This is the 1999 reissue of the third consecutive recording to be made with the help of ex-Roxy Music sonic pioneer Brain Eno and new to the process Bowie's then current touring band, by the time of this album being made Bowie was looking to go back to a more narrative song-writing rather than the ambient leanings of the sister albums "Low" & "Heroes".

The album was released on the 18th of May 1979 and made to number 4 in the UK album charts; the collection was released on the back of the "Boys keep swinging" single which was released on the 29th of April (catalogue number RCA BOW 2) and got as high as number 7 week ending the 5th of May.

I suspect that the return to the more traditional rock formula would begin to annoy Eno, who now had a deepening interest in ambient structures, and would make for an uncomfortable partnership and working environment that made for a more interesting listening.

Eno in a series of interviews at the time dismissed the album and said the main fault was the mix used, if the album wasn't played on a "top-end" hi-fi the vinyl version of this album sounded flat and unclear the top end dulled and the bass lacked any resonance.
This makes this at times an uneasy listen with the clash of styles and the album has one of the most demanding mixes ever used by Bowie in the 70's.

Background

This album was recorded while there was a gap in the 1978 world tour and completed in Early 1979, there where a couple of different titles for the collection one was " Planned Accidents" and the other was "Despite Straight Lines".
Unlike the previous 2 albums "Lodger" wasn't made any where near Berlin, the studios used for recording was "Mountain studios" in Montreux Switzerland and for mixing the "Power Plant" in New York.
Songs on this album where constructed with both Bowie and Eno using experimental methods all over the place such as the pair pointing to a notice board with chords for the songs written on them, writing new tracks using old ones and lastly writing songs with the music of old tracks going backwards, in reality the most experimental of the trio of albums made with Eno in the 70's.

In the days of vinyl side 1 had an ethic feel to it and commented on the wanderlust of Bowie at the time and side 2 was Bowies take on the American consumer society.

In the 2 years since the release of the "Low" & "Heroes" albums Bowie suddenly had competition to be himself in the form of failed puck rocker Gary Numan.

Numan had gone to Bowie nights ran by Steve Strange and Rusty Egan at various clubs in London, Strange set the tone of the nights and stood at the door keeping out undesirables such as people who might cause fights or when not dressed appropriately, (pretty much like clubs today) while Strange did this Rusty played music with Bowie connections such as Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Kraftwerk, the Human League, and of course music by the man himself, this Numan soaked up and got himself a synthesizer and then made his move.

By the time "Lodger" hit the racks Numan mania was in full swing, on the night the promo video for "Boys keep swinging" was shown Gary Numan made his "Top of the Pops debut singing "Are friends Electric?" while this track went to the top the Bowies track dropped like a stone.
The Bowie track sounds like re-write of "The Village people's" song "In the Navy" who at the time where at the height of their fame
After the video was aired the perception of the track changed from an ode to the pleasures of being male to something far more ambiguous and unsettling, with Bowie performing most of the track in drag, during the chorus he used 3 outfits, the 50's style mom, the lady of the night and the elderly lady with a cane, who all remove their wigs and smear their lipstick at the close of the track this put a completely different spin on the song.

The Album

Fantastic Voyage (2.58) begins with a gentle thud-thud on the drums crash on the cymbal and has no less than 3 mandolin tracks all played by ex-Frank Zappa guitarist and future Talking Head sideman Adrian Belew which after the dark and menacing musical themes of "Heroes" is a bit of a hark back to the gentile style of "Hunky Dory".

Just like that album the music covers a dark subject matter.
The subject being the threat of nuclear war and the depression of the world leaders, the lyrics open with the line "In the event that this fantastic voyage, should ever turn to erosion and we never get old, remember its true dignity is valuable, but our lives are valuable to" in other words everybody on the planet is important not just the men in charge, the track builds to the killer lines for me, "They wipeout an entire race and I've got to write it down, but I'm still getting educated but I've got to write it down, and it won't be forgotten, cause I'll never say anything nice again, how can I?"

That closing line is more of a plea than a statement with Bowie holds the note on the word "I" adding to the urgency.
The late Sean Mayes plays a melodic piano through-out that has at the back of it an ambient drone by Eno that all the other instruments cling to, this gives the music both melody and a built-in rhythm with Tony Visconti adding the backing vocals to Bowie's this goes along very sweetly with George Murray and Dennis Davis adding the bass and drums. As a matter of interest the song has the same chord sequence as "Boys keep swinging".

African night flight (2.58) this is the most inventive track in the collection for me with Eno bringing to bear an amazing array of effects that are played off the vocal delivery of Bowie which is done at breakneck speed, this gives the listener the feeling of being dragged through the jungle by a babbling madman.
The song opens with the line "African nightmare one-time Mormon, more men fall in Hullabaloo men, I side to the nearest bar, undermine chairman".

The dense wall of jungle-like noises courtesy of Eno with the "prepared piano" and "cricket menace" and the treated vocals and guitars played along with the drums and bass with a chorus of Bowie, Eno and Visconti.

During the middle 8 section the "asanti habari habari habari, asanti nabana nabana nabana" chorus is given more punch and greater delivery with a treated vamping piano played at the back.
Interviews at the time by Bowie said, "That this song is about German fighter pilots I met in a Mombassa bar who felt so culturally alienated that they couldn't return home"
After his work on this album Eno went on to record the African influenced albums "My Life in The Bush of Ghosts" with David Byrne and "Remain in light" with "The Talking Heads" (from little acorns).

Move On (3.21) if you listen closely to this track you will hear the song "All the young Dudes" all be it backwards.
This is the framework for Bowie to sing about himself as a tourist going from place to place, as he felt at the time like a man who was country less and had no roots anywhere.
There is a hint of self-parody to take the edge off check the line "I'm just a travelling man".

The song begins with very weak sounding snare drum and rhythm guitars
the first line delivered in the track is "Sometimes I feel, that I need to move on, so I pack a bag and move on, move on" throughout the piece the throb of the bass and bass drum give the song a pulse-like rhythm section that along with the OOOOO chorus and Bowie name checks several counties during the length of the track e.g.:- Africa, Russia, Japan, and Cyprus.
There is a corny moment where Bowie sings, "Cyprus is my island, where's the going's rough, I would love to find you, somewhere in a place like that, somewhere someone's calling me, and when the chips are down, I stumble like a blind man, can't forget you, can't forget you, feeling like a shadow, drifting like a leaf, can't forget you, can't forget you".

Yassassin (Turkish for long live) (4.13) is a blend of Jamaica rhythms with middle-eastern themes and harks back to the time Bowie sent living in the Turkish quarter in Berlin and the lyrics celebrate the working man, the song is basically a "Fame" rewrite, the violin playing of ex-Hawkwind player Simon House is worthy of note.

Red Sails (3.47) this is where you really need a good hi-fi to get anything out of this track on vinyl, Bowie said at the time that what he was trying to do here was take ideas from German music and pit it against an English mercenary cum Swashbuckling Errol Flynn figure and place him in the China seas he said we have lovely cross references, I honestly don't what's it about.
The closing section is a favourite of mine from this album with its barmy chorus of "the hinterland we're going to the hinterland".
The track starts with an urgent thump, thump from the bass drum and rumble from the bass guitar then the metallic guitar sound of Mr Belew and the more controlled sound of the steadfast rhythm guitar of Carlos Alomar adding the structure for all to follow giving the song a feeling of a galloping horse across the moors to my ears, another fav piece of lyrics here is the line "sailor can't dance like you" after the shouting chorus of "Red sail", it could be argued that Bowie made pirates chic long before Adam and the Ants adopted the look .
In the days of L.P.'s (records) that was the end of side1.

D.J. (4.02) is a weak opener for what was side 2 of the L.P. for this track Bowie has abandoned his wanderlust of the previous songs even with the brilliant opening line of "I'm home, lost my job, and incurably ill, do you think this is easy realism" this track when it was released on the 29th of June 1979 as the second single from album and only managed to scrape into the top 30 of the U.K. singles chart at number 29, the catalogue number for the single is RCA BOW3 and out there somewhere are copies in green vinyl (good luck finding one I have never seen one).
The meaning behind the song is simple a D.J. is what he plays, whenever playing don't allow "dead air" for the biggest mistake a D.J. can is to let 30 seconds of silence to happen, this is what Bowie said at the time at the time, I have to agree having played myself for a number of years the quickest thing to annoy your audience is silence you just don't it!

I also think the fact the track had been poorly edited to fit the record company ideal of 3.30 minutes for a chart single and the fact the "off the wall" video wasn't shown on British T.V. , it shows Bowie attacking household appliances as they explode and throwing records all around the room and doing some strange things with blinds remember the video for Kim Wilde's song "The Kids from America" something similar to that, the video can be seen now as part of the double DVD collection "Best of Bowie" from 2002, catalogue number 24349 01039 it costs if my memory serves me correctly for about £5.99 in Woollies. All these factors helped sabotage the track in the singles market.
The song starts with vamping piano along a crash on the cymbals then the violin plays in the minor and Bowie delivers his opening line of "I'm home" etc the record company managed to edit out the most interesting part of the song the middle 8 and of course when you take out the heart the patient dies the same is true of the single version of this track the album track is better but only just.

Look back in Anger (3.10) the lyrics appear to me to be about the Angel of Death all be it a tatty version, this for me is the lowest part of the collection with it's syncopated drum patterns key changes every verse it can grate a bit on the ears the first time you hear it (or was that just my experience) even the catchy chorus of "waiting so long I've been waiting so long" isn't enough to save for me, Bowie did use the song to open his Serious Moonlight shows 4 years later and revived it for the1995 Outside shows again as the opener. This track also has a video on the "Best of" DVD, Bowie plays the manic artist painting mirrors.

Boys keep swinging (3.19) legend tells that for this track all the musicians involved swapped instruments, I don't know if this is true but the drums which start this song off are a pretty basic 1, 2, 3, 4 and the song has the same chord changes as "Fantastic Voyage" (as I stated at the start of this) which was something nobody noticed when this track paired with "Boys" as it's B-side. This track is genius often Bowies music is criticised for taking itself to seriously but the humour used here to makes it's point something that the song only has when viewed watching the promo video.

Repetition (3.01) was the B-side to the D.J. single which was a shame as it is the better song, the track tells the story of Johnny who beats his wife to compensate for his own failures, the bass guitar is played as too copy the way in which Johnny hits his wife and Bowie sings the lyrics in a disconnected manner and only gets involved in the proceedings when he tells Johnny "Don't hit her", even before the vocal delivery the sound of the bass informs the listener there is something seriously wrong, a song at the time undervalued but covered by the Band "The Au pairs" whose version was even more disturbing than Bowies.

Red Money (4.18) closed out the original vinyl and this 1999 re-issue as well, the song which is the track "Sister Midnight" from Iggy Pop's album "The Idiot" from 1977; with new lyrics.
Bowie said at the time he saw as being about responsibility (this is symbolised by a mysterious red box that kept appearing in Bowies oil paintings at the time) but the words seem to have more in common with John Lennon's song "Instant Karma" with it's apocalyptic visions that take the listener back to the beginning of the set of songs again just like a snake eating it's tail.

For the 1991 re-issue of this album catalogue number CDP 79 7724 2 the record company had tacked on a couple of bonus tracks in the form of "I Pray Olé" (3.56) an outtake from the session and the most interesting of unused tracks with it's wailing guitars and thump thump bass drums and it's straight 4/4 timing with the chorus of "Can you make it through" as a matter of interest the song wasn't mixed until 1991 by David Richards and Bowie.

A re-recorded version of "Look back in Anger" from 1988 with Reeves Gabrels on guitar and a Turkish musician called Erdal Kizcay on bass guitar and drums this was used by Bowie for the basis of his performance at the ICA in London that year a more bearable version than the album track.
Again this version was mixed by Bowie and Richards in 1988.

In the January 2007 issue of "Record Collector" they put the value of the 1991 re-issue at £8.00 (if you see it for that price buy it) and the 1999 issue at £10.00.
I'm sure with some careful shopping on E-bay you can probably get it cheaper and on Amazons marketplace there loads of bargains to be had.

Unlike the 1991 version of the sleeve which is a fold-out sleeve the 1999 incarnation is a full book style with a full set of lyrics and rare pictures and the centre of the booklet is a still from the D.J. video

For me the album is probably my least favourite from what is seen by the critics as Bowies golden period 1969-1980 it has no centre for me with no long song like "Heroes" from the previous album and even "Low" which had a whole side of atmospheric instrumentals to get your teeth into no for me it's way to full of to many good ideas only half executed and at the time Bowie was desperate to get out of his Record contract, he even said to RCA at the time since the Live album "Stage" is a double album can that count towards my total owed, no they said they wanted 2 more studio albums. So be warned unless you want all of Bowies work from that period I would advise the casual fan to avoid this album.
Please note as well that the running times for the tracks are what my CD player had them at and not the times on the back of the sleeve as for both the 1991 & 1999 have the running times wrong!