Customer Reviews

Never Let Me Down [ECD]

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

Reading the reviews on this album, you'd think Bowie had chosen New Kids On The Block to collaborate with. Or Hitler! Not so. Most people here were expecting Low II or something. And that's not what this is. This is just really really good pop music. While it's not indicative of Bowie's work as a whole (no single album is), honestly it's not a bad jumping off point if your only exposure to him is as Jareth in Labyrinth. If you like that music, or 80's music in general, chances are you will like this.

Bowie has nothing to be ashamed of here. If the music is not your cup of tea, that's one thing. But to say that he was stealing money from fans by releasing a grand pop album is unfair and untrue.

As most reviewers have mentioned, this album gets a bad rap, with many even pointing to it as Bowie's worst. I don't know exactly why it gets such a bad rap, but I'll take a shot: Bowie didn't release quite as much great work in the 80s as he did in the 70s, and what he did put out was all in a completely different sound. Never Let Me Down was, I believe, his 4th album from the 80s. It wasn't glam-rock, and it wasn't paticularly experimental. It was more popish. By the time "Never Let Me Down" came out I guess fans of the older Bowie just gave up hope. "Tonight" was a let down, and this wasn't moving him back in the direction of his glory years. Hence, this album is disliked by many fans.

As modern Bowie fans though, looking back, we have the priveledge of taking in all his work at one time. And from this perspective, there's truly nothing wrong with "Never Let Me Down". If you don't like 80s rock, you may not like this, and that's perfectly fine. However, as a person who grew up as a child listening to 80s music and who loves theatrical rock music, Bowie does it as well or better than anyone. Heck, I'd say that "Day-In Day-Out", "Time Will Crawl", "Beat Of Your Drum", and "87 And Cry" are downright brilliant! Bowie has so many interesting instrumentations going on. You have guitars, horns, synths and some really energetic vocals. Bowie's voice sounds incredible on this album!

There's a reason Bowie has lasted and is going strong well into today, and it's because his music evolved. This was a step on the evolution. Don't listen to the naysayers, give the album a chance and I'm sure you'll be surprised about the bad press.

As a side note, keep in mind that the beloved cult-classic "Labyrinth" came out around the same time as this album, and the song-writing isn't all that different from Labyrinth on "Never Let Me Down".

There's always something to like on every David Bowie-album, but on some it's pretty hard to find some redeeming qualities. 1987's "Never Let Me Down" is one of Bowie's weakest efforts; that's a thing mostly everyone will agree about. Bowie's creativity was supposed to turn on him during the eighties, but apart from this album, I absolutely don't agree. 1980's "Scary Monsters" is a masterpiece, 1983's "Let's Dance" was very good, very slick and very catchy, and 1984's "Tonight" isn't half as bad as everybody wants you to believe (I actually like it a lot). Plus that, some of his most beautiful singles were written in the eighties ("This Is Not America", "Absolute Beginners").

"Never Let Me Down" on the other hand, is a definite and clear lowpoint; it's like Bowie just didn't care so much anymore, and just wanted to make another album to satisfy the crowd, the record-company, and himself (money-wise). It's mostly exchangable eighties-pop/rock, with typically loud drums, color-by-numbers guitarsolo's and straightforward, uninspired songwriting. That doesn't mean that all of it is completely abysmal, "Day In Day Out", "Time Will Crawl" and "Beat Of Your Drum" are all very ok songs, but compared to other mid-eighties Bowie-achievements like "Blue Jean" and "Loving The Alien", they simply pale in comparison, although I really like "Beat Of Your Drum" very much for it's dramatic vocal-delivery and mysterious melody. It is a little ruined by a mediocre 80's chorus though.

There's only one song that *really* bad, which is "Glass Spider". Starting out as a pompous spoken-word thingy with a silly story about -indeed- glass spiders, it suddenly segues into a completely uninteresting and melodyless song. There's no excuse for it, and my advice is to skip the whole thing. The rest of "Never Let Me Down" is consistently mediocre, or pretty ok, but never special. It's an album that could have been done by any interchangable eighties-artist (Robert Palmer, Paul Young) and because it's Bowie it makes us look for some hidden qualities.

"Never Let Me Down" has, although they are spare, it's moments. They're scattered all over the record, and are sometimes nothing more than an interesting chord-progression or guitar-melody. And, if you cherish good memories towards the eighties, this one will be satisfying for you, if only for it's eighties 'feel'. The advice is to get this thing used, as it is interesting to hear the changes in Bowie's career, also if they weren't that succesful at times. Bowie wouldn't really make a decent album after this one until the mid-nineties, and started making very good to great ones since 2002's beautiful "Heathen" and 2003's colorful and inspired "Reality". Especially with that in mind, "Never Let Me Down" isn't a depressing listen, it's just an interesting one.

Like most of Bowie's 1980s work, Never Let Me Down was criticized more for what it wasn't than anything it was. What it wasn't was innovative avant-garde pop in the vein of Low or Scary Monsters. Nor was it a canny balance between art and commerce as Let's Dance was. Instead it was nothing more or less than a fun, occasionally overblown album of driving rock music.

The opening number, "Day-In Day-Out" sets the tone, with its everything-but-the-kitchen-sink production. It's an energetic portrait of urban decay that manages to convince you to hum along. Indeed, decay is a common theme on much of the album, especially "Time Will Crawl" which transforms the personal decay of 1980's "Ashes to Ashes" into a wider, more apocalyptic setting. None of this is to suggest that this album represents Bowie's best work, but every song (with the possible exception of "Glass Spider") has something to recommend it.

This album should be taken as the work of an artist who may have lost his bearings but always knew how to give his audience something interesting. That the Bowie of 1987 was not pointing rock music's way forward the way he did in the 1970s is not reason enough to wish an album out of existence. At the end of the day one must ask whether the work stands on its own, apart from the personality of the artist. At the end of the day, when the question is applied to "Never Let Me Down," the answer must be yes.

Addendum: This version of the album omits a rather good song entitled "Too Dizzy," which is only on the original 1987 release of the album. The second release of the album from 1995 also omitted "Too Dizzy" but included two excellent b-sides, "Julie" and "Girls" as well as the title song from the soundtrack of "When the Wind Blows." Any version of the album, however, is worth a listen.

Despite the fact that many people aparently did not enjoy this disc, I enjoyed it to peices. It may not be in the same style as some of his older recordings (which may be good, or may be bad), but I felt that it was different, and ... very well done. It may not be the best CD ever, but it was worth the money that I paid for it ^_^*. Time Will Crawl was probably one of my favorites from the entire disc. I'm going to make a wild guess, and say that those who enjoyed the movie Labyrinth would enjoy this album. It's in near the same style, and around the same year. (Let me just add that there is much, *much* more to David Bowie than the movie Labyrinth, despite what some people may believe.)

Admittedly, "Never Let Me Down" is not among Bowie's best records, but let's face it: even a mediocre Bowie album is good compared to contemporary releases by other artists. I listened to this record repeatedly in 1987 and 1988, and can't recall much of anything else at the time in pop or rock comparing with it in either imagination or quality. Even minus "Too Dizzy," one of the record's better tracks, the re-release deserves a listen--"Bang Bang," "Zeroes," and "Beat of Your Drum" are particularly good. Ignore the critics, not to mention the negative comments of the artist himself, and give this record a shot.

Many have trashed this CD because it really does sound more like the product of a decade than of an artist like David Bowie. Nevertheless, it's not as if any force could actually overpower David Bowie on a song or an album--even the 80's. For those who are fans of David Bowie, there's stuff in this album that makes it worth the sticker price (especially if that sticker price is free, or near free, thanks to the wonders of the internet). I myself am not a fan of the first or last song (the first really could have come out of Robert Palmer or Peter Gabriel, and the last should never come out of anyone other than Iggy Pop), but everything in between is, at very least, enjoyable. If you dislike 80's synth stuff, I think you'll find yourself liking many of the songs of this album in spite of the synthesizers. Many of them are just plain catchy. "Time Will Crawl" is the one most people have heard of, and is a nice single, but other songs, like "Beat of Your Drum", "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)", and the hopelessly cheesy "Never Let Me Down" are just a lot of fun to listen. Plus, "Zeroes", without a doubt, is one of David Bowie's best songs (despite the pointless announcer and phony crowd sounds in the beginning). I knew from the first moment I heard it many years ago that it was something special.

On the whole, the more I listen to the songs on this album, the more I like them. If you're a David Bowie fan, I think you won't regret forking over the two or three dollars to buy this album used (buying it new might be a mistake for many).

This is not bowies best and possibly his worst but it sure rocks. The thing is that it is too often compared to David Bowie's most classic albums. Of course an album released right after the awful Labyrinth soundtrack wouldn't be another ground-breaking "Diamond Dogs".
The album (Which tries to return to Bowie's past partially) is unfortunately very disorganised and "87' and Cry" is in my opinion one of Bowie's worst songs ever while "New York's in Love" is pretty bad (not as bad as the title of course) but even a mediocre album from Bowie is still listenable and even good. All the other songs are great if you let them grow on you, especially "Bang Bang".
A great album overall if you don't mind 80s artpoprock.

This is one of those cases where I had systematically made my way through the artist's catalogue, collecting all the albums along the way. I had purchased every album in Bowie's 70s output, and most of the rest...

There reaches a point when you become obsessed with an artist to the point where you run out of 'good' material to get newly acquainted with. Your thirst is insatiable, so you start reading about some of the artists supposed 'failures'. I did it with Neil Young too, buying stuff like 'Landing On Water'... generally considered by far the greatest piece of trash the man has ever released.

Yet there is still this almost morbid fascination that itches at me. I still crave to hear everything the artist has done, and naturally once I have bought everything generally considered worthwhile, my attention eventually consumed by these mysterious atrocities that often sit hidden in a period of the artist's career commonly forgotten.

And so, I find both `Tonight' and `Never Let Me Down' sandwiched together in a 2 for 1 package, priced to sell at about $9 (US)!!

When I put it on, I already knew it was gonna be horribly bad! I'd already read the reviews... I knew what I was in for. And yes, for the most part, this is pretty bland, and occasionally it's glaringly awful. But there are moments. We must remember... this is Bowie.

`Day In Day Out' is interesting to the extent that it packs a lot of sound into its arrangement. Lots of fun stereo panning and random noises fill the mix. `Time Will Crawl' is a reasonable tune (but still cant escape the 80s production). `Zeroes' is more texturally and sonically adventurous than anything else and is consequently more conspicuous (but not necessarily better). And as always, even when there is little else to grab your attention, Bowie ALWAYS has a stunning voice. Even on his least inspiring tracks, there is still a great voice to focus on.

However, there are points on this album (most of the second half) that are just rubbish. I have to point out `Shining Star' as a particular stand out for all the wrong reasons. This track is one of those "so bad that it's funny" types! The falsetto vocals, awful production and guest `rapper' Mickey Rourke all make for the most embarrassing thing that Bowie ever put to tape!


But I'll still listen to the album... It'll be rare, but I'll listen to it. The next time I go through a Bowie phase, I'll pull it out again, and get a little bit of value out of it.

So if you are a truly obsessive, completist fan, who feels the need to collect not only an artists great albums, but also their good ones, average ones, and eventually their abominations, then you'll probably end up doing just what I did! You'll read all the bad reviews (including mine!), buy it anyway, and then enjoy it briefly and scrape of few guilty pleasures out of it. Then you'll place it in the collection and treat it as an interesting (and kinda hilarious) historical sidenote in Bowie's long and intriguing career.

But it really is rubbish!

Sure, '80's production was tacky, but there wasn't anything tacky about Let's Dance or Ziggy Stardust? Bowie always has his tongue in his cheek. He acknowledges the artifice of his chosen art form. I don't think he took many of his other albums any more seriously than he took this one.

Never Let Me Down is artificial- and tacky-sounding. There are fewer "concepts" on this album than on many of his others. But it's still a lot of fun, if you're open-minded and willing to laugh at yourself (and to laugh along with the artist).