Ahead of the release of the 80s mid-80s David Bowie box set Loving The Alien, we take a look at the influence Nile Rodgers, Iggy Pop and others had on the three albums at the centre of the collection, beginning of course with Let’s Dance, and a wonderful new mix of the Never Let Me Down track “Zeroes”. 

A few weeks ago we announced the forthcoming release of Loving The Alien (1983-1988), the fourth in a series of box sets spanning David Bowie’s career. It is the follow-up to the award-winning and critically acclaimed collections Five Years (1969-1973), Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976) and A New Career In A New Town (1977-1982), and it’s released October 12. Available as an 11-CD or 15-LP box, or a digital download, it includes newly remastered versions of the Let's Dance, Tonight, Never Let Me Down (original and a 2018 remix), the live album Glass Spider (Live Montreal ’87), the previously unreleased Serious Moonlight live album, a collection of original remixes entitled Dance and the non-album / alternate version / b-sides and soundtrack music compilation Re:Call 4.  

We wanted to take a deeper dive into the inspiration behind the three studio albums at the core of this new box set; the much-loved Let’s Dance, and now somewhat overlooked Tonight and Never Let Me Down.

1983’s Let’s Dance was a significant departure and signified a new direction for Bowie who had reached a commercial and creative peak in the post-punk environment of the early 80s with the hugely successful Scary Monsters and the hit “Ashes To Ashes”. With Let’s Dance, Bowie moved back into the soul and dance music he’d delved into with the Young Americans album in ’75, and looking, as he had in ’75, at the current state of the art. His love of the music no doubt went back to the mid-60s British R&B scene – Bowie himself later described the album as "a rediscovery of white-English-ex-art-school-student-meets-black-American-funk” -  and had been piqued by recent developments on the scene, including the emergence of producer/musician Nile Rodgers of the group Chic, who in 1981 has produced Deborah Harry’s Koo Koo album with his Chic partner Bernard Edwards.  Bowie’s early interest in R&B also found a new expression in the playing of a new blues gun on the scene, Stevie Ray Vaughan, who Bowie had as a guest on several album tracks.

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Let’s Dance also found Bowie doffing his hat once again to his old mate Iggy Pop; indeed the second hit from the album was a cover of the Bowie/Pop composition that first appeared on the first of two Bowie-produced Iggy albums released in 1977, The Idiot.

Tonight followed in 1984, and found Bowie once again profiling the songs of Iggy Pop. Iggy was actually involved in the recording process, and co-wrote a number of songs with Bowie for the album. Additionally, the album included covers of three older Iggy tunes, including two Bowie & Pop co-writes that had originally appeared on Iggy’s second Bowie-produced solo album, Lust For Life, in 1977. One of those was the tune that Bowie used as his title track, “Tonight”, which Bowie recorded it as a duet with then-superstar Tina Turner. The other old Iggy track, perhaps unexpectedly, was "Don't Look Down", from Iggy’s first solo album without a Bowie contribution, 1979’s New Values. Tonight also included an exceptional and ambitious cover of the Beach Boys’ classic “God Only Knows”

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An older Iggy tune “Bang Bang” (from his universally loathed 1981 album Party) also appeared on Bowie’s next album. Bowie at the time said "Iggy's done so many good songs that people never get to hear... I think it's one of his best songs and it hasn't been heard, and now it might be.” It was a lovely gesture from an artist who clearly needed to reset his career; after its initial success, Tonight hadn’t kicked on sales wise and failed to really capitalise on the ground made by Let’s Dance. With Never Let Me Down, Bowie made a conscious decision to move back towards a more rock’n’roll sound.

Never Let Me Down was one of Bowie’s most commercially successful records, although it was not well received critically. Bowie himself came to look back at the album with regret – he loved the songs, but didn’t like the recordings. In 2008 he re-recorded the album track “Time Will Crawl”, and before his death, he asked producer Mario McNulty to oversee a reconstruction of the album. McNulty was able to complete a new version of Never Let Me Down earlier this year, utilising elements of the original recording, and new parts recorded by other past Bowie collaborators. The original sitar part, played by Peter Frampton, on an instrument once owned by Jimi Hendrix, remains. 

We’ll finish with the original version of “Zeroes” and the 2018 version, which as you can hear, is a wonderful track.

“Zeroes” (original)   

“Zeroes” (2018)  

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