David Bowie "Survive"

David Bowie's '...hours' is one of those often overlooked late-career albums that came after both the inscrutable, half-baked but awesome Outside, and the Bowie-discovers-drum-and-bass album Earthling.

At first glance the album sounds incredibly direct, almost shockingly so. But recently I was reading that '...hours' was written in tandem with a video game soundtrack, so there was some overlap. The video game was called Omikron: The Nomad Soul. I'd given up video games at that point before I rediscovered them in my advertising career later, otherwise I would have surely played it, as Bowie and Iman and Reeves Gabrels and Gail Ann Dorsey were even in the video game, too.

I do remember however, that Bowie had a contest on his Bowiesongs website where you could listen to the track and help contribute lyrics and the winner could watch him record it live which must have bee a treat. I didn't have a computer at the time and the library computer wasn't set up for downloading tracks so I missed out on that one. Bowie was stupidly ahead of his time.

Nothing nothing about the video game at the time, I really hated the album cover as it was garish. A dead Bowie from Earthling being cradled y an angel-faced other Bowie. I thought perhaps it was a resurrection in-joke. Now I'm thinking maybe they were alluding to a respawn. I'd like to believe that as it would be a stronger concept, especially seeing as how Bowie was still pumping out albums at a regular rate and would continue to do so for the next four years.

The album enjoys a fondness for looking back, finding Bowie (or whatever character he was playing, more likely) in a moment of self-reflection. He sounds wistful at times, downright tired at others. Some of the songs are pretty boring, including "Seven," which just sort of meanders. For the most part, it's a lot of mid-tempo of easy listening, except for "The pretty things are going to hell," which seems like a cast-off from Earthling. I could easily imagine it with the jungle beat and stretched out to six minutes. Thankfully they didn't do that.

There are some fun over-revved hot mic moments which generate some emotional pathos that adds to the character. The album is a bit uneven. My biggest complaint was Reeves Gabrels guitar playing, which is so noisy and strange it doesn't fit the mood all the time.

But when it is right then the album shines, like in this sad song "Survive." Bowie sounds resigned. Gabrels is appropriately muted. And Bowie coughs up a beautiful, heartbreaking line here, too: "You're the great mistake I never made."