David Bowie: The Stars (Are Out Tonight)

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Posted March 7, 2013 by in

Rating

Overall
 
 
 
 
 

4/ 5

Details

 
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Genre: Rock
 
Producer: Tony Visconti
 
Writer: David Bowie
 
Label: Columbia
 
Format: Digital download, vinyl
 
Release Date: 25 February 2013
 

Pros:

Typical Bowie - plus the lyrics are fresh and the arrangement sticks
 

Cons:

Despite the cool jamming, there's not enough hooks to appeal to the college of modern pop
 

This is a public service announcement: Bowie isn’t retiring anytime soon

by J Matthew Cobb
Full Article

This is a public service announcement: Bowie isn’t retiring anytime soon


Although he isn’t an astronaut professionally, David Bowie knows a thing or two about space exploration. He’s a space oddity: Ziggy’s from Mars; he’s done “Starman” and other star-studded tracks; he’s a one-of-a-kind rock star that is impossible to predict and even more impossible to control. He makes his own limits and aspirations. And with four decades of music in his war chest, Bowie is sailing through the winds of semi-retirement. If you listen to “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” you wouldn’t gather that perception. Once again, he toys with the friendly concept of stardom on a rocking rock song. Being the pompous New Yorker he is, he pays homage to the Studio 54 pop life: “They watch us from behind their shades/Brigitte, Jack and Kate and Brad/From behind their tinted widow stretch/Gleaming like blackened sunshine.” And he opens up marvelous revelations about these mysterious supernovas when he chants, “Stars are never sleeping/Dead ones and the living.” Later on, he finally hopes that they live forever, borrowing the lisp of a desperate prayer. That prayer may be answered, thanks to the song’s smoldering arrangement of guitar cranks, swelling quasi-strings, classic rock spice and a rhythmic tempo that feels like Springsteen on Prince.

 

LISTEN TO: DAVID BOWIE | THE STARS (ARE OUT TONIGHT)

[audio:http://www.hifimagazine.net/music/davidbowie-thestarsareouttonight.mp3|titles=David Bowie – The Stars (Are Out Tonight)]

 

 

 

 


About the Author

J Matthew Cobb

Managing editor of HiFi Magazine

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