End of the Month Music Bitchfest - February 2016

Between the Year In Bitch and Bowie's transformation into pure energy, I decided to take a month off...not that much is going on...silence from Eels and Nine Inch Nails.....definitely feeling the lack of a new They Might Be Giants song every week; although those fifty two songs were quite the feat, they clock in at just over two hours.

Still, some truly great stuff and (for once?) I am not complaining.

Aside from all that nothing, Beck announced some tour dates this summer, which, for a normal band might indicate a release is upcoming...but Beck is not normal. 
He is fickle and cruel.

But, speaking of Bowie...I've been listening to a lot of Bowie, as has anyone with ears and a soul.

I finally sat down and really listened to Tonight and Never Let Me Down. 

Tonight is pretty awful. From the shitty reggae of "Don't Look Down" to the overwrought, atonal cover of "God Only Knows" to the pointless appearance of Tina Turner on the title track...man, what a disaster.

While Never Let Me Down isn't nearly as bad as its predecessor, it's a low point for me, although there are some gems there.

I also noticed some stuff...almost every Bowie album mentions angels or aliens or something akin to them, thus further confirming the fact that David Bowie is, in truth, a celestial being and is not dead because something like Bowie can never, actually, die.
Moving on. 

I have cemented the opinion that my favorites are still Bowie's mid-to-late 90's albums. Tin Machine not included.

Everyone always goes on about the characters and story of Diamond Dogs and Ziggy Stardust, but not enough credit's been given to the story of and behind Outside.

That is a dense goddamn plot line.

Bowie wrote a murder-as-art concept album set in the future that involved time travel, the subtitle for which was: the Ritual Art-Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-Cycle. 

Ziggy Stardust and Halloween Jack can eat a thin white dick.

Nathan Adler, Ramona A. Stone, Algeria Touchshriek, Leon Blank, Baby Grace Blue, Paddy...these aren't just vague concepts tying into what costume Bowie was wearing at the time, this is a fully realized work of which we are only getting a glimpse which will never be fully realized now...unless I'm right about Bowie being some kind of angel and visiting Eno in his sleep to impart the rest of the trilogy for him to complete with the help of Trent Reznor. 
Or whatever.

As for Earthling, yeah, one could say it's just Bowie doing drum 'n' bass, the stuff that was popular at the time, but, one would be a fucking idiot. Yes, DNB was popular, but no one EVER created anything in that genre like Earthling. Throw in the fact that his backing band had Reeves goddamn Gabrels and fucking Mike Garson in it and you can just stop talking. HE USED A WASHING MACHINE AS PERCUSSION. SHUT UP. TITS AND EXPLOSIONS.

Also, why all the hate for Hours? This was written by Bowie and Gabrels, played by them and the rest of his backing band from his previous two albums, and is sincere as hell. Half the album is well constructed, beautifully written mellow rock and the other half is Bowie's weird experimental brilliance. Yes, "Brilliant Adventure" sounds like something from a handjob spa and "What's Really Happening?" was written by some guy who won a contest, but the rest is almost perfect. It comes from a place without pretension or costumes or characters where Bowie can look back over his twenty or so albums and thirty-five or so years of being an artist. It's called perspective, yo.  

Also, the b-side "We Shall Go To Town", could be on ★.

And, I also listened to Nevermen, the self titled collabo between Tunde Adebimpe of TV on the Radio, rapper Doseone, and Mike Patton of Faith No More. It's unique as all get out, for better worse or worse, and kind of just makes me want another TVOTR album. If you're feeling adventurous or just bored with Rihanna and Adele, you should check it out. Review here.