Never Let Me Down

Never Let Me Down is the seventeenth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 21 April 1987 through EMI America Records. Co-produced by Bowie and David Richards and featuring the guitarist Peter Frampton, the album was recorded in Switzerland and New York City from September to November 1986. Bowie's goal for the project was to record it differently following his disappointment with 1984's Tonight. Musically, Never Let Me Down has been characterised as pop rock, art rock and hard rock; Bowie himself considered the record a return to rock and roll music. The cover artwork features Bowie surrounded by numerous elements from the songs. Never Let Me Down was commercially successful, reaching the UK top 10; its three singles all reached the UK top 40. Despite this, the album was poorly received by fans and was met with negative reviews from critics, with most criticising the "overblown" production. Bowie supported it on the Glass Spider Tour, a world tour that was at that point the biggest, most theatrical and elaborate tour of his career. The tour, like the album, was commercially successful but critically panned. The critical failure of the album and tour were factors that led Bowie to look for a new way to motivate himself creatively, leading him to create the rock band Tin Machine in 1989; he did not release another solo album until Black Tie White Noise in 1993. In later decades, Never Let Me Down is generally regarded as one of Bowie's weakest releases. The track "Too Dizzy" has been deleted from subsequent reissues due to Bowie's dislike of it. Throughout his lifetime, Bowie was critical of Never Let Me Down, distancing himself from the arrangement and production of the finished album. He expressed a desire to remake it numerous times, eventually...