Never Let Me Down

David Bowie's rise in fame and success from ''Let's Dance'' and the Serious Moonlight Tour in 1983 made him feel disconnected from his newfound fanbase. After the poor reception of 1984's Tonight, he worked on a series of miscellaneous projects that included collaborations with the Pat Metheny Group for "This Is Not America" (from the soundtrack to the film The Falcon and the Snowman) and Mick Jagger for "Dancing in the Street". He also continued acting and composing for film soundtracks such as Absolute Beginners (1985) and Labyrinth (1986). Wanting another record, EMI compiled a compilation of 12″ mixes from ''Let's Dance and Tonight'' following Bowie's successful performance at Live Aid in 1985. Titled Dance, it reached the artwork stage before being shelved. In mid-1986, Bowie produced and co-wrote multiple tracks with his old friend Iggy Pop for his solo album Blah-Blah-Blah, recorded five songs for the soundtrack for Labyrinth, and recorded the title song of the 1986 film When the Wind Blows with the Turkish musician Erdal Kızılçay, before commencing work on his next studio record. ==Writing and recording==

, Switzerland, where Bowie recorded the album Bowie spent mid-1986 in his home in Switzerland writing songs with Iggy Pop. He bought a Fostex 16-track and AHB mixing console to record elaborate home demos, which he recorded with Kızılçay before regrouping with a full band. Having worked together sporadically since 1982, Bowie greatly appreciated Kızılçay's musicianship, proclaiming, "He can switch from violin to trumpet to French horn, vibes, percussion, whatever... His knowledge of rock music begins and ends with the Beatles! His background is really jazz." During the sessions, Kızılçay played keyboards and synthesisers and, according to the biographer Chris O'Leary, "provided any sound" Bowie requested. Unlike the sessions for Tonight, Bowie encouraged collaboration for the new album's sessions, mainly wanting "better" versions of his home demos. (pictured in 2011) contributed guitar to the album and joined Bowie on the supporting tour. Never Let Me Down was recorded between September and November 1986, beginning at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, and completing at the Power Station in New York City. Bowie, Richards and Kızılçay recorded backing tracks at Mountain for the first two weeks, after which Alomar and Frampton were flown in for guitar overdubs. Sessions then moved to the Power Station, where horns and backing vocalists were added, with additional percussion from Errol "Crusher" Bennett. According to Richards, these were elements that Bowie said "you can only get in New York". Regarding Bennett's contributions, Richards recalled: "[He] set all his 'bangers' and 'scrapers' on a table, which I miked at each end. So whenever he moved around, the sounds would pan with him, creating some strange spatial effects." The majority of Bowie's vocals were taken from guide vocals recorded at Mountain, although some were later redone at the Power Station. Richards explained that most of [the guide] vocals were so good and had such great spontaneity that they ended up on the record." "Never Let Me Down" was a last-minute addition to the album, written and recorded in one day during the last week of mixing at the Power Station. Actor Mickey Rourke also performed the mid-song rap for "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)". The two had met in London where the actor was based while filming A Prayer for the Dying (1987) and requested to contribute. Two tracks were recorded that ended up as B-sides, "Julie" and "Girls", the latter of which was briefly considered for inclusion on Never Let Me Down in late 1986. ==Songs==

The music on Never Let Me Down has been characterised as pop rock, art rock and hard rock. calling it "an eclectic hybrid of long-standing influences and personal nostalgia." At the time, a writer for the Canadian Press considered the record "a basic serving of high-energy, guitar rock", representing a departure from his "adventurous" late 1970s works and the "R&B-flavoured" ''Let's Dance''. The biographer Paul Trynka says the record contains mostly "conventional music, lyrics and sounds". Side one The opening track, "Day-In Day-Out", offers the artist's commentary on the treatment of the homeless in Los Angeles. The author James E. Perone states that the song is a good example of Bowie's experimentation with the R&B genre. "Time Will Crawl" was inspired by the Chernobyl disaster and the idea that someone from one's own neighborhood could be responsible for the end of the world. Compared to Prince's "1999", Bowie said his vocals on the song were indebted to Neil Young, and noted that the variety of voices he used on the album were a nod to the musicians who had influenced him in the past. The biographer Nicholas Pegg, who called the song one of the album's better tracks, noted that it could be called a "direct ancestor", both lyrically and musically, to Tin Machine's "You Belong in Rock n' Roll" (1991). Perone finds it resembles the contemporary techno craze, while further exhibiting punk rock influences. The title track is about Bowie's long-time personal assistant, Coco Schwab. The song's direct reference to her acts as a counterpoint to the rest of the songs, which the artist felt were mostly allegorical. Bowie acknowledged that the lyrics verged on the surreal, describing people "eating the energies of others to get to what they wanted." "Too Dizzy" was the first song Bowie and Kızılçay wrote together for the album and was written in homage to the 1950s. The former said, "a real Fifties subject matter was either love or jealousy, so I thought I'd stick with jealousy because it's a lot more interesting". Bowie covered Iggy Pop's "Bang Bang", which originally flopped as a single, for Never Let Me Down as he felt it could be a hit. For his version, Bowie imitated Pop in his vocal performance, while lyrically, it contains themes present in other album tracks. Perone compares Bowie's version to the work of Talking Heads' David Byrne. ==Release==

EMI America Records released "Day-In Day-Out" as the lead single to the album on 23 March 1987, with "Julie" as the B-side. The single performed decently in both the UK and the US, peaking at Nos. 17 and 21, respectively. The song's music video, directed by Julien Temple, contained controversial content and was banned by some networks. A version of the song sung in Spanish, recorded to promote Bowie's first-ever concerts in Spain during the Glass Spider Tour, was released for the first time in 2007 when the "Day-In Day-Out" EP was released digitally. Never Let Me Down followed a month later on 21 April 1987. It was the first Bowie record to feature simultaneous releases on vinyl and CD. Both of these formats had different lengths in the runtime, with four tracks on the CD release up to a minute longer. In Australia, the album appeared on blue vinyl and in Japan, a Japanese vocal version of the outtake "Girls" was included. The cover artwork was designed by Mike Haggerty, who designed the artworks for ''Let's Dance and Tonight'', and taken by photographer Greg Gorman. It was described by Bowie as being in a "vaudevillian" style. It depicts the long-haired Bowie jumping through a circus ring surrounded by elements from the album's songs, including a drum, a skyscraper, a "candyfloss" cloud, and an angel from the "Day-In Day-Out" music video. Initial sales of the album were strong, peaking at No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart, but dropped off disappointingly. Bowie was not concerned with the album's relative poor performance in the charts, saying "I've made about 20 albums during my career, and so far this is my third biggest seller. So I can't be that disappointed, yet, it is a letdown that it hasn't been as buoyant as it should be.... But I don’t really feel that negative about it. As far as I'm concerned, it's one of the better albums I've made. As I've said, Never Let Down has been a pretty big seller for me. So I'm quite happy." backed by "Girls". It stalled on the UK Singles Chart, peaking at No. 33. Bowie pre-recorded a performance of the song for the BBC television programme Top of the Pops, although it was not aired at the time, as the single subsequently fell down the charts. Its accompanying music video was directed by Tim Pope and previewed some of the choreography of the then-underway tour. The title track was released as the album's third single on 17August 1987, with "87 and Cry" as the B-side. It peaked at No. 34 in the UK and No. 27 in the US. Its accompanying music video was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino and was described by Bowie as "experimental". "Shining Star" was one of Bowie's early choices to be a single, but the idea was rejected by EMI. A 12″ remix of the song was made available on iTunes when the "Never Let Me Down" EP was released digitally in 2007. EMI briefly considered "Too Dizzy" for release as a fourth single, instead appearing as a promo release in the US. ==Critical reception==

Contemporary reviews of the album were mostly unfavorable. In Trouser Press, Ira Robbins wrote, "although this casual loud-rock outing... seems on first blush to be slapdash and slight, the first side is actually quite good, offering provocative pop-culture lyrics delivered with first-take enthusiasm and carefree backing." The Canadian Press's Tim O'Connor praised Never Let Me Down as an improvement over the "unfocused disaster" Tonight, finding the musical styles "suit[s] him well" and concluded: "It's not so dazzling or powerful an album that it will set any styles, but it's good to hear Bowie kicking out the jams again." another reviewer called it "a welcome return to form for the ever-ambitious Bowie", and the magazine's year-retrospective issue called it "arguably the year's most underrated release" and considered the album a "Critic's Choice" for the year. Negative reviews found the production "overblown" and complained about an overuse of synthesisers and weak songwriting. Chris William of the Los Angeles Times primarily criticised the lack of innovation, finding elements from Bowie's entire career. He further stated that none of the tracks are among Bowie's best—calling "Day-In Day-Out" "the most useless single of Bowie's career"—and ultimately expected more from the artist. In Smash Hits, Tom Hibbert deemed the album dull and full of "contrived studio jams", giving sole praise to "Bang Bang". Rolling Stone Steve Pond called the work an "odd, freewheeling pastiche of elements from all the previous Bowies", "unfocused", and possibly "the noisiest, sloppiest Bowie album ever.... Being noisy and sloppy isn't necessarily a bad thing, but sad to say, Never Let Me Down is also something of a mess." In his review for The New York Times, Jon Pareles also recognised elements of Bowie's previous works in Never Let Me Down and felt it was Bowie's "most serious statement" since Scary Monsters. In Creem, Roy Tarkin felt that the album represented a creative low point for Bowie due to poor execution. Tarkin ended his review stating "I guess you could say Never Let Me Down did just that; let me down." USA Today considered Never Let Me Down to be the second worst pop album of 1987, writing that Bowie "loses himself in a self-conscious Tom Jones disguise." ==Tour==

To support the album, Bowie embarked on the Glass Spider Tour, which began on 30 May 1987 and ended on 28 November the same year. Earlier in the year Bowie said: "I'm going to do a stage thing this year, which I'm incredibly excited about, 'cause I'm gonna take a chance again", but when pressed for details, he refused to give up any, saying "I'll just be doing what I always did, which is keeping things interesting." Bowie wanted to produce a live show that picked up where his aborted 1974 Diamond Dogs Tour left off. Although considered financially successful and well attended, the tour itself was critically dismissed. However, no song from Never Let Me Down was performed on any of Bowie's tours after 1987. ==Subsequent events==

At the conclusion of the Glass Spider Tour, Bowie began to reevaluate where he was at in his career. The tour took a toll on him and he found it hard to maintain the stadium rockstar lifestyle. Due to the negative critical reception of the album and tour, he decided to rejuvenate himself creatively and artistically, forming the rock band Tin Machine with guitarist Reeves Gabrels, whom he met through the tour, creating a partnership that lasted the rest of the 1990s. Bowie also effectively cut ties with Alomar, a collaborator since 1975's Young Americans, although the guitarist later played on the 1995 Outside Tour and on a few tracks for Outside (1995), Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003). Although he was initially proud of the finished product, Bowie's views on Never Let Me Down soured as the years passed. By 1993, he remarked that he played the role of a session musician in the studio and allowed others to take control of the production and arrangements rather than being more involved himself, resulting in a final product he felt was "a bitter disappointment". When his personal website BowieNet launched in 1998, Never Let Me Down was the artist's only studio album excluded from his official career biography on the site. Three years prior, he acknowledged Never Let Me Down as his "nadir": ==Legacy==

In later decades, Never Let Me Down has continued to receive negative reviews and is generally considered one of Bowie's weakest releases. Several made unfavourable comparisons to Tonight. Critic Charles Shaar Murray told journalist Dylan Jones in the 2010s that he thought Never Let Me Down was "just awful" compared to Tonight, a record "of classy filler with no center". In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Sheffield wrote: "Tonight was an expensive quickie padded with lame covers, while Never Let Me Down made things even worse with originals." Many commentators agree that the album's poor production choices marred what they considered good songwriting. In 2018, Chris Ingalls of PopMatters named "Time Will Crawl" and "Zeroes" among those affected by the "headache-inducing [and] overstuffed with garish" production. The author Marc Spitz noted "Day-In Day-Out", "87 and Cry", "New York's in Love" and "Time Will Crawl" as tracks that are hampered by poor production. Perone contends that the production on "Zeroes" and "Beat of Your Drum" make the tracks sound too much like other contemporary pop of the era "to stand out as distinctive". Dave Thompson highlights "Zeroes", the title track, "Glass Spider", and particularly "Time Will Crawl" as standout tracks, finding Bowie's initial dismissive attitude towards the project "galling" when considering the "strength" of these tracks. The journalist Sean Doyle, editor of the website The Worst Albums Ever, similarly stated that Never Let Me Down is "produced to death": "The extravagant production clashes sharply with the album's often socially minded lyrics, so much so that they become entirely flippant and insincere." The author Benoît Clerc said that the album's excessive use of the Linn 9000 drum machine creates a dated sound with "a cold and impersonal monotony". Bowie's biographers have given Never Let Me Down mixed assessments, but most consider it better than Tonight. Buckley calls Never Let Me Down more focused and coherent than its predecessor, but finds that it suffers from overproduction. O'Leary similarly calls it Bowie's "ugliest-sounding record" since Diamond Dogs, noting that Bowie produced both records with the intention of "proving himself", which backfired. Trynka states that the record is "bereft of inspiration", but agrees that it is "neither as good nor as bad as Tonight". In a similar statement, Spitz describes Never Let Me Down as "not a terrible album", but "another slothful one" following Tonight and Labyrinth. Perone, likewise, considers it better and more artistically daring than Tonight and writes that it achieves "a better balance between working on pop songs and challenging songs". Nevertheless, he acknowledges its dated production as its biggest flaw. Like Perone, Pegg states that Never Let Me Down is not Bowie's "finest hour, but by no means his worst". He argues that it comes off as more of a David Bowie album than either of its two predecessors. Christopher Sandford describes it as "a shoddily constructed work" that lacked innovation, while Thompson attributes the album's failure to it being "brutally out of sync" with the contemporary music of the time. In a 2016 retrospective ranking all of Bowie's 26 studio albums from worst to best, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock placed Never Let Me Down last, stating "There is no greater let-down in Bowie's catalog than the nadir of what he later called his 'Phil Collins years'," noting "bad idea after bad idea". The writers of Consequence of Sound ranked the album number 21 (out of 28, including the two Tin Machine records) in their 2018 list, arguing that both it and Tonight are due for reevaluations, as "Bowie's weaker efforts are still better than most". ==Reissues==

"Too Dizzy" was deleted from subsequent reissues of Never Let Me Down at Bowie's request, reportedly because it was his least favourite track on the album. Regarding its deletion, Pegg writes: "Its removal from Never Let Me Down has rendered it a latter-day collector's item, but few will feel impelled to hunt it down." Virgin Records (CDVUS 98) re-released the album in the UK on CD with three bonus tracks. EMI released the second reissue in 1999 featuring 24-bit digitally remastered sound but no bonus tracks, and also without "Too Dizzy". A 2007 Japanese re-release of the album, based on the EMI 1999 re-issue, included "Too Dizzy" on the track listing although the song itself doesn't appear on the CD. In 2009, the album was reissued in SHM-CD format, carrying the same track listing as the 2007 one. In 2018, the album was remastered by Parlophone and released on CD, LP, and digitally as part of the Loving the Alien (1983–1988) box set; a standalone release of the album on all three aforementioned formats was issued in February of the following year. ==Track listing==

This was the first Bowie album to have different length songs on the vinyl release than on the cassette and CD, with almost all the songs appearing on the latter having a longer running time than on the former. LP edition CD edition ==Personnel==

Adapted from the Never Let Me Down liner notes. • David Bowie – lead and background vocals; guitar; keyboards; Mellotron; Moog synthesiser; harmonica; tambourine • Carlos Alomar – guitar; guitar synthesiser; tambourine; backing vocals • Erdal Kızılçay – keyboards; drum programming; bass guitar; trumpet; violins; backing vocals • Peter Frampton – lead guitar, sitar • Philippe Saisse – piano • Carmine Rojas – bass guitar • Stan Harrison – alto saxophone • Steve Elson – baritone saxophone • Lenny Pickett – tenor saxophone • Earl Gardner – flugelhorn • Laurie Frink – trumpet • Errol "Crusher" Bennett – percussion • Sid McGinnis – lead guitar • Mickey Rourke – mid-song rap • Robin Clark – backing vocals • Lani Groves – backing vocals • Diva Gray – backing vocals • Gordon Grody – backing vocals Production • David Bowie – producer • David Richards – producer; assistant mixing engineer • Malcolm Pollack – engineer • Bob Clearmountain – mixing • Bob Ludwig – mastering • Mick Haggerty – artwork; design • Greg Gorman – photography • Andre Gauchat – assistant engineer • Jon Goldberger – assistant engineer • Christopher A. Scott – assistant engineer • Justin Shirley Smith – assistant engineer ==Charts==

Weekly charts Year-end charts ==Sales and certifications==

} } ==Never Let Me Down 2018==

• David Bowie • David Richards • Mario J. McNulty }} | name = Never Let Me Down 2018 | type = Studio album | single1 = Zeroes (2018 version) | single1date = 19 July 2018 }} }} Bowie reportedly considered the idea of re-recording tracks from Never Let Me Down almost immediately after meeting Gabrels in the late 1980s, but the guitarist talked him out of it. Bowie contemplated it later in the 1990s and again in 2008, when he had engineer Mario J. McNulty remix "Time Will Crawl" for the self-selected collection of favourites, iSelect. The same mix was later included on the career-spanning compilation Nothing Has Changed (2014). At the time Bowie had said, "Oh, to redo the rest of that album". Of these musicians, Torn, Campbell, Lefebvre and Gabrels were all selected by Bowie before he died to take a part in the project. In July 2018, it was announced that a new version of the album, titled Never Let Me Down 2018, would be released in October of that year as part of the 2018 box set Loving the Alien (1983–1988). The album includes "newly 'remixed' artwork", unseen images from the original album's photo-shoot. McNulty used the experience of making the "Time Will Crawl" remix to influence his approach for producing this version of the album. He received the master tapes from the label and "kept all of Bowie's vocals", some of the original acoustic guitars, and "anything distinctive" about the song, and a physical 7" single in September 2018, backed with a radio edit of the 2018 version of "Beat of Your Drum". Critical reception Reviewers have generally considered Never Let Me Down 2018 an improvement over the original album. When reviewing Loving the Alien, O'Leary gave 2018 a 6.7 out of 10. However, because Bowie's vocals remained the same – which he dubbed "over-the-top performances to ensure Bowie stood out in the traffic-jam mixes" – he found that the new arrangements and old vocals did not always match, highlighting "Beat of Your Drum" and "Zeroes". Conversely, he gave praise to the new versions of "Day-In Day-Out" and "Glass Spider". Overall, O'Leary found Never Let Me Down 2018 to be "an interesting curio", saying "the remake doesn't improve on Never Let Me Down as much as it honors the original's all-over-the-place frustration." Ingalls stated: "Never Let Me Down 2018 goes a long way in salvaging those 1987 songs, with a 21st-century sensibility stripping away the overblown aesthetic of those original recordings." Langdon Hickman of Treble wrote that with the 2018 version, the album "no longer feels like a glaring misstep in his canon", but rather brings Bowie's original vision to life, sounding closer to his Tin Machine work. Rather than being at the bottom, the new version "manage[s] to cinch itself up against [the] middle tier" of his catalogue. Clerc was also negative, arguing that while McNulty's work was admirable, the new album lack's the original spirit and emotion. Track listing Personnel Adapted from the Loving the Alien (1983–1988) liner notes: Production • David Bowie – producer; composer • David Richards – producer • Mario J. McNulty – mixing; recording; producer • Recorded at Electric Lady Studios and Incognito Studios, New York City • Mixed at Incognito Studios, New York City • Ernesto Valenzuela and Gosha Usov − assistant engineers • Gustavo Remor − drum technician • Greg Gorman – photography Additional musicians • Reeves Gabrels – guitar • David Torn – guitar • Tim Lefebvre – bass guitar • Sterling Campbell – drums • Steven Wolf – drums, bass • Laurie Anderson – spoken word • Mario J. McNulty – percussion • Nico Muhly – string arrangements • Rob Moose – violin • Laura Lutzke – violin • Nadia Sirota – violin • Gabriel Cabezas – violin • Gregor Kitzis – string arrangements • Krista Bennion Feeney – violin • Robert Chausow – violin • Martha Mooke – violin • Matthew Goeke – cello ==Notes==