David Bowie - Time Will Crawl (EMI America)

It certainly does on this offering. Bowie's singles used to be events, now they're just perfunctory. It seems that I've heard the ideas and themes on this one at least six times before. How anonymous he's sounding today. (Robin Smith, Record Mirror, June 27, 1987)

For every brilliant song David Bowie has ever written (quite a few, really) there have been plenty of useless ones and, over the last few years, the proportion of useless ones has been growing at a quite alarming rate. But this is a good old-fashioned Bowie song – sounding rather like something off his 1973 LP Aladdin Sane – with an eerie, yearning tune and lyrics all about the passing of time. It's a bit difficult to work out what he's singing, actually -- it sounds like "Tim will crawl to the 21st century loos", which can't be right – but then his songwords are always far more evocative if you only half-listen to them and make up lots of "deep" meanings for yourself anyway. This is a v. wonderful record and its just a pity the rest of his ropy old Never Let Me Down album isn't up to the same high standard. Single Of The Fortnight. (Vici MacDonald, Smash Hits, June 3, 1987)