LOVING THE ALIEN (1983 - 1988)

If you are going to get into Bowie's 1980s pop period - after Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) brought a majestic end to his art rock era, before he recharged his creative juices with Tin Machine - this boxed set is as good a way to do it as any. The latest in the series that includes Five Years, Who Can I Be Now, and A New Career In a New Town, Loving the Alien is named after Bowie's most artistically interesting composition from this period, and out of all four boxed sets this is the one where the original studio albums from the era are almost the least relevant.

There's only three of 'em, for one thing - the pop perfection of Let's Dance, the mixed bag (with some absolute gems mixed in with some rather pedestrian numbers) Tonight, and the godawful Never Let Me Down. They're actually overshadowed by the material that's debuting on (or exclusive to) this box. As well as yet another installment in the Re:Call series - highlights of this one include Bowie's contributions to the soundtracks for Labyrinth and Absolute Beginners - you have Dance, a mooted but shelved collection of 12" mixes of Bowie's most danceable songs of the era. The 1980s were, after all, the absolute peak era for 12" mixes, and in some respects Dance may be the perfect dilution of Bowie's essence of the era.

But wait, there's more - as we've come to expect from these boxes, you have some juicy live sets here, and this time around they really help tease out the most interesting and entertaining aspects of this phase of Bowie's career - representing, as they do, the Montreal stops of his two major touring shows of the period. The famed Serious Moonlight incorporates a surprising amount of late-1970s art rock material from Station to Station and Berlin eras whilst packaging everything in a slick, energetic performance that makes all the material sound like it belongs together; conversely, Glass Spider is revealed as the rather intriguing prospect it actually is, a veering back towards art rock and theatrical presentation which weaves its various components into an unexpected new mosaic.

Let's keep perspective; this box doesn't focus on one of Bowie's stronger periods, like the Five Years, Who Can I Be Now?, or A New Career In a New Town boxes did. Instead, it begins on a high and ends with him in a creative slump. But if nothing else, Glass Spider and the welcome 2018 remix, rerecording, and overall re-jigging of Never Let Me Down, conducted according to Bowie's intentions for how such a project should be approached, go a long way towards framing that as one of the most fascinating and worthwhile creative slumps you could explore.