BLACK TIE WHITE NOISE

Bowie must have realised he'd hit an artistic dead end on Never Let Me Down, because after that derided effort (salvaged just a little by the more recent 2018 revision of the album, and the quite good Glass Spider tour) he put his solo career on hold and undertook the wild expedition which was Tin Machine.

Black Tie White Noise is the first solo album Bowie put out after Tin Machine ran its course, and finds his creative batteries somewhat recharged. It's another stylistic shift, with Bowie drawing on electronic and alternative dance music styles of the time to refresh his sound. The end result is not quite compelling - it's much more pleasant background listening than it is an attention-grabbing masterpiece - but it's certainly a soothing enough listen, and a capable manifesto for Bowie's exploration of the electronic dance-rock crossover territories, a process which would continue through the rest of his 1990s albums.