David Bowie Makes a Triumphant Return [video]

David Bowie may be the only man on earth capable of being David Bowie. Sometimes, I wonder just how he can possess such otherworldly talent and bravado, literally creating and destroying a concurrent artistic path that compounding generations have eagerly traveled and infinitely expand upon. This is exactly what he’s done with his newest release “Where Are We Now?”

Bowie has returned with a mid-tempo anthem, and it’s incredible (as expected). Beginning with large spread-chords on grand piano and the gentle lay of what sounds like a Gibson, Davy takes us on a walk through Berlin where he ponders the severity and weight of conflict, trudging across territory that was previously split by the Berlin Wall. The chorus then poses a question in almost rhetorical fashion: “Where are we now?”  This is a wiser David Bowie than we’ve seen before — a Bowie less concerned with the ephemeral. Though there’s comparable tonality to his earlier works such as “Life On Mars?”, “Where Are We Now?” utilizes minimalism to convey a much broader concept: the power of co-existence and the weight of our actions.

Now, I don’t know how many of you were fortunate enough to catch a torrent of Bowie’s “secret album”, Toy, that was leaked a few years back, but what we have here is a much bolder statement (understandably so, as one was intentionally released and the other was leaked by a studio intern).  In this piece, however, we have development. We have direction. We have a small, shining light in our metaphorical tunnel of surviving legends, and we have a release sans nostalgia (yet themed around incredibly nostalgic lyrics). Not only did this surprise release revive a sense of optimism I had temporarily lost in our champions (no offense Mr. Springsteen and Mr. Jagger — respectively), but I’ll even go as far as to bypass our collective speculations and note my excitement for the full length.  After all, today is his 66th birthday and he gave us a present.