Bowie Immersion #17: Tonight (1984)
<img src ="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d7/Tonight_%28album%29.jpg/200px-Tonight_%28album%29.jpg">
Album is <a href ="http://www.sendspace.com/file/fmu7af"> here. </a>
Released September 1, 1984 on EMI Records.
True Bowie fans, the purists, often rank this and the following record ("Never Let me Down") as his worst ever, but "Tonight," in my opinion, is a tad better. It is more stylistically varied and more clearly rooted in Bowie's signature musical sound/vocals. The top ten hit, "Blue Jean," has a 1950's style rock n' roll sound and a catchy guitar beat, but does get annoying pretty quickly. For whatever reason, Bowie has always been partial to the tune.
Bowie leans toward light, up-beat, funky tunes like "Tumble And Twirl", 1970's-style pop ("Loving The Alien") and a little reggae ("Tonight"). Iggy Pop as usual for this time period shared many of the songwriting credits and appears on a couple tracks. The awesome Carlos Alomar is back on guitar, but the rest of the band is carried over from "Let's Dance."
During the next year, Bowie had two collaborative, non-album hits: the movie theme "This Is Not America," with the Pat Metheny Group (a great piece of music), and the "Live Aid" single "Dancing In The Streets," with Mick Jagger - horrible!
If you must purchase this directionless effort, hunt down the out-of-print Ryko version with the bonus tracks of "Absolute Beginners" and "This Is Not America." Otherwise, it just ain't worth it.