Outside bears the subtitle The Diary of Nathan Adler or The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue. A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-cycle. Alright, so it reeks of pretension. One belabors the point because Bowie at his best has always been pretentious, risque, creatively (if sometimes contrivedly) over the top. Outside marks the first in a planned series of collaborations with multi-instrumentalist, producer and conceptualist Brian Eno based on a Bowie short story. In this end-of-millennium setting, "art-crimes" and "concept muggings" merit their own police division funded by the "Arts Protectorate of London." Echoes of the Berlin "outsider" Bowie/Eno '70s trilogy of Low, Heroes, and Lodger reverberate throughout, including a return to the "cut-and-paste" lyric-assembly method then employed, only this time fed through a Mac rather than more labor-intensive paper and scissors tools. The thusly fragmented "narrative" follows the investigations of Detective Professor Adler into the murder and subsequent dismembered body-parts exhibition of 14 year-old runaway Baby Grace Blue. In this cut-up, composite world, each character, including Adler, Baby Grace, mixed-race youth Leon Blank, septuagenarian Algeria Touchshriek, and art-terrorist Ramona A. Stone, reflects a different aspect of Bowie himself and therefore a component of all the previous personas Bowie has enacted over the years. The music also randomly dices and displays many of the previous album settings such personas have populated. To complete the cube, Bowie then draws on musicians that form a kind of anagram band from his past. The closest "Ziggy" link comes courtesy of pianist Mike Garson, whose icy tinkling jazz runs evoke many a spine-tingly moment from Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs. Besides Garson and Eno, other names familiar to those who follow the Bowie canon include guitarists Carlos Alomar (Station to Station through Scary Monsters) and Reeves Grabels (Tin Machine), and more recent collaborators such as drummer Sterling Campbell (Black Tie White Noise) and multi-instrumentalist Erdal Kizilcay (Buddha). Diamond Dogs, inspired by George Orwell's 1984, is another obvious precursor to Outside's (literal) dissection of a post-apocalyptic, technological society in the name of Art. Bowie inflicts "in-character" spoken word segments as between-song segues, several of which evoke the Cockney campiness of such '60s period pieces as "Please Mr. Gravedigger" and "The Laughing Gnome" -- humor (intentional or not) that softens an otherwise bleak landscape. So, should you actually care about this dense, dark, difficult story and its generally unsympathetic characters? The effort required to adequately "process" Outside pays off in a richly voyeuristic experience where Bowie once again reflects fringe culture into the mainstream and forces us to consider that the differences are not so great.
I'm a little ashamed to say that the first David Bowie record I listened to was 1995 'Outside'. This unleashed a wild man hunt after Bowie records only to leave me disappointed with the fact that none of his records sound like this one. 'Outside' is one of the darkest records I've heard and I really dove into it for a long time. The followup 'Earthling' shares the atmosphere I might add, but 'O...
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Okay, this is REALLY dorky, but it made laugh so I'm sharing it with my fellow moggers.So, here's how it works:1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)2. Put it on shuffle3. Press play4. For every question, type the song that's playing5. When you go to a new question, press the next button6. Don't lie about the songs (they can be funny if you just leave them)1. What's my ...
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One of the best songs from Bowie's recent immortal and beloved canon is this gem from the Eno produced Outside. Strangers When We Meet is actually a song that I would someday love to cover. His vocal and lyrics are legendary. Strangers When We Meet is a song that I used to put on all the mixes I made for new friends that I'd meet. Its ideal song to share with new found friends and I dedicate to...
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Yes, it's been a year already! Thanks for turning me on to some great music and for letting me know that even though I have serious lapses in taste from time to time, you think I listen to some good stuff too.Here's one of my favourites - so apropos, don't you think?
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Fall of 1995.In what would become a fruitful friendship, Trent Reznor strikes it up with David Bowie and announces late-summer that they would tour together in the fall, primarily in support of Bowie's latest, strangest (even for Bowie) concept album: Outside.I was always a Bowie fan, but here he was striding confidently into the territory where my heart really chose to reside. Outside, music...
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Okay, this is REALLY dorky, but it made laugh so I'm sharing it with my fellow moggers.So, here's how it works:1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)2. Put it on shuffle3. Press play4. For every question, type the song that's playing5. When you go to a new question, press the next button6. Don't lie about the songs (they can be funny if you just leave them)1. What's my ...
More >
I'm a little ashamed to say that the first David Bowie record I listened to was 1995 'Outside'. This unleashed a wild man hunt after Bowie records only to leave me disappointed with the fact that none of his records sound like this one. 'Outside' is one of the darkest records I've heard and I really dove into it for a long time. The followup 'Earthling' shares the atmosphere I might add, but 'O...
More >
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 "Outside")
