When everyday folks bring up the truly ‘great’ work of David Bowie, the usual subjects are typically trotted out. Yes, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust, Station to Station, Low, Heroes and Scary Monsters are all incredible albums, but – as any true Bowie-head will tell you – closer examination of his ‘90s work can yield similarly extraordinary rewards.
After David Bowie’s mid to late- ‘80 creative struggles, the ill-fated Tin Machine project found Bowie re-aligning both his creative direction and his sense of self – deflating himself from the bombast of his pop persona and getting down and dirty with the mechanics of music-making once again.
Although derided at the time, many now see that era as a vital step in regaining his mojo.
Starting with 1993’s Black Tie White Noise and the more sonically captivating Buddha of Suburbia soundtrack, the reinvigorated Bowie thrust himself wholeheartedly back into peculiar waters.
1995’s Eno-collaboration, 1.Outside was a particular triumph on both a musical and conceptual level – but its lack of radio hits (aside from the unrepresentative Pet Shop Boys remix of Hallo Spaceboy) meant his star plummeted from the view of the mainstream. Let’s Dance it was not, but artistically dense it most definitely was. Retrospective reappraisal has been very kind to this most crazed of Bowie albums.
1997’s more club-angled Earthling fared better. Often described as Bowie’s ‘jungle’ record by dint of its Prodigy-inspired lead single, Little Wonder, closer examination revealed the record to be actually quite a progressive and quite audacious piece of work.
![David Bowie - Little Wonder (Official Video) [HD] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MqbQC81_74k/maxresdefault.jpg)
A few years back we spoke to Earthling’s co-producer, Mark Plati. Mark, who shared the studio desk with Bowie and versatile guitarist Reeves Gabrels, recalled how David’s spirit of wild experimentalism (which had previously spawned the high watermark of the Berlin trilogy) was back in rude health;
“I wasn’t even a bass player or guitar player on Earthling, which is what I really am,” Plati told us by phone not long after learning of Bowie’s passing, as we first recounted in a lengthy compilation of interviews with many of Bowie’s sidemen back in 2022.
“I was the engineer, mixer, programmer and actually a producer and writer, even… It just fell out of the sky and I ran with it, as one should, I guess. The best part was that I got to really watch the writing process, and be involved in it, which was unbelievable, really. I don’t think anything has ever surpassed that.”
Initially purely focussing on the technical side of things, that soon changed when Bowie turned to Mark for new ideas.
“He and Reeves had asked me to come up with some tracks to play with,” Plati remembered. “We went through what I brought in, and Reeves had his own demos. David had riff ideas that weren’t that worked out. So we pooled a lot of things together. A lot of times they’d take something of mine and they’d write a whole new chord progression on top of it. But it was different every time, and it was amazing how quickly it all happened.
“We’d get a structure going and David would be in the back with Post-it notes, writing lyrics. He’d be ready really quickly, and he’d be done on the first take. No guide vocals. It was absolutely mind-boggling.”
One particularly noteworthy moment came during the creation of Earthling’s second song, Looking For Satellites. This pulsing, driving track featured some hypnotic vocals from David, and a particularlly vivid winding guitar solo, conjured by Gabrels.
It transpired that Bowie had very specific (possibly Eno-inspired) instructions for Reeves when cutting the track at New York’s Looking Glass Studios…
“He told Reeves to do the solo on one string, only on one string. That was the limitation he gave him. It was really a great thing to set up. And Reeves pulled it off.”
Plati, who went on to work with Bowie on Earthling’s follow-up Hours as well as 2002’s exceptional Heathen and ’03’s Reality, was overawed by Bowie’s questing nature…
“It was a tremendous experience for me in terms of opening my mind to any sort of possibility, because you’d never know what was going to work or where it would lead. And sometimes his idea wouldn’t quite work out, but it would lead somewhere else that was better. It was amazing to be in that process with him.”
During the lull between the making of Earthling and 1999’s more acoustically-driven Hours, Plati was unsure as to whether their relationship would continue.
“I had heard some of the [Hours] demos and they were far more acoustic. I could tell stylistically that it was really a change and I figured that he must have assumed that I wasn’t the guy for that. But he kept me on.
“For me, it was amazing that he did that. He knew instinctively, I think, that I would be able to move with him and run up whatever tree he was going to run up. To me, that really says something about him.”
Bowie continued to be a vital part of Plati’s career and life. “He was always reaching. It was never rote to him. You always felt like you were on this amazing journey with this amazing performer who was a real, bona-fide artist. That’s so hard to come by. And it was always hysterical. So good-natured. Just a joy.”
