*****
It was definitely murder — but was it art?
Please forgive me if this post is long and
self-indulgent. Given the topic, such structure might at least be
considered thematically appropriate.
I want to tell you about David Bowie's "Outside", because I kind of want to tell everybody about David Bowie's "Outside". It's a long-standing favourite. It's one of my desert island discs. But it's also an under-appreciated and divisive album - Allmusic's tepid 3-star review hails it as Bowie's "most satisfying and adventurous album since Let's Dance", but also calls it "severely flawed", where standout tracks are "buried under the weight of the mediocre material".
The album is seconds shy of the 75-minute mark. It flirts with the abrasive textures of industrial music. It intersperses songs with soundscapes and narrative interludes. It's a concept album that explores art as murder, and is the first and only episode of a seemingly abandoned trilogy. The story is therefore all setup and no payoff, and plot details within the lyrics and liner notes are scant and cryptic.
I can understand why people wouldn't like this record, particularly from the David Bowie who gave us "Young Americans" and "Life on Mars". Did that audience want an industrial concept album from The Thin White Duke? (Let me please be clear - I don't mean that in a dismissive "you just don't get it, man" way.) This album was a risk, even if you listen back and hear the seeds of it on "Black Tie, White Noise" or "Tin Machine".
Bowie has always been one of my very favourite artists. I love work from all his phases, from early folkish jangle through Ziggy Stardust-era bombast, from the Berlin trilogy through his electronic/industrial/jungle phase, and even through to today. I suspect many of his fans appreciate his gift for experimentation and reinvention. In that regard, I think the album can be considered a tremendous success: this doesn't seem like a contrived attempt by an established artist to reach a Gen-X audience or experiment with trendy new sounds. There's an integrity to the album that has kept me hooked from the first listen. I just happen to dig nasty guitars and electronic textures. Mix in Bowie's vocals and songwriting? Yes, please.
I want to tell you about David Bowie's "Outside", because I kind of want to tell everybody about David Bowie's "Outside". It's a long-standing favourite. It's one of my desert island discs. But it's also an under-appreciated and divisive album - Allmusic's tepid 3-star review hails it as Bowie's "most satisfying and adventurous album since Let's Dance", but also calls it "severely flawed", where standout tracks are "buried under the weight of the mediocre material".
The album is seconds shy of the 75-minute mark. It flirts with the abrasive textures of industrial music. It intersperses songs with soundscapes and narrative interludes. It's a concept album that explores art as murder, and is the first and only episode of a seemingly abandoned trilogy. The story is therefore all setup and no payoff, and plot details within the lyrics and liner notes are scant and cryptic.
I can understand why people wouldn't like this record, particularly from the David Bowie who gave us "Young Americans" and "Life on Mars". Did that audience want an industrial concept album from The Thin White Duke? (Let me please be clear - I don't mean that in a dismissive "you just don't get it, man" way.) This album was a risk, even if you listen back and hear the seeds of it on "Black Tie, White Noise" or "Tin Machine".
Bowie has always been one of my very favourite artists. I love work from all his phases, from early folkish jangle through Ziggy Stardust-era bombast, from the Berlin trilogy through his electronic/industrial/jungle phase, and even through to today. I suspect many of his fans appreciate his gift for experimentation and reinvention. In that regard, I think the album can be considered a tremendous success: this doesn't seem like a contrived attempt by an established artist to reach a Gen-X audience or experiment with trendy new sounds. There's an integrity to the album that has kept me hooked from the first listen. I just happen to dig nasty guitars and electronic textures. Mix in Bowie's vocals and songwriting? Yes, please.
There were spans of months where I would listen to
the album, end-to-end, at least twice a day. I wanted to pull out its
secrets and solve its mysteries, and most of all, I wanted to lose
myself in those songs and sounds.
Here's the background:
The full name is technically "1. Outside", but the rumoured followup albums - "2. Contamination" and "3. Afrikaans" - never materialized. However, an extra 20 hours of recording were evidently created during the Outside sessions that could yield the building blocks necessary to create the trilogy. I would love to think a project like that might coincide with the album's upcoming 20th anniversary, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking.
If you're interested in learning a bit more of how the record was created, I recommend reading "A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary", which talks a bit about his role in the project, and the strategies he used to try and help the musicians get into a headspace to fully explore this new creative direction. ("You are the disgruntled member of a South African rock band. Play the notes that were suppressed.")
For the completionists, there are also some bonus tracks available on international versions of the album. I'm aware of "Nothing to be Desired" and "Get Real", which you can check out here.
Here's the background:
The full name is technically "1. Outside", but the rumoured followup albums - "2. Contamination" and "3. Afrikaans" - never materialized. However, an extra 20 hours of recording were evidently created during the Outside sessions that could yield the building blocks necessary to create the trilogy. I would love to think a project like that might coincide with the album's upcoming 20th anniversary, but perhaps that's just wishful thinking.
If you're interested in learning a bit more of how the record was created, I recommend reading "A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary", which talks a bit about his role in the project, and the strategies he used to try and help the musicians get into a headspace to fully explore this new creative direction. ("You are the disgruntled member of a South African rock band. Play the notes that were suppressed.")
For the completionists, there are also some bonus tracks available on international versions of the album. I'm aware of "Nothing to be Desired" and "Get Real", which you can check out here.
Here's what I think I know about the story: Detective Professor
Nathan Adler is assigned to investigate the murder of 14-year-old Baby
Grace Blue, and rule if her death and the exhibition of her body is
legally acceptable as art. Leon Blank is accused of the murder, but may
have been manipulated by Ramona A. Stone, his ex-lover, while the real
killer (The Artist/Minotaur) continues his work.
And now we begin.
The
album commences with "Leon Takes Us Outside", a soundscape where
fragments of dialog - years, months, dates - bubble up from waves of
synthesizer and Reeves Gabrels' meandering guitar. The bass drops, and
we segue perfectly into the title track.
"Outside"
invites you into the album - it's a classic Bowie croon with gentle
harmonies and those perfect swells. I don't want to say it's a safe
song, but I think no Bowie fan of any vintage would have been surprised
to hear him release this song in 1995. Then "The Heart's Filthy Lesson"
hits, and everything changes.
There were several points of pop-culture entry into this album.
"Hallo Spaceboy" may be better known from its Pet Shop Boys remix than
for the original album cut. A version of "I Have Not Been to Oxford
Town" was covered for the soundtrack of Starship Troopers, Paul
Veroeven's 1997 adaptation of the Robert A. Heinlein novel. "I'm
Deranged" played over the credits of David Lynch's film "Lost Highway".
But I first heard the music of "Outside" during the closing credits of
Se7en, when "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" provided a perfect accompaniment to the
scratched text slithering down the screen in the wrong direction.
Whereas
"Outside" sounded like updated Bowie, "Filthy Lesson" sounds like new
Bowie - jagged guitar lines streaking the skies above pulsing bass and a
insistent drum loop, creating a palpable air of menace. When the song
pauses to ask "Paddy - who's been wearing Miranda's clothes?", something
implies the answer will be terrible. A piano comes in not as orchestral
grandeur but as a blunt instrument, percussively slamming out
low-register runs. Even the instrumentation, we learn, will be warped
and perverted and used in ways we don't expect. Nothing is sacred. The
song seems to gasp for air before we lurch into the home stretch, with
Bowie's vocal majesty, concluding with the ominous admission: "Oh Paddy
- I think I've lost my way." The song fades out with the repeated
observation: "What a fantastic death abyss - tell the others." Is this a
reaction to the terrible exhibit of what is left of Baby Grace?
We
then move into "A Small Plot of Land". Rapid cascades of piano notes
might distract from a steady two-note pattern in the background around
which the rest of the instruments collect and congeal as Bowie tells the
story of a poor soul who learns that "prayer can't travel so far these
days" - a haunting line that I think perfectly captures the
fin-de-siecle anxieties Bowie so deftly tapped on this album. Reeves
Gabrels' frantic solo on this album is one of my favourite things that
has ever been done with a guitar. The song builds and builds and builds
until you're almost claustrophobic, caught in the sheer density of
sound, and then it's time to meet Baby Grace Blue.
"Segue: Baby Grace [A Horrid Cassette]" is the first of several
narrative sections, with each character voiced by Bowie with some
combination of processing to help the characters stand out. Bowie gives
a great pitch-shifted performance, tripping over words as Baby Grace
records what are possibly the final words of her short, unhappy life.
"Hallo Spaceboy" begins with an explosion, a lull, and then another explosion
of drums and guitars as we launch into the song proper. The song would
serve as a fitting soundtrack for a dance party at the end of
civilization, but its bombast stands in stark contrast to "The Motel",
which follows. Sung from Leon's perspective, it's a slow, ethereal
dirge that muses "there is no hell like an old hell". Beautiful,
virtuosic piano runs build to a euphoric crescendo with titanic slashes
of electric guitar and a gentle fade.
"I Have Not Been to Oxford Town" bubbles and bounces, but the playful music
belies the grave lyrics: "Baby Grace was the victim. She was 14 years
of age. And the wheels are turning, turning, for the finger points at
me." Imprisoned, is Leon trying to establish an alibi? Prove his
innocence? Or trying to remember what happened in the first place?
"Outside" can be a frustrating puzzle, since most of the pieces are
missing, buried in unwritten chapters. With that in mind, it's almost
comforting that the characters themselves are confused and powerless,
which suggest's Leon's innocence. After all, we have yet to hear from
the Minotaur. And, as Leon runs down the ways in which he wishes his
life was different, we realize that we still have yet to meet the
mysterious Ramona A. Stone.
"No Control" seems
like a variation on the same theme, but presented with a driving, urgent
menace. Bewildered by the crimes he's investigating, Adler feels
powerless in the face of a deranged world. As I write this, I wonder if
the music tells us something else - simple and cheerful, "Oxford Town"
might underscore Leon as a hapless victim of a machination he doesn't
understand. He is powerless and wastes away while hoping somebody will
help him. Nathan gets it - he sees the horror and knows he must act,
yet feels powerless because he understands the scale of the madness he
faces, and the scope of challenging it.
The theme of powerlessness continues with our second vignette, "Segue: Algeria Touchshriek". Algeria is a seller of curiosities of seemingly
questionable legality. He is also a broken man, rejected by the world.
Desperate for company, he tells us he's considering leasing a room
above his store to another broken man. We don't hear from Algeria
again, but the next song is sung from the perspective of The
Artist/Minotaur, suggesting Algeria's lodger will be the worst possible
tenant.
"The Voyeur of Utter Destruction (As Beauty)" begins with a pleasant cycle of guitar, and a gentle vocal
refrain. "Turn and turn again", sings Bowie, which seems like an
innocuous lyrical confection, but the words are recast in the second
verse as Mintoaur tells us "The screw is a tightening atrocity; I shake
for the reeking flesh is as romantic as hell". It seems as though we've
found our killer, as he assembles his exhibition before calling it a
day.
And now, it's time for us to meet Ramona.
She delivers a short, seething rant, and although her connection to the
other characters is not quite clear, there's something in the way that
she says "We'll creep together, you and I" that suggests she is the axis
around which the entire affair turns. Ramona and her acoyltes then
sing "I Am With Name", which is more chant than song.
"Wishful Beginnings" shifts back to the Minotaur's perspective as he works,
apologizing to his victim all the while. The song is a modern dirge,
punctuated by slow, deliberate kick drums and a synthetic accent that
sounds eerily like a dead laugh. The arrangement is sparse and the low
end is crucial. Notice how the bass elements drop out in the middle,
and the strange catharsis when they come back in, repeating over and
over again. He stops apologizing. All that is left is the work. This
is the album at its darkest.
"We Prick You" is sung from the perspective of the
Members of the Court of Justice; presumably we're at Leon's trial as
the administration tries to get the confession they want, seemingly by
any means necessary. Next is a segue from Nathan, explaining how some
of the pieces fit together. "Oh wait," he says. "I"m getting ahead of
myself. Let me take you back to where it all began."
We go back to The Minotaur for "I'm Deranged", and a seeming freely-associated stream-of-consciousness admission that may reveal nothing about the killer except as a callback to Nathan's "No Control" - Nathan is right, and the killer is completely insane.
We go back to The Minotaur for "I'm Deranged", and a seeming freely-associated stream-of-consciousness admission that may reveal nothing about the killer except as a callback to Nathan's "No Control" - Nathan is right, and the killer is completely insane.
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Up
to now, the album may have been a dark, difficult listen, and I must
admit that it's at this point that I've almost completely lost the
plot. I'm only tentatively sure of the arc to this point, but I'm not
sure how to put the final songs in context. However, whether you're
invested in the narrative or not, the album concludes with two of my
absolute favourite Bowie songs ever. "Thru' These Architects Eyes" is
sung from Leon's perspective, and it's tempting to explore the architect
metaphor. Has Leon been freed? Was Nathan able to convince the Court
of Justice that Leon was a pawn of Ramona? Is she the architect whose
designs Leon can now understand? Or is it possible that, now freed, he
can admit that he played a greater role in the fate of Baby Grace Blue
than his jailhouse prayers would have us believe?
Musically speaking, I love this song, and if you've never taken a time to notice how much a bass guitar can enrich a song, then I urge you to please pay attention to Gail Ann Dorsey's brilliant playing here. Instead of simply holding down the root notes of the chords, she contributes melody after melody that support and enhance the song. Such elements are all over this album, and are testament to the gifted musicians with whom Bowie surrounds himself, but I find it's most evident here.
Adler interjects with a segue before the final song, revealing to us that evidently Ramona and Leon were lovers, and that Ramona had broken off an engagement. Why? And what is the significance? For the answer, we'll have to hope that the "Outside" project is resurrected.
The only hint is the beautiful "Strangers When We Meet", which closes the album. Sung once again from Leon's perspective, it seems like a post-breakup song, with Leon seemingly relieved that he and Ramona are truly nothing to one another anymore.
The liner notes for
the album (AKA "The Diary of Nathan Adler, or, The Art-Ritual Murder of
Baby Grace Blue") ask "It was definitely murder - but was it art?"
This kicks off the album's narrative arc, and is an interesting
question to ask as the 20th century dies and we seem to grow
increasingly numb. What does it take to shock us? What does it take to
inspire us?
It's also an appropriate question to ask of the album itself. By reinventing himself yet again as an industrial/electronic experimenter (which Bowie would successfully continue on his excellent follow-up album, 1997's "Earthling") Bowie arguably killed many pre-existing conceptions of how his music did and should sound. To judge his success - is it art? - is subjective. I can only say that I think he came sincerely to the genre and created a compelling album that can appeal to fans of both classic Bowie and new electronic music. Certainly, reinvention is Bowie's game, and we all love those ch-ch-ch-changes.
It's also an appropriate question to ask of the album itself. By reinventing himself yet again as an industrial/electronic experimenter (which Bowie would successfully continue on his excellent follow-up album, 1997's "Earthling") Bowie arguably killed many pre-existing conceptions of how his music did and should sound. To judge his success - is it art? - is subjective. I can only say that I think he came sincerely to the genre and created a compelling album that can appeal to fans of both classic Bowie and new electronic music. Certainly, reinvention is Bowie's game, and we all love those ch-ch-ch-changes.
It's not a perfect
album. There's a case to be made that it's too long, too jagged, too
dark, too unfocussed, too far removed from Bowie's most iconic
material. If, like me, you want to know how the story ends, you might
share my frustration upon reading a page at the recent "David Bowie Is…"
exhibit which suggested the narrative was never intended to be
clarified, and was deliberately left vague to inspire interpretation.
Still, I love this album because it tries something bold. I love it for
its many successes, for inspiring my curiosity and wonder, and for
giving me some of my favourite songs ever. I hope you might be inspired
to give it a listen, either for the first time or with new ears. The
music, after all, is outside.
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