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Rating: Classified as the soundtrack of the BBC fiction based on a novel by Harif Kureishi, this record is an album by Bowie in every sense: its limited distribution (it has been recently reissued) and its insignificant impact on the charts at the time make it a true hidden gem, and it is absolutely worth seeking out.
In 1993, Bowie, having closed the not-so-thrilling experience with Tin Machine, which allowed him to recharge and get out of the creative stagnation of the '80s, had just released a new album (Black Tie White Noise), which, although not memorable, is proof of newfound enthusiasm, vitality, and the desire to keep shuffling the cards and contaminating genres. In the midst of promotion, he was approached by the producers of the series, who asked him to draw from his old catalog for the soundtrack: convinced of the project's worth, Bowie enthusiastically decided to write new material, in an atmosphere of spontaneity and creative freedom that he perhaps hadn't experienced since the Berlin trilogy years.
The rich liner notes mention the sources of inspiration (among others Eno, Tangerine Dream, Can, Kraftwerk) and explain the creative process: the themes written for the series are arbitrarily extended and fragmented into bars onto which instrumental improvisations are grafted, recordings are played backward, texts are chopped and reassembled in random order. All with a production and mixing work that doesn't compromise the spontaneity of the approach and doesn't alter the original idea, conceived and realized in a couple of weeks (no exhausting overdub sessions, few guests, Bowie plays everything with Turkish multi-instrumentalist Erdal Zizilcay).
The result is remarkable: avant-garde, art rock, pop, jazz, and new age blend beautifully to give life to songs and instrumental compositions finally worthy of the author's name: the title track is a splendid ballad that tastefully references Space Oddity and All The Madmen; South Horizon is a hypnotic jazz base that a rediscovered Mike Garson enriches with his typical gems of piano improvisation; The Mysteries seems to come directly from the second side of Low; Strangers When we Meet puts the electronic nightmares of V2-Schneider (from Heroes) in service of a great singer-songwriter piece.
For someone who has made changing genres and styles their expressive hallmark, citationism is always risky, but in this record, you never feel gratuitous self-referentiality; rather, you sense the feeling of a happy synthesis, and you wonder why a work of such high caliber did not receive broader recognition.
On the other hand, the choice not to promote the album and to "forget" it is perfectly consistent with the renewed creativity of '90s Bowie: a few weeks after the album's release, the Duke found himself with Brian Eno to sketch (literally: in the first sessions, Bowie painted while the musicians rehearsed) what would become the monumental Outside.
Tracklist and Lyrics
01 Buddha of Suburbia (04:29)
Living in lies by the railway line
Pushing the hair from my eyes
Elvis is English and climbs the hills
Can't tell the bullshit from the lies
Screaming along in South London
Vicious but ready to learn
Sometimes I fear that the whole world is queer
Sometimes but always in vain
So I'll wait until we're sane
Wait until we're blessed and all the same
Full of blood, loving life and all it's got to give
Englishmen going insane
Down on my knees in suburbia
Down on myself in every way
With great expectations I change all my clothes
Mustn't crumble at silver and gold
Screaming above Central London
Never born, so I'll never get old
So I'll wait until we're sane
Wait until we're blessed and all the same
Full of blood, loving life and all it's got to give
Englishmen going insane
Down on my knees in suburbia
Down on myself in every way
Day after
Day after
Day
Day after
Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le chien
Day after
Day
Day after
Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le chien
Day after
05 Bleed Like a Craze, Dad (05:23)
Shine shine shine (x6)
Bleeds like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
Easy come
Come, gather that
Gather valium of your dead man
Walks out the drunk from the jazz
Astral
Kestrel, fed into the featherfall
?Fairly morning pencil?
?Loving you with all I got?
Shine shine shine
Bleed like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
Shine shine shine
Bleed like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
Seek for a leather journey
Never stopped to think about
Hollywood King Kong
Domino on the side
Street light, looking right
Looking to the parlous parlours
Party on the dead
Put a net through his headache
Shine shine shine (x3)
Blee-eed, bleed like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
Living on a movie
All the Shirley/Charley films on film
Come together, party
Footnote on the footstone
Shine shine shine
Bleeds like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
Shine shine shine
Shine shine shine
CHORUS (x6)
Bleed like a craze, Dad
These are the craze
06 Strangers When We Meet (04:58)
Yooou, yooou, yooou
Yooou, yooou, yooou
All our friends
Now seem so thin and frail
Slinky secrets
Hotter than the sun
No peachy prayers
No trendy rechauff�
I'm with you
So I can't go on
CHORUS
All my violence
Raining tears upon the sheet
I'm bewildered/resentful
For we're strangers when we meet
Blank screen TV
Preening ourselves in the snow
Forget my name
But I'm over you
Blended sunrise
And it's a dying world
Humming Rheingold
We scavenge up our clothes
CHORUS
Cold tired fingers
Tapping out your memories
Halfway sadness
Dazzled by the new
Your embrace
Was all that I feared
That whirling room
We trade by vendu
Steely resolve
Is falling from me
My poor soul
All bruised passivity
All your regrets
Ride rough-shod over me
I'm so glad
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm so thankful
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm in clover
For we're strangers when we meet
Heel head over
But we're strangers when we meet
Strangers when we meet (repeat ad. inf.)
10 Buddha of Suburbia (04:20)
Living in lies by the railway line
Pushing the hair from my eyes
Elvis is English and climbs the hills
Can't tell the bullshit from the lies
Screaming along in South London
Vicious but ready to learn
Sometimes I fear that the whole world is queer
Sometimes but always in vain
So I'll wait until we're sane
Wait until we're blessed and all the same
Full of blood, loving life and all it's got to give
Englishmen going insane
Down on my knees in suburbia
Down on myself in every way
With great expectations I change all my clothes
Mustn't crumble at silver and gold
Screaming above Central London
Never born, so I'll never get old
So I'll wait until we're sane
Wait until we're blessed and all the same
Full of blood, loving life and all it's got to give
Englishmen going insane
Down on my knees in suburbia
Down on myself in every way
Day after
Day after
Day
Day after
Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le chien
Day after
Day
Day after
Zane, Zane, Zane
Ouvre le chien
Day after
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