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The Next Day Image
Metascore
81

Universal acclaim - based on 44 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.1

Universal acclaim- based on 209 Ratings

  • Summary: In the works for over two years with producer Tony Visconti, this is the first new studio release from David Bowie in ten years.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 44
  2. Negative: 0 out of 44
  1. Q Magazine
    Mar 11, 2013
    100
    The Next Day is a loud, thrilling, steamrollingly confident rock and roll album full of noise, energy, and words that--if as cryptic as ever they were--sound like they desperately need to be sung. [Apr 2013, p.92]
  2. Feb 25, 2013
    100
    It is an enormous pleasure to report that the new David Bowie album is an absolute wonder: urgent, sharp-edged, bold, beautiful and baffling, an intellectually stimulating, emotionally charged, musically jagged, electric bolt through his own mythos and the mixed-up, celebrity-obsessed, war-torn world of the 21st century.
  3. Mar 11, 2013
    88
    It’s his most consistent and rewarding work since “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps” in 1980.
  4. Feb 25, 2013
    80
    An album that's thought-provoking, strange and filled with great songs.
  5. Mar 11, 2013
    80
    The Next Day offers many sides of a multifaceted artist and almost all of them mesmerizing, as the songs grow richer with each listen.
  6. It demands that you listen to it in this moment, not that you give it an easy ride because this is the man who made ‘Heroes’; and its songs more than live up to the demand.
  7. The Wire
    Apr 24, 2013
    40
    The rest of the album makes the distance between now and (Berlin) then of "Where Are We Now?" painfully evident, a pain heightened by Visconti's failure to convert this collection of session muso workouts into anything memorable. [May 2013, p.55]

See all 44 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 39
  2. Negative: 5 out of 39
  1. Apr 18, 2013
    10
    This album contains some good ol' Bowie work turned into a new shape, but new innovative music too. Some songs sounds like the music he didThis album contains some good ol' Bowie work turned into a new shape, but new innovative music too. Some songs sounds like the music he did during the eighties, but in better XD. A solid work, a great come back. Expand
  2. Mar 21, 2013
    10
    I love PJ Harvey. I love Nick Cave and Jack White. They have each released an album recently, and they're all incredible. I only bring that upI love PJ Harvey. I love Nick Cave and Jack White. They have each released an album recently, and they're all incredible. I only bring that up here because I want to emphasize that David Bowie has released the best album I have heard in a very long time. Every song, in its own way, is brilliant. I don't have the time to go into a rant about how much I hate music critics: a bunch of worthless upper-middle-class folks who try but fail to make up in knowledge of the subject what they lack in human experience, but an 84 for this album is an insult. This is, after only a few listens, one of my favorite Bowie albums. I love Ziggy Stardust, I love Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, Daimond Dogs, Lodger, Station to Station, Heroes, Scary Monsters, and I love The Next Day. If you love Bowie, you will be, as I was, ecstatic. I had hope, but still relatively low expectations for this album. I was very, very wrong. Buy it. If you're a fan of what Bowie does, and that goes much deeper than you might think, then you will love this album. It's F***ing GREAT!!! P.S. Someone called this album dull. I don't know what he listens to, maybe dance music or something, but as far a good music goes, there is not a dull moment on the record. I can't get my head around someone who listens to this and thinks "booooring...". Maybe he's a meth addict (just a joke, by the way. Don't get upset.) But this is every bit as energizing, hook-filled, and entertaining as any of Bowie's other classics, so I just do not get the "dull" thing. In about 6 or 7 listens, I've only felt that it got better, and even from the first, I never thought it dull. It's just very strange to me. Expand
  3. Feb 7, 2016
    10
    "Valentine's day" and Where are we now" are the easiest to listen to on first hearing and I have to say I just can't stop playing "Where are"Valentine's day" and Where are we now" are the easiest to listen to on first hearing and I have to say I just can't stop playing "Where are we now" the whole album has a great rock sound with imaginative thought provoking songs and soulful vocals by david. Expand
  4. Mar 17, 2013
    8
    I've never properly listened to David Bowie, but giving this record a few listens has made me reconsider listening to a lot of his older work.I've never properly listened to David Bowie, but giving this record a few listens has made me reconsider listening to a lot of his older work. The Next Day shows a much older Bowie seeming to come to grips with his life, and reminiscing about his earlier youth. Each track shows a man that's been in the music business for over 4 decades. All In All, David Bowie sounds distant, yet completely intoxicating on The Next Day. Expand
  5. Apr 5, 2014
    8
    If you take the surprise release element and the hype that came with that aside, your still left with a very solid album and probably his bestIf you take the surprise release element and the hype that came with that aside, your still left with a very solid album and probably his best in about 30 years. In making "The Next Day", Bowie takes the best parts of his 90's and 00' output, distills out the inconsistencies and adds a dollop of modernity and a drop of his vintage best into the mix. The album has several peaks but no real low points and I've grown more fond of it with repeated listens with different tracks standings out at different times. The best thing about the record is that it was essentially made by an OAP, blowing the theory that artists have a finite creative lifespan completely out of the water. The middle section of the album is the strongest in my opinion - I'd rather be high, Boss of Me and Dancing Out in Space seeing Bowie hit a streak of form we've not seen literally in decades.Not his best work but certainly on the next level down. Expand
  6. Apr 2, 2013
    7
    What can I say about the last album from one of my musical Heroes...

    Talking about Heroes. I can hear some kind of Heroes stuff in The Next
    What can I say about the last album from one of my musical Heroes...

    Talking about Heroes. I can hear some kind of Heroes stuff in The Next Day. I can hear something of Ziggy, Scary Monsters, Reality, Low or Hunky Dory.

    In summary, a complex mixture of styles and a nice review of his career. Nice to listen.

    Obviously is not Bowie at his best, but is a better Bowie than Outside one or Heathen one. Not a classic, but probably better than any 2013 album of any pop/rock world star.
    Expand
  7. Jun 1, 2013
    0
    I'm a Bowie fan from before Ziggy Stardust. But "The Next Day" is pure crap. It's one of the most tuneless, soulless, robotic and boringI'm a Bowie fan from before Ziggy Stardust. But "The Next Day" is pure crap. It's one of the most tuneless, soulless, robotic and boring pieces of rubbish to ever pollute the airwaves. It's even worse than that; it's excrutiatingly painful and puke-inducing to listen to. Even the most non-musically-talented garage band can do better than this.

    Bowie is the third most brilliant musician to have ever lived (after Pink Floyd and Vangelis). What on earth went wrong?

    And why do so many people appear to like this album (or are all the reviewers just paid record company shills)?
    Expand

See all 39 User Reviews

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