David Bowie A New Career In A New Town 1977-1982

David Bowie A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982)

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The third installment in a comprehensive deluxe reissue series of David Bowie's entire catalog, A New Career in a New Town (1977-1982) chronicles perhaps the most artistically ambitious phase in Bowie's career -- one that began with 1977's Low and concluded with 1980's Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). Only two other studio albums arrived in this period -- Heroes, which also came out in 1977, and 1979's Lodger -- which means the remaining seven discs in this 11-CD box are devoted to a variety of odds and ends, including two versions of the 1978 double-live album Stage (the original LP track listing, plus a new remaster of the 2005 expansion), the Heroes EP which contains German versions of the lead track, a brand-new mix of Lodger from producer Tony Visconti, and Re:Call 3, which gathers up B-sides, single edits, and other ephemera from this period. Like on its two predecessors, Five Years and Who Can I Be Now, A New Career in a New Town frustratingly does not include any of the bonus tracks from the '90s Rykodisc expansions of these albums -- a situation that seems especially weird in the case of Low, whose bonus "Some Are" wound up as a section of Philip Glass' 1992 symphonic adaptation of the album -- but the pain is mitigated by the vivid new mix of Lodger. Dense and colorful without changing the feel of the original album, the 2017 mix of Lodger helps focus attention on an excellent record that often gets overshadowed by the three albums accompanying it in this box. It's hard to say if it's enough to warrant a purchase of this hefty box, but in either its CD or LP incarnation, A New Career in a New Town is a handsome, alluring, and exceptional-sounding reissue that earns its price tag.

Japan Tin Drum

Japan Tin Drum

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Partially growing out of their success in the country they were named after, as well as growing friendship and affiliation with such bands as Yellow Magic Orchestra, Japan made their most unique, challenging, and striking album in Tin Drum. It was also the final full studio effort from the group, and what a way to bow out -- there was practically no resemblance to the trash-glam flailers on Adolescent Sex anymore. Rather than repeat the sheer restraint on Gentlemen Take Polaroids, Tin Drum is an album of energy, Sylvian's singing still the decadently joyful thing it is, but the arrangements and performances are tight, full, and active. The fusion of exquisite funk (courtesy of Karn and Jansen's joined-at-the-hip rhythm section) and a range of Asian music influences, from instrumentation to subject matter, combined with an even wider use of technological approaches to create the dramatic, sly songs on offer. Only the Talking Heads showed the same attempt at reach and variety at the time, at least in the Western rock world, but Japan arguably outstripped the New York band with their sheer sense of theatrical style. To top it all off, the group was more popular than ever, with "Ghosts" (an appropriately haunting ballad notable for its utterly minimal arrangement, almost entirely eschewing beats for Barbieri's textures and Jansen's work on marimba) becoming a Top Ten hit in the U.K. The wound-up dancefloor art grooves of "The Art of Parties" and especially "Visions of China" were also notable efforts, with the latter featuring what has to be Karn and Jansen's eternal highlight performance (check out Jansen's jaw-dropping drum break). Meanwhile, the evocation of Chinese culture in general continued with such songs as "Canton," a slightly martial, stately march with clear inspiration from the country's classical music tradition, and the concluding "Cantonese Boy."

Talking Heads Speaking In Tongue

Talking Heads Speaking In Tongues 

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Talking Heads found a way to open up the dense textures of the music they had developed with Brian Eno on their two previous studio albums for Speaking in Tongues, and were rewarded with their most popular album yet. Ten backup singers and musicians accompanied the original quartet, but somehow the sound was more spacious, and the music admitted aspects of gospel, notably in the call-and-response of "Slippery People," and John Lee Hooker-style blues, on "Swamp." As usual, David Byrne determinedly sang and chanted impressionistic, nonlinear lyrics, sometimes by mix-and-matching clichés ("No visible means of support and you have not seen nothin' yet," he declared on "Burning Down the House," the Heads' first Top Ten hit), and the songs' very lack of clear meaning was itself a lyrical subject. "Still don't make no sense," Byrne admitted in "Making Flippy Floppy," but by the next song, "Girlfriend Is Better," that had become an order -- "Stop making sense," he chanted over and over. Some of his charming goofiness had returned since the overly serious Remain in Light and Fear of Music, however, and the accompanying music, filled with odd percussive and synthesizer sounds, could be unusually light and bouncy. The album closer, "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)," even sounded hopeful. Well, sort of. Despite their formal power, Talking Heads' preceding two albums seemed to have painted them into a corner, which may be why it took them three years to craft a follow-up, but on Speaking in Tongues, they found an open window and flew out of it.