David Bowie

Earthling

Something about Earthling is oddly familiar, in the sense that I feel like I knew it before I ever listened to it. Not that it's hackneyed or stale, more that I've bypassed the normal time it takes me to assimilate and truly enjoy a new piece of music, where I metaphorically circle it with hackles slightly raised before fully accepting it. This album insinuated itself into my brain with impeccable grace and took up residence in a pleasant place neither entirely intellectual nor emotional, but partaking of both. I found myself singing along to the first song, "Little Wonder," on first listening. Unusual.

This is new music. Bowie is famous for reinventing himself, and he makes no exception here; Earthling bears little resemblence to his previous album, Outside. I haven't yet looked at the lyrics in any critical way, but they don't seem to have the same altered stream of consciousness I found in Outside.

I won't pretend to classify it other than to note that I've read that it partakes of the "jungle" style, whatever that is. That appears to mean "interesting fast drums and complex and faintly atonal music combining both acoustic and electronic instruments", but perhaps I'm generalizing from a single example. The combination of digital with analog seems to my untrained ear to be deftly, and even cleverly, done; the balance of the disparate elements seems both new and, again, familiar. Even more subjectively, it works in some of the ways Einsturzende Neubauten works for me, but it's more accessible, and more like rock. It's smooth and shimmering, the edge to it sharp and clean rather than ragged.

April 23, 1997

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David Bowie: Earthling / Gretchen / Flick / © April 23, 1997 The Other Gretchen
Last modified: April 23, 1997 / gretchen@flick.com