David Bowie - Tonight (1984)

Note: the CD I listened to was the 2019 reissue with no bonus tracks.

While admittedly not in the top-tier of Bowie's album output, Tonight is one of those right-time-right-place albums for me. I would put myself in the category of fans that discovered Bowie via Let's Dance, so this album was definitely aimed straight at me and my purchasing dollars (which were few and far between as I was a struggling college freshman at the time of release). Most critics and long-time fans didn't care much for the thing. While reading through various reviews, the most common sentiment expressed was "underinspired and overproduced." But I like it so here we are.

Press of the time:

• Robert Christgau (C): "he's favoring the tired usages that have been the downfall of an entire generation of English twits."
• Smash Hits (5½ out of 10): "an uneasy, bumper-to-bumper mixture of styles"
• Billboard: "surprisingly restrained ballads and midtempo rockers"
• CashBox: "same commercial vein as 'Let's Dance'"
• Rolling Stone (★★★): "This album is a throwaway, and David Bowie knows it."
• Musician: "album gets under your skin"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #11
• CashBox: #6
• Rolling Stone: #5

Tracks:

1. Loving the Alien: Despite the dark, anti-religious establishment sentiment, this is (musically, at least) my favorite track on the whole album. A wonderful soundscape supports Bowie's soaring vocals. Lots of stuff going on in the arrangement with a fantastic guitar solo from longtime Bowie associate Carlos Alomar, but if those gated drums had been brought back a bit, I'd be ok with that.
2. Don't Look Down: Reggae-ish cover of an Iggy Pop tune. Good enough for filler, but Derek Bramble's bass work is certainly a show-stealer.
3. God Only Knows: This might be one of those songs that should never be covered, but it appears I'm a little late with that sentiment. I don't care much for the arrangement, but the yearning in Bowie's voice brings meaning to the lyrics, so there's that.
4. Tonight: originally written for Iggy Pop's Lust For Life album, Bowie removes the spoken word intro and makes it a duet with Tina Turner. One of my least favorite cuts, because nothing in the arrangement seems to work as if none of the band members could hear each other.
5. Neighborhood Threat: another one from Lust For Life. Drummer Omar Hakim owns this manic piece. I like the forward momentum of the thing even though I read several accounts in which Bowie dismissed it in 1987, saying "it wasn’t the right band to do that song." I originally thought the title was Neighborhood Trash, which actually works better IMO.
6. Blue Jean: a #8 pop single here in the US, I like this much better now than I did in '84. One wonders what Nile Rodgers would have done to this tune. Silly long-form video directed by Julien Temple:
   
7. Tumble And Twirl: another album highlight, this was co-written by Bowie and Pop, loosely based on their vacation in Indonesia after Bowie's previous tour had ended. This thing cooks from the Hakim's drums to the tasty horn licks.
8. I Keep Forgettin': a cover of the Leiber/Stoller tune. The absolute low point of the album and I'll leave it at that.
9. Dancing With The Big Boys: I dig this Iggy/Bowie collaboration/duet with its great guitar lines, horns, and techno-rock. Not very many different chords on this one but that fact ultimately doesn't matter.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I wasn't too wild about the lead single from Tonight, Blue Jean, so I didn't rush out and buy a copy upon release. However, the guy in the dorm room next to mine did buy a copy, which I promptly dubbed to cassette, listened to it a few times, then moved on to something else. During the following summer, I worked at a plumbing supply house and the manager of that store had a small weight room behind his garage which he invited me to use. So, on evenings when I wasn't taking night classes at the local junior college, I would go over to his place and lift free weights for an hour or so. He had a tape player hooked up and I would bring in a few tapes to keep me company while I worked out. For some reason, my dubbed tape copy of Tonight quickly became a favorite while lifting - I'd estimate I heard the album 2 or 3 times a week for a few months. In addition, there were concert tickets stubs thumb-tacked to the wall of said weight room and one of those tickets was from Bowie's Serious Moonlight tour in 1984, similar to this one:

Not only was I jealous that the guy attended that show, his wife was cool enough that they went to the concert on their honeymoon. Needless to say, they both quickly became lifelong friends to me. That was a good summer, definitely the best of my college years, and Bowie helped soundtrack the thing. (For more navel-gazing about my summer of 1985, click here.)

I remember the LP came with a sticker (like the one pictured below) and the aforementioned "guy in the dorm room next to mine" couldn't let it just sit in the album jacket, it had to be stuck to something. So he stuck it to the mirror in his room, where it was most likely removed promptly by the room's new occupants that fall. What a waste.

Previously revisited for the blog:
★ (2016)
The Next Day (2013)
Zeit! 77-79 (2013)
Changesbowie (1990)
Let's Dance (1983)