VH1 Storytellers

AMG Review of VH1 Storytellers

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

VH1's sadly short-lived series Storytellers was ideal for an old charmer like David Bowie, giving him an intimate platform to spin stories both old and new. When he appeared on the show on August 23, 1999, he was a few months away from releasing Hours..., an album where he comfortably came to terms with his past, so it fits that he's looking back fondly here, telling stories about the Mannish Boys and Iggy Pop, sliding the new tunes "Thursday's Child" and "Seven" in between "Life on Mars?" and "Drive-In Saturday," plus "Can't Help Thinking About Me," a single he released with the Lower Third in 1965. These are all good, relaxed, unplugged readings, but the chief attraction of VH1 Storytellers is, appropriately enough, those stories Bowie tells, as they not only offer a glimpse into the creation of these songs, they do what great stories should do: they entertain. [VH1 Storytellers is available as a CD/DVD package, with the CD containing a mere eight songs and the DVD containing a full program of 12 tunes, adding "Always Crashing in the Same Car" and Tin Machine's "I Can't Read" into the mix.]