alas – was a re-recording of Baby Universal. Much like Strangers When We Meet from The Buddha Of Suburbia, this was a song that Bowie evidently felt deserved a much bigger audience than it got the first time around. No, I have no idea why he decided not to release the redone version, or if anything blocked it. Some slight consolation is that the live recordings of the time feature Baby Universal, and in truth it doesn’t sound all that much different from the Tin Machine original.
Dealing with what was released, to answer the usual question, then, is Earthling worth getting? Should for some reason you not have it? Yes, no, maybe. There are some good – perhaps great – songs tucked away here, but it’s not what one would call a usual, accessible or straightforward Bowie album. It is, however, the sound of David Bowie filled with passion and energy, and fuelled by the freedom and ability to create whatever pleased him to create. For the latter, alone, it is worth exploring.
And, with all the official and unofficial Bowie albums of the 90s now done as episodes or editions of random bowie, now is the time to wrap up the decade. This, as with all I do, is not meant to be exhaustive or complete, just what I recall and think is worth mentioning.
The major work not covered by my editions of random bowie would, but of course, be Tin Machine. Well, for those interested, I did a huge thing on Tin Machine a few years ago; here is the link.
Perhaps the most frequently overlooked work by Bowie from the 90s is his cover of Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone. It was done with his old mate Mick Ronson, appearing on the album Heaven & Hull. This was an album recorded when Mick knew his departure from the world was coming, and so he went to work, mostly with as many of his old mates as he could reach out to. One cannot help but wonder if this was the point at which the seed of Blackstar was sown. The album also features All The Young Dudes from the Freddie Mercury concert, one of the more prominent examples of Bowie showing the world that he always wanted to be seen primarily as a saxophone player.
Oh, is Bowie's take on Like A Rolling Stone any good? Well, it is most decidedly Tin Machine in terms of the sound, musically and vocally. This, for me, is a very, very good thing. Mostly the late, great guitar of Mr Ronson dominates, but it's a solid enough Bowie vocal. Actually, just listening to it a couple of times now and I am surprised Bowie didn't include this on any of his own releases. As for the live All The Young Dudes, it has all the mastering qualities of a DIN cable connected to a VHS and a tape deck, but that's ok, man. Carry the news.
Speaking of working with old mates, Perfect Day. The astonishing 1997 multi artist cover started off as a BBC promotional film. Eventually – wisely – it was released as a single, in a time when singles were important, to raise funds for the BBC’s regular Children In Need appeal.
Back to often overlooked, and Real Cool World, from the soundtrack of the largely forgotten film Cool World. From what I remember the film was some sort of attempt to do an "adult" version of that Roger Rabbit business, and failed. In all likelihood it's the most embarrassing thing in the collected works of Brad Pitt.
Not so for Bowie, though. I can recall getting all very excited when I got this, as (if time has not betrayed my thoughts) this was his first new solo song proper since 1987. Whilst not mind blowingly brilliant, it's not a bad song at all. A little restrained on the vocals, or the vocals are mixed a bit too down maybe, but well worth looking around for.
I really like Bowie (you may have noticed) and I really like Placebo. Alas, their coming together for an official release, Without You I’m Nothing, has never been a favourite of mine. Sacrilege on my behalf, perhaps, but I always found it just a bit too monotonous and melodramatic. Considering he did this, one really has to ask just how bad was the song Coldplay approached him with that Bowie infamously dismissed as “not being very good”. Better, and more exciting, is the live T-Rex cover Bowie and Placebo did together. Well worth checking out, and no I don't remember what it was - 20th Century Boy, I think, maybe?
Beyond that, there was an insane amount of singles released in support of Earthling. Who knows, perhaps even in 1997 Bowie sensed that we were in the last days of people buying singles. He mentioned this new "internet" thing in a number of interviews at the time, when not drawing attention to his sensational "sex" earring. By no means do I have all the singles issued from the album, just one of Telling Lies, one or maybe two of Little Wonder and certainly the 2 versions of Dead Man Walking.
No "new" or extra tracks on the singles, alas. Just a whole load of frenetic, frequently frightening remixes of the songs. Also, some - I think Dead Man Walking - featured equally terrifying mixes of songs lifted from 1.Outside, presumably for fun. I tried listening to a couple of them before writing this, and discovered that I am probably old now. Which is strange, as Bowie would not have been all that much older than I am now when he made them.
Should you have a favourite Bowie 90s moment not covered here, sorry. No doubt I have missed something and will kick myself for it, but then again I do keep unleashing a defence saying I am not trying to be complete or exhaustive here. Just a simple fan, always was, now is and forever shall be in love with the music Bowie gave us all.
Thank you, once again and as ever, for reading. Until the next edition, then……
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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