Search - David Bowie :: Heathen

Bowie demands a better future for all of us ...

Steffan Piper | Palm Desert, CA | 12/31/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"
I'm surprised about the reception of this album even with fans as there has been a lot of negative banter regarding this album and most of it, in my opinion, is misplaced. Heathen is most probably David Bowie's greatest work and high water mark of his career. Heathen is definitely as I have stated before, one of the best albums of the past decade.



Sure, people could start going on about Heroes, Bowie's Berlin years, Ziggy, the eighties ad infinitum, but I think all that pales in comparison to this album. From start to finish, Heathen not just delivers as a solid album - but it continues to deliver like one of those forever present concept-albums that people often talk about being timeless, like Weezer's Blue Album, U2's Joshua Tree, The Beatle's Sgt. Pepper, Clapton's Unplugged or Moody Blue's Day's of Future Passed. All these albums are looked at in their sense of inhabiting the overall. Heathen is now, another addition and Bowie pulls it off masterfully.



I became aware of this album after watching Conan O'Brien one night and seeing Bowie perform two songs (I think Cactus and Everyone Says Hi) from this and was absolutely floored at the man and his uber-ethnic super group ... a band that would put even Supertramp, or Sting's World Band Collective to shame. About a week later, Bowie was on again and preformed two different songs and directly after, I left the house and went looking for this thing in the middle of the night like a dope fiend.



Heathen starts off darkly and almost like a mass with Sunday but then goes directly into a confession with a song that seems like a real-life problem from Bowie's everyday grind. Cactus comes across like Bowie is reading a letter, sent to his wife from a crazed fan who wants Iman's dirty dress and a sample of David Bowie's / The Great White Duke's / Thomas Newton's blood. The First Act closes with Slip Away, a story about a fading TV celebrity and his puppet which is probably one of the best tracks on the entire album and has Bowie playing a litany of strange, almost unnameable instruments.



From this point in the album, it seems to almost separate with its energetic mid-section which is more reminiscent of Bowie's work from the early nineties. Act two is: Slow Burn, Afraid, and I've been waiting for you.



Act Three is I took a trip on a Gemini Spaceship and 5:15 the Angles have gone, which also seem separate styles of Bowie's that hearken back to his early days, the Berlin years and even his days as his alter-ego Ziggy Stardust, but 5:15 seems connected to the closing portion of the album as many have stated which is Everyone says Hi, my favorite A Better Future, which sounds as if the writing is a lost track from Heroes and the grand exeunt - Heathen (The Rays).



During the release of this album David Bowie went on tour, but apparently toured strictly near his home in the five Burroughs of New York playing to sold out crowds in small pubs, bars and local nightclubs. The idea of this alone is absolutely enthralling and gives this album added depth knowing that the people who got in to see the show, heard this album live and in an intimate and very fulfilling setting. For Bowie fans this was probably the ultimate gift to them. Anyone who speaks ill of this album probably hasn't really listened to it ... or hasn't `heard' it.



"