Reality consolidated the return-to-form standard of its predecessor Heathen
Bowie didn’t need to wait for the critics to line up and inform him that Heathen was a return to form. He instinctively knew that his songwriting was back in the kind of shape that characterised his 70s and early-80s peaks. As soon as Heathen’s final incarnation had taken shape in the studio, he was off and running formulating new material for its successor, the swiftly-delivered Reality, which followedjust a year later.
Heathien’s frequently bleak lyrics were scoured for allusions to the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York, often finding political meanings that were totally unintended by Bowie. On Reality, the societal changes in his city of residence are deliberate and more obvious, if still typically oblique. But if that suggests a dark and sombre listen, then the, ahem, reality of the album is in stark contrast. Bowie’s 23rd long-player is vibrant, irreverent and occasionally poignant.