Review Summary: A problematic experiment, an astounding experience.
Okay. First things first. David Bowie’s
Outside is an album based on the most pretentious and preposterous, most deliberately gross and grotesque and least cohesive concept story ever created by an artist (except maybe Kate Bush’s accompanying film for
The Red Shoes). In its booklet are not the lyrics to the songs but the story, which frankly makes me very glad Bowie never attempted to become a novelist. The sci-fi horror chutzpah Bowie displays is a disaster on the same level as David Lynch’s
Dune.
Now that I’ve come to that other David, may I point out that Lynch’s films may be non-linear but emotionally, they do make sense. Bowie’s story does not.
I am willing, though, to forgive Bowie for the whole idiotic back story. I am willing to recognize the artist’s desire to include it with the album, however confusing of irritating it may be to the average Bowie aficionado, because apparently this very story creates the opportunity for Bowie to work in a universe of his own making, submerged in his personal vision and inspiration. Musically,
Outside is one of Bowie’s best albums. Listening even to the Eno-backed ‘segues’ he includes which should be seminal in telling his story if it could have been told at all, one can feel totally absorbed into its aesthetic.
The totally bleak and barren musical landscape Bowie crafts here is what matters. Since I concluded the story wasn’t worth the effort, I have decided to consistently ignore it with re-listening of this album. The re-listenings have presented me with a more than worthy substitute for trying to understand the story: trying to feel the atmosphere. Listening to
Outside places you in the desolate outskirts of any major city (though it specifically reminds me of Berlin), amid underground sensibilities, amid a lot of people but lost and lonely in an environment you feel uncomfortable in.
From the first tracks, diptych ‘Leon takes us outside’ and ‘Outside’, it feels as if Bowie is not only luring his audience, but himself outside of the comfortable, rather commercially-oriented cocoon he had created in the 1980’s, with slickly produced ambient music by Brian Eno and jarring industrial rock. These musical styles are the main influences acting as a backdrop to the album.
But it doesn’t stop there. What Bowie does is creating an entire urban landscape of his own. From the David Lynch-like lounge piano’s (which appear to have been played by a Liszt fan who is either really scared or really drunk in a bar during a nuclear war), to the Drum’n’Bass stylings of ‘We Prick You’ and the magnificent ‘I’m Deranged’; from smudged, smoggy urban landscapes to extra-terrestrial vocoders in the segues (no matter what the text is about); from the slightest whispering in a back alley to the paranoid schizophrenic’s rant – everything aids the extreme anxiety and depraved atmosphere on this album.
Take, for example, ‘The Hearts Filthy Lesson’, which sounds about twice as rough as the rawest stuff on “Heroes” and melds eccentric influences into a rusty, metal fabric. Although the lyrics reference to characters invented by Bowie, it doesn’t distract. Whether they were one-song wonders like ‘Joe the Lion’ or ‘The Secret Life of Arabia’ or entire periods in his career, Bowie has always worked with fictional projections. Another highlight is the extremely harsh ‘Hallo Spaceboy’, which sounds like a thumping precursor to either Björk’s ‘Declare Independence’ or Meg White’s monotonous drumming with Bowie soaring over the constant brutal stabbing.
Also, there are some surprises among the non-‘conventional song’ tracks. ‘The Motel’ is a gentle affair with a stunning piano improvisation, an incredible performance by Bowie, at first understated and gentle before breaking into his rock voice.
It seems like also the influence of electronic groups like Massive Attack has found its way into Bowie’s rock song writing and Goldie’s Drum’n’Bass and cut up synths have found their way into Eno’s soundscaping. Therefore the album sounds remarkably current for its time. The production, as can be expected with Eno, to this day doesn’t sound dated. It sounds rough and slick at the same time, harsh but never offensive.
At the end of the album, with the major key introduced first in ‘Thru’ These Architects Eyes’, which still fits the overall sound of the album very well with its piano-pounding all over the place, there appears to be a light at the end of the tunnel. What follows is the last segue and after that the track ‘Strangers When We Meet’ which sounds pretty much out of tune with the rest of the album, rather foreshadowing Bowie’s mellower early 2000’s work. Maybe I also perceive this sagging of my interest also because, at that point, I’ve been listening for 70 minutes. Is the album too long, though? Not quite. Every time I listen, I want Bowie to show me this world and show it to me properly. The interest declines because I'm slipping out to the landscape I had been so carefully lured into.
The lyrics are of very diverse quality. From very well-composed lyrics such as ‘The Motel’, ‘Hallo Spaceboy’ and ‘I’m Deranged’ to the same pulp as the story that inspired them, unfortunately sometimes in the most beautifully composed songs.
Overall, though, listening to this album I feel like a Bowie devotee who is very willing to pick and choose what to listen to and what to ignore, very willing to overlook all his conceptual inconsistencies and lyrical nonsensicality to wander around in this world for 75 minutes and experience the visceral thrills of it. In a sense, it does work like a David Lynch movie, and it's not surprising that Lynch used 'I'm Deranged' as music to his
Lost Highway. This is one of the most problematic albums of pop and rock music history, but we’ll just have to find a way to deal with it.
