David Bowie
The Next Day

It took him quite some time to get back to making music, 10 years to be exact. It's an eternity for a prolific artist like him, but in the end, he made it, and his return didn't disappoint anyone, neither the die-hard fans (like myself) nor the demanding music critics. To tell the truth, the single that preceded the album, "We Are We Now?", released suddenly shocking everyone, left me with a bitter taste: a poignant ballad, evoking his Berlin period, but after so much silence, it seemed too flat, too uninspiring.

And yet "The Next Day" is a bomb of eclectic sounds, a sort of synthesis of the 24 albums and the glorious 43-year career of the White Duke. It's not the masterpiece worthy of Bowie's immortal works, but the problem with an artist like him is precisely the excessive presumption that we have towards him, that wrong inevitability of always expecting a "stroke of genius" at all costs. In the mediocre current music scene, however, this album is a pearl that is certainly also the best Bowie material of the last fifteen years. Frequent passages take us to the sounds of the last albums (Hours, Heathen, Reality), but here they seem to find a more refined, more heterogeneous, more decisive placement. At 66 years old and with the weight of being a rock innovator on his shoulders, the Duke throws at us an hour of music that flows fast and clear, direct but never banal, never predictable, never stereotyped. There is a lot of energy, with few ballads this time. There are extraordinary moments where his desire to experiment stands out clearly and engagingly: "If You Can See Me" is overwhelming and noisy, "Dancing Out In Space" recalls glam moments with dance floor keyboards, a fun but sophisticated track, "How Does The Grass Grow?" is one of the best moments of the album, a frenetic and sick succession of different melodies, of abrupt and sudden soundscapes with distorted guitars and frenzied keyboards, a chorus to shout at the top of your lungs, "Dirty Boys", a blues that recalls Iggy Pop's "The Idiot" (produced by Bowie himself) where a sax and an almost metallic voice combine to create an almost ghostly atmosphere. And then there's rock, direct and warm, like the opening "The Next Day" where Bowie refutes the news about his allegedly poor physical condition singing "Here I am/and not at all dying" or the beautiful "The Stars (are out tonight)", the second single accompanied by a masterpiece video directed by Floria Sigismondi, not to forget "(You Will) Set The World On Fire" and "Boss Of Me". The end is entrusted to "Heat", the "The Bewlay Brothers" of 2000, hypnotic, rhythmical, with an incursion of violins and strings that gives you goosebumps.

And his voice, still perfect, deep but above all varied like never before, hissing eerily: "I tell myself/I don't know who I am/I'm a seer/but I'm a liar". But in reality, Bowie knows very well who he is, he knows that he is still capable of writing great songs and is aware of his artistic legacy. He reminded us again this time, and we will wait for him, as always, even on the "next day". Welcome back, Mr. Bowie.