The Duke's White Hours,
or songs like neon-lit rooms.We believed that David Bowie in the '90s was building a mosaic and that "Buddha Of Suburbia", "1.Outside", and "Earthling" were excellent pieces to which "Hours..." should be added. Evidently, we believed wrongly, as with this release, the former Duke shatters all expectations (hasn't he always done so?) and delivers something very soft and nostalgic with few brilliant moments and many others very weak.
The cover already tells us a lot: the Bowie of '99 holds in his arms and lowers his eyes upon a sort of Ziggy-Nathan Adler lying and agonizing who, in turn, looks beyond the cover, perhaps towards a distant past or the immediate future. The graphics are somewhat futuristic, somewhat hospital-like, and the album overall gives the idea of something sickly, not sick as "1.Outside" could have been, but rather vaguely desperate and disillusioned.
Already from "Thursday's Child," the opening track and successful single that swings between choirs and strings, we feel that all the lyrics and arrangements are imbued with regrets: David talks to us about lost loves, wasted days, and poorly filled solitudes, using music that somewhat wants to wink at the past (towards "Hunky Dory" critics of the time said, but I was never convinced), somewhat build the pop sound of the future, made of cold, icy, crystalline atmospheres, like those of the white room where the cover is set. From the artist's words emerges a life made of indecisions, of wrong choices at the wrong times, and the muffled sounds of the album, from Reeves Gabrels' guitars to Mark Plati's mixing, seem to suggest these themes: there are acoustic gems like "Survive" and "Seven", heart-wrenching memories of times long past like "Something In The Air" and "If I'm Dreaming My Life". At times, the author tries to convince himself that he's still a dragon and a drug, as in the crashing electricity of "The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell", but the results are rather monotonous and laughable. The same effect is unfortunately created by the instrumental "Brilliant Adventure", a pseudo-reference to an eastern Berlin.
If so far the album has been listenable without praise or blame, the irritating episodes "What's Really Happening" and "New Angels Of Promise" plunge this poorly-leavened "electro-pop" (?) mixture into the irritating annoyance of wanting to turn off the stereo. Fortunately, the fake-Eno electronics of the final track "The Dreamers" saves us, lifting the general sense of disorientation and yawning of this work by half a notch (and half a notch is little!).
In the summer of 1999, I got to know Bowie thanks to the film "Velvet Goldmine" and an early passion for glam, and this "Hours...", released in the fall of that same year, was his first album that I bought "live", so at the time I was very enthusiastic and appreciated it quite a bit. Since I'm attached to it and it somewhat reminds me of the atmospheres of that high school period, made of neon sleeps, indecisions, and endless hours, you must understand how sorry I am to speak about it this way, but I find it difficult to do otherwise especially knowing that it was preceded by the brilliant "Earthling" and followed by the splendid "Heathen".
from "Something In The Air"
Lived with the best times
Left with the worst
I've danced with you too long
Nothing left to say
Let's take what we can
I know you hold your head up high
We've raced for the last time
A place of no return.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Something in the Air (05:46)
Your coat and hat are gone
I've really can't look at your little empty shelf
A ragged teddy bear
It feels like we never had a chance
Don't look me in the eye
We lay in each others arms
But the room is just an empty space
I guess we've lived it out
Something in the air
We smiled to fast then can't think of a thing to say
Lived with the best times
Left with the worst
I've danced with you too long
Nothing left to save
Let's take what we can
I know you hold your head up high
We've raced for the last time
A place of no return
And there's is something in the air
Something in my eye
I've dance with you too long (yeah)
Something in the air
Something in my eye
Abracadoo, I loose you
We can't avoid the clash
The big mistake
Now we're gonna pay and pay
The sentence of our lives
Can't believe I'm asking you to go
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 more than you
Lived all our best times
Left with the worst
I've danced with you to long
Say what you will
There's something in the air
Raced for the last time
Well I know you'll hold your head up high
But it's nothing we have to say
There's nothing in our eyes
But there's something in the air
Something in my eye
I've danced with you too long
There's something I have to say
There's something in the air
Something in my eye
Do do do do
Do do do do
I've danced with you too long
Do do do do
Do do do do
Danced with you too long
Do do
Danced with you too long
Something in the air
Something in the air
Do do do do
Do do do do
03 Survive (04:11)
Oh, my
Naked eyes
I should have kept you
I should have tried
I should have been a wiser kind of guy
I miss you
Give me wings
Give me space
Give me money for a change of face
Those noisy rooms and passion pants
I loved you
Where's the morning in my life?
Where's the sense in staying right?
Who said 'time is on my side'?
I've got ears and eyes and nothing in my life
But I'll survive your naked eyes
I'll survive
You alone across the floor
You and me and nothing more
You're the great mistake I never made
I never lied to you, I hated when you lied
But I'll survive your naked eyes
I'll survive
Beatle boys, all snowy white
Razzle dazzle clubs, every night
Wish I'd sent a Valentine
I love you
I'll survive
Naked eyes
I'll survive
I'll survive
My naked eyes
I'll survive
I'll survive
Naked eyes
I'll survive
I'll survive
05 Seven (04:04)
I forgot what my father said
I forgot what he said
I forgot what my mother said
As we lay upon your bed
A city full of flowers
A city full of rain
I got seven days to live my life
Or seven ways to die
I forgot what my brother said
I forgot what he said
I don't regret anything at all
I remember how we wept
On a bridge of violent people
I was small enough to cry
I got seven days to live my life
Or seven ways to die
Hold my face before you
Still my trembling heart
Seven days to live my life
Or seven ways to die
The gods forgot they made me
So I forget them too
I listen to the shadows
I play among their graves
My heart was never broken
My patience never tried
I got seven days to live my life
Or seven ways to die
Seven days to live my life
Or seven ways to die
Seven
10 The Dreamers (05:13)
Black eyed ravens
They spiral down
They tilt his head back
To the flame filled sunset
Raise their guns high
As the darken falls
These are the days boys
Shallow man
Shallow man (shallow man) and they
Eats in the doorways with his head inclined
And he's always in decline
No-one hears anymore
So he shrinks as they ride
Under vermillion skies
So it goes (so it goes)
Just a searcher (so it goes)
Lonely soul (so it goes)
The last of the dreamers (so it goes)
Shallow man
Shallow man
Speaks to the shadows
Moves his trembling hands
And he's always a little late
For the dawning of the day
So it goes (so it goes)
Just a searcher (so it goes)
Lonely soul (so it goes)
The last of the dreamers (so it goes)
(so it goes) Just a searcher
(so it goes) Lonely soul
(so it goes) The last of the dreamers (so it goes)
(so it goes) Just a searcher
(so it goes) Lonely soul
(so it goes) The last of the dreamers (so it goes)
(so it goes)
(so it goes)
(so it goes)
(so it goes)
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By Ziggiejack
An incredible flop... this is the only way to define this album.
Pure mediocrity which, in the case of David Bowie, means uselessness.