Remembrance Of Things Past: 2002’s Best Albums

This week, we conclude our salute to those great artists of the past year by presenting the best overall album of 2002. It wasn’t very hard to decide which it was even though there were many contenders. If you should only buy one album out of the many we featured the past month, make it this one.

Heathen
David Bowie
ISO/Sony

Everything is turning into science-fiction. David Bowie realized this early on, launching Major Tom into space about 33 years ago and fashioning a career out of observing and commenting about the only true alien species: man. Like any great s-f practitioner, he uses the wealth of ideas and imagery from the genre to make music that examines the relationship of people to their environment, tracing the trajectory of their involvement with each other and the increasingly man-made landscape.

However, he doesn’t go for deliberate obfuscation as some of his critics accuse nor is he space-nut as some of his fans believe. Too often, the less imaginative (i.e music critics who throw in an occasional muso music term like paradiddle or ostinato and the usual tired metaphor to hide the vacuity of their blabbings) get blinded by the camouflage of the s-f garb of Bowie’s albums, transfixed by the sheen of the chromium-plated exterior of his slinky spaceship. If you look at it, Ziggy Stardust is really much more about the cult of celebrity rather than anything extra-terrestrial. (An interesting parallel can be drawn from Bowie’s work to the popular misconception that Stanley Kubrick’s 2001:A Space Odyssey is just about waltzing spaceships and homicidal computers rather than its central themes of alienation and transcendence.)

Bowie’s latest album "Heathen" does not rescind from Bowie’s trademark. It begins with him surveying a drowned world, lit by a permanent dusk, intoning, "Nothing remains/We could run when the rain slows/Look for the cars or signs of life/Where the heat goes." From this post-apocalypse, he then turns inward with a series of flashbacks, addressing absent friends (like in the Andy Warhol universe of Everyone Says Hi) but most especially a distant lover which he summons into his presence like a subconscious phantom from Stanislaw Lem’s (or maybe Andrei Tarkovsky’s) Solaris. Communicating with this obscure object of affection with declarations of devotion, he comes across as regret-laden, a survivor of a personal catastrophe that manifests itself in everything he sees.

Love and heartache is hardly a new thing but Bowie as always finds new expressions of explaining its ways. Casting a baleful and jaundiced eye on his surroundings, he assimilates its vocabulary to explain the turmoil of lost love and, at the same time, transforms it into a physical manifestation of his own psychic trauma. On a track like 5:15 The Angels Have Gone, he uses the metaphors afforded to him of a commuter catching a train-ride to express a latent loneliness and sorrow at the dissolution of a relationship. What is most striking about this song is the beautiful lyricism and introspection that he interweaves with pedestrian comments about the journey, never overstating and letting the pauses give birth to an enormous melancholy — very much like a 21st century Space Oddity. (No longer in a space-suit, the famous astronaut is now clad in a business attire surveying the landscape whizz by with a growing estrangement; his rocket is now a speeding train, the reciting of train schedules and announcements replacing the launch shuttle codes.) Even with cover versions such as The Legendary Stardust Cowboy’s I Took A Trip on A Gemini Spacecraft and the Pixies’ Cactus, the theme is still intact. Much like the best of Bowie’s oeuvre, the cover versions are surprises: the overt comic-book imagery of the former and the eroticism of a piece of clothing of the latter locating the longing in novel settings and objects, bending the emotion thus revealing its facets.

Yet of course, Bowie does not excel in mere wordplay. After all, he is probably one of the few pop stars on the planet able to create challenging and tuneful music – full of worthwhile left-turns and detours – that works in conjunction with his ideas. I Would Be Your Slave, Slow Burn and Neil Young’s I’ve Been Waiting For You are textured with the appropriate soundscapes and melodies that layer the meaning of even the simplest of phrases. Bowie’s greatest instrument however is still his voice. Grossly underrated as a vocalist, he is the first true soul singer of the technological age, able to switch personas with a depth of feeling that remains genuine. The unconvinced should just listen when he sings "We never talk anymore/Forever I will adore you", his rich baritone marrying the seemingly incongruous sentiments found in that couplet so convincingly that one cannot help but be moved.

Most of the songs on "Heathen" are remembrances, keepsakes for an aged Major Tom crash-landing home after his last orbit, only to find it in ruins. On the last two tracks A Better Future and Heathen (The Rays) however, Bowie finds himself back at the start, continuing the thread from the opener Sunday as he tries to learn how to survive amidst the remains of the aftermath. Alone, a nagging existentialism feeding on him, he feels a loss, feeling the weight of the heat as the sun burns slowly into his eyes.

Thank God David Bowie is still on this planet.

Thanks to Ricardo Yao and Rose Gregorio for their help with this column.

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All discerning music lovers (stand up and be counted!) must flock to Gweilo’s at Carlos Palanca St., Makati – the only bar as one pundit proudly claims where "music really matters", and where you might see and meet some interesting people as well. On Fridays, bands like The Pinup Girls, Razorback and the already legendary Marius will play while on Mondays you have DJ Ro playing the familiar (and unfamiliar) tunes you grew up with. (If you didn’t, then you should ask for a refund for your childhood and adolescence). And did we mention that the beer on Mondays is only 30 pesos?

Listen to EuroRock on NU 107.5 every Sat. from 8-9 p.m. DJ Mondo (the sexy beast), Mario "B1" de Castro and Neil "B2" Bernardo spin the latest and the best from Europe. Also, weekly contests are held with rare bootlegs of Coldplay, Oasis, Super Furry Animals and Travis as prizes. Requests and comments are welcome. Write to: eurorock@nme.com.

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Send comments and reactions to erwin_romulo@hotmail.com