10 Forgotten David Bowie Gems

6. I Have Not Been To Oxford Town (1995)

http://youtu.be/nArLuubNjKs Outside was supposed to be the start of a brand new trilogy with Brian Eno. It never came to pass, which for me will always stand as one of the all-time great missed opportunities in rock music. What remains from the aborted project, though, is incredible. Outside is dark, dank and terrifying. Reportedly even Bowie himself finds parts of it to be too scary. I now see it as an unofficial soundtrack to David Lynch's Lost Highway. Indeed, Lynch used a choice cut from Outside to great effect as the intro-music to said film. But not all of the album's horrifying. The lead single €“ Hallo Spaceboy €“ is intense interstellar industrial metal that has lost none of its cool for having been listed by Tony Blair as one of his favourite songs €“ and the closing Strangers When We Meet is just lovely. And right in the middle of the horrorshow is this €“ I Have Not Been To Oxford Town €“ a tantalising bite of futuristic funk-pop that pays beautiful homage to all of your sci-fi dreams €“ be they utopian or dystopian. You know the neon graduate party scene in Starship Troopers, just before they go to war? The band are playing a cover of this!
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