Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. New Killer Star
2. Pablo Picasso
3. Never Get Old
4. The Loneliest Guy
5. Looking For Water
6. She'll Drive The Big Car
7. Days
8. Fall Dog Bombs The Moon
9. Try Some, Buy Some
10. Reality
11. Bring Me The Disco King

Disc 2:

1. Fly
2. Queen Of All The Tarts (Overture)
3. Rebel Rebel

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14308 in Music
• Released on: 2003-09-15
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Limited Edition

Amazon.co.uk review
Youth, as the old adage goes, is wasted on the young, although surely Reality highlights the ambiguously chameleonic and now comfortably middle-aged David Bowie as an honourable exception to the rule, a man whose soul and creative metre endures to pursue eternal youth within the accelerating self-awareness of his own mortality. Times were when he'd never get away with it.

In recent years Bowie has had a frustrating tendency to handle his own past with varying degrees of bemusement--whether to suffer it, stroke it, spit on it or merely borrow from it (some of Reality's best tracks, the quasi-political "Fall Dog Bomb the Moon" and the electronic punk of "New Killer Star", both shadow his past while exploring the neurosis of our post-9/11 world) while, in a manner most unbecoming of one of rock's most eminent pace-makers, he's chased juvenescent pop fads like some Botox-injecting fashionista. However, Reality, much like its immediate predecessor, the highly-regarded Heathen (Tony Visconti remains at the production helm), finds Bowie reacclimatising to his muse and his life--both as an Englishman in New York and as a doomed rider on the proverbial storm of existence--just beautifully. There are home truths and cognitive mirror gazes on the title track, a sleazy roughed-up diamond with Johnny Rotten-ish cackles and squawky guitars on which he casts a conciliatory glance towards his previous rock & roll personae and despairs at how he "hid amongst the junk of wretched highs" whereas the equally excellent and morbidly cheery "Never Get Old" (musically, imagine a more flippantly sing-along "Sound and Vision") is as comically fatalistic as a two-fingered salute from a retirement home window.

Despite cracking a wicked smile on a rampant strut through Jonathan Richman's "Pablo Picasso", Reality favours brooding philosophising over light-hearted chuckles--see "Looking for Water", the dramatic grand piano and images of dislocated metropolitan topography on the 'Loneliest Guy" and the sullen dying breath of "Bring Me the Disco King"--but Bowie admits to being just like the rest of us in not having the answers. Still, Reality consolidates Bowie's artistic rehabilitation and ranks as another fine album from a man still willing to ask questions of himself. --Kevin Maidment

CD Description
The Thin White Duke returns with his 26th album, the follow-up to 2002's 'Heathen'. Produced once again by longtime collaborator Tony Visconti, this is a more musically diverse and harder rocking offering and includes covers of the Modern Lovers' 'Pablo Picasso' and George Harrison's 'Try Some Buy Some', as well as the track 'Bring Me The Disco King' which is featured on the OST of vampire flick 'Underworld'.

Customer Reviews

The Extra Songs Are Worth It!
"Fly" and "Queen Of The Tarts" are hard rocking, typical Bowie with strong beats and killer lyrics. The highlight is the remake of "Rebel Rebel", which is almost exactly the way Bowie sings it in the 'Reality' concert. Nice and easy and then hard and rough! It is as good as the original. The main CD is also a classic.

Bowie has always been accused of possessing a chameleon like persona, but the 'reality' is that he simply has the courage to explore every aspect of music that he takes a fancy to. "Reality" is no exception. Just a shade further towards inventiveness than "Heathen", Bowie pulls together a full album set that possesses his entire creativeness with no filler.
Featuring Tony Visconti as an effectual producer of famed renown, the songs surpass what most expect of Bowie. "New Killer Star" piles on the guitars with a goofy synthesized background loop and "Never Get Old" succeeds with an upbeat rhythm destined to be a dance hit and a radio favorite. The range of song moods is large, with "The Loneliest Guy" harkening back to the Fripp-Eno age with space guitars and synthesized over samplings, while "Days" is reminiscent of the "Hunky Dory" period with it's happy, pop ditty silliness. The biggest surprise is "Bring Me The Disco King", a slow piano lounge lizard song with multiple Bowie over-dubs.

Two big numbers here are "Fall Dog Bombs The Moon" and the title track, "Reality" which have the same driving chords and strong beat Bowie used so effectively in his "Let's Dance" era. But make no mistake. Despite the similarities to previous work, Bowie has brought out some wonderfully new music - music that has matured smartly.

Bowie's Back!
Bowies back, and undeniably on top form. Making musical chemistry yet again with producer Tony Visconti. Bowie really can't go wrong, with a strong tried and tested band including Mike Garson (Ziggy Stardust 1973), Earl Slick (Diamond Dogs Tour 1974) and the all inspiring Gail Ann Dorsey ( 1. Outside 1995).

Bowie wows us from start to finish with the likes of the fabulous "New Killer Star" and "Days". The brilliant self observation of "Never Get Old" will take you breath away as you begin to realise that Bowie, fast approaching 57, is spiritually younger than he has ever been.

All in all "Reality" needs not prove anything. David's voice unchanged by time, delivers a full to the brim 50 mins of superb music. It is up there with finest of the Thin White Duke's Albums, possibly the greatest since "Low".

Like a leather Messiah....
Every album Bowie has ever made has had high points. Even critically slated albums such as Tonight had its good moments (Blue Jean, for example), as did Tin Machine - their version of Maggie's Farm was, to my mind, one of his best ever tracks. Recent albums (and by recent, I mean the last 10 years' worth) have been, although better than most other bands around, still patchy in places. From Black Tie White Noise through to Heathen, they have all been generally good, but with a few poor songs to balance out the brilliant.

This is not the case with Reality, however. From the moment that 'New Killer Star' beings with it's classic Bowie sound reminiscent in places of Rebel Rebel and Jean Genie, through the spanish guitar laden insanity that is Pablo Picasso and onwards, there is not a bad moment to be heard. Throughout the 90s, sometimes it seemed that Bowie was trying just too hard to be trendy, hip and different. But the good work on Heathen has been continued, and to my mind this IS his best album in certainly 20 years, perhaps longer. It's certainly the one that has impressed me most after just two or three listens - probably more so than anything since Heroes.

This album deserves to be heard, and it deserves to be loved. If there's any justice, it will outsell all the TV manufactured rubbish in the charts, and give Bowie the incentive to carry on making music this good for another 35 years.