Never Let Me Down (1987)

The Bowie Project #19 – Never Let Me Down (1987)

Never Let Me Down is David Bowie’s 17th studio album, it was released on April 20th, 1987, and is widely regarded as one of the weakest releases in Bowie’s entire catalogue. It sheds the reggae influence of his last album, Tonight, and instead focuses on a mix of pop art and hard rock sounds. In terms of being dated it is firmly a product of its time, it sounds just like it came out in 1987, and in later years Bowie expressed serious disappointment with the production and sound of the record. After a couple of years of floundering this was intended to a return to form for the former Ziggy Stardust, instead of a collection of repurposed content and cover songs like his last album Bowie really was giving it his all again in terms of songwriter and a genuine desire for experimentation, but unfortunately all that valour gets lost amid an overly produced record. It’s like hidden underneath the surface there is a really great album here but it just never quite gets to fully rear its head.

After the mega success of Let’s Dance in 1983 Bowie had found himself in a precarious situation, hugely successful all of his subsequent releases were charting quite well, he was selling out arena shows and free from his previous drug addiction the money was rolling in. It all sounds great, he’s finally made it, and he's in a situation where he can enjoy his success. However, the problem lies in the fact that while Bowie may have always courted fame and mainstream success, it wasn’t what drove him as an artist, that was his tendency for artistic transformation and new found experimentation. Ever since finding mainstream success he’d kind of been an autopilot, he was taking a backseat on songwriting and production duties and allowing session musicians take charge of what were supposed to be his albums.

With this album Bowie took his time writing songs, producing elaborate home demos from his house in Switzerland, and getting a band together that included Turkish multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay and Humble Pie’s Peter Frampton. This record was the first time since Scary Monsters in 1980 that Bowie played instruments in addition to providing vocals. He wanted this album to be a reflection of his entire career up to this point, and while it’s true the record is an electric hybrid of his long-standing influences and personal nostalgia, it does not have quite have the desired effect as this means it lacks a cohesive style and feels more like a collection of songs than a complete album. Although in its defence I will say, as an album that consistently appears at the bottom of lists ranked the work of Bowie it is not nearly as bad as its reputation. 

The album opens with this record’s lead single “Day-In Day-Out” an R&B track criticising the treatment of the homeless in the United States and plays into Bowie tendency in the mid-80s to use his music as a means of social commentary. This song is the tale of a woman trapped in drug addiction and poverty, controlled by a pimp, on the verge of homelessness. Bowie said it was a reflection of an uncaring society and while focusing on America these are international problems. The accompanying music video was shot in Los Angeles and features 200 extras, many of whom were genuine L.A. homeless. The video was banned from many TV stations due the implied rape and a man urinating on then President Ronald Regan’s Hollywood walk of fame star. The song was a minor success and reached number 17 in the UK charts. Bowie biographer Nicolas Pegg said the song encapsulates everything that is initially promising in this album with strong themes and catchy beat but ends up being frustrating overproduced and infuriating. He said: “Day-In Day-Out' suffers badly from over-elaboration: it's a slab of 1980s soft-rock which now sounds incredibly dated by comparison with much of Bowie's earlier work.”

The second track was also the second single “Time Will Crawl” addresses the destruction of the planet through pollution and industry with the recent Chernobyl disaster referenced directly. It’s probably one of the strongest moments on the whole record and is now considered one of Bowie’s best songs from this era. The production is strong, the lyrics are on point and Bowie himself has called it one of his favourite songs of his own. While he wrote apocalyptic songs before Chernobyl highlighted how close the human race can get to utter destruction. In 2008 Bowie revisited the song, remixing and partially recording parts of it, showing that however dismissive he’s been of this record as whole over the years there were also parts of it that he felt were worthy of salvaging.

While there’s talk of this album being dated due to its production, I think the song “Beat of Your Drum” is problematic for different reasons. This song is about a photographer ogling a 14-year-old model. Bowie said, “it’s a Lolita track” adding “she’s only 14, but jails worth it!” From one end you call this an inspection into the media’s tendency to fetishize young girls regardless of whether they are of age or not. But another viewpoint might say it’s not inspection and merely a reflection. This is made worse by allegations in 2015 by former child model Lori Mattix who claimed she had sexual relationships while underage with Jimmy Page, Mick Jagger, and David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust era. Mattix said she didn’t see the relationship as exploitative at the time but as she has grown older she realised the power imbalance between her and these men. While some people try to dismantle Mattix’s story and say that there are inconsistencies and the relationship never happened, songs like “Beat of Your Drum” just leave a bad taste in my mouth, even if it’s quite catchy when you ignore its creepy theme.

The title track “Never Let Me Down” is a gentle and romantic track and could be my favourite moment on the album. The song was written for Coco Schwab, Bowie’s personal assistant, who he was credited with helping him kick his cocaine habit in the 70s and he called it a “pivotal track” for him saying “I don’t know if I’ve written anything quite that emotive of how I feel about somebody”. He called it a platonic love song and that it is primarily about loyalty. The vocals, the harmonica, the backup, it just really works.

“Zeroes” a song that was inspired by the vibe of the 1960s and looking at what had been lost since that time. What happened to rock n’ roll, what happened to values, what happened to martyrdom. The dream of the 60s is over but all it’s rock stars are still hanging around eternally recording and touring, does it really matter anymore?

“Girls” was a song co-written by Bowie for Tina Turner’s 1986 record Break Every Rule, it was in the early running order for this record but was eventually left off. However, for some reason on the Japanese release of the album the song was included as the final track for side one with Bowie singing in Japanese. I'm sure there's an interesting story behind this but I can’t track it down.

Opening side two is what feels like the grand narrative of “Glass Spider” with a spoken word monologue; it's almost like being transported back to the world of the Diamond Dogs. But this time it’s the tale of children abandoned by their mother, something which Bowie would be aware of as by this point his ex-wife Angie Bowie had become estranged from their son Zowie Bowie, now called Duncan Jones. The song is fast paced and epic but space age apocalyptic theatrics that worked so well in 70s doesn’t feel quite as transformative now in the 80s, Bowie biographer Chris O’Leary questioned the reasons for this in his book Ashes to Ashes asking: “Why could Bowie dress like a space pirate in 1974 and be the height of cool, but when he intoned his parable about glass spiders in 1987, it was laughable and pathetic?” I wouldn’t go as far as to call it pathetic but he does make a good point as to what worked then and what isn’t working now.

“Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)” feels very 80s and I think you can either criticise that or you can just enjoy it. Despite it’s upbeat sound it’s a gritty take down of drug abuse, death, prostitution, and crime. The song echoes Prince and Bowie also wanted it to be a homage to Smokey Robinson. You’ve got current social commentary with references to Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein with this record coming out at the height of the Troubles. I’ve never heard Bowie on the record about his feelings on a united Ireland but it was reported that when he played Slane Castle in 1987 he had a genuine fear you would be assassinated via sniper. While in Ireland Bowie took extra measures around this time to ensure his safety and the support act Aslan was strictly forbidden from interacting with him.

Bowie’s tongue-in-cheek track about the pompous and vain qualities of big cities “New York’s In Love” implies the Big Apple is in fact in love with itself. It’s all a metaphor, New York is a sexy lady and watch her go. Thematically it’s quite weak, but musically I can groove. Just happy to be hearing Peter Frampton shredding the guitar, baby I love your way that you play.

“’87 and Cry” is Bowie’s verdict on 1980s politics and the way authoritative governmental forces have become separated from the ordinary people. You’ve got Thatcher in the UK and Reagan in the US privatising national services and squashing trade unions. An ideology promoting individualism was taking over society and private wealth held more value than personal integrity. Bowie wrote his damning indictment while living comfortably as a tax exile in Switzerland. I jest but I don’t’, you know?

Then there’s “Too Dizzy” which Bowie had removed from every reissue of this album since 1995. It’s not on any streaming services and he was really dissatisfied with it. Co-written by Bowie with Erdal Kızılçay, it's all about jealousy. It’s a light-weight song and I don’t think it’s so bad, I think there’s plenty more from his catalogue more worthy of being purged for eternity. He must have really hated it as it’s the only song of his that he went to such lengths to destroy. I think “Beat of Your Dream” might have worked better for this treatment.

Finally, the album closes with the Iggy Pop cover “Bang Bang” originally from his 1981 album Party. On his previous album Bowie covered three Pop songs and stated in 1987 “I think he’s one of the best around. Even though he’s starting to get through, he’s still terribly underrated, so I always try to do my bit, do something of his.” When the record was released music critics were starting to call Bowie out for continuously padding his album’s out with Iggy Pop songs. It’s a fine cover but the Pop version suits him much better and there’s just not much reason for this version to exist.

This record was the first Bowie album to be released simultaneously on vinyl and CD formats, it was also the first Bowie album to have a different length for different releases with almost all the songs on the CD version being slightly longer than the vinyl. Initial sales were strong, peaking at No. 6 on the UK album charts, but dropping off quickly and significantly. Contemporary reviews were mixed with most calling it unfocused but happy that Bowie seemed to be at least trying again. However, the real legacy of this record lies in its tour. The Glass Spider Tour ran from May to November of 1987 and would be the most ambitious, expensive, and complex he had ever embarked on in his entire career. Not since Diamond Dogs had he given such attention to the theatrical possibilities of live performances. It was conceived as a theatrical show with spoken introduction to songs, vignettes, visual and project videos, theatrical light and stage props. With elaborate costume changes and a troupe of five dancers the tour was poorly received and called over-blown and pretentious. These criticisms and the exhaustion it caused Bowie led to every subsequent tour he embarked on being a much more stripped back affair with the focus primarily on the music and not theatricality. The sad truth of this is that once again Bowie was just extremely ahead of his time and the template that he created with the Glass Spider tour would go on to have a direct influence on the next tours by the Rolling Stones, Prince, and Madonna, and as the years have gone the marriage of music, theatre, and elaborate costume changes would be the blueprint for world tours by artists like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga. 

Overall, despite jokes that Never Let Me Down in fact does let us down it is a noble failure and it holds a certain amount of 1980s charm. While it might not be a Bowie record that I'll consistently return to, I just can’t bring myself to actively dislike it. The luke-warm reaction to the album and tour led to Bowie taking stock of where he was in his career and what he really wanted to achieve with his music. The consequence of this was him taking a step back from the limelight and instead becoming part of a band, Tin Machine, who he would release his next two albums with. Throughout the years Bowie always expressed his dissatisfaction with Never Let Me Down and showcased a desire to remake it on a number of occasions. Unfortunately he never got to do that himself, but in 2018 the entire album was remade with new production and instrumentation Bowie’s original vocals as part of the Loving the Alien boxset. I think the consistent regret Bowie expressed regarding this album demonstrates just how much potential this record has; the songwriting is there, a lot of the songs are catchy and fun, it’s got all the pieces. For better or worse this is the end of Bowie’s so-called Phil Collins years and even though almost no one would say this was a period where he produced his greatest works, I still have to say, in some strange way, I am going to miss them.

Bonus Track: Julie

Before you go, I’ll leave you with an outtake from the sessions that for some reason was left off the final album. “Julie” is an up-beat rocker that’s free from the overblown 80s production of a lot of the rest of the album. With the right marketing I think it has all the potential to be a hit.

Never Let Me Down (1984) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★  [5/10]