All righty. Let's finish off this Berlin trilogy, shall we? Yes. Yes we shall. And here is how we shall do it.
Lodger (1979)
The last of the so-called “Berlin Trilogy”, this album is viewed as one of Bowie's least accessible and least successful, despite its high chart placing, at least in the UK. It would also spell the end of his association with Brian Eno. In recent times it has become recognised as one of Bowie's more underappreciated albums, and attitudes towards it have changed. Speaking of changing, this album would see the beginnings of a new direction for the Thin White Duke, as he explored world music and more political themes.
I must admit, the opener “Fantastic Voyage” puts me in mind of nothing more than his later hit “Absolute Beginners”. Nice song, quite laid back with a cool little piano line, and a very reserved and more soulful vocal than much of the previous Berlin albums. You can hear the political elements in his lyrics already here as he talks about
”shooting off missiles”. I can detect the kind of Bowie that we would know by the time albums like
Let's Dance and
Tonight rolled along. A lot less experimental, I feel, which is odd, given that the page for this album says it was full of experiments – oh, well “African Night Flight” is totally experimental, very industrial with metallic sounding keys and a rapid-fire (and I mean rapid) vocal from Bowie, spoken almost in a murmur at times. Kind of almost an embryonic Madness at times!
The world music influences are clearly evident here, with added African chants, but I can't really say I like this track. It certainly stands out, anyway. Next up is “Move On”, which has a very rocky beat, almost fifties rockabilly at times, Bowie dropping into the lower vocal register for this. Apparently it's “All the Young Dudes” played backwards in parts: yeah, I can hear it, in the chorus I think. Africa gets namechecked again.
Reggae gets the Bowie treatment next in “Yassassin” (possibly presaging young pretender Gary Numan's later “I, Assassin”?) with a very eastern flavour running through it; you could imagine Bowie standing in the desert doing that Egyptian dance while singing this. Maybe. Krautrock returns for “Red Sails”, very upbeat and rocky with a real emergent new wave feel to it, some excellent guitar. Very catchy tune, like this one a lot. “DJ” was one of the four singles taken from the album, and again I hear “Fashion” in here with what sounds like bits of the Bee Gees (don't ask me which bits!). I know this song all right, good single, kind of sounds more like
Ziggy era to me really. Another good one too, good sense of funk in the guitar while the synth seems more in the new-wave mode of things. Great vocal performance from the man, and then “Look Back in Anger” kind of passes me by but sounds like a decent pop song, while we probably all know his ode to being a man in “Boys Keep Swinging”, with its
faux-fifties feel and crazy chorus.
“Repetition” is, well, repetitive, but intentionally so, and sung with zero emotion, again intentionally as it's about domestic abuse, very hard-hitting musically, and again “Red Money” gives me that “Fashion” feeling, very uptempo, great guitar, and it sounds a little familiar. I see now this is because it appeared in a different form on Iggy Pop's
The Idiot. Indeed.
Track listing
Fantastic Voyage
African Night Flight
Move On
Yassassin
Red Sails
DJ
Look Back in Anger
Boys Keep Swinging
Repetition
Red Money
In a similar way to how I don't get why people rate
Station to Station so highly, I'm not quite sure why this album gets so much hate. It's not perfect by any means, but it's not the bottom of the heap either. In fact, I pretty much like everything here. It's different, yes, but a good different and points the way to Bowie's next adventure, which would expand on the world music themes but at the same time lean in perhaps a more commercial direction, unsurprisingly giving him more hit singles.
Rating: 8.2/10