My Month of Bowie, day 25: 'The Next Day' (2013)

Surprise! Bowie's back! It took him a decade, but he's back!

The album: The Next Day (ISO, 2013)

Welcome back... again.

My thoughts: After a decade away from the limelight following his heart attack, David Bowie returned to the studio and reteamed with longtime producer Tony Visconti for 2013's The Next Day. And we'll talk all about that in a moment, I promise. But there's something else on my mind right now.

All month long, I've been doing my level best to avoid biographical information about Bowie and his often-messy personal life. I figured, what this guy did when he was out of the recording studio (or offstage) was none of my business. Occasionally, just for the purposes of clarity, I've had to delve into the reasons why David made certain albums at various points in his life, e.g. the so-called Berlin trilogy (1977-1979) or Let's Dance (1983). But even then, I've tried to keep the focus on the music, not the man. This series is not meant to be a history of Bowie but rather a journal of my reactions to his albums.

Very recently, though, I watched an eye-opening 48-minute video by YouTuber and historian Jenny Draper entitled "How We Beat the Fascists Last Time," part of her ongoing series, The London History Show. It details how England was seized by anti-immigrant hysteria in the 1970s and how this led to a surge of quasi-Nazi hate groups, some of which started making political inroads and gaining surprisingly broad support. Draper even singles out a few celebrities who voiced disturbing, racist opinions back then, including David Bowie. 

This wasn't totally out of left field. I'd heard that David made some "controversial" political statements in the mid-to-late-1970s, but I figured this had been done purely for shock value and to generate some press. Also, he was way into cocaine at that point and was slipping into Howard Hughes-level paranoia. But none of that really excuses his comments, certainly not his seeming endorsement of Hitler as "the first rock star." Besides, David's hateful statements sound eerily sincere, not the kind of thing you'd say casually in an attempt to be "provocative."

Also, it was disheartening to hear Draper refer to Bowie as "the funny spaceman popstar." Is that what he is to Millennials and Gen Z-ers? Just a goofball novelty act from their grandparents' generation? I wonder if we're collectively forgetting about Bowie or if his influence is waning. I thought his dramatic, complicated, often sulky music would resonate with the anxious, Xanax-popping youngsters of the 21st century, but it's really not up to me to decide that. I suppose, if you really want to keep Bowie's image alive, you could make a flashy Hollywood biopic about him. But, then, what do you do with the Nazi stuff? Ignore it? Pretend it didn't happen?

Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh, right. The Next Day. Okay, so this was Bowie's first album in a decade, after his self-imposed exile following a backstage heart attack. To me, the title has a triple meaning. First, and most obviously, it's the name of a song on the album, a feisty rocker I quite enjoyed. Secondly, it's a way of acknowledging that an entire decade has elapsed between albums. Thirdly, and most significantly, this album sounds like a direct continuation of what Bowie had been doing on Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003). It literally could have been made the next day after he made those. It feels like no time has passed.

Was Bowie showing his age on The Next Day? After all, he was 66 when it was released. The uptempo numbers—and this album starts with four of them in a row—sound like they could have been recorded in any era of Bowie's career. Then, he gets to a couple of slower numbers, "Where Are We Now?" and "Valentine's Day," and his voice does sound older. But not in a bad way. It's like burnished brass. As I've been saying from the beginning of this series, David never sounded young. So now, as we near the end of the series, he can't truly sound old.

Some have described this album as "dark" or "somber," and I guess they mean the slower, more morose numbers like "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die" and "Heat." And I'm just now realizing the title of the former is another of Bowie's Elvis references. But The Next Day has more than its share of rockers. I was particularly keen on "(You Will) Set the World on Fire." I liked the sardonic "Boss of Me," too, even though it's not a remake of the Malcolm in the Middle theme by They Might Be Giants.

Look, I'll level with you and admit that this album hit me at exactly the wrong time. As Bowie records go, I'd probably put it in the upper third. The songs are solid, and Visconti hadn't lost his touch. But I just happened to listen to The Next Day right after finding out Bowie, the very man who called out MTV for its racism (and rightly so), said some horribly racist things during the most productive time in his career. So I had real trouble engaging with this one. The songs went in one ear and out the other.

"It's like finding out Mickey Mantle corked his bat!"

Next: Blackstar (2016)