10 Forgotten David Bowie Gems

2. New Killer Star (2003)

http://youtu.be/Ip3hs6nRwWI The opening track from Reality €“ an album which, until but a few days ago, we all thought would be Bowie's swan-song. Though critics appeared divided upon its initial release, now it seems that the worst anyone has to say of Reality is that it's good, but not great. Personally, I love it. It's energetic and incandescent in all the right places, but it knows exactly when to kick-back and slacken the pace a little. New Killer Star opens proceedings perfectly. It begins with a chugging riff overpinning backward electronic loops €“ a very modern sound for 2003 that appears timeless in Bowie's hands €“ then comes his voice, so refined with age as to have its own gravitational pull. This song's remarkable in that it manages two complete shifts of mood and tempo during the chorus, yet at no point does it appear fractured or disjointed. This is the sort of knowing and complex epic of a song that could only ever be written by an artist of considerable talent operating at the very top of their game. That it appears on his 23rd album says it all. Had Reality been Bowie's final album, songs like New Killer Star would have ably demonstrated that Bowie had pulled off the seemingly incongruous trick of growing old gracefully whilst still refusing to go out without a bang.