Part of the reason for me beginning this project was the release of this album. Conveniently, as the project was coming to a close, I discovered that a new album, Blackstar, was in the works, which would enable me to extend the project by one unit. I figured that it would make sense to time my review of The Next Day to coincide with the new album’s release, which is today.

The album opener, and title track, is strong but simple. All the instruments serve the song with little flourish, and the purpose of this song is pure energy, letting you know that no holds are going to be barred, and we’re very much still alive thank you very much. It takes a little while to get up to speed, but when it does, it’s most satisfying.

Dirty Boys is nothing but sleaze, right off the bat. The song is moody and filthy, and yes, the saxophone makes a return, how could it not? I also was particularly taken with the bassline, which stutters and judders in a curious way.

I’m very attached to The Stars (Are Out Tonight), the only way I can describe it is that it’s very very early-90s in a thoroughly endearing fashion. That said, it does have one problem, which is a criticism that can also be levelled at some of the other songs on this album, and that is that the vocal melody is fairly uninspired, generally just rattling around on the same note for an extended period of time, especially in the verses. Is this from a lack of inspiration, or a deliberate stylistic choice? Still, the overall effect of the song has the desired impact, with the mystery of the anthropomorphised Stars making you wonder exactly who Bowie is truly singing about.

Love Is Lost is another great song, a blend of electronica with rock, controlled but with a hint that things could disintegrate at any second. In a way, it’s unsurprising when the instruments drop out briefly halfway through, and then come back with a different rhythm, the song having fulfilled its destiny to collapse into a different song entirely. The song then returns and builds up to a grandiose climax before evaporating in a puff of smoke. Very tasty.

Then it’s ballad o’clock, for Where Are We Now? I must admit that I don’t really pay much attention to this song when it’s on, but it’s not so bad that I skip it. It does soar quite nicely towards the end, I suppose.

I was initially a little confused by the existence of Valentine’s Day on this album because musically it seemed a little bland, but as is so often the case, it’s just a case that I hadn’t managed to decipher the lyrics. Once I had them explained to me, it all started to make some sense – once again, Bowie’s pulling that trick of using bubblegum music as the base for addressing a very bleak subject. That said, just because it makes sense now, doesn’t mean I have to suddenly start liking it.

The next song is clearly inspired by Bowie spending too long following lorries on the M4, If You Can See Me, I can see you, he says. Seriously though, this song follows a structure that he’s employed before – the lyrics are a barrage of impenetrable words placed haphazardly atop a sinister hyperspeed track, and it all seems a little disconnected.

By contrast, I’d Rather Be High is solid and coherent. Again, the verse lacks a vocal melody to speak, but the chorus is practically singalongable, and the sentiment is hard to misinterpret. It’s not Bowie’s first anti-war song, and I wouldn’t expect that it’s his last. Some very tasty bass fills in here too, and the vocal harmonies in the outro are well worth the price of admission.

Boss Of Me definitely carries some Foo Fighters influence in there, in so many different ways. That said, it’s a fairly unmemorable track, all things said, and I’m struggling to think of anything to write about it. So bog off.

Maybe Dancing Out In Space will fare better. Certainly it’s trying to be a bit weirder, with a few more wibbly noises, and a sinister male backing vocal in my left ear in the chorus that doesn’t quite gel with the rest of the production, but I have to come clean with you, this is another song that I’ve apparently mostly ignored when listening to it. Skip.

How Does The Grass Grow? is freakishly odd – the verse possesses this droning backing vocal that undermines the entire tune in a totally destructive but curious fashion, though maybe that’s because once again Bowie has fallen back on just singing his lyrics on one note the whole way through and relying on the instruments to provide any sense of melody. And again, the chorus has a pleasant sound, but you can’t help feeling like the lack of a tune is the elephant in the room, and no matter how hard you try, it can’t be disguised. There is a brief breakdown 3 minutes through in which Bowie does deign to actually sing for a while, but it’s over too soon. It’s a shame because this song is chock full of ideas and quirks, and I actually quite enjoy listening to it, it just feels like a crucial ingredient is missing.

(You Will) Set The World On Fire is another of those songs that makes me think that the lyrics must be far more brilliant than I can comprehend, because the music sounds utterly derivative, just some hard rock from the 80s. I know Bowie can do better.

Another ballad-style song it seems, You Feel So Lonely You Could Die. The first verse is underwhelming, but from the point that it starts to build up for the first chorus, I start to feel something stir. While I may criticise some of the other songs on this album for phoning it in when it comes to the vocal melody, the same argument is definitely not valid here. It’s reassuring to know that he’s still got it.

Album closers have been a mixed bag throughout this project, what do we get with Heat? More 80s synthitude and fretless bass, it’s spacy and somewhat ghostly with lyrics that I’m not qualified to interpret. I’m afraid I’m going to have to give this one a thumbs down, it does nothing for me.

Hmmm, looking back on this album, while there were some good songs in the first half, it appears that I’ve been fairly underwhelmed by the rest. So it goes.

Right, I’m off to listen to Bowie’s latest album. And unless he’s planning on releasing another album in March, it looks like that will probably spell the end of the project. Until then…

Hits from this album: Where Are We Now did pretty well in the charts, presumably mainly due to the novelty value of Bowie returning after 10 years. A few other songs were released as singles, but didn’t “bother” the charts, as they say.

My favourite song from this album: I’d say The Stars (Are Out Tonight) is the one that probably leaps into my head for this prize.

Next up: Blackstar

The news that there’d be a new Bowie album out in January meant that it made sense to take my time over this one, so that I’d be able to append Blackstar to the end of the project without a huge waiting period.

This is another album that I am quite familiar with already, so you won’t be surprised to read lots of glowing words about it.

New Killer Star is a magnificent album opener, and the bass really is the focus of attention in this song, you could feasibly take out every other instrument and it would still be recognisable. In the verse it’s gritty and compelling and low, clean walking lines in the bridge, and then back to the throaty dirtiness for the chorus. As always, the lyrics are deliberately obtuse, but the “great white scar over Battery Park” is surely a reference to the gap where the World Trade Centre once stood.

Next up is a cover of The Modern Lovers’ Pablo Picasso from 1976. As always with his covers, I like to compare them to the original to see what he’s done, and in this case it’s definitely an improvement, taking a monotonous dirge that sounds like something a teenage garage band would play, and making it listenable. Well, nearly. I still don’t like it much. I guess you can’t polish a turd.

Never Get Old has lots of little sonic details that I find interesting, it’s definitely not a case of just throw some lyrics over a chord sequence and call it done. It also introduces one of the underlying themes to this album, which is Bowie challenging the stereotype of the ageing rock star. Whereas in his younger years he’d seen getting old as something to be ashamed of, he now realises that it’s all a question of attitude, and he doesn’t have to stop being who he wants to be just to conform to the record-buying public’s preconceptions.

I generally don’t pay too much attention to The Loneliest Guy, it’s very downbeat and feels a bit out of place here. You wonder whether the character in the song (I’m pretty sure it’s not autobiographical) genuinely considers himself to be lucky despite his loneliness, or is in denial.

Looking For Water is a song about which I’m in two minds – I love some of the ideas, the bassline is sterling, but the whole song really does suffer from a lack of dynamics. It just sits on the same chords at the same level of intensity pretty much throughout, which makes it hard for me to enjoy.

Next up is She’ll Drive The Big Car which starts with a bit of harmonica, not something you hear a lot of on Bowie songs! This song has so much going for it, it’s hard to know where to start. Let’s start with the lyrics – while it’s not without its ambiguities, it’s not hard to tell that this is a song about a woman (a “husband’s quiet devoted wife”) driving in a southerly direction along Riverside Drive in Manhattan (you can even follow her route at home!) listening to the radio (“find a station playing sad, sad soul”), reflecting on how her husband has disappointed her by shackling her up at home (“he promised her a dream-life, he’d take her back to street-life”) and getting fairly cross about it (“just a little bit faster now, just a little bit louder now, just a little bit angry now”). Perhaps her daughter in the back seat (“she’ll keep an eye on Jessica”) is the only thing that stops her from doing something rash, who knows. I like something I can understand. Moving on to other facets, the vocal harmonies in this song are lush and swelling, it’s hard to communicate just how much they contribute. And the more you listen to the song, the more you hear tiny little details scattered here and there, little melodic touches that go overlooked at first. It would be easy for a song with this much going on to sound cluttered and busy, but it doesn’t, it just sounds like it’s awash with ideas.

Days is another of my favourites, but for different reasons. It’s mellow and wistful, but still with enough energy and direction to make it interesting. Lyrically it’s slightly disconcerting, the “character” here is apparently a selfish person, a leech who has the cheek to still ask for more. The theme seems to be at odds with the nature of the music, but hey ho, wouldn’t be the first time that Bowie’s pulled that trick on us.

A song that has always puzzled me is next, Fall Dog Bombs The Moon. Never figured out what the fuck this is about. It’s a very rough-sounding song, as if it’s been just lazily thrown together and prematurely declared finished. I guess that has to be intentional, but I have yet to penetrate its sloppy surface and uncover why it exists.

Conversely, Try Some, Buy Some is fairly easy to interpret – the message here is that drugs are no substitute for love. Which is fine, for those of us who have access to both, but I guess sometimes you don’t get the choice. This song was originally written by George Harrison and originally performed by Ronnie Spector. Whereas sometimes Bowie takes a fairly crap song and gives it life, in this case he’s left it pretty much alone, though I’d say that his vocal performance feels like it has a bit more sincerity to it.

The penultimate track is the title track, Reality. It’s fast and intense, with a very “Ampeggy” bass sound (bass players will know what I mean). It’s another defiant song in which he states, and proves, that he’s not planning on going quietly into retirement. Like so many of the songs on the later albums, it’s tight and succinct, over before you know it, rather than stretching out beyond its welcome.

Now, I’ve often had words to say about the songs that Bowie chooses as an album closer. For many years, we thought that Reality was going to be his last album, and if that had come to pass, then he couldn’t have chosen a better closing song than Bring Me The Disco King. It’s spectacular, with lyrical content and a piano-driven musical arrangement that both combine to form a stark, moody atmosphere, a spotlit performer in the middle of a stage at an intimate club. It’s a song that he’d been working on for a decade, and was originally recorded for Black Tie White Noise, but it didn’t make the cut. It wasn’t until he stripped it down and slowed it down that it finally clicked. His vocal performance is also worthy of note, bursting from the speakers as if it’s being torn directly from his innards. The last 90 seconds or so are then left entirely to the instruments, the drums and piano playing us out, the singer already having left the building.

Hits from this album: New Killer Star, Pablo Picasso and Never Get Old were released as singles, though to describe them as “hits” would be pushing it.

My favourite song from this album: Definitely Bring Me The Disco King, it’s sublime.

Next up: The Next Day