David Bowie: Lodger - 1979
Regarding the songs themselves in more detail, there are some genuinely odd and intoxicating ones on here, no more so than Fantastic Voyage, which is a musically attractive song featuring mandolin and some intriguing cold war-influenced lyrics. I would have made a good single, I feel, but it wasn't chosen. Bowie also played it live quite a bit, even many years later, so he must have rated it.
Of course, the bonkers, avant-garde fun of African Night Flight (inspired by ex-WWII German pilots still living in East Africa) makes it one of Bowie's weirdest creations, but it has an oddly captivating appeal, particularly in its quite intricate rhythms. I remember hearing Bowie fan Jonathan Ross express a secret liking for it which has always resonated with me, for some reason. Just one of those things you remember about a song.
On Move On there are some distinctive Buddy Holly rolling drum stylings, dense guitars and an eventual shambling atmosphere which makes it a really appealing and captivating number, one of the album's favourites of mine. Again, it would have made a fine single, I think. "Cyprus is my island", Bowie tells us, somewhat surprisingly. After the bleakness of "Heroes", I would have thought he would have chosen Iceland or the Faroes.
The beguiling middle-Eastern tones and slight reggae tinges heard on Yassassin make for a most interesting song, particularly as both of these were things that Bowie had not really experimented with before. I have come to really like these three tracks - 2,3 and 4. I have seen it compared to Fame but I don't quite hear that myself.
What we then get is another really good one in the “new romantic” (before the term had been invented) chorus of this krautrock-ish and lively offering, Red Sails, with its bizarre "hinterland, the hinterland, we're going to sail to the hinterland" lyric. Apparently, back in 1979, Bowie wanted the feel of German avant-garde band Neu! on Red Sails and explained this to guitarist Adrian Belew, who had never heard of Neu!, and he came up with exactly what Bowie wanted. Sometimes things just happen like that. Bowie showed that he still had the ability to come up with something unique and different. Nothing on this side was really like anything he had done before. He was always looking forward.
An instantly appealing typically late seventies Bowie number, Look Back In Anger was another candidate for a single (it would have made a great one) and it also received considerable subsequent live coverage. Bowie's vocal on the memorable chorus is particularly strong and impressive as is the rumbling bass-line.
Boys Keep Swinging was the first actual single from the album. Along with D.J. they are both upbeat, commercially direct songs, if not quite the "Bowie classics" of some other hits, but I have to say that I always found this one a bit of a silly song, despite its often-acclaimed "camp" humour concerning traditional male roles. That said, every time I hear it I find I enjoy it and it brings back nostalgic memories of 1979 for me. The first time I ever heard it was in a pizza restaurant in Canterbury called Sweeney Todd's and I was eating a sausage and jalapeño pizza that was so hot that they gave you a free pint of beer. Funny how you remember things. Maybe eating that mega-hot pizza was something I could do "when I was a boy (sic)".
Both these singles carried evidence within them of the sort of electro-pop that Bowie would continue to produce in songs like Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) and Fashion - lots of pounding drums, keyboard riffs, swirling electronic noises and, of course, the Bowie knack for a great hook. All these tracks stand out on their respective albums as obvious choices for singles, despite my alternative choices.
A most unusual one, Repetition. It has unexpected lyrics about wife-beating. It is creepy, disturbing and edgy, I have to say. Bowie was rarely so obvious and blatant in his lyrics - he didn't stray into 'real life' descriptions very much, preferring to remain oblique. It is this odd diversion that makes this surprising song unnervingly different. There were also some signs as to future musical directions and this number did just that, bringing to mind the sound of the second half of Let's Dance, for me, anyway.A re-write of Iggy Pop's Sister Midnight Bowie collaboration, the quirky Red Money has a brooding, sombre post-punk appeal about it, posting hints as to the musical future the eighties would bring. Another sonic glimpse of the future can be detected as the song's staccato sound provided a precursor to some of the material on the second half of Tonight as well. All of these songs have their moments, especially when remastered or remixed well, as indeed they have been, most impressively, by Tony Visconti in 2017.
Overall, there was a definite lyrical pattern to the first five songs on the album - one of global travel, to Cyprus, Africa, Turkey, Russia, Japan and Germany and a cold war anti-nuclear uneasiness too whereas the latter half was more about hedonism and partying but with some dark undertones, lyrically and musically.
The album has always been the poor relation of the "Berlin" trilogy, however, and not just because of the afore-mentioned previously poor sound but also because there just seems to be slightly less ground-breaking "stardust" about it than the other two undoubtedly possessed.
Indeed, guitarist Adrian Belew (replacement here for Robert Fripp) said of Bowie and Brian Eno, working together here for the final time until 1995's Outside -
"They didn't quarrel or anything uncivilised like that; they just didn't seem to have the spark that I imagine they might have had during the "Heroes" album."
It was probably just a vibrant working creative seam getting mined out, to be honest. I agree with Belew though, you can sort of feel it. Just a bit.
2017 Tony Visconti Remix
The 2017 Tony Visconti "remix" of the album to be found on the A New Career In A New Town box set is a thing of beauty. It gives yet another dimension to this often overlooked but always interesting album. It is warmer and bassier, at last. Check out DJ, African Night Flight, Move On or Red Sails as examples. There is no artist whose work is better able to cope with a bit of tinkering than Bowie and Visconti's effort here is superb. There is a very convincing argument, from me, at least, for this being the best version of the album. An intriguing comparison between the remaster and the remix can be found here -
https://www.superdeluxeedition.com/reviews/review-david-bowies-lodger-2017-remaster-vs-2017-visconti-remix/.
Maybe, as those accursed "audiophiles" say, it "breathes" more than the 2017 Visconti remaster. They may have a point here, although I enjoy both of them.
Non-album track
Finally, an interesting Bowie rarity that some believe hails from this period -
I Pray, Olé. Nobody quite knows the provenance of this track, which was included as a bonus track on the RYKO reissue of the Lodger album. It definitely has similarities to Lodger material - Red Sails and Repetition in particular - in its drum sound and keyboard riff. Tony Visconti has no knowledge of it and says it is definitely not from the Lodger sessions. He suspects it may be from around the Scary Monsters period, but updated by Bowie in the early nineties.
With regard to the song itself, it is energetic and appealing enough, but is nothing special. Add it to a play of Lodger, however, and it doesn't sound out of place.
