A Turn of the Page

Below is a playlist of my favorite Bowie songs from the ‘90s on. We’re starting with 1993’s Black Tie White Noise and ending with Blackstar (his final album) in 2016. After that, I’ve highlighted three songs I think should get some particular notice. Each track should, really, but you’re not here to read a whole book on Bowie. Three highlights it is. Listen, though, to all of them. They deserve your time.

1. "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)"

The version of “Sue” on Blackstar will probably end up being the canonical cut, though I don’t think it’s the better of the two. Ben Monder’s guitar sears on the Blackstar track, but the 2014 track (released ahead of the reverse-chronological compilation Nothing Has Changed) has a big band sound that better reflects the campy noir of the lyric. Recorded with Maria Schneider and her orchestra, the single version buzzes, squawks, and bristles, the orchestra keening behind Bowie’s quavering voice. That voice sounds ragged, nowhere as precise as it would be on Blackstar. It turns some people off — I’ve had trouble pitching the track to listeners who find the deliberate discordance to be too much. It works for me. I think it matches the emotional tone of the lyrics, which describe… what? Cancer? A murder? I’m inclined to think murder, personally. Bowie’s character rages at Sue, the faults in his voice rendering the emotion more affecting. For all that Blackstar is a tremendous record, I think of this version of “Sue” as his last masterpiece.

2. "Everyone Says ‘Hi’"

When I wrote about The Next Day, I mentioned finding Bowie’s Grand Old Man act frustrating on records like Heathen and Reality. There are exceptions to that. I adore “Everyone Says ‘Hi,’” for instance, which reads like a cheery little message from the other side, stuck in the middle of Heathen’s back half. It’s not perfectly cheery, of course. In his essay on the track, Chris O’Leary quotes an interview in which Bowie says he found inspiration in his father’s 1969 death, and there is absolutely a plaintive air to the proceedings. I love that maudlin atmosphere, which contrasts nicely with the twinkling instrumentation and the bouncing backing vocals. I love the “big fat dog” and all the other hellos because they’re so mundane. I love the song because it succeeds as a brilliant little thing. It does the Grand Old Man thing to an extent, but it doesn’t aim for the heights. It shines in its simplicity.

3. "Strangers When We Meet"

Perhaps my favorite of Bowie’s late-period songs, “Strangers When We Meet” is a perfect Bowie pop song tacked onto the end of 1. Outside, an album that has only slowly come to find an audience. The music isn’t doing anything weird or wild, but the lyric dramatizes the pain of an adult relationship disintegrated. The sweeping pianos call back to Bowie’s ‘70s heyday. The vocal summons “Absolute Beginners” out of the depth’s of the ‘80s. Melancholy and wonderful. I love it too much to say more.