The Next Day

Not as "out there" as a lot of Bowie, which means I liked it!

Really disappointed by this, it’s not bad, but it felt very boring to me

Quiet enjoyed it but none of the songs stood out.

Bowie is a legend and has an insanely extensive catalog.. But if this was my introduction, I doubt I would pursue more music of his. It's regrettable that this album made the list.

I really liked this more than expected. I wasn't a huge Bowie fan before this journey, but this album is surprisingly strong for a late career album. My favorite part is the chorus of I'd Rather Be High, I just love it's progression throughout. I don't even think it's the best song on the album, I just really love those 30s bits. The Next Day is probably the best here, it has a pretty good "not dead yet" vibe that a lot of older artists go for. Pretty good overall.

Rate: 8/10.

It’s Bowie, going to be a high rating. However, how is this in the 1001 list, if we needed a 5th Bowie album why is it this one. I think the best part of this record is you can just hear him pulling from 2000s indie rock and alternative randomly throughout and it’s one of those cool moments of an old established musician growing with the scene in a way where you can tell it’s coming from a place of inspiration and not an obvious cash grab. Good work.

There's a strong argument to be made that, of all the albums on this list, this is the one that deserves to be there least of all. Not only is it inessential in Bowie's discography, but it's his *ninth* album here! And as someone who doesn't particularly like Bowie, it seemed like an obvious 1 contender. And yet, it's actually one of my favorite albums I've heard from him? It's not really a world-beater or anything, and I probably won't think about it much again in the future. But it's actually a decent enough album that somewhat feels like indie rock that I tend to really love! Anyway, I'm so ready to be done with this guy, but I think I've still got four or five more albums from him. Only Station to Station (and *maybe* Ziggy Stardust) is going to score higher than this one for me.

For being Bowie, and knowing what I know about some of his other works... this is surprisingly mid. Of the style that I know for Bowie, this was shockingly forgettable. There were some neat little oddities in here, as one would expect with the genre and style, but if the consensus is that we are going for breadth here on 1001 albums, then I wonder if it is truly necessary to include as much Bowie as I anticipate there will be based on the other responses. Like 8 ALBUMS???

Another Bowie for us? Thanks generator. I just panned this one; it's ok but not getting another listen. Elder Bowie is ok.

I have a headache today, so I am definitely not in the mood for yet another Bowie album. This is my 7th of the 9, and this spot on the list absolutely could have gone to someone else...preferably a woman and ideally from somewhere other than the UK or US.

In classic Bowie style, this album offers new and old sound in a beautiful blend of artful imagery and haunting melodies. From dance beats to harpsichord rhythms, this album doesn't disappoint!

I’ve never listened to a Bowie album straight through before. And… sure, it’s good. Iconic voice, nice variety. I’m not immediately a raging fan though. Might forget most of this by the weekend, but cool nonetheless.

There's some nice songs, but none that really catch my ear. I feel like its just weird, but that's normal because it's literally David Bowie. In total honesty, I'm not sure what I was expecting but I'm a bit disappointed. My disappointment doesn't mean that the album is bad, to be fair its pretty good, but its just weird.

Love Bowie but never really listened to his later stuff. I enjoyed this a lot.

Very solid entry in the Bowie catalogue. Didn't know it before

I've really grown to appreciate Bowie, but this is just absolutely not essential listening from him. Blackstar is a far better pick for late Bowie, and this isn't different enough from his early stuff to really merit a listen. It is impressive that he was still making decent music this late in his career, but unless you're a diehard fan, not much worth listening to here. Favorite Songs: The Next Day, Love is Lost

cruel that this is my first Bowie album. Would likely appreciate more if i listened to his earlier work.

David Bowie was never much of a memoirist. Even when drawing on his own experience, he tended to abstract it, displace it, put it into somebody else’s mouth or send it through enough theatrical machinery that by the time it reached us it had become Bowie material rather than David Jones telling us about his life. That makes The Next Day an unusually interesting late record, because at 65 he seems finally prepared to let quite a lot of his past back into the room. Not sentimentally, and certainly not as heritage management. He takes old places, old musical vocabularies, old social worlds and perhaps old memories, then treats them with the same suspicion he would have brought to any other source material. David Jones may supply some of the memories, but David Bowie still does the processing. There is an obvious temptation to hear all of this through the knowledge that Bowie would be dead less than three years after the album appeared. That needs resisting only up to a point. In 2013 nobody knew he had cancer, and his death at 69 came as a genuine rupture, so The Next Day should not be turned retrospectively into a coded farewell album. But the opposite move is just as lazy. When the title track gives us “here I am, not quite dying” followed by a body left to rot and the shadow of the gallows, hindsight does not invent the mortality; it changes its voltage. Bowie did not need to know he was dying to know that life was finite. By your mid-sixties you do not require a diagnosis to understand that there is more road behind you than there was at 25, and one of the fascinating things here is hearing an artist who spent much of his career inventing futures begin to look backwards without allowing the past to become cosy. That is why the title track is such a terrific opening statement. It is brutal, abrasive and completely unsentimental, with something of Scary Monsters in its serrated attack and something older and more theatrical underneath it. The younger Bowie who played Baal still has Brechtian instincts: show us the body, the decay, the gallows and the machinery of power, but do not tell us how to feel about them. The contrast with late Leonard Cohen is illuminating. Cohen could approach mortality as something quietly admitted into the room, frightening but increasingly negotiable. Bowie here has not come to terms with a bloody thing. There is no wisdom bestowed by age, no consoling glow, just anger, persistence and the astonishing economy of getting an entire dramatic argument done in 3:27. That theatrical instinct runs through the album in stranger ways than I remembered. “Dirty Boys” rolls into view like some contemporary Kurt Weill number that has taken a wrong turn through Laurie Anderson’s Big Science, its saxophones staggering and lurching rather than decorating anything. It feels impressionistic rather than autobiographical: the texture of running with some youthful gang which probably felt enormously important at the time and, viewed across half a century, may have been neither here nor there. Bowie does not polish the memory. He makes it crooked, grubby and slightly ridiculous, then lets the song lope and tumble away as if the boys themselves have disappeared around the corner. It is a good example of what The Next Day repeatedly does with the past: not nostalgia, but estrangement. The record is equally suspicious of celebrity. “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” treats famous people less as individuals than as a pack, a club, almost a separate species: watching us while we watch them, glamorous and predatory and faintly ridiculous. It sounds at times like a public information film warning about the dangers of encountering stars in the wild, which is particularly funny coming from someone who had spent decades as one of the most famous people alive. Bowie was unusually privileged as a celebrity because he eventually acquired something most famous people never have: agency. He could withdraw, stop feeding the machine and decide when David Bowie was available for public consumption. It also now sounds uncannily applicable to social media, where celebrity culture has exported its behavioural logic to everybody else and invited us all to become little stars of our own construction. Elsewhere, the album is fascinated by people trapped inside structures. “Love Is Lost” addresses someone who is only 22 but appears already to have amassed an entire life: country, friends, house, accent, identity. Not simply possessions, but architecture. You can ossify surprisingly young, and Bowie understands the horror of discovering that the life you have constructed may already be enclosing you. “Where Are We Now?” approaches the same problem through place. Bowie’s frail voice hovers over synth pads carrying a faint memory of Low, while he walks mentally through a Berlin whose coordinates still exist but whose meaning has moved. Berlin in 2013 must have been a lively ghost of Berlin in 1977: you can return to the street, the station, the square, but the world which once made those places yours has become somebody else’s present. Not every idea earns its weight. “Valentine’s Day” takes the imagined mind of a school shooter and turns it into a neat, disturbing sketch built around a brutally black pun. It is not exploitative, but the lyric does not penetrate deeply enough into its enormous subject to make the song much more than that. “If You Can See Me”, by contrast, is the kind of Bowie I find irresistible: language tumbling over itself, identities appearing and dissolving, syntax apparently losing control while the writer behind it plainly has control. Bad stream of consciousness is looseness; good stream of consciousness is engineered instability. The same attraction to instability gives the middle of the album some of its best musical moments: the odd chord changes and rhythmic unease of “I’d Rather Be High”, the beguiling saxophones on “Boss of Me”, and the doubled vocals and rootless groove of “Dancing Out in Space”, which sounds like dancing with the floor removed. The final third becomes stranger still because Bowie starts looking east. “How Does the Grass Grow?” constructs a scarred European landscape from mopeds, sandals, stations, young people and graveyards, then corrupts a nursery-rhyme form into a grotesque military chant. The kids meet in the graveyard only to become the sort of people history eventually puts there. “You Feel So Lonely You Could Die” is musically huge and emotionally expansive in a form that might ordinarily suggest bereavement or romantic catastrophe, except Bowie points all that machinery towards guilt, treachery, paranoia and someone condemned to spend the rest of their life looking over their shoulder. The Cold War may have ended, but the people formed or brutalised by it did not disappear when the flags came down. Bowie was writing this in 2011–12, shortly before the post-Cold-War settlement in Europe began visibly coming apart again. I would not call any of this prophecy, but this was also the man who looked at the internet in 1999 and understood that its important consequences would be behavioural rather than technical. He had a good eye for systems everyone else had prematurely decided were stable. Then “Heat” empties the room and wanders straight into Scott Walker territory. “My father ran the prison” is far more interesting if we resist turning it into autobiography and instead hear the father as authority itself: the person who controls confinement and release, the first regime under which the narrator exists. Family becomes institution; love and hatred become ways of negotiating power. Eventually Bowie arrives at “I don’t know who I am”, and that may be the perfect line on which to leave this album. Who is David Bowie, artistically? Who was David Bowie? Like Peter Sellers, he can sometimes appear to consist of voices, characters and performed identities, but with Bowie I do not think that means there was nothing underneath. The instability itself seems to have been the principle. Identity was provisional, assembled, revised, discarded and reconstructed. That is where The Next Day finally comes together for me. Bowie has spent an album taking things down from the shelves: Berlin, youth, celebrity, old musical languages, European history, former selves. But he does not put those shelves neatly back in order and offer us the completed catalogue of David Bowie. He can tell us where he was, tell us what he remembers, and turn David Jones’s past into extraordinary material, but he still refuses to tell us who he is. There is an enormous amount here to admire: an intelligent, abrasive, frequently strange record by an artist deeply suspicious of sentimentality and of his own mythology. Its weaker moments are not bad so much as too smooth or too slight for the ideas they carry, and somewhere in the later stages some of the dangerous edges get rubbed down. Perhaps that is why this took me almost an entire day to finish. The Next Day has given me a remarkable amount to think about, but the distinction matters: it has engaged me, surprised me and repeatedly impressed me without ever quite taking possession of this listener.

Gigantisch messy album, leuk dat er zoveel Bowie in deze lijst staat, maar sommige platen (zoals deze) kunnen prima geschrapt worden

Niet m'n favoriete Bowie, maar dat is alleen omdat er zo veel goede Bowie is. Dit is gewoon een prima rockplaat. Eens dat ie wel van de lijst kan.

Meh

Pretty tame stuff. Bowie by numbers

Mr. Bowie was a pretty far out dude. RIP

This album really doesn't belong on this list. Even Bowie doesn't need 9 albums, and this one is easily the worst one I've heard so far. "Worst" is relative though, this is still Bowie. For Bowie this is average at best. For anyone else, it's great. It's still one of the best 2010s albums I've heard on the list so far. The entire album sounds the same, after 14 tracks it is just a bit boring. 3.5

Bowie is the guy. Damn. He just makes good stuff. And i got into him post mortem but this is pretty similar to blackstar. Not 100% but alot of the bones are similar. Blackstar is the more dont give a fuck im out kinda vibes where this is more a commercial record. Trying different things with the same structure. There are some genuine catchy songs here. I cant say the same for blackstar but the emotion inthat is so high. This is just good fun. And thats the main thing. I just feel like this is out to have a fun time and good vibes. Its nice compared to what i know of this time. Just makes me happy that he could come out and do this. And rhe cover has to be saying something. Just slapping a white square and some impact font on a classic cover of your own is bold. And I might be more into this than that. Im not sure but I know this is great. And may he rest in peace.

Love Bowie from back then, but

An album cover that is also a metaphor for the content . Straightforward no nones cover obscuring better older work

Average Bowie

Mediocre. Nothing terrible tho.

maaaaaan, David Bowie is still just alright. i think of all the albums we've listened to, this was my favorite, but it still kinda felt like a slog. also, considering the year that it came out... glam pop/rock was like 30 years ago from that point... probably a 2.5, but ill drop it to a two because it had like one song i could bop to and then the rest were meh

I can understand why the backstory gets this album on the list, legendary act releases new album after a decade-long hiatus. But as far as why the music itself makes the list? Not entirely sure. I respect Bowie’s talent and artistry, I just don’t think I’m a big Bowie guy.

I'm sorry but I realized that I simply don't like Bowie. I can jam with his big hits, but his post peak aging artist album does nothing for me.

Album #242 David Bowie: The Next Day Well, I’m unsure if it’s a cruel twist of fate, or maybe an intended feature of the site, but David Bowie’s “The Next Day” was quite literally delivered to me the next day after receiving “Blackstar”. Of course, these being Bowie’s final albums before his passing, normally people would analyze their quality with the context that The Next Day came out three years before Blackstar, three years before Bowie released his morbid epic. With that in mind, this album isn’t normally as tied to Bowie’s death as its predecessor; instead, on its release, this album was chalked up to being Bowie just returning to a familiar sound, which is made all the more evident by its album cover, which is a direct reference to his album “Heroes”. Well, with the context that I heard this album, being one day after returning to Blackstar, my brain couldn’t help but interpret “The Next Day” as meaning: what if Bowie did wake up that next day after Blackstar, and what if he did continue making music? Well, if this album is anything to go by, he absolutely still had. Contextualizing this album with Bowie’s eventual death, there are lyrics here that make me feel like he already knew what was coming even in 2013. A lot of these songs feel like Bowie is struggling with his mortality; but what really touched me about this album was the song “The Stars (Are Out Tonight), in which Bowie proclaims that stars will never die, which is something that we all know is true about the Starman himself. The Next Day is Bowie returning to his Berlin best; the soundscapes sound straight out of a Bowie-Eno collaboration, and Bowie’s vocals are just as passionate and familiar as ever. I can definitely understand the criticism of this album almost being too stereotypically Bowie-sounding, as if Bowie were performing a caricature of himself on this release; but man, I can’t help but find it awesome. Every song here hits me in the heart; every overly dramatic chorus has me feeling like Bowie is singing as the world is dying, which is something that compelled me to him in the first place. Despite Bowie being my GOAT when it comes to music, I still haven’t worked my way through every nook and cranny of his discography; but an album like The Next Day is all the more reinforcement that no matter what era of Bowie the music was released in, there will be something to it that leaves me in awe. Best Songs: The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Valentine’s Day, You Feel So Lonely You Could Die Worst Song: Heat Score out of 10: 9

totally new to me (surprisingly) and it's excellent (not surprising)

Ok, so first of all, this is among my favourite Bowie's albums and he is my most listened artist, so I could easily just give it 5. But trying to be objective, second half not as good as first, but then I relistened to it and was, maybe not surprisingly, surprised once again by mr. Chameleon. Really strong work no doubt, work of art in a real sense. Still can't decide, but at least strong 4 stars for sure. P.S. Already rated 4.5 on RYM quite a while ago, but today I was really getting in that second album of the album and found some awesome tracks, but because I love Bowie's music so much I might just love his stuff more than usual, so I might just lean in here for 4 stars leaving myself with ability to raise to 5 anytime

I love The Next Day still and I appreciate getting something I already know so I can almost relax. It was the first album of David’s I heard in full so naturally I’m very fond. I was a very casual fan of Bowie and he dropped it after keeping to himself and giving up nothing for ten years, how does that not compel you to listen?

Not totally sold just yet! Obviously Bowie's penultimate album for when h was still alive, so his is a bit fragile and old I suppose, it's less apparent than Blackstar but still noticeable. His singing voice sounds at times similar to his late 70s to early 80s stuff. The instrumentals I think are the albums strongest point, they're all so colourful and vibrant. They're seriously all top-notch, and of course because it's Bowie he manages to make them sound all unique. I think this was a good album, but it just barely manages to get a 4 star, so it's not like a 4 star-pushing-on-5 album or anything. It's more good than not. I'm not sure if this a must-hear from Bowie, I think there are better Bowie albums that shows off his music and his character. Highlight Song/s: "Dirty Boys", "Love Is Lost" and "Boss Of Me"

Speaking of late-era comeback albums from legacy artists, David Bowie's The Next Day! Getting this right after Fetch the Bolt Cutters really highlights the high presence of those kinds of albums on this list, doesn't it? Yeah, even before Blackstar blew everyone's minds by being the greatest swansong in music history, Dimery and Co. were already eager to add another Bowie album despite the man already having 7 albums on the list to his name. Granted, Blackstar is one of his best albums ever, so it being on the list makes perfect sense. But The Next Day? It's good, but it's really only here because the people behind the list were excited that Bowie was back after 10 years of not releasing anything. Although, I do have positive things to say about The Next Day. What can I say? I'm a big Bowie fan. I don't care that this isn't as good as Station to Station, I'm still going to eat it up! This album's pretty great! The fact that David Bowie was able to make an album that's this good so far into his career is impressive. Now, let's get the obvious out of the way. This is not Blackstar. The emotional weight of that album is nowhere to be heard on The Next Day. But here's the thing. Not every album needs to have that emotional weight. It's fine for an artist to start their creative renaissance with something a bit less heavy in its emotions. This album's all about reaching into Bowie's past, more specifically his Berlin era, for sonic and lyrical inspiration. And you know what? It works well. This album's got some good songs. Sure, none of them are on the level of a "Starman" or a "Heroes," but you've still got songs like "The Stars (Are Out Tonight," "Where Are We Now?" and "Valentine's Day" that show off Bowie's talent well. Speaking of talent, the man's still got it! His voice aged pretty well and the compositions here are pretty cool. It helps that Bowie reunited with Tony Visconti, a long-time collaborator and friend of his who previously worked on albums like Young Americans and all of the Berlin albums. The sound here is cool. You've got some more upbeat rockers blended with some neat experiments. I like it. I will say that The Next Day is probably the weakest Bowie album on the 1001 Albums list. It's a little long, its highs aren't as high as those of the rest of the Bowie albums on the list, and its place in music history isn't as important. But do I care? No. I love this album! Good stuff, Bowie. 4/5.

1028 - "Here's your juice box and orange slice. Thanks for coming." (It's David Bowie. It's not good Bowie, but it is Bowie.)

Not a strong Bowie album

Ya, this was good, some interesting songs here.

Removed

I had never heard of this album. I enjoyed it a lot, It was dark even gloomy in places and I loved it. Bowie's song writing is brilliant whatever mood he's in. I listened twice and liked it better second time. Its not my favourite Bowie phase if you like but loved it.

Well, who knew Bowie had an album in 2013? I didn't, but, unsurprisingly, it found its way here. I liked it, it was really quite pleasant to hear, some very cool sounds too. At times I questioned if it was him singing. I even thought he sounded like Ozzy a couple of times. A pop Ozzy, featuring David Bowie, which I now want to hear but sadly can't. Where this was good, it was really good and 100% needs a second listen. A solid album, just not his best. However, I am not rating on Bowieness, but on my enjoyment of it. I'm glad I heard it.

Don’t know much Bowie but 3 seems too high; maybe I’ll give it another listen

# Album Name: The Next Day # Artist: David Bowie # Rating: 3/5 # Comments: Not davids best. couple of alright tunes. Maybe its a grower?! who knows, its happened before with him. Ill give it another blast. But for now, its a solid 3. # Top Tunes: The next day / Stars / Boss of Me # Would I listen to it again? Ill give it a chance

So many Bowie albums. Crikey. Let's see what this one holds. Unexpectedly, this FUCKS. Super fun and groovy!

What can I say about this one? Well listened to it for the very first time. And I enjoyed it. A decent album in my opinion. 3/5

There was a lot of enjoyable music on this album. But I don’t think Bowie can make bad music just music that’s not as good as his peak stuff.

I quite like Bowie and 1. Outside is one of my favorite albums. He shifted to distinct personas and styles throughout his career. Very occasionally he released and album that just felt like it was indistinct and interstitial. This was one of those. I didn't dislike it. It was fine but it lacks the wild energy of other works. Kinda felt like he was still coming out of whatever cocoon he was emerging from. Stylistically muzzy.

This is a great album. Every track is great. I’m sure I’ll get to some Bowie that I don’t like eventually, but not today.

What a great record to get for my 200th review! The Next Day seemingly came out of nowhere, but everyone should've known better than to count out (or worse, forget about) David Bowie. The 00s hadn't been particularly kind or successful, and the 90s saw Bowie experimenting in directions that didn't pan out. Instead of throwing in the towel, he went back to the sound and feel of his Berlin trilogy. What could have sounded like a trite cash in on one of his most successful eras is anything but. On the contrary, we are treated to an older and wiser David Bowie reflecting on where he's been and where he's headed. There's a fair amount of sunshine flowing through The Next Day, but we had no idea it was from the sun setting on the life and career of a living legend. As such, it makes the record a perfect companion piece to its follow-up, Darkstar (but that's a conversation best saved for an inevitable future review).

If it walks like a duck.....It says its David Bowie. But it doesn't feel like David Bowie. Bowie is capable of better. He has done better. This album does not need to be here. Sorry, can't do better than a 2.

A fine album objectively but a lousy Bowie album. Absolutely did not need to be on this list

Honestly, it wasn't great. Pretty boring stuff from Bowie.

Whew this is my 5th Bowie album after 320 albums which sure is a lot. I don't think this one needs to be here. It just sounds like old david bowie. Also I think his Valentine's Day music video is AI bowie before AI was a thing. CREEPY.

Really bummed silly little fat man wasn’t on this album

A lot of good songs and a few absolute bangers, but the album drags on just a little too long and a couple of songs feel like Bowie is doing a pastiche of himself.

The least essential David Bowie's album here, still very good

Sounds like Bowie. Creative. Solid. Unique. Great. One of one. First track was the best.

Somehow, every David Bowie album I listen to is worse than all the others.

For an artist with such a long career and in his early 60's, is quite impressive to put an album as solid as this. It is true that is not near in quality as the best material he ever produced, but it doesn't mean this is a weak album either. Maybe there isn't anything incredibly impressive but it is a lovely art rock album filled with creativity, that has a nice modernized but classic rock sound feeling like a rehabilitated version of his younger self, and a lot of detail coming from electronics, synths and strings in the background. If I have to highlight any track, I think "If You Can See Me" is one of the songs I liked the most, with its really odd rhythms and melodies that gives the song a weird sound and a nice energy. The opening "The Next Day" I also think it is a great moment, introducing the album with a nice tune and catchy melodies, and I also liked a lot "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" with the beautiful violins, little sparks and spacious sound. These might be some of the moments I remember the most, but I think, in general, all songs are very similar in quality. Overall, I really enjoyed this album. Maybe it lands in the simpler and less experimental or grandiose project of the artist, yet it is very effective and easy to listen to.

fav songs: dirty boys where are we now? i'd rather be high boss of me you feel so lonely you could die atospheric, layered, enigmatic 70/100

For Bowie fans, this album must have felt like a gift. It was both a return to roots and a moving forward of his art. The songs were all Bowie, the performance solid, and after a decade hiatus, a strong statement that near the end of his life, he remained a musical force. I enjoyed it front to back. I'm on the border between four and five stars on this one.

Pas ouf ouf à réécouter un jour pour voir

A really solid Bowie album.

Another review where I complain about 9 Bowie albums being too many. This is an easy cut to get to the essentials.

Soooo poppy, how did this make the list? Surely not Bowie’s best effort

I have to imagine that this one gets by mostly off of 'Bowie mystique' or whatever. Even putting aside my dislike of Bowie's voice, the songwriting mostly seemed lackluster to bad.

highs and lows, unfortunately not great overall

Heroes is an indispensible part of the definition of my younger self. This one, however, I cannot actually relate to. I wonder why this is on the list?

What a brilliant comeback!

Nothing memorable

Penultimate instant classic.

Another day, another Bowie album. This isn’t one of his more memorable albums. It was absolutely enjoyable enough, but nothing really stood out for me. It’s fine musically and sonically, just didn’t really click with me. I just don’t “get” the cover either. Still, solid enough. Didn’t need to be added to the list though, really.

++: The Next Day, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Love Is Lost, Valentine's Day, If You Can See Me, I'd Rather Be High, Boss of Me, Dancing Out in Space, You Feel So Lonely You Could Die, Heat +: Dirty Boys, Where Are We Now?, How Does the Grass Grow?, (You Will) Set the World on Fire 8,6/10

🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑 (rounded down because of the general effect... elaborating below) I have expected big things, of some sort, from The Next Day since 2013—even before I really knew what Bowie was all about. I remember the day "Where Are We Now?" released, vaguely—we watched the eerie music video of Bowie-doll's wistful singing over the dusty clutter of memories past on the family ipad at the dining room table, maybe before school or maybe after getting home. Then, I'd only really heard Bowie intermittently throughout my childhood—I liked "Quicksand" and, much later, "Changes," but I guess I didn't think he was all that much of a weirdo because those songs sounded so normal to me. At twelve, this perception was unchanged by "Where are we Now" and "Valentine's Day," the only other single I remember from that album. I love both of these, but the first, paired with the eerie album cover, really set me up to assume this album was a somber, reflective piece on rock star days past. When I was trying to give Emily context after 1001albumsgenerator.com decided to throw us David Bowie's second-to-last album as his second record, I hastily explained that The Next Day is looking backward while Blackstar is looking forward, and I don't think that's entirely true. Blackstar has plenty of remorse and affirmation for Bowie's past, but I think in mythologizing his journey as a collective and turning this whole towards certain death does sort of create something new, in a way. Even without having heard the whole album, I had some inkling that "The Next" Day was the step prior to this in that it looks back, but doesn't use this as a foundation for or a leg up towards something new. Having listened, I'm disappointed to say that's pretty much exactly the case here, but without the sense, really, that it's an old man looking back on his younger work. Instead—and I hate to say this about my GOAT Bowie—but it really felt dated, to me. The Next Day didn't sound like someone who reinvents himself with changing music; it actually sounded like many of his contemporaries who stay the same through the decades until they like hollow copies of their old self. Okay, that's harsh, and not entirely true. To me, this felt borderline phoned-in, but I can't deny that I was still dancing along to most of these songs. Every track had something interesting going on that, if brought to the forefront with more bold production, could've made for a really interesting song. However, everything felt a little too clean, which is why it feels like so many artists of this era that don't let their music grow with them—sounds that were once revolutionary, sounds that actively pushed outward production technology, don't keep pushing, and sound all too comfortable in decades-later settings. "Where Are We Now" and "Valentine's Day" are far and away the best songs on this album, easily five stars on their own, because of their unique perspective and emotionality—wistfulness and edge, respectively. There are several other tracks I'd like to return to, undeniably, but I'm worried I wouldn't feel that urge strongly enough to see it through if this weren't Bowie. This all sounds like less than a three, but it's Bowie, so I'm attached. Oh well. 1: Bad | 2: Okay, No Desire to Revisit | 3: Good, Conditionally (OR Inconsistent Mix of Qualities) | 4: Great (OR Technically amazing but missing the sauce emotionally) | 5: Amazing

This was a really high 3 for me, not quite a 4 but close. I was super impressed by most of the songs and respect Bowie's artistry, I just didn't quite connect with everything. It feels unfair to categorize this with my other 3s though, so I might revise this later... I think Max said the same thing?

Late Bowie in the era of album surprise before the end. It was Bowie, all the trademark sounds, themes and songs. But, as has been said a couple times, I’m not sure it’s essential Bowie like some of the earlier albums or Blackstar.

Not his best

Jag vill älska detta album för jag älskar David Bowie. Men det gör jag inte. Det är inte dåligt per se men jag väntade mig mer. Ingen låt stod ut för mig, vilket jag tyckte var tråkigt. Det är kul att han alltid vill ta ut svängarna och utmana men detta funkade inte för mig. Jag gillade hans (tyvärr) sista album som kom tre år senare mycket mer.

I love Bowie, but nobody seriously thinks this is an album you must listen to before you die. It's fine, but the album cover gives the game away: it's Bowie doing a Bowie imitation.

One of his better albums I think, high side of 3

The beginning had me a little worried this wouldn't be my thing but every song after the 2nd is absolutely amazing to me. Some of my favorites are where are we now?, valentines day and mannn, I'll definitely be listening to this album for a while. 4/5!

The weakest of the Bowie albums I've heard so far, but still not too bad. It's got a bit of that glam rock style from his earlier albums but with modern production and a real melancholy vibe. None of the songs are bad, but none of them stood out either.

Is this here because of the name ?

This was a fine Bowie album. There is no such thing aa a bad Bowie album of course. I doubt if this record was an essential listen. Blackstar obviously is.

Not really a fan of late era Bowie and in particular i remember not liking what i heard off the final two albums. It was therefore surprising that this wasn’t as bad as i expected and certainly better than some of his other albums on the list. Time and age has obviously worked in favour of ‘ where are we now’ as that is actually a great track. I also particularly enjoyed ‘I’d rather be high’ especially the lyric “Just remember duckies, everybody gets got”. Also felt that the last few tracks are among the album’s strongest. Overall a solid collection rather than anything special though

I remain consistently surprised how tolerable I find David Bowie albums overall, for someone who proclaims not to be a fan. This was perfectly serviceable. I grimaced at the length initially but, actually, it didn’t fell as long at all. There was a coherent sound, yet it didn’t sound “samey”, and was unmistakeabley Bowie in its sound.

I'm on my 7th Bowie album on the generator (despite only being 40% complete), there are two more to go, and I am once again annoyed that They Might Be Giants have zero albums on this list. No artist needs nine albums on the list! No one! I liked the brassy sound of Dirty Boys. Bowie sounds more like Nick Cave during parts of The Stars (Are Out Tonight), plus it reminds me of Pulp for some reason, and I had completely forgotten about the video to this song starred Tilda Swinton. If You Can See Me is really fucking weird, which I don't always think of as a negative in music, but in this case the alien backing vocal was a step too far for me. How Does The Grass Grow also has some really odd ya ya yas but I did quite like that one. To me, this feels like a firmly middle of the road: 3/5

Unc’s still got it For a 65 year old this is the absolute best you’ll get. Instrumentation is well done, it feels natural and just feels like it belongs in this era. I liked the title track and Valentines Day the most, feel like I could see those being bigger hits back in the day. You can definitely feel his age in his voice and overall energy unfortunately. Definitely aged a lot better than some artists but it’s pretty hard to cover up the fact you’re in your mid 60s. Wasn’t particularly thrilled with a few songs, though I wouldn’t say any songs just sucked I don’t think this is a truly special album, more just impressive that a guy who was actively putting out hits in the 60s actually released a very solid work in the 2010s. He really is a musical chameleon. Very high 3 but not quite a 4

its just one of those things where an artist whose best works are from decades ago will keep releasing modern albums when theyre crusty and theyll always be just okay. its not bad. its david bowie. hes old.

It was fine. I think the only people who would love this were people who already were Bowie fans because it’s not really doing anything special. And I don’t think any musicians are doing anything special on their 25th album. (Though I’ve heard his last one is better) From what I’ve read, there are nearly double-digit Bowie albums on this list. Not only does that seem completely unnecessary, but I also think it’s especially unnecessary to have a Bowie album from 2013 on the list when his prime was before the turn of the century. Not only that, but this was from the expanded version of the list. That means they had 1001 albums already, many of which were Bowie albums, and then they decided to add YET ANOTHER ONE. Because of that, artists who were doing cool stuff in the 21st century were left off the list.

Decent, but I enjoy his classic stuff much better.

Bowie gonna Bowie like he does. A bit long, but overall this was a cool listen with nods back to his 70s glam rock style, and also modern sounds that would continue on into his Blackstar album. Each song has its own characteristics. The production was also really good here. Always gonna dig Bowie.

You can always count on Bowie for a quality album. With that said, can’t say I loved this one. Not really anything that stood out to me so just felt kind of average.

I liked this more than Black Star but still very much mid-tier Bowie, which is still a very decent place to be. 3.5/5

David Bowie doesn’t do it for me.

Some good songs on here i don’t think it’s his best work but it’s pretty good for being his ladder half of his career

The Next Day - 2.5/5 Dirty Boys - 3.5/5 The Stars (Are Out Tonight) - 3/5 Love Is Lost - 3.5/5 Where Are We Now? - 3/5 Valentine's Day - 3.5/5 If You Can See Me - 3/5 I'd Rather Be High - 3/5 Boss Of Me - 3/5 Dancing Out In Space - 2.5/5 How Does The Grass Grow? - 2.5/5 (You Will) Set The World On Fire - 4/5 You Feel So Lonely You Could Die - 3/5 Heat - 3/5

Really enjoyed this! I'm unfamiliar with this era of Bowie so I don't know if this is stand out or not for him but whatever, I enjoyed it.

This is not an essential DB record imo and not one you need to hear before death. It's decent but ... it is not all that different from the 2 before it.

Uniquely Bowie to the core. Enjoyed the strange vocal material and the drum parts are fantastic. Definitely original! 3.6/5.0

Late Bowie that sounds like early Bowie.

Better than Coldplay

Mästarens bästa skiva på mycket mycket länge. Nästan sjuttiotalsklass! En fyra

David Bowie proved scientists wrong by making an album that's not only listenable, but also fairly pleasant.

We did it, Joe

It was Bowie, it was okay. These are not "Woah-e Bowie" songs that I am going to remember, but I had a good time listening to it. Funny luck to get this album after 'Heroes.'

Unc still got it.

I’m always confounded by critical reception that complains of “overlong” albums that are literally UNDER an hour. That’s that Vine attention span smh I don’t think this album is bad, but when I want to listen to Bowie I don’t really pick something later than the 80s. Fortunately, listening to this for the first time this morning made me think of those sounds! So then I guess the question is why not innovate? Idk I guess he didn’t really need to. Must’ve been cool to see this pop up after years of inactivity but I wasn’t a Bowie fan at the time so I missed that excitement

not my favorite bowie but still bowie

I’ve never disliked a Bowie project

The music video for “The Stars Are Out Tonight” is so incredible, I’d never seen anything like it when it came out (and then I watched Twin Peaks). The album is great, just a little long.

David Bowie began what would become his final act three days after I turned 18. I remember that I happened to be on YouTube and saw a video posted “just now” for a Bowie song I’d never heard, “Where Are We Now?” I assumed it was just an old track or rarity that I’d never heard before. I was shocked to find it was Bowie’s first new song in a decade, complete with a bizarre ass music video. He sounded old, worn, tired, etc. I was pretty cautiously optimistic when I found out the song was the first single from a new album and listened to the album a dozen times when it came out. I don’t really listen to individual songs from this album a whole lot and these days I think it’s largely overshadowed by Blackstar but I do think it’s pretty special. The album art in isolation is a nice touch, telling us that we’re returning to the experimental sounds of Berlin era and leaving the later pop/industrial/Twin Peaks concept albums behind. Bowie might very well be the artist for whom I have the most respect because almost everything he did at least had some substance. T

Just unremarkable. I've been giving every forgettable album a 3/5. If I'm not gonna remember this album tomorrow it gets a 3/5. 3/5.

Not as good as young Bowie but still solid

I really enjoyed the darker tones it had

9/10 - I loved this album. Its deep and I cant wait to unpack this album in a dark room and dig into what Bowie is singing about. But its a catchy album Fav Tracks: (You Will) Set The World On Fire Fav Lyric: Heard before? ---–- ❌ Saved a Song? ----- ✅ Saved Album? --–-- ✅ Will Listen Again? -- ✅ Album Cover -------Bold

David Bowie is considered a music genius, but this is absolutely beyond me. Some of my best friends are big fans and I could never get into his music. I like 3 songs from this album - The Next Day, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), (You will) Set the World on Fire

This just tells me I need to listen to more Bowie. This album is haunting and hopeful all at the same time, yet not afraid to rock. Given the context I suppose all of that makes sense. 4/5

2 I feel like this is not bowies best work. And im already not exactly the biggest bowie fan But props for almost doing the brat album cover 10 years early. I guess.

This all feels so familiar, like Bowie intentionally wrote tunes that mirrored his 70s output, but with less memorable hooks and melodies. Not bad, but easily forgettable. 2.5/5

Yeah…. Next record, please.

Prefer everything pre ‘83, but this is Bowie so no criticism here. A legend and this does have a handful of strong tunes. 3.9/4

Surprise, surprise... yet another Bowie album. Yawwwwwnnnnn...... This one makes no sense, anyway. It has zero hit songs and is only one studio album away from his self-aware swan song, "Blackstar." I'm generally indifferent to David Bowie's music, but I would name "Blackstar" as a must-listen wayyy ahead of this release.

25th studio album too many.

David Bowie, the absolute legend. The album is great, but not up to what he did before. Defo a great listen!

I hadn't listened to later Bowie. This was solid. How awesome.

I’m struggling with Bowie. One of the top pop performers ever, obviously influential, wrote some great songs. But i’ve yet to find a great album. This one is more of a rock album than others I’ve heard in the challenge. It’s competent but i hear no great songs and many of them sound similar. It’s boring by the end. It’s a 2. (In part the score is because I KNOW there are great Bowie albums — eg. Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory) to come.

‘Where are we now?’ Is a five star album all by itself.

its a great Bowie album but I cant point to a song in particular that lifts the whole thing up. Its got his iconic style but I think this one is more for the diehards. 3.5 if I could.

Enjoyable but nothing iconic. Was probably a bigger deal at the time because of the gap between albums. Now it’s just a decent David Bowie album which is still better than a lot of other albums

To

The stars, bien ! Valentine’s day : pas mal On sent effectivement qu’il se fait vieux rather be high : pas mal ! Dancing out in Space aussi ! Sans être un album inoubliable de bowie je trouve que c’est un assez bon album en fait Heat est assez fascinante aussi

Out of all of David Bowie's classic albums, this random one made this list of top 1001 albums?? His voice is still vaguely interesting here, but the instrumentation was pretty boring and too slow-paced for me. "I'd Rather Be High" stood out as being ok, but yeah this was largely a slog.

Did not love this song ne

Never heard this one before. Wild that Bowie did such cool arrangements/production without it being either forced or dated.

Yeah- I gave Heroes a 2. And that only because the second half was… interesting. This is really everything I hate about Bowie. Right here. In my ears. I think I might go 1 with this. I gave Blackstar a 5. He’s probably already pretty unwell at this point. I believe this is the album just prior. But… this is just about unlistenable. It’s filling me with rage. If it doesn’t improve, it’s getting a 1. Man, it’s a struggle. I truly hate Bowie. But… he’s got musicians working with him like no others. It’s the eternal thing with him. I’m going to relent and give this a 2. 2 Boolean: um….. true, I guess

Much of this album charges along at an urgent pace. It's like he suddenly decided he had a lot more to say after all, after nearly ten quiet years. There are characters and themes a-plenty, and a mix of songs - some simpler constructions, where he's just decided on a vibe and sticks to it for three minutes or so, and some more complex, like If You Can See Me, with those different sections and unexpected chord progressions and changes that he's a master of. There is merit and interest in every song. I'd kind of missed his Reality years, at the time, because I had my hands full, and when this came out, it was the first new Bowie I'd listened to contemporaneously since 1990-something. I was thrilled and admiring. Since then, I've filled in all the bits I'd missed, and those Reality years were utterly fabulous, but I still think this is very good. It has a bit of a feel of Lodger in parts, I think, although my favourite track is You Feel So Lonely You Could Die, which truthfully just feels like classic, timeless, genius Bowie. The final track, Heat, hints at what was to come on Blackstar. I so wish we could have had a final trilogy. Well, obvs, I wish he was still here. Love him.

Well, once again, not a a fan at all of his later work. This is totally sacrilege, but maybe I liked this marginally more than Blackstar. Either way, it just feels so stuck in a by-gone era, Bowie's vocals are abysmal, and even though he's trying to touch on some interesting topics, the music falls so flat for me that none of it lands. Once again, I do not understand the Bowie craze. Fave tracks: - The Next Day - Valentine's Day

Not great.

Meh. Whole album is just meh. All the love to Bowie but nah.

Boring. I only like old Bowie music.

I say this each of the many times a David Bowie album pops up on this list. I thought I liked him, but listening to anything that’s not one of his big hits makes me realize otherwise. The best tracks are mediocre. And while I felt this was, as a whole, more consistently decent than any of the other albums, I heard nothing that should have earned a spot on a “must listen” list. Especially lacking a Fame or Ziggy Stardust, or other such solid songs. It’s just there, and I doubt that what Bowie would want to be thought of.

1. "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" 2. "Love Is Lost" 3. "How Does the Grass Grow?"

First heard this when it came out and didn’t care for it. I’ve recited it and really like it.

Better than black star but still eh

Not great Bowie, but also not too weird or boring Bowie.

It's alright, I don't really understand why it's part of the 1001 albums.

It's good. Don't know what else you want me to say about it. This is like the 6th Bowie album and it's far from his best. Like do any of his fans consider this their favorite or anything? One of the reasons I think there should be a limit on the amount of albums artists get on this list. 7/10

Pretty epic. Like many Bowie albums.

Interesting piece of history, but far from a great album

why is this on here bro

Listen I love David Bowie but should this really be on here?

Surprised to find this one here but not at all displeased. Bowie’s last four records stand up to any series of four in his catalog. Listened to this on a plane once and it made me cry. The only weak spot on the record is “Dancing Out In Space” but even that’s not really bad. Would hope Reality is on the list too, but maybe that’s asking too much.

Liked it, not my favorite Bowie album.

Some real David Bowie sounding David Bowie.

🌟👨🏻‍🎤🦾💥🎧

Meh

Is this Bowie’s greatest album? Not close. However how many bands still put out a great record at studio album #25? Dylan’s was Down In The Groove (his worst?) Rolling Stones is Foreign Tongue (comes out next month - their worst cover? lol) Neil Young - Silver & Gold So in context of rock gods making their 25th studio albums - this one holds up.

This is a David Bowie album, why we need another one I'm unsure.

Nice album. would listen again. Three stars

Some great tracks

Strong late career comeback

Nothing really stands out in this album but still enjoyed it

Bowie is always good

7.1/10

Bowie gets two?? Also good. Wish I could listen to it more.

quite fitting that this is my second bowie album with the first one being heroes... my first 5 star album in the course of this project! wish i couldve experienced this album at the time of its release but unfortunately i was too busy being 8 years old

LOL. The Bowie album from the 2010s that isn’t Blackstar. I’ve always been intrigued by this one, but not intrigued enough to give it a spin. I guess now I have to. It's fine, we all know it is. It's not awful, but it's nothing incredibly special. You sort of get this sense that Bowie is attempting to relive the days in which he made his best music, that being the 1970s, and while he doesn't really come close to the glory of that time, it's a valiant attempt and pretty pleasant. I'm not anywhere near in love with this album, but songs like the title track, "Valentine's Day," "Boss of Me," and a few others really pull through here. It's dramatic, and energetic, which is something that you don't expect from a 66-year-old David Bowie, and that I personally didn't want much from this album, but now that I've listened in, I can't say it's TOO bad. I guess expectations put everything in perspective. 7.5/10

Paar lekkere nummers

pretty good period

The Next Day by David Bowie is an absolutely incredible album. I liked every single song and everything about it was just awesome. 5 stars out of 5. Top 3: The Next Day, Love is Lost, If You Can See Me

It didn’t feel as coherent as the last Bowie one, but also felt like it was prodding at bigger issues, I’m sure if I prodded at the meanings behinds the songs more I’d find my self caring more but alas I have study to do

Was never really on the same wavelength as this one. Obviously well produced, and Bowie has something of significance to say (as he always does), but I didn’t really get on board with this record as much as I paddled halfheartedly next to it (Cricket bat mentioned tho)

Yeah, I wanted to like this, then I wanted to hate this, and ended up somewhere in between. Inconsistent, but fun. Closer to a 4 than a 2.

It felt like he was bored out of his mind and Iman told him to make a new album to get out of the house and do more. Not his best album, the moxy is missing.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Bowie in full Gonzo mode, Where Are We Now is one of my favorite songs.

Not his finest

Maybe I expect too much from Bowie but I found this album quite unremarkable. There is sooo much good Bowie and this wasn't it.

An aging Bowie sings so beautifully it has the same charm as younger Bowie with tracks that stick out to me being the stars (are out tonight), where are we now, Valentine’s Day, I’d rather be high, (you will) set the world on fire and my personal favorite track you feel so lonely you could die 7/10.

it's very black star, with a bit more energy

This album is raw, obscure and paused, but in a very good way. There is a great balance between more lively and beautiful tracks and the experimental (sometimes even ambient-based) side. I've enjoyed it a lot, it's a very sad-sounding album (many lyrics are too), but there is something so beautiful around it that it makes of this album a very eclectic and sincere one. And it's been truly a journey to listen to this album, it starts with more upbeat songs and then it flows until it becomes dark and nostalgic. It's great. Surely, an album that demonstrates Bowie's most experimental but also human side.

Nice! don’t have time to write a review rn

This is my 6th of 9 Bowie albums on this list and I am not even a year in! Though I have found through this journey that he is a tremendous singer/writer/artist and have typically been really positive in all of my reviews of other records, I am afraid this album didn't reach the same heights as the others I have already listened to. There are a few good tracks on here, most notably The Stars (Are Out Tonight). The sound on this was great, especially the lead guitar and the way different layers were built into the track. The other one I thought was very good was Love Is Lost. Much of the rest of this record was decidedly average. Take the song Boss Of Me. There are some good instrumentals, but it is let down by a very simplistic set of lyrics and repetitive chorus. What baffles me a bit is why this album is included in the first place. Yeah, I know the writers have a very obvious affinity for Bowie. He has the most albums on this countdown for a reason. They love him. We love him. That said, there were already 7 albums on this list from the original book, do we really need an 8th album from him which was this straightforward and inconsequential? I mean I understand why Blackstar was added as his 9th album. At least that record was very original and to hear Bowie effectively recreate himself that differently, especially so late in his career, was fascinating. I just wonder in the 2016 version of the book after hearing Blackstar if they didn't regret adding The Next Day, as it is inferior to all of his other albums on this list. 3 stars

Proposition très intéressante quand on voit l'année et le passif du bonhomme, il ne nous transporte pas autant que dans ses albums du début mais l'album reste très sincère et bon

Nice

а это кто на обложке я не пойму

Some of this is really good, some not so much.

David Bowie is more than just Ziggy Stardust - who knew?

one of the better bowie albums but still not that outstanding to me. none of the tracks really stand out to me. 6/10

Not My Bowie favorite album but worth a listen

don’t love the more recent stuff i’m sorryyyy

Great album from Mr Jones one of last two in a marvellous career in several towns

buen album con un David Bowie bastante actual

I mean, this is definitely only on the "important/influential" list because it's riding the coattails of Bowie's earlier work, but, you know, *I* had fun...

Love Bowie. For Bowie fabs - others may not be so excited. Not one of my favs, but it was the first time I listened.

"The Next Day is the 25th studio album by English musician David Bowie" Some people just don't know how to quit while they're ahead

It's insane how even right at the end of his career, Bowie still seemed to have multiple creative peaks. This album gets very overshadowed by Blackstar and I think its quite underappreciated because of it. While Blackstar is very much his super epic final effort, The Next Day still feels like somewhat of an ode to his whole career. Everything about the way this album sounds and feels is so unmistakably Bowie, and he uses a lot of the same sorts of sounds and styles that he has been so iconic for in the past. There are a lot of classic sounding glam moments, some great more new wave leaning songs, some really great parts that are very much inspired by the sound he went for on the Berlin trilogy, so it's no wonder that Heroes is the album he chose to parody for the cover. I think this is definitely far from the best album from this late in his career (that would easily be either Blackstar or Heathen), it's still pretty underrated and has a hell of a lot of standout moments.

I remember this album passed me by completely since I was so disinterested in Bowie's later discog. I realized there was new Bowie music catching a music video on a Carl's Jr screen. Strange times. Only went back learning of James Murphy's minor envolvment, at the time LCD Soundsystem was my favorite band, and may well still be. This might be the first time I listen to it fully, and while not his best crop, it's slightly better than most 90s onwards output. Still hear his interet in sharing his views of the world, now more melancholic than before, Where Are We Now, You Feel So Lonely and Heat sound like he's looking back and realizing there's not much time left to talk about new things, reflecting on what past, slightly affraid of not knowing what comes beyond this point. Still some classic Bowie era on the title track and Dancing Out In Space, some 90s breakbeat on If You Can See Me. This is a pretty good album, but falls within the context of his work.

I watched four of the videos associated with the songs on this album and doing so reaffirmed my belief that David Bowie is a multisensory artist: many of his songs are best experienced when there are visuals to accompany the audio.

I remember this album coming out and I didn't have any interest in it. I'm a huge Bowie fan. I liked the Tin Machine albums for Chrissakes. But I checked out after Earthling. It seemed like he started going backwards after the failure of that project. I love Classic Bowie. But his deal was always to go forward, even if his older fans just wanted to get Jean Genie for the thousandth time. This album feels like Bowie channeling his younger self. And it's overall a very mixed bag. I'd Rather Be High is a good track though. There are some others that don't feel like nostalgia farming. Where are we now and Valentine's Day were skips for me.

Never thought I'd be sitting here praising this album over his more well known, classic albums, yet here I am. I'm still of the opinion that Bowie is somewhat of a singles artist vs albums artist, but this is a fairly consistently good album. Up there with Young Americans and Ziggy Stardust for me. It does start off really shaky with The Next Day and Dirty Boys sounding like C-sides to some of his older work, but The Stars (Are Out Tonight) rights the ship, and the album generally stays interesting throughout with its alternative meets 50's diner vibe its got going on. Where Are We Now? is a bit of a stumble, but it gets back on track after that. So yeah, quite enjoyed this. Doesn't it belong on the list? Yeah, definitely not. Just because its a comeback for Bowie does not make it an "Album you must listen to", but it is a really solid listen.

not a bad album. It feels like a throwback to the 80s while avoiding being too radio friendly

While this is a solid effort by Bowie, there are two levels of analysis that must take place. The first, is how does this record, Bowie’s 25th, measure up against his own recorded output and then second, how does The Next Day measure up against the millions of other artists and recorded output? Arguably, this is Bowie’s 10th best record (It’s a rabbit hole so I’m not going to list them, but I will say that it is not nearly as good as his next, and last, record Blackstar) and I have no idea where this stands in the pantheon of other records I enjoy more than this but I’m pretty clear it not in my top 1001. That said, there are some good things about this record- the musicianship is outstanding, the recording is beautiful sounding. Bowie’s vocals are solid but I’d argue on several tracks they come off as tired and on at least one track (Boss of Me) it didn’t sound like it was Bowie singing. The songs are a bit samey even with the effort to change tempos. And I’d agree that the album is a bit too long. I think the lyric choices and the bummer quality of several of the themes make the album seem like it drags. I listened on a full pass through and lost interest by Valentine’s Day (school shooter song) as the rest of the record faded into the background. I went back a couple of times later in the day starting where I’d left off and those latter passes were helpful in engaging with the rest of the record. How Does The Grass Grow and You Feel So Lonely You Could Die were interesting lyrically, unfortunately the music supporting those words is not worthy of the task. I know this is unpopular opinion but given the breadth and depth of Bowie’s work, this feels like a tentative return after a lengthy gap following his heart attack in 2004. Perhaps this album was an important step towards his final album which achieves a level near Bowie’s best only 2 years later. 2.5/5

I think this is it for Bowie on this list for me. Nine Bowie albums across 800+ albums total during my listening journey. Incredible. I understand that this was a bit of a secretive album, as the process of recording this album was apparently pretty hush hush. Bowie had also underwent some health issues in the years preceding, making this his first studio album in almost a decade at the time. Needless to say, this release was probably a welcome sight for many. Unlike the much darker and emotional "Blackstar" that would eventually become Bowie's final work, this does sounds a bit like classic Bowie. In fact, it seems to invoke all sorts of styles across Bowie's discography. Kind of makes things disjointed as a result, though. Bowie's discography and longevity was certainly impressive, but I don't think it's groundbreaking to say that his older, more glam rock focused work were his highlights. This was a fine and spirited effort from a noticeably aged Bowie, but it ultimately wasn't the most memorable.

I like this album pretty well, but it is probably the only album I Bowie's discography where he's looking back. But it's still a great batch of songs, the opening five tracks in particular. (8.33) ★★★★

Uneven album, but at times really good. 3 .5 stars

I think the first half of this is really good. Second half is kind of meh. I do think it's a good comeback after Reality though. The title track, "The Stars" and "Valentine's Day" are Bowie's best songs in decades. Originally had this at 4 stars, but going down to a strong 3.5.

3.5

After a good 30 years of middling to terrible albums, it feels like this was the album that brought him back into the cool fold. And then he brought out Blackstar which is the coolest yet bittersweet, most expert sign-off record from any band or solo artist. This record may or may not be decisively a 1001 album candidate but it is certainly a very solid album - immediate, catchy tunage throughout - and the title track opener is an absolute barnstorming dark gothic blammer - “Here I am, not quite dying. My body left to rot in a hollow tree. Its branches throwing shadows on the gallows for me. And the next day, and the next, and another day”. So blammin’. Not only that, the artwork improves on Heroes and the music does as well. Easy 4 stars.

Absolutely love bowie. But regardless of how much you like someone’s art like any artist with an extensive catalogue not everything is going to hit the same. I still appreciate this album for what it is.

I've always had a hard time evaluating DB's "new" stuff. His legend is so overwhelming and his breath of work is so important that I have a hard time determining if its worthwhile or not. I mean, it's Bowie, so of course it's worthwhile, but to compare with other works is ultimately silly. Do I guess this review is silly. Whatever.

Me gusta Bowie en general, me parece que su voz es única. Tiene canciones que me gustan como "Valentine's Day" pero me parece que este es un lado más melancólico de él.

This ruled.

74 albums in and 5th Bowie comes up. It’s too much of a single artist - I like Bowie and gave Hunky Dory a five. This starts strong but tails off. “Here I am, not quite dying” is a dark lyric

David Bowie still had what it took to put together a decent album all the way up to the end. I already heard that album on this list. This album was on the list and got replaced because it’s just an average Bowie listen. It’s not really that interesting or monumental, and I’m sure there are other albums from this time period, or even that year which weren’t included in favor of adding more Bowie. It’s not a bad listen, just really mediocre.

its bowie at his worse, which is to say good but not that good

I didn’t really dig this. There just wasn’t any tracks that I remembered after it ended. I feel like it could benefit from repeat listening but who has time for that. DB was an icon and produced some of the greatest music ever so it feels a bit shitty to be down on a late career album that was released just a few years prior to his death but I didn’t really enjoy it and I really wanted to 1.8

Very good. The Stars and Valentines Day are really highlights. I would skip a few tracks again but it's a solid Bowie record.

Apparently David Bowie cant make a bad record still this one is very dark and varied. Love it always

enjoyed some songs but weird for me still.

У Девіда є й краща музика. 2,5

What an album is The Next Day... What a project... As a lifelong David fan I'd like to remind something- before Blackstar and David's shocking death, and before this album was released, David was in a long break since 2004. A break we didn't know he would come back from. But he did. The first single, Where are We Now, is one of the most beautiful non-love ballads I've ever heard. But the interesting thing is that it doesn't really represent the sound of the record. David touched so many sounds in his career, and this tracklist interestingly mostly features Heavy rock bangers, bringing us back to his glam years. Some songs are on the Revolutionary side, the experimental eras of Berlin in the late seventies and mostly the middle nineties. The rock ballads are incredible. The bangers are hitting. The musicians play with such enthusiasm. You can here how lucky the feel for having this opportunity. And David him self... what can you say. One of my favorite vocalist of all time. He sounds amazing all along this album. Amazing. He remained a one of a kind songwriter till the very end. I have to give it a 5 today.

Just throwing random Bowie albums on the list because it’s Bowie. Reason No. 1001 why this list sucks.

better than expected (i should have known, its Bowie!)

I mean Bowie coming back after a decade of radio silence is nice, but I feel like its not necesary on the list; 3/5

Pretty great, you can hear the elements of black star creeping in and I love that album

Musically one of my favorite Bowie albums

I love Blackstar but never got around to this one, which was also fairly celebrated upon release. Strikes me as a farewell to the "rock" phases in his career. The songs here are fairly sturdy but they lack the kind of expansiveness or abstraction that I really relish in other Bowie albums.

I’ve always been a Bowie fan, but am not very familiar with his later work. This album was very enjoyable, and also motivated me to listen through his catalog. What a talent and inspiration.

Sé que Bowie es un astro de la música, un histórico, leyenda, pero no me gustó el disco. Quizás es una faceta o etapa con la que yo no conecto.

normalito para ser bowie 3/5

fhuu baromira idegesített, ez az album, be kell valljam, hogy nem is hallgattam végig a borítóról meg ne is beszéljünk asszem, 10/1

Funny thing about Bowie. I thought I kind of liked Bowie. But then this stupid album list threw SO much at me, and made me sit and listen to it. I realized I hate Bowie. The albums just aren't very good. And those were the "good albums", like Ziggy Stardust. This isn't Ziggy Stardust. This is 2013 Bowie. And we all know how great late albums from 70s rock bands are. I can't wait to see this album generator give me Aerosmith's Honkin' on Bobo, Mojo by Tom Petty, or the Rolling Stones masterwork A Bigger Bang. Point is, I guess you have to give credit to Bowie for keeping at it into the second term of the Obama administration, but I don't know anyone who is enough of a Bowie fan to call The Next Day a Great Album, an essential work that MUST be listened to in one's life, to properly enrich their understanding of popular music. I literally never heard of it until I opened this webpage this morning. I am normally a live and let live person. I have no reason to hate on music that I don't like, but damn it, this album is hot garbage. This album is artless, soulless, and toneless. It is an anachronism, an album out of time. It doesn't fit in Bowie's peak era and it definitely does not belong in the 2010s. It is generic and lifeless. It's Fat Elvis sweating through his jumpsuit at the Tropicana. Even the album cover is half-assed, phoned in, warmed up repeat of another Bowie album. I hate it. I don't want to listen to David Bowie anymore. Please, please make it stop.

Bowie - gut, aber nicht sein top.

David Bowie, etwas verbessert gegen früher

10 años sin sacar ningún álbum y volves así???? Los genios hacen eso

This stepped up in the second half for me (set the world on fire and feel so lonely you could die stood out), but overall it was just kinda meandering. I wonder how Iman (his wife of almost 30 years) felt about "Boss of me"? Overall I'd say if you want late career Bowie, Blackstar is the superior choice.

Beautiful album

This guy is a legend and you should listen to this album. It baffles me though, how these legends always end up making some really shit songs. I guess it’s similar to a chef fucking up a dish in their kitchen? But then again why would they let the dish reach a table? Anyway, I’m talking about 'Dancing Out In Space' and ‘Heat' reaching this album… Maybe Bowie was high again. He makes up for it with ‘Where are We Now?’ and ‘Valentine’s Day’ Otherwise this is well worth a listen! If I could give it 3.75 I would.

If you ask me, pretty inessential considering the sound on this is not groundbreaking and we’ve heard some of that from him elsewhere. Must listen if you’re a Bowie fan. High 3.

I just don't love David Bowie. This album is fine, but there are so many other Bowie albums on this list that I don't think this one has to be included as well.

While we definitely have heard enough Bowie on this list, the album was great. Somehow he was able to fuse his classic sound with modern production techniques making this album still sound fresh to my ears today. "(You Will) Set The World on Fire" was an absolute banger. It was great to hear him really rock, even as an older man.

With Bowie, it's usually the singles that stay with me, and most album tracks take a terribly long time to get into This album seems typical - a couple of tracks to hum along to right off the bat, but plenty for art student to noodle over possible hidden meanings Its okay

Favs: the stars are out tonight, where are we now, you feel so lonely you could die, heat

Cool that he made this, but it lacked luster and wasn't worth the listen in my opinion.

I'd never listened to any of the music on this album before. It's unistakenly pure David Bowie Art-Rock and I liked it.

Great album, largely overlooked when discussing his later catalogue (Blackstar, natch). For those who couldn't get over his Tin Machine era, this is a return to his rock/pop/funk roots.

A couple unique songs, but most of the songs are very simplistic instrumentally. Some of the songs sound like generic REM-style “rock” songs, but Bowie’s vocal touches prevent it from being too bad to listen to.

Not as good as blackstar, but enjoyed it anyways Standout songs: The Next Day Id Rather be High You Will Set the World on Fire

Listening session: april 20th, while commuting home from internship Listened to before: no Thoughts: this album has some nice songs but I couldn’t really get into it because of the aged voice of Bowie. Unfortunately you can hear quite well that he’s way past his prime with this album Favourite tracks: Love Is Lost & Where Are We Now

Just OK.

It was a fine album, but not his best.

Nothing stands out, but solid Bowie.

Just ok.

I liked this when it came out, but it didn't need to be on this list. This isn't in the David Bowie Essentials pile that I would hand to someone.

Bowie has always had a edge where he borders on commercial failure, not this album it's straight rock and, for me, his most enjoyable work since scary monsters

I can’t believe this is already over ten years old.

puede que si sea muy bueno pero lo intente terminar muchas veces y como me costó, me cansé. Chevere pero no es mi estilo. No me gusta y ya.

Я люблю поздний период Боуи. Обожаю heathen и black star, этот альбом тоже хорош. Мне он кажется неким предисловием перед прощальным black star, он похож по звучанию и у меня вызывает похожие чувства. Отличный альбом

Bowie is always good

If this album made the list, I have to imagine there are at least 6 more Bowie albums on this list. I’m marking it as 4 but probably more like 3.6846884328. It’s professional, stately Bowie. The next one though…

It isn’t surprising that David Bowie late in his career can produce good music. It is surprising that this album gets included on the list despite being inconsequential music. To me, Bowie doesn’t get a pass. His great work is great, but he is capable of delivering mediocre albums as well. This is way closer to mediocre than something anyone must hear… especially before they die.

Overshadowed, and rightly so, by its successor Blackstar. Though there's plenty to appreciate here too. We open with the title track. Driving and gritty, with a Low-esque percussive sound and melody. Bowie likes to hang around on one "blue" note for a while, and it works (for the most part). I haven't listened to the few albums leading up to this one, but certainly by 2013 his voice had developed that hoarse quality that you also hear in Blackstar. It works better in the latter. Here, I get the feeling Bowie's trying to emulate his late-70s hard rock, which only partially works. The first really great song is The Stars (Are Out Tonight). Though I bet a lot of its greatness can be attributed to the delicate, old-fashioned-sounding strings. That "oo-hoo" hook definitely sells the song, though, as well as the melody in the instrumental break. A very pretty piano ballad in Where Are We Now. (Fun fact: That track title also used to be the title of one of the Minecraft music discs way back in the day.) Then we get Valentine's Day, a track that sounds way more dramatic than it has any right to be. Intense, quietly frenzied, and uses that classic i-VIIb-VIb-V progression that was also used in the Moonage Daydream solo sections. If You Can See Me is the most apt representation, thus far, of what's to come in the following record. That little bit on the cello absolutely kills (in a good way) every time it's played. In the song I'd Rather Be High: "I'm seventeen and my looks can prove it" is a little rich coming from a 66-year-old man. Cool riff though. I was worried that as the streaming numbers went down in the latter half of the album, from Valentine's Day onward, the tracks would start being too bizarre and unapproachable. After all, creativity is nothing without accessibility, as we see in some of Bowie's lesser records. But then we get How Does The Grass Grow?, (You Will) Set The World On Fire, goddamn You Feel So Lonely You Could Die... all surprisingly strong. Definitely boosts my opinion of the record. Maybe my opinion is being influenced by the sheer number of Bowie appearances on the list. He deserves to be here – multiple times, even – but when Aladdin Sane and Blackstar and Low and Ziggy Stardust and Hunky Dory all exist (and are all included on this list), The Next Day seems a lot less justified. Still – if Bowie had died days after The Next Day, rather than Blackstar, then I could easily see this reaching the same legendary status. 4/5 Key tracks: The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Where Are We Now

It’s not his best record. But it’s still really good. Wonderful production. Exquisite quality all around. Sounds better on headphones. Glad to have been introduced to this one.

👌

just horrendous. god stop with the david bowie already PLEASE

It was decent

I listened to this a couple of times as well as reading the background. I enjoyed it more the first time, finding it a little bit repetitive on the second listen. It has some good moments but it was like he was finding his feet again. You can hear the progression towards the sound of Heathen and Blackstar but it the songwriting is not as consistent.

For Bowie this was rather tame, nowhere near as much of interest as something like blackstar, lacks the vibe of his Berlin trilogy, and the hooks and melodies of his earlier eras. It’s not a bad album per se but rather forgettable. I wouldn’t be surprised if the author had a particular penchant for Bowie as seems like an odd inclusion on the list. There were likely many better albums released in that year and this would be unlikely to scrape into the top 10 of Bowie albums.

Solid album. I had not heard this before yesterday

Bowie maintained his quality to the end, and it's on display here. Not a "greatest hits" generator, but just a good album delivered by one of the greatest recording artists of all time.

Best Track - "The Next Day"

I really liked the instrumentation of the songs but the vocals weren’t all there which is unfortunate. I still quite enjoyed it and I’d say it was an okay album.

"The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" is funky "Love Is Lost" is actively quite boring There's some great instrumentation, and some occasional moments of great composition, but dare I say that Bowie's vocals were the weakest part of the album? Dare I might. I have so little to say about this album otherwise.

I think this is another 2.5 for me but the struggle is whether i give it a 2 or 3. I think a high 2. It didnt grab me in the slightest. Pretty boring. There are only 3 songs i think i actively enjoyed listening to, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Love is Lost, and (You Will) Set The Word On Fire. The rest were not great. Tbe first one and If You Can See Me were shite.

what in the daddy issues yeah most of this was ass there were a few songs - where are we now and you will set the world on fire - that were okay. didn't like a lot of the vocals (including in where are we now but it had some strange dreamy melancholic nostalgic aura that i vibed with). defo struggled to finish it the few good songs do Not make up for how much i didn't like listening to the rest.

2.5 - unc has not still got it a lot of these songs did nothing for me... others I did enjoy but the vocals put me off. a combinations of the voice (sorry bowie but you don't sound like you used to), the melodies which tended to be monotonous, and the lyrics which didn't interest me. but it's well-produced, has variety, and I think the backing tracks with different vocal tracks could be more enjoyable I wouldn't choose to listen to any of the songs again so I think it has to be rounded down to a 2 I'm sorry. I do see positive aspects so my true rating is 2.5 favourite songs: (you will) set the world on fire, dancing out in space

unc still got it ? i never really listen to bowie so i was looking forward to this, i dont think its fantastic but maybe thats because im not a bowiehead i think the slower songs really aren't my style, so i like the start a lot more i like that he kept the spirit of the era he was making music in, it sounds like an album that couldve released in the 1970s i think the album is well constructed, idk if id listen to any of the songs but i would definitely vibe to this if it was on

Mediocre album on the whole. Best song was "(You Will) Set the World on Fire", which was pretty good and much better than the rest of the album.

It was fine. I mean it’s David Bowie so a lot is expected. So maybe that’s not totally fair.

Not really sure we needed more Bowie at this point.

Este es uno de los pocos álbumes de Bowie que me chifla escuchar de principio a fin sin saltar ni una sola cancion y en el orden preestablecido. Como casi todo Bowie, no le pillas el tranquillo a la primera, pero lo cierto es que el álbum muestra solidez, experiencia y manejo brutal de la composición. No en vano se sacaron cinco singles de aquí, y son pocos ("Dancing Out In Space" por ejemplo). Y al fin y al cabo, no más que un descomunal disco de rock, con todas las letras. Bowie siendo Bowie, y dejándonos una joya como "Where Are We Now?".

Vuonna 2013 julkaistu The Next Day päätti kymmenen vuotta jatkuneen hiljaiselon ja aloitti viimeisen luvun Bowien uralla. Vaikka kyseessä onkin melko onnistunut myöhäisuran julkaisu, The Next Day jää selkeästi seuraajansa, vuonna 2016 ilmestyneen Blackstarin varjoon. The Next Day on tyyliltään vähän liian turvallinen ja rauhallinen, eikä siltä löydy selkeitä huippukohtia. Vaikka olen Bowien fani, en silti ymmärrä miksi tämä albumi on lisätty tälle listalle. The Next Day ei kuulu edes top 10 Bowie-albumien listalle.

Heroesを聞いてないのに先にこれを聞いてしまった。★よりも枯れている感じがする。

There's 9 Bowie albums on this list. But why? There's no argument the guy made himself legendary, but his entire discography isn't really required for that understanding. And this one easily could have been dropped.

potsdamer platz mentioned

my hero

Good rock album.

It just kind of happened. Nothing distinctive at all.

David halt, gibt sicherlich bessere Alben von Ihm, Dies ist nicht meins

Good, better than I expected

3.5/5. 2013’s the Next Day often gets overshadowed by its follow-up (2016’s Blackstar), and being blunt it’s because Blackstar is the better and more adventurous/interesting album (and also partially because Blackstar coincided with his death making the album pretty inseparable from that context.) That is not to say The Next Day is a bad record however, there are a lot of great songs on here that hint back to sounds Bowie was playing with way back in the Berlin era of his career, which is even seen on the “graphic design is my passion” album cover which is a “rework” of the Heroes album cover. Good album, but not really among Bowies best.

So good

Nice that it was bowie but aint a sensational album

God I pray this isn't anybody's introduction to Bowie. The worst Bowie is still better than a lot of other music, but fuck, this doesn't even break in to his own top 10. Makes no sense this album is on the list.