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'What a Fantastic Death Abyss': David Bowie's 'Outside' at 25

David Bowie's Outside signaled the end of him as a slick pop star and his reintroduction as a ragged-edged arty agitator.

                                      
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David Bowie's Outside signaled the end of him as a slick pop star and his reintroduction as a ragged-edged arty agitator.

This is Coldplay in 2017, saying "hi" to the mainstream by pandering to pop, and actually managing to do a not-half-bad job of it.

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A formative and furtive period for the Krautrock duo is the focus of the blessed box set Cluster: 1971-1981.

Brian Eno delivers a breathtaking 21-minute epic that sounds like an out of body experience.

Brian Eno loved them, and probably would not have made those beloved Bowie albums the same way without them.

Fourth Word truly is a world unto itself, a vision of avant-garde experimentation that influenced numerous composers in its wake.

It doesn't matter who played or who produced. It doesn't matter if it's "classical" or "ambient". And it certainly doesn't matter that it was released in 1980. Fourth World, Vol. 1: Possible Musics is still an album unlike any other.

The music world saw reissues from all over the genre map, spanning classic rock titans to electronic music legends.

There’s no possible way you can go wrong with these voluminous reissues of some of Brian Eno's best work.

Tobias Rüther’s exploration of Bowie’s artistic and personal development in mid-'70s Berlin offers few cogent insights and a confusing timeline of an artist in a city.

Two naturally complementary collaborators make half of an OK album and half of what could have been one of the best records of the year.

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Even if you think that Damon Albarn has done it all by this point in time, Everyday Robots is a new gold standard in contemporary pop songwriting.

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Returning with her fourth album after a four-and-a-half-year absence, Dido fails to make good on her promises to reinvent her sound.

I bought you mail order, my plain wrapper baby. Your skin is like vinyl, the perfect companion. You're the 107th most acclaimed album of all time. Roxy Music's 1973 classic is this week's Counterbalance.

Pause for a moment and appreciate Brian Eno's latest solo record. You have to experience it as though you were lying down watching clouds pass overhead.

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A surprisingly worthy reimagining of Brian Eno's minimalist masterpiece.

In this week's Counterbalance, David Bowie takes up a new career in a new town. The result is the gift of sound and vision... and the 89th Most Acclaimed Album of All Time.

Johannes Auvinen, aka Tin Man, fashions an album about his relationship with his adopted home. It's complicated.

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Buzzcock Pete Shelley's label reissues its entire three album run with a bonus disc. Sometimes, there's even real music.

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Say goodbye to the pious conscience of rock, enter the Fly: U2's daring sonic reinvention resulted in the artistic pinnacle of its career. Twenty years later, are remastered commemorative editions enough to tempt you into obtaining a record you should already own?

The wispy-voiced Scottish singer-songwriter delivers her fifth solo album, an ambient slow burner with moments of brilliance.

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This hybrid of music and poetry is frustratingly detached, adding color to absent ideas. It's safe to say that your spine will probably not shiver.

In the locust wind comes a rattle and hum. Counterbalance wrestled with the album and the album was overcome. U2's The Joshua Tree is next on the Great List—Klinger and Mendelsohn have a listen.

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Don't bother reading this review. Just go out and buy the record. Y'all should probably put some clothes on first, though.

The equally venerable Brian Eno and Warp Records come together for the first time, and the electronic music pioneer manages yet another astonishingly immersive creation.

While Eno’s reputation is certainly secure, the true measure of pop culture relevance is being linked by six degrees or less to that other bastion of prolificacy, Kevin Bacon.

As Virgil Moorefield describes the process of sampling and detailing the typical studio set-up of an act like the Chemical Brothers, he shows us that the soundboard is not an easy instrument to master.

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Not a whole lot of supergroups can boast this kind of willed civil synergy, but not a whole lot of supergroups called themselves Harmonia either.