Never Let Me Down
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Down at The Old Vinyl Emporium™
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I wonder what David Bowie was referring to when he said “Never Let Me Down”: if it was “the old commercial and artistic judgment” then he was surely mistaken. Since he hopped in the sell-out Ferrari and burned off the competition in 1983, it was hardly trouble free motoring for Bromley's favourite son, and Never Let Me Down was when the head gasket blew.
The conventional wisdom is that Bowie’s mid-to-late seventies were a wasteland of cocaine, paranoia and Kirlian photography, and that by 1983 he had exorcised his demons cleaned up, sobered up, and is gravest indulgences was peroxide, spray tan and skiing. The quid pro quo was an inverted artistic arc: The albums of the seventies got progressively more astounding. It would follow then that a strict regime of health-food and exercise was hardly going to deliver Heroes II. And nor did it, and while for us diehard fans it was lovely to know that our hero was feeling so much better, by 1987 you started to wish he'd just get back on the coke again. By the half-way mark of Never Let Me Down it becomes apparent that Bowie has reached the same conclusion. There is no way the insane tempo of the last part of the album — Bang Bang finishes up at 146 bpm, which is just bonkers — can be put down to a bit too much coffee.
That said, there is truth and candour to be found in the weakest parts of an artist’s catalogue. It’s the most interesting p[art precisely because the profoundest flaws are there for all to see. And make no mistake about it, Never Let Me Down is an outright disaster. And in the wreckage we see the unintentional candour: Bowie sounds utterly fearful that his creative powers have deserted him — to be sure, they had — and like no other record it feels like he is chasing the game, frantically scuttling to-and-fro like some hjopped up spider, trying everything, going faster and faster in a desperate quest to stay relevant and meaningful, battling to comprehend the seismic stylistic shifts going on around him which, for the first time, he cannot control, harness or even understand.
“Shining Star” sounds like a riposte to Prince. I doubt The Artist lost any sleep over it. And pity poor, at-the-time-red-hot, Mickey Rourke: who wouldn’t leap at an invitation to collaborate with one of the most mercurial and gnomic forces in 20th century culture? How was he to know that his contribution, a rap, would forever be the lowest point of Bowie’s whole catalogue, from and including 1968’s ghastly The Laughing Gnome?
The singles are valiant enough attempts ; it’s just not clear at what: Day In, Day Out matches muscular disco pop with (er) stinging political invective in a lively but scoreless draw. Time Will Crawl has a great pretty tune, though it gallops like an unbroken mustang, but means absolutely nothing at all. I mean, Time will crawl until the twenty first century lose? What is that supposed to mean?
From there, it's a depressingly downhill journey. The high points are schmaltzy pop. The low points are almost too ghastly to catalogue: a mystical, eastern-influenced disco about a glass spider (around which Bowie based his entire world tour) and poor old Mickey Rourke’s anti-crack rap. Not for the first time, Bowie props up a flaky album with a tough Iggy Pop cover, but it is too little, too late to save this album. When it gets to ’87 and Cry the man sounds categorically out of ideas. "It's just a one dollar secret," Bowie sings. But no-one’s let him in on what it is.
Curiously, the two best songs from the session were left off the album altogether. Julie and Girls , both of which are genuinely good Bowie tunes, only saw the light of day as B-Sides. For my money they both blow out of the water everything that did make the album. But, silk purse out of sow's ear, and all that.