‘Black Tie White Noise’ by David Bowie

Bowie’s first album of the 90s, and his first solo release since Tin Machine, was unavailable for a long time, finally getting a reissue a few years ago. At the time, it had mixed fortunes. It reached number one, but fell of the radar pretty fast. It was received pretty well by those who heard it, and it deserved to be. For the first time in almost a decade, this is an album that shows Bowie both making an effort, and finding that this effort is paying off. It’s not one of his best, but it lays a firm foundation for his nineties renaissance, and it’s a fine album in its own right.

The album is book-ended by ‘The Wedding’, and ‘The Wedding Song’ – Bowie’s recent marriage runs through this album explicitly, as well as presumably giving him the self-assurance to produce something decent again. ‘You’ve Been Around’ is the first real track of the album. It sounds like it could have been a Tin Machine track, but it sounds vastly better than it would have done if this had been so.

The singles from the album all show Bowie returning to where he left off with ‘Let’s Dance’, or even ‘Young Americans’. ‘Jump They Say’ is particularly good, ‘Miracle Goodnight’ is less so. The title track is a brave attempt to deal with issues of race. The fact that it isn’t horrendously embarrassing a decade and a half later is a sign of success in itself. The rest of the album continues the slightly dancey production techniques and instrumentation, and it does so to good effect. ‘I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday’ is a little overwrought, but the rest of the record is certainly good enough to compensate for this.