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Where Are We Now?
Where Are We Now? The Wall was probably the most famous structure that will ever stand in Berlin…and if a monument can be decommissioned, that is apparently what happened to it. Brian Ladd. We Were...
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Dancing Out in Space
Dancing Out in Space. A problem when discussing The Next Day as a complete work is that it isn’t quite one. Four versions of the album exist, as of today: the original 14-track CD/download; the...
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The Stars (Are Out Tonight)
The Stars (Are Out Tonight). The Stars (Are Out Tonight) (video). At first, it sounds like a comeback single from some lost 1987. Mike Campbell-esque lead guitar; a Traveling Wilburys acoustic...
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How Does the Grass Grow?
How Does the Grass Grow? The Next Day was conceived and recorded in secrecy and there’s little of the contemporary in it. Supposedly. “We’re not very impressed with today’s music,” Tony Visconti said,...
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Plan
Plan. Starting life as a hard-hit snare and kick pattern played by Zachary Alford, “Plan” was toyed with throughout the Next Day sessions, with Bowie pasting in guitar dubs, shaker and cowbell (?)...
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You Feel So Lonely You Could Die
You Feel So Lonely You Could Die. Like many Bowie songs of this century, “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” is burdened with those of the previous one. Bowie impressed a songbook into service here:...
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The Next Day
The Next Day. The Next Day (video). Object one: Album cover art (CD: 5″ x 5.5″; LP: 12.5″ x 12.4″). Designer: Jonathan Barnbrook (photo: Masayoshi Sukita). Designed September-December 2012; issued 8...
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Boss of Me
Boss of Me. After the first Next Day sessions of May 2011, Bowie had a good set of backing tracks (“Heat” and “Love Is Lost,” which will come later in this survey, also had their rhythm tracks cut...
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I’ll Take You There
I’ll Take You There. The other Bowie/Gerry Leonard co-composition, “I’ll Take You There” had bigger and better hooks than their “Boss of Me” but wound up slotted as a frenetic bonus track. Set in a B...
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Love Is Lost
Love Is Lost. Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich mix). Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich mix, single edit). Bowie’s public relationship with love is one of a man who’s never shaken his suspicions. There...
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I’d Rather Be High
I’d Rather Be High. I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix). I’d Rather Be High (Louis Vuitton ads). Promoting Lodger in 1979, Bowie said his intention (which he’d only realized after he made the album) had...
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If You Can See Me
If You Can See Me. “If You Can See Me” is dead-center in The Next Day‘s original sequence, like a scarecrow meant to send the half-hearted listener packing, with its chromatic chord changes,...
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God Bless the Girl
God Bless the Girl. For nearly a year, Bowie toyed with where to place “God Bless The Girl” (called “Gospel” until late in The Next Day sessions), moving the track up and down in the album sequence...
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So She
So She. Like “God Bless the Girl,” “So She” was a promising song from the Next Day sessions demoted to a bonus track. Started at the Magic Shop in September 2011 (the core group here was David Torn...
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Dirty Boys
Dirty Boys. “A euphemism, and a song, for all the glam rock stars that have ever been,” Tony Visconti offered as his take on “Dirty Boys.” His employer simply said: “Violence, chthonic, intimidation.”...
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(You Will) Set the World On Fire
(You Will) Set the World On Fire. A track that seems as if Bowie used a Waring blender to make it, “(You Will) Set the World on Fire” is set in the Greenwich Village folk scene of the early 1960s yet...
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Valentine’s Day
Valentine’s Day. One of the last tracks completed for The Next Day, “Valentine’s Day” bristles with purpose: trebly, compressed, everything upfront, as if determined to get its hooks in you early....
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Born In a UFO
Born In a UFO. Half a year after Bowie’s surprise return, it turned out that the surprise return wasn’t quite done yet. The Next Day Extra, announced in September 2013, offered four new tracks, along...
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Atomica
Atomica. Ziggy Stardust was, in his creator’s words, a prefab rock star, a plastic rocker. Bowie tended to work out of sequence: he’d create something, kill it off, then look back in interviews and...
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Like a Rocket Man
Like a Rocket Man. Given the new direction revealed in “Blackstar” and (possibly) its upcoming album, the Next Day Extra tracks now seem, particularly in the winning “Like a Rocket Man,” as a last (?)...
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