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Title: wednesday's adult?
Review: Diary of an unfulfilled pop star or sympathy card to his generation? Does it matter? Bowie's 23rd album spares us another round of trend-hopping, opting for a more believable adult-contemporary groove, but his pathological ironic detachment makes him hard to take seriously as Love's Survivor. Even so, this album didn't have to be so weak -- the emotional heft in Bowie's songs has never come from him but his guitarists, from Mick Ronson to Stevie Ray Vaughan. A pity that Reeves Gabrels is such a cipher. His latest collaboration with Bowie is typically stagnant; bloodless guitars and synths substitute half-baked "moods" for genuine emotions. As for lyrics, take your pick from obtuse, half-finished or banal. "Sometimes I cry my heart to sleep ... Sometimes my courage fell to my feet," the auteur laments in "Thursday's Child." That would be drippy even if it didn't come from a billionaire married to a supermodel.
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