It's Scary, Outside

Overall Album Score: 8.0 out of 10

(Note: I am missing Tin Machine II, Black Tie, White Noise, and Buddha of Suburbia. I have pirated copies of the first two, but there are enough problems with the copies for me to not want to review them. ... I will purchase them if I ever get my hands on money. As far as Buddha of Suburbia goes, it pains me to not have been able to get my hands on a copy of it that doesn't cost forty bucks! ... Anyway, I will have these albums up one of these days.)

First of all, "Hallo Spaceboy" is not the best song from this album. It is not! It is not! It is NOT! ... I explain it in more detail in the track reviews, but it's because people keep calling it the best song from Outside that I neglected listening to this album up until now.

Second of all, if you like David Bowie for his melodies, and you couldn't care less about his awesome studio skills, then this is not the album for you. Apart from maybe one or two songs, the melodies on Outside are not impressive whatsoever. The one song on here that has an awesome melody is "Strangers When We Meet." The rest of them are either passable or hardly existent.

That said, by far the majority of the songs with a 'hardly existent' melody in them are totally and utterly redeemed by the very impressive atmospheres! ... Absolutely top-notch work went into the studio creating these. Certainly, Brian Eno (who re-unites with Bowie for the first time since 1979's Lodger) had a huge role in creating such wonderful atmospheres ... but don't think that David Bowie didn't have anything to do with that. He's a studio wizard as well (just not as much as Brian Eno ... Eno's the guru of studio wizardry, you know).

Anyway, Outside is a pretty darn good album if you like ambient moods. I was disappointed with the melodies, but, again, with the atmospheres, that doesn't matter so much. This is also a concept album ... as of the moment I'm getting sort of the gist of it, but really it's too complicated for me to sort out.

Definitely not a Bowie album to evade ... I evaded it as a Bowie fan, and now I realize that I shouldn't have. It's an album like none other that he's done, and it's actually pretty fun to listen to throughout, even though the album is so danged lengthy, and the concept is bizarre. It's not his best, but it's good.

Overall Album Score: 8.0 out of 10 (Certainly, this is a satisfactory album. This is a must for Bowie and/or Brian Eno fans who also have a knack for liking for ambient music. If more time was also spent on developing the melodies, this might have been a classic.)

Average Song Score: 8.0 (Lack of melody is the premiere downfall of the songs from Outside, but that's somewhat made-up-for by Bowie's and Eno's really super sense of ambient arranging.)

Album Tilt: 8.0 (It's really more enjoyable than it ought to be. However, it is long and pretentious, so me giving this score an 8.5 would be a bit of a stretch to say the least.)

Artist Rating: 8.0 (I should probably give Outside an 8.5 here, but I'm not. The pretentiousness of it all is difficult for me to ignore. Nevertheless, this is rather impressive if you want to view this hunk of plastic as a work of art.)

Track Reviews

Leon Take Us Outside

This ambient instrumental track (only a minute and twenty-five seconds long) isn't really a song ... but it does a perfectly good fine job getting us worked up for ...

Outside 9.5/10

This is a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry cool Bowie song. (Well, by "Bowie song" I also mean the people he co-wrote it with, which surprisingly doesn't comprise of Brian Eno this time!) Anyway, this slow song has your typical, really awesome Bowie melody. Better than that, though, is the Bowie atmosphere! It's well developed and quite entertaining. The electronic instrumentation is really awesome, too. Great! Great! Woowoo!

This Heart's Filthy Lesson 8.5/10

This is pretty awesome, but I don't give this one a special place in my heart or anything. The song is glued together by a pretty tight nineties beat ... It doesn't have a great melody or anything, but all the neat sounds going off all over the place make this one work.

A Small Plot of Land 8/10

The atmosphere on "A Small Plot of Land" works remarkably well ... Bowie was always very good at that. The movie soundtrack quality on this is awesome. Just the same! I want a little bit of melody with my David Bowie songs, too! ... Eh, melody isn't the purpose of this song ... for its purpose, the song is perfectly wonderful. But that doesn't necessarily mean that I have to like it much.

Segue - Baby Grace (A Horrid Cassette)

Not a song at all (even though there are some atmospheric background music). David Bowie alters his voice quite a bit (sounds a bit childish) and delivers some narration. Certainly, this is part of the concept. I'm not scoring this, though, because it's NOT a song!

Hallo Spaceboy 6/10

This is the only reason I was unable to get myself into Outside until forcing myself to finally sit down and listen to it for the review. Considering that I claim myself to be a David Bowie fan, that piece of information is almost alarming! ... But everybody and their freaking pet dogs out there on amazon.com and allmusic.com proclaim "Hallo Spaceboy" to be the greatest song on Outside. Way back when, when I was downloading tracks from my favorite P2P provider, I downloaded "Hallo Spaceboy," and subsequently hated it. Because that's supposed to be best song from the album, I never listened to the rest of it! ... Unfortunately to me! "Hallo Spaceboy" is not a good song. The melody is hardly even there. The instrumentation, apart from that stupid, stupid, monotonous rhythm section, is alright, though. But that rhythm section is the principle reason why this song fails. ...... Take it from me, "Hallo Spaceboy" is not only NOT the best song from Outside, but it is one of the worst. Period. Thank you.

The Motel 8.5/10

A very good song! It's slow and atmospheric, and this one also has some melody to its name. Really nice piano work from Mike Garson (...I don't know if you realize it or not, but this is the same guy who played piano on Aladdin Sane...). A very very nice late-career number from David Bowie.

I Have Not Been to Oxford Town 8/10

Brian ENOOOOOOOOO!!!!! ... Yeah, this does strike me that it was probably written primarily by Brian Eno. It sounds like one of his melodies. The groove, also very Eno-ey, is a neat one. ... Yep. This is nice, but it doesn't cry out: "ENJOY ME, STUPID!"

No Control 8.5/10

This is another pretty sharp and tasteful 90s song ... The melody certainly ain't anything to write home about ... but, again, the atmospherics on this one is a near-masterpiece again. Bowie's great at doing that stuff. I added a half point, because of the final third of the song. Simply superb.

Segue - Algeria Touchshreik

More talking! ... Not really a song, and I'm not going to score it as such! :-P

The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty) 8/10

A rapid electric beat characterizes this one. The melody, again, isn't really there, but the atmospherics make it work. ... They are pretty spectacular and moody. ... I can't help but think the song is a bit of an unorganized mess, though. Eh. It's still pretty good.

Segue/I Am With Name - Ramona A. Stone 7/10

There's some talking at the beginning of this. (It sounds a bit eviiiil.) And then there's a song. And ... whew ... that song is tedious. It's not as bad as "Hallo Spaceboy," though. At least all the industrial noises are interesting to listen to ... that's the only thing.

Wishful Beginnings 4/10

That weird noise pulsating croak in here is real CRAP, and that is the only reason why I want to skip this track ... and possibly even edit it out of the album. It really disturbs me! ... It sounds like a frog that's vomiting or something ... Other than that, if I'm able to pick things out of the album otherwise, it's slow, moody, and atmospheric. Those bits are pretty neat (again ... melody?? Where??), but I just can't get over that nasty frog croak. Sorry!

We Prick You 7.5/10

...we prick you ... Um .............. this song is okay. The melody passes, but it's not innovative or anything. The atmospherics don't make this one particularly special or anything. The punchy beat is pretty good. That monotonous electronic noise in the foreground playing the same note is a bit annoying (and Madonna-esque, which is a pretty severe insult). At any rate, the song is enjoyable overall. The voices I hear in the background are pretty neat to hear.

Segue - Nathan Adler

More talking. David Bowie's American accent sucks. I remember him trying this same sort of accent on his film role in Absolute Beginners. Really, David, either you're good at accents or you're not. Everyone can't be Peter Sellers, you know.

I'm Deranged 9/10

Hey! What is this I hear??? A pretty decent melody? ... Awesome! That combined with such a well-done atmosphere makes "I'm Deranged" one of the best songs from the album. A very very well done song!!

Thru' These Architects Eyes 9/10

David Bowie is really weird. ... He saves his best songs for the end of the album! ... Freak show!!! This one has a melody that's passable, at least, and the atmosphere is as awesome as everything else on the album! AWESOME AWESOME AWESOME!

Segue - Nathan Adler

Whoahhhhhh... Déjà vu. The same title, the same stupid American accent, different words.

Strangers When We Meet 10/10

Alright. I bareeeeely left the "plus" off this one. There was pretty much a Civil War going on in my head whether or not I should give "Strangers When We Meet" a 10plus, and I think whichever side was going for the simple 10 won. Nevertheless, this is further proof that when David Bowie stumbles upon something brilliant, he stumbles on something brilliant. The song just seems immortal to me. The instrumentation at atmosphere is verrry engaging (much like I thought that "Absolute Beginners" and "As the World Falls Down" was engaging). ... The melody is clearly the best from the album. Yup. This is a classic. (I also realize that this also appeared in Buddha of Suburbia.)

Get Real 9/10

That freaking jerk did leave all his best songs 'till the end of the album! ... Another pretty good melody highlights this tight atmospheric piece! Neat to listen to ... but it's not as successfully moody as a lot of the other songs.

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