Bowie Immersion #23: Earthling (1997)
<img src ="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/bf/Earthling_%28album%29.jpg/200px-Earthling_%28album%29.jpg">
Album is <a href ="http://www.sendspace.com/file/wgjpih">here </a>.
Released January 30, 1997 by BMG Records.
Around this tour, Bowie turnwed 50 and was really into his drum and bass thing.
I saw DB at the orpheum on this tour which is really when I started getting into him.
* The more popular version of this tune with Trent Reznor is only on a four song EP which also has Ice Cube as a collaborator on one remix.
It's not like the mono/stereo twofer of Pet Sounds, where you're perfectly happy to listen to the whole album again immediately after listening to it once.
Most of the listening I have done on this immersion has come right from my cd shelf - not too many gaps in my bowie collection.
Kudos to Epoisses for making it all avail in one place, though.
I liked a bunch of this when it came out.
Barely past a year from "Outside," Bowie switched gears and came out clubbing. "Out" was the dark and foreboding atmosphere of Detective Nathan Adler's diaries, and "in" was a very British romp through jungle and bass dance music - very cool for the period.
Unfortunately, every tune is a five or six minute tune. Reeves Gabrel's guitar is mixed way too loud, even on the down-tempo mood piece "Seven Years In Tibet."
Although the lyrics are all his, he hands over the production credit to Gabrels and engineer Mark Plati, who also have co-credits on most of the music.
The single "Little Wonder" actually IS a great song but the only really memorable effort is the exciting, unusually politically charged rocker "I'm Afraid Of Americans".
Indulgent, and oh-so-European, this ear-splitting, already dated effort isn't a career low like Never Let Me Down, but it's remarkably weak compared to Outside.
The band again includes Mike Garson, who adds some characteristically interesting piano, Gail Ann Dorsey on vocal and bass and young drummer Zachary Alford.
THE NEXT THREE AND FINAL ALBUMS ARE WORTH STICKING AROUND FOR. THAT'S A PROMISE FROM CHOPPER (WHO EVER I AM) ....