My Month of Bowie, day 17: 'Never Let Me Down' (1987)

David Bowie may, in fact, have let some people down with this album.

The album: Never Let Me Down (EMI America, 1987)

Even the album cover is busy.

My take: Never Let Me Down is the first David Bowie album I was acutely aware of. All of his LPs from Station to Station (1976) to Tonight (1984) were released during my lifetime, but I would have been too young to take notice of them when they were new. By 1987, however, I was an adolescent whose family had basic cable. MTV was my life. I was probably even reading Rolling Stone (or at least skimming through it at the newsstand) by that point. So, yeah, when one of the biggest rock stars in the world put out a brand new, heavily-hyped album, I heard all about it.

I even knew that Never Let Me Down, while a commercial success, was not a critically well-received album. (The same could be said of Tonight.) Nevertheless, for the purposes of this project, I approached it with an open mind and no expectations. Or at least I tried to. It's becoming more and more difficult to remain unbiased as this project goes along, especially now that I have sixteen previous albums to compare this one to.

Never Let Me Down finds Bowie still firmly ensconced in his "mall pop" era. Like other legacy acts of his generation, he was obviously struggling to update his sound for the '80s while still remaining true to himself. You can hear that same struggle in the Reagan-era music of Paul McCartney, The Rolling Stones, and other rock veterans. After two listens to Never Let Me Down, I'd say that David Bowie hadn't totally lost the knack as a songwriter or even as a singer, but he'd sure lost the knack as a record-maker. This guy released some of the most sonically-satisfying LPs of the 1970s, but Never is drowning in all of the worst musical ideas of the 1980s. At least he sounds more awake on this one than he did on Tonight.

To be fair, I cannot listen to the album the way it was intended in 1987. If you want to fully appreciate Never Let Me Down, you have to buy it on cassette from a Sam Goody, Record Town, or Tape World, then play it on a hot pink boombox with crappy speakers while applying copious amounts of hairspray and eye makeup. Under those circumstances, songs like "Beat of Your Drum" and "New York's in Love" would probably make a lot more sense. Most of the tracks on Never would also blend in perfectly on the soundtrack for a Steve Guttenberg action-comedy.

When you call an album Never Let Me Down, you're all but inviting critics to take potshots at you. Which they did. And I'm sure a few reviewers noted that, on this album, Bowie literally went from singing about "Heroes" to singing about "Zeroes." But "Zeroes" is a textbook example of a song that would have been much more engaging if Bowie had just recorded it in the early-to-mid-1970s. Only the cheeseball '80s arrangement lets it down (pardon the expression). Throughout this entire album, there are frequent guitar solos by David's longtime friend, Peter Frampton. I was ambivalent toward them. I could appreciate Frampton's skill as a musician, but these solos make a lot of the tracks on Never sound alike. Imagine the Miami Vice theme playing on an endless loop.

So what's salvageable here? Well, the album's first two tracks ("Day-In Day-Out" and "Time Will Crawl") are energetic and catchy, even if they both slightly outstay their welcome. The album's title track has a wistful, Lennon-esque quality, again nearly snuffed out by the overproduction. And then there's "Glass Spider," which starts with wonderfully pretentious spoken narration about some kind of giant spiderlike creature that goes stomping around China, devouring victims and turning their skeletons into keepsakes. Lord only knows what this all means, but we haven't had anything like it on a Bowie record since Diamond Dogs (1974). It's entertaining enough, but I couldn't help but think of Nigel Tufnel introducing "Stonehenge." ("In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history...")

I should mention that, in support of this very album, David Bowie embarked upon the incredibly ambitious and gloriously silly Glass Spider Tour, which featured (among other things) a gigantic spider looming over the stage. Critics huffed, but plenty of tickets were sold. I've looked at some of the footage, and it's mind-boggling. This show deserves an article of its own, but I simply don't have room for it in this project. Maybe somewhere down the line, I'll cover it.

For David Bowie, following this album and the tour, it was time to regroup and refocus. He spent the next few years with his side project, Tin Machine, before reemerging with a new studio album. Bowie went six years between solo records, an unprecedented gap for him. What on earth would a David Bowie album sound like in a post-Nevermind (1991) world? We're about to investigate that very question.

Next: Black Tie White Noise (1993)

My Month of Bowie, day 15: 'Let's Dance' (1983)

In 1983, David Bowie wanted his MTV, and the feeling was mutual.

The album: Let's Dance (EMI America, 1983)

Bowie's gonna fly now.

My thoughts: You'd probably guess that legacy artists of the 1960s and 1970s had a tough time of it in the 1980s. In short order, the basic cable network MTV drastically changed the music industry, making instant superstars out of flashily-dressed young synth rockers with teased hair and heavy makeup. Suddenly, the music video was the format of choice, emphasizing style and image over substance. Surely, then, the decade would belong to the Adam Ants and Boy Georges of the world. The obsolete rock and pop acts who had dominated the charts in previous decades would be sidelined to make room for these brash upstarts.

And yet, look at what actually happened in the 1980s. Bruce Springsteen and Michael Jackson, both well established by the time Reagan took office, reached unprecedented heights of popularity in the new decade. Pop tunesmiths like Billy Joel, Elton John, and Paul McCartney didn't disappear from the charts either. Potential '70s dinosaurs like Yes, Genesis, Chicago, and Heart overhauled their sound to better suit the times. Legacy acts like Steve Winwood, The Moody Blues, and especially Aerosmith staged impressive comebacks. Nostalgia-themed films like Back to the Future (1985), Stand by Me (1986), Dirty Dancing (1987), and La Bamba (1987) kept classic rock alive on radio and TV.

In short, the past didn't go away. It was everywhere!

So David Bowie, still only in his 30s, had a better-than-average shot at making it big in the 1980s. Reinvention was his thing. He was more than photogenic enough to be a music video star. And he'd been incorporating electronic elements into his music for years. The cover of his first MTV-era album, Let's Dance, showed the singer as a prizefighter. Clearly, this was a fight he'd been training for. And he had a new producer in his corner: Chic's Nile Rodgers, who drew inspiration from his own (plentiful) hit records, particularly "Good Times."

One curious thing about Let's Dance is that it contains three inescapable hits that I heard dozens of times in the '80s—"Modern Love," "China Girl," and "Let's Dance"—and those are the first three songs on the album. Back to back to back, baby! I heard these tracks so many times as a youth that it's difficult to "review" them now. It's like trying to review your old yearbooks or your family vacation photos. I suppose I still like all of them in 2025, though my feelings are all tied up with complicated mixed emotions about my childhood. 

Podcast Tuesday: "College is for Suckers!"

Tom Bosley, Henry Winkler, and Marion Ross on Happy Days.

In March 1982, Happy Days launched the fifth and last of its spinoffs, the short-lived and much-mocked Joanie Loves Chachi. By then, Happy Days itself was in its ninth season and drifting slowly but surely into total irrelevance. The Grim Reaper was looming. Two successful Happy Days spinoffs, Mork & Mindy and Laverne & Shirley, were both nearing their ends as well, expiring in May 1982 and May 1983 respectively. 

Producer Garry Marshall must have figured that the only way to keep his TV empire alive was to make a Hail Mary play for the youth audience with a new series focusing on teenage lovebirds Joanie Cunningham (Erin Moran) and Chachi Arcola (Scott Baio) and their suspiciously 1980s-sounding music.  Don't forget that the MTV cable network had just launched in August 1981. This was definitely the golden age of music videos, and Garry wanted a piece of the action.

In retrospect, Marshall and company spent much of Season 9 of Happy Days setting up Joanie Loves Chachi. So many of the plots that year were about the young couple that even Fonzie (top-billed Henry Winkler) seemed to take a backseat to them. This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we're reviewing "To Beanie or Not to Beanie," an episode in which Joanie makes some crucial decisions about her future, including taking a gap year between high school and college. Her parents, Howard (Tom Bosley) and Marion (Marion Ross), are horrified, but Fonzie tries to argue on Joanie's behalf.

"To Beanie or Not to Beanie" originally aired in January 1982, just two months before the start of Joanie Loves Chachi. The spinoff must have already been in the planning and production stages by then, so I'm guessing "To Beanie" was intended to ease viewers into the new show. Appropriately, then, the episode includes one of Joanie and Chachi's many, many musical numbers: an uptempo rock number called "Call." Joanie Loves Chachi would likewise feature many songs by the duo and their newly-formed band.

But does any of this make "To Beanie or Not to Beanie" a good episode? You can find out by listening to the latest installment of These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast.

My (brief) thoughts on the Monty Python finale

Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Carol Cleveland, Terry Gilliam, and John Cleese together for the last (?) time.

I have just returned, my lovelies, from the local cineplex, where I paid $18 for the privilege of seeing a group of paunchy, jowly, sagging septuagenarians shuffle through some ancient sketch comedy for three hours (with a half-hour tea break in the middle). I would not have missed this opportunity for the world. These affable old-timers, you see, were the five surviving members of Monty Python, and the occasion was the British comedy troupe's "farewell" performance, which was staged at London's O2 Arena and then simulcast to movie theaters around the world. The rapidly-deteriorating comedians tell us that this is "it" for the team. Monty Python is no more. Bereft of life, you might say, it rests in peace. Or in pieces.

So how was the big finale? Was it worth $18 of anyone's money? Oh, sure. I laughed throughout the entire running time, which felt good to do even though I'd heard most of these jokes dozens of times. I even got a few chuckles from the 30-minute intermission, during which the screen went blank apart from a clock counting down the minutes and seconds, because the movie-going audience had not been briefed of this in advance and thought for a few minutes that it might be some kind of high-concept prank. (It wasn't.)

An ad for the concert

As for the rest of the program, it was quaint, sentimental, and nostalgic. The innovators and provocateurs of yesteryear are now the established old guard, and this was a chance for them to cycle through their greatest hits and bits. Some of these golden oldies were conflated: "Vocational Guidance Counselor" became "The Lumberjack Song," "Dead Parrot" melted into "Cheese Shop," etc.

The fact that the show was the brainchild of the group's hammiest and most mercenary member, Eric Idle (the self-described "Greedy Bastard"), was plain to see. This was a slick, Broadway-style revue with a heavy emphasis on production numbers and fit, lean chorus girls and boys leaping and tumbling around the stage as the doddering oldsters watched in appreciation.

For me, though, the highlights of the show were the quieter, more intimate moments when the five surviving Pythons (Graham Chapman died a quarter-century ago) simply took pleasure in sharing the stage with one another. The venerable "Four Yorkshireman" sketch, in which a quartet of wealthy old geezers try to outdo each other with outlandish tales of childhood suffering and poverty, has a special resonance in 2014 because the comedians performing it now really are the age of the folks they're parodying.

As you'd expect, the show ended with a group rendition of "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" from Life of Brian, and I can't have been the only one who got a little misty-eyed during that. After all, Monty Python has been a huge part of my life since the 1980s, when I first saw their BBC sketch comedy series in reruns on MTV. This really felt like a way of saying goodbye to the boys, plus Ms. Carol Cleveland, the honorary female "seventh Python." Perhaps now, they can be packed up in crates and shipped off to that warehouse from the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

(today's zomby) AND THE BOB DYLAN/MARTHA QUINN SUMMIT OF 1984

C'mon, Zomby, we both know you can't read.

How are you this Monday, citizens?

I'd like to share with you an interview I found on YouTube. It's MTV sweetheart Martha Quinn interviewing rock legend Bob Dylan for the cable channel back in 1984. Although Bob is a notoriously prickly interview subject, Quinn catches him in a relaxed, lighthearted mood and they have a nice, laid-back conversation. What's most bizarre is that at the beginning of this footage, Quinn herself seems to be putting the finishing touches on Dylan's makeup. Here's a snippet of their pre-interview conversation:

QUINN: Is this liquid eyeliner that you're using?
DYLAN: No.
QUINN: Just what is it?
DYLAN: It's a pencil.

So there you have it, folks. Bob Dylan got his mid-1980s raccoon eyes with a pencil and not liquid eyeliner.

(today's zomby) AND "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO MADONNA LOUISE CICCONE?"

And speaking of '90s nostalgia...

Here's a masterful 1996 MTV promo by David LaChappelle in which Madonna and Courtney Love are reimagined as, respectively, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?