David Bowie’s Final Four Albums Get a Glorious Deluxe Treatment in ‘I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016)’ Box Set: Album Review
When a brilliant artist of any discipline reaches their twilight years — which in popular music is mid-to-late thirties — the best you can usually hope for is good rather than great.
The lightning bolt of inspiration that made them what they are is in the rear-view mirror, and although there’s almost always the occasional spark that reminds you of who they were and sometimes still are, the artist is in a constant battle with their former selves. They might still crush it live, but there’s a reason why the new songs are bathroom breaks. Some resign themselves to it; others try, with seeming desperation, to stay relevant or, worse, edgy. Most of them probably feel like the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde when she was asked for an autograph a few years ago — “Haven’t I done enough?!”
There are rare exceptions: Bob Dylan and Neil Young have had late hot streaks. But most of all must be David Bowie, whose final album, “Blackstar” was written and recorded as he underwent treatment for cancer, and released two days before his death. It also was his most innovative and exciting work in 35 years.
“Blackstar” is the final chapter in “I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016),” the sixth and chronologically final installment in the series of career-spanning boxed sets overseen by the man himself in the years before his death. At the core of the set are four studio albums — “Heathen,” “Reality,” “The Next Day” and “Blackstar” —recorded between 2001 and 2015. The reason, or at least the impetus, for the hiatus came when Bowie suffered a heart attack onstage toward the end of the exhausting, 112-date “Reality” tour and apparently decided he’d had enough. It also includes two sprawling live albums and three full CDs of stray tracks from the era.
The first three albums in the set are basically a continuation of the creative revival that began with the “Outside” album in 1995. After Bowie had reached a creative nadir in the early ‘90s with the semi-hard rock of “Tin Machine” and an attempted return to “Let’s Dance”-style pop with “Black Tie White Noise,” he apparently re-engaged with his muse and revived his songwriting and innovation; also during this time he got sober, got married and moved to New York. He remained competitive and intensely aware of what was happening in contemporary alternative music (much of which his earlier work had influenced), and as a result, some of those ‘90s albums showed far too much of an influence from industrial rock (particularly Nine Inch Nails) and drum n’ bass.
But by the time of “Heathen,” he wasn’t following any trends, and the album was an unusual combination of driving rock, experimental tracks so low-key they bordered on maudlin, and incongruously sprightly moments like “A Better Future.” Significantly, the album also reunited him with producer Tony Visconti, with whom he’d worked off and on since the mid 1960s, and who would work on everything he recorded after.
The following “Reality,” recorded just a year later, was a much livelier affair and intended to showcase Bowie’s powerhouse live band. There are many more rock songs — with deliciously distorted guitars and powerhouse drumming — and experimentation, with almost talk-sung verses with monotonal melodies. It also features some of the strongest songs of this period, notably “New Killer Star,” “Days” and the title track.
The following tour — Bowie’s last — is collected on the sprawling “Reality Tour” set, some 33 songs in all, that actually display the challenges of being a rock legend later in life: The setlist alternated classics with deep cuts and new material, like a sequence that saw him moving from the mid-‘70s non-single “Breaking Glass” to the new “Never Get Old,” followed by “Changes.” Although overstuffed, it’s the definitive career-spanning live Bowie album, and includes a stunning version of “Heroes” that starts off with a rough, guitar-driven arrangement that gradually morphs into the familiar one; by the time of the song’s anthemic coda, it’s hard not to feel a lump in the throat. (The box also includes a similarly sprawling, although very different 2002 set from the Montreux Jazz Festival that includes nearly all of the monumental 1977 album “Low.”)
Curiously, although some ten years elapsed between “Reality” and the following studio album “The Next Day,” it’s largely a continuation, with many of the same musicians and a similar combination of unexpectedly driving rock and experimental tracks.
Yet none of this work hinted at what was coming next. Bowie recorded “Blackstar” in the shadow of his mortality, and the intensity is palpable throughout every note of the album. Working with jazz saxophonist Donny McCaslin and his ace band, the music is often just as driving as the preceding rock albums but much darker — particularly the eerie title track, which combines a haunting opening with a glorious middle section that is like the sun parting clouds, until the lyrics begin: “Something happened on the day he died/ Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside/ Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried/ ‘I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar.’” The album closes on a similarly upbeat note with “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” which features a distant harmonica and “Heroes”-esque guitar tone (recalling his mid-‘70s “Berlin” era) and the seemingly conclusive lyrics: “Seeing more and feeling less/ Saying no but meaning yes/ This is all I ever meant/ That’s the message that I sent.”
It concludes what may be the most remarkable final act of any entertainer’s career: The album was released on January 8th, 2016, his 69th birthday — two days before his death. Of course he couldn’t have planned it so specifically, but it’s hard to think of an artist who played themselves off so memorably. It’s an extraordinary final statement from one of the greatest musicians of the past century.
This era served up so many stray tracks that the “Recode” odds-and-ends compilation that accompanies all of the boxed sets in this series sprawls across three full CDs. Many of them are for completists only (did we really need SACD mixes, if anyone remembers what those are?) but along with the two EPs that followed his final two albums, highlights include James Murphy’s “Steve Reich mix” of “Love Is Lost” (which incorporates winking elements from “Ashes to Ashes”); the Metro remix of “Everyone Says Hi,” which has a breezy electronic feel reminiscent of Tame Impala; a wild remix of “Disco King” featuring Tool’s Maynard Keenan and Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante; an oddball collaboration with Lou Reed called “Hop Frog”; and a completely bonkers version of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s snarky 1986 song “Love Missile F1-11,” one of several unexpected covers from this era including Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso,” the Pixies’ “Cactus,” the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset,” and “Try Some, Buy Some,” a song George Harrison wrote and produced for Ronnie Spector in 1971 (if nothing else, they show the range of Bowie’s musical tastes).
There are also several of his last live performances: three tracks from the Fashion Rocks show in 2005, including two with Arcade Fire (their “Wake Up” and his “Five Years”), and most interesting of all, a cover of the early Pink Floyd classic “Arnold Layne” with that band’s David Gilmour — a nice parting tribute to the song’s writer and original singer, who cast a vast influence on the young Bowie. (His last live performance came in 2006, a version of “Changes” with Alicia Keys.)
This era found Bowie coming to terms with his own past — there might not have been any more hit singles, let alone another “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Ziggy Stardust” or “Station to Station,” but he’d found a solid cruising altitude that gave him room to challenge himself, until he decided he’d had enough and focused on his family and curating his vast archive for the final decade of his life. The results of that curation have continued to roll out with generous frequency in the years since his death in the form of multiple live albums, the “Moonage Daydream” film, and, not least, the opening of the David Bowie Centre at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum earlier this week, which features a handful of the 90,000 items the museum acquired from his archive.
Many quite intentional references to his own past, from the “Absolute Beginners”-evoking “Ba-ba-ba-ooo” backing vocals on “Everybody Says Hi” to the Berlin references in “Where Are We Now?” Crack city in never get old
The lightning bolt of inspiration that made them what they are is in the rear-view mirror, and although there’s almost always the occasional spark that reminds you of who they were and sometimes still are, the artist is in a constant battle with their former selves. They might still crush it live, but there’s a reason why the new songs are bathroom breaks. Some resign themselves to it; others try, with seeming desperation, to stay relevant or, worse, edgy. Most of them probably feel like the Pretenders’ Chrissie Hynde when she was asked for an autograph a few years ago — “Haven’t I done enough?!”
There are rare exceptions: Bob Dylan and Neil Young have had late hot streaks. But most of all must be David Bowie, whose final album, “Blackstar” was written and recorded as he underwent treatment for cancer, and released two days before his death. It also was his most innovative and exciting work in 35 years.
“Blackstar” is the final chapter in “I Can’t Give Everything Away (2002-2016),” the sixth and chronologically final installment in the series of career-spanning boxed sets overseen by the man himself in the years before his death. At the core of the set are four studio albums — “Heathen,” “Reality,” “The Next Day” and “Blackstar” —recorded between 2001 and 2015. The reason, or at least the impetus, for the hiatus came when Bowie suffered a heart attack onstage toward the end of the exhausting, 112-date “Reality” tour and apparently decided he’d had enough. It also includes two sprawling live albums and three full CDs of stray tracks from the era.
The first three albums in the set are basically a continuation of the creative revival that began with the “Outside” album in 1995. After Bowie had reached a creative nadir in the early ‘90s with the semi-hard rock of “Tin Machine” and an attempted return to “Let’s Dance”-style pop with “Black Tie White Noise,” he apparently re-engaged with his muse and revived his songwriting and innovation; also during this time he got sober, got married and moved to New York. He remained competitive and intensely aware of what was happening in contemporary alternative music (much of which his earlier work had influenced), and as a result, some of those ‘90s albums showed far too much of an influence from industrial rock (particularly Nine Inch Nails) and drum n’ bass.
But by the time of “Heathen,” he wasn’t following any trends, and the album was an unusual combination of driving rock, experimental tracks so low-key they bordered on maudlin, and incongruously sprightly moments like “A Better Future.” Significantly, the album also reunited him with producer Tony Visconti, with whom he’d worked off and on since the mid 1960s, and who would work on everything he recorded after.
The following “Reality,” recorded just a year later, was a much livelier affair and intended to showcase Bowie’s powerhouse live band. There are many more rock songs — with deliciously distorted guitars and powerhouse drumming — and experimentation, with almost talk-sung verses with monotonal melodies. It also features some of the strongest songs of this period, notably “New Killer Star,” “Days” and the title track.
The following tour — Bowie’s last — is collected on the sprawling “Reality Tour” set, some 33 songs in all, that actually display the challenges of being a rock legend later in life: The setlist alternated classics with deep cuts and new material, like a sequence that saw him moving from the mid-‘70s non-single “Breaking Glass” to the new “Never Get Old,” followed by “Changes.” Although overstuffed, it’s the definitive career-spanning live Bowie album, and includes a stunning version of “Heroes” that starts off with a rough, guitar-driven arrangement that gradually morphs into the familiar one; by the time of the song’s anthemic coda, it’s hard not to feel a lump in the throat. (The box also includes a similarly sprawling, although very different 2002 set from the Montreux Jazz Festival that includes nearly all of the monumental 1977 album “Low.”)
Curiously, although some ten years elapsed between “Reality” and the following studio album “The Next Day,” it’s largely a continuation, with many of the same musicians and a similar combination of unexpectedly driving rock and experimental tracks.
Yet none of this work hinted at what was coming next. Bowie recorded “Blackstar” in the shadow of his mortality, and the intensity is palpable throughout every note of the album. Working with jazz saxophonist Donny McCaslin and his ace band, the music is often just as driving as the preceding rock albums but much darker — particularly the eerie title track, which combines a haunting opening with a glorious middle section that is like the sun parting clouds, until the lyrics begin: “Something happened on the day he died/ Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside/ Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried/ ‘I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar.’” The album closes on a similarly upbeat note with “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” which features a distant harmonica and “Heroes”-esque guitar tone (recalling his mid-‘70s “Berlin” era) and the seemingly conclusive lyrics: “Seeing more and feeling less/ Saying no but meaning yes/ This is all I ever meant/ That’s the message that I sent.”
It concludes what may be the most remarkable final act of any entertainer’s career: The album was released on January 8th, 2016, his 69th birthday — two days before his death. Of course he couldn’t have planned it so specifically, but it’s hard to think of an artist who played themselves off so memorably. It’s an extraordinary final statement from one of the greatest musicians of the past century.
This era served up so many stray tracks that the “Recode” odds-and-ends compilation that accompanies all of the boxed sets in this series sprawls across three full CDs. Many of them are for completists only (did we really need SACD mixes, if anyone remembers what those are?) but along with the two EPs that followed his final two albums, highlights include James Murphy’s “Steve Reich mix” of “Love Is Lost” (which incorporates winking elements from “Ashes to Ashes”); the Metro remix of “Everyone Says Hi,” which has a breezy electronic feel reminiscent of Tame Impala; a wild remix of “Disco King” featuring Tool’s Maynard Keenan and Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante; an oddball collaboration with Lou Reed called “Hop Frog”; and a completely bonkers version of Sigue Sigue Sputnik’s snarky 1986 song “Love Missile F1-11,” one of several unexpected covers from this era including Jonathan Richman’s “Pablo Picasso,” the Pixies’ “Cactus,” the Kinks’ “Waterloo Sunset,” and “Try Some, Buy Some,” a song George Harrison wrote and produced for Ronnie Spector in 1971 (if nothing else, they show the range of Bowie’s musical tastes).
There are also several of his last live performances: three tracks from the Fashion Rocks show in 2005, including two with Arcade Fire (their “Wake Up” and his “Five Years”), and most interesting of all, a cover of the early Pink Floyd classic “Arnold Layne” with that band’s David Gilmour — a nice parting tribute to the song’s writer and original singer, who cast a vast influence on the young Bowie. (His last live performance came in 2006, a version of “Changes” with Alicia Keys.)
This era found Bowie coming to terms with his own past — there might not have been any more hit singles, let alone another “Heroes,” “Changes,” “Ziggy Stardust” or “Station to Station,” but he’d found a solid cruising altitude that gave him room to challenge himself, until he decided he’d had enough and focused on his family and curating his vast archive for the final decade of his life. The results of that curation have continued to roll out with generous frequency in the years since his death in the form of multiple live albums, the “Moonage Daydream” film, and, not least, the opening of the David Bowie Centre at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum earlier this week, which features a handful of the 90,000 items the museum acquired from his archive.
Many quite intentional references to his own past, from the “Absolute Beginners”-evoking “Ba-ba-ba-ooo” backing vocals on “Everybody Says Hi” to the Berlin references in “Where Are We Now?” Crack city in never get old