Earthling
Shrugging off an uneventful decade of boring, archaic, projects,Earthlingreturns Bowie to the forefront of contemporary music. While the album has garnered attention for incorporating elements of drum and bass, its most striking feature is truly Bowie himself as he recaptures an edge he hasn't shown since 1979'sScary Monsters. From the addictively danceable "Little Wonder" to the appropriately unnerving "Seven Years in Tibet," the album is full of the genius that made him so remarkable to begin with. As for the loops and samples, it's less a novelty and more Bowie's willingness to open his music to new tools. Granted, it's not as "before its time" as 1974'sDiamond Dogs, but acid-laden vocals, hard-edged guitars, and arrangements that constantly border on the edge of chaos all show a pretty striking return to form from an artist who many had written off as a dinosaur.--Bill Snyder