The Buddha of Suburbia

David Bowie | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 2, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 1993
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Virgin Records
• ASIN: B000UG4LYU
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Music
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,232 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

The Buddha of Suburbia was David Bowie's 19th full studio album released in 1993. Asked to write and perform the music for the BBC2 mini series, although classified as a soundtrack, only the title track on the album was featured in the programme itself. The television adaptation of 1990 book, written by Hanif Kureishi, The Buddha of Suburbia is a (semi) autobiographical tale featuring Karim - a South London teenager desperate to escape the suburbs which confine him. Kureishi at the time was already well known for his screenplay of 'My Beautiful Launderette', the 1985 film which centered on issues of sexuality, race and class in volatile 1980's Britain.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A musical gem glittering in obscurity June 20, 2000

By Vincent Toolan VINE™ VOICE

Format:Audio CD

The other reviewers here really have it right. This album, incredibly not released in the US, has been delighting UK fans for many years.

Written and recorded in just ten days (according to reports I've read), and mixed in just a few more, Bowie sounds like he's having fun for a change - and the music is the fresher for it. Almost all the instruments are played by Bowie himself and by Erdal Kizilcay, his Turkish multi-instrumentalist sidekick. (Lenny Kravitz obliges with a guitar contribution on the title track). The songs are obviously the results of spontaneous jam sessions. Many tracks are instrumental; only a couple are recognisable as traditional songs - notably Buddha and Strangers When we Meet (later reworked on Outside).

Fans will love the many references to the old hits. Best of all is the repeat of the five-chord Space Oddity riff, closely followed by Mike Garson's piano playing.

To set the record straight for US afficionados: the album is ostensibly the soundtrack to the eponymous BBC TV series, itself an adaptation of the acclaimed novel about London life in the 1970s by author Haneif Kureishi (all available on Amazon). In fact the series uses Bowie's work of the period (Rebel Rebel etc) as incidental music; this album is "inspired" by the movie.

The music is intriguing for Bowie scholars, giving a hint of what might have been had he carried on the Eno trajectory - which ironically he did try to do on Outside.

In any case, a strong buy. I just save my five stars for Heroes and Hunky Dory...

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Bowie's Forgotten Album Repackaged December 15, 2007

By neoninfusion

Format:Audio CD

Back in 1993, this album was originally conceived as a straight soundtrack for the BBC TV dramatisation of the Hanif Kureishi novel, 'The Buddha of Suburbia'. It eventually became more than a series of instrumental passages recorded for the film due to Bowie's refound creativity and was rebuilt into a bona fide 10-track solo album. Unfortunately the album was marketed at the time as a mere soundtrack and consequently it was unfairly overlooked as a "real" Bowie album, especially when it followed shortly after Bowie's first solo effort in 5 years; 1993's jazzy 'Black Tie, White Noise'.

'The Buddha of Suburbia' is performed mainly by Bowie and multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay and begins with the title track (incidently, the only song to appear in the film); a slow-tempo accoustic piece which slowly builds with further instrumentation. Listen for the riff from Space Oddity - 3 and a half minutes into the song and quotes from The Man Who Sold the World's 'All the Madmen'. Aside from the album's instrumental pieces, these are the only salutes to his past as Bowie was then to provide a glimpse into the future, particularly the next phase which was to be the remarkable alternative-rock of the 'Outside' album, along with the odd jazz number from 'Black Tie, White Noise'.

Track 2 'Sex and the Church' (a quasi-techno piece with computer-filtered vocals and soothing sax) and track 3, the instrumental 'South Horizon' wouldn't sound out of place during Bowie's late 70's Berlin period, but with Mike Garson's piano over the top of Vangelis' Blade Runner theme. Garson would go onto provide the motif for Outside - that strange, jangling piano. Track 4 'The Mysteries' is also instrumental and in the same vein.

Track 5 'Bleed Like a Craze, Dad' provides more 'Black Tie' funk while the standout track follows in 'Strangers When We Meet'. This, although the same tempo as the re-recorded version on Outside, is significantly different and well worth a listen. For those uninitiated, this is one of Bowie's best songs since the 80's - uplifting and compassionate.

Track 7 'Dead Against It' is a melodic up-tempo song which was to give an incite into the way Bowie would sing his vocals in later albums like 'Hours': that rasp in the higher register. Track 8 'Untitled' is straight out of the 'Black Tie' sessions, while Track 9 'Ian Fish, UK Heir' is another moody instrumental piece similar to 'Moss Garden' and 'Subterraneans'. The album concludes with a remix of the title track.

What is appealing is that the instrumental tracks fit neatly into the album mixed with the vocal tracks, showing that Bowie was reconnecting with his experimental spirit. This was to be the key to the layers and textures of his next album, 95's 'Outside' - which contains some of his best material ever. Buddha is definately the forerunner to Outside. But its beauty is that it is one of those linking albums, like Young Americans - in this case, a halfway house between the jazz inflections and club beats of 'Black Tie, White Noise' and the dark tension and jangly piano of 'Outside'. So it fits perfectly within the Bowie canon, and now is finally recognised as such.

Buy it if you are curious, you'll be rewarded, especially if you are a Bowie fan and you like the Outside, Low and Heroes albums. If you are thinking of buying this for someone else, do so; it is accessible enough that they won't be disappointed. After all, Buddha is not a soundtrack, but a real Bowie album. And now it has finally been recognised and remastered as such.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The Comeback Album No One Heard July 13, 1999

By [e-mail] --Christian Huey--

Format:Audio CD

Bowie's last three albums have been criminally underrated. 1997's Earthling was given modest critical fanfare, but no one bought the album. Two years earlier, Outside, over-hyped by a highly publicized tour with Nine Inch Nails and a single that was gobbled up due in huge part to Trent Reznor's remix, ultimately baffled and turned off listeners. It seems as if the music press and the general public have set in stone by now the belief that David Bowie is a dinosaur; that he isn't allowed to express himself in more progressive or experimental forms of music without sounding pretentious or even desperate. Those who know Bowie only through the pomp and circumstance of his Ziggy era and his glitzy, empty '80s efforts, may cast him off as nothing more than a good showman with a throaty baritone. Unfortunately, by the end of the '80s, this was exactly what Bowie the songwriter and musician was stripped down to. It's a shame, then, that in 1993, once no one was paying attention to him anymore, David Bowie dropped this outstanding piece of work that sounds nearly on par with his late '70s Eno trilogy. Mostly instrumental and ambient pieces, Buddha of Suburbia was written to accompany a BBC miniseries of the same name. At last Bowie found inspiration again in something. The songs are rythmic, pounding, soaring, and electrifying; abstract but accessible. The hooks, where there are hooks, are frighteningly catchy. The shifting jazz pieces, prominently featuring avant-pianist Mike Garson, are simply other-worldly. The zooming electropop of "Dead Against It" and the ethereal, floating-down-a-warm-river-on-heroin bliss of "Untitled no. 1" are highlights. This is where Bowie would have gone had he not put on his red shoes and boogied down with Stevie Ray Vauhan in 1983. This is Bowie enthralling as he hadn't done in years. Check this out and see what all the fuss isn't about. Then pay a moment of silent respect to an old-school artist who still kicks ass.

--Christian Huey