David Bowie
hours...
(Virgin)
By Kevin Mathews
Choice Cut : Wait just a little longer for David Bowie's elusive Holy Grail.
David Bowie is very much the Renaissance man of the past decade. Having finally re-invented himself as contented husband (to model Iman) and entrepreneur (launching his own Internet service provider, BowieNet, and publicly offering shares on his back catalogue on the stock market), does the singer-songwriter-musician who set the music scene ablaze in the 1970s still exist? Bowie may have achieved mainstream superstar status in the mid-'80s with"Let's Dance"but his creative faculties have largely lay dormant since 1980's"Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)."It's a sad fact but albums like"Tonight"and the whole Tin Machine debacle represented the nadir of Bowie's accomplished career. There have been attempts at experimentalism --"Outside"(a reunion with Brian Eno) and the ill-conceived drum-and-bass exercise"Earthling"but these out-of-touch efforts were largely seen as proof that Bowie was slowly but inexorably losing the plot.The question remains: Is there any seminal music making left in David Bowie? If so, don't look at the new"'hours...'"to provide any clues. Touted as a"back-to-basics"album in the vein of 1972's classic"Hunky Dory,""'hours...'"is the sickeningly depressing sound of a former hero now a spent force going through the motions, devoid of the urgency or need or compulsion that marks the best pop music.To be fair, things are not really that dire. Itís just that compared to his legendary, groundbreaking past, the music on"'hours...'"is middling stuff. So alright, we have the acoustic guitar driven"Survive"which sparkles to life when Reeves Gabrels' guitar solo kicks in (it even closes with the chord sequence to"Win"taken off"Young Americans"), the similarly affecting"Seven,"which sounds like The Verve (or even Embrace) doing Bowie (!) and the atmospheric glam retread of"What's Really Happening."Perhaps what Bowie lacks is a collaborator of the class of Mick Ronson or Robert Fripp to get his creative juices going -- Reeve Gabrels (who has been listed as co-writer on"'hours...'") does not seem to fit the bill. Looks like Bowie fans will have to wait just a little longer for the elusive Holy Grail.
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