Co-produced by Bowie and David Richards and featuring guitarist Peter Frampton, the album was recorded in Switzerland and New York City from September to November 1986.

[2] After the poor reception of 1984's Tonight,[3] he worked on a series of miscellaneous projects that included collaborations with the Pat Metheny Group for "This Is Not America" (from the soundtrack to the film The Falcon and the Snowman) and Mick Jagger for "Dancing in the Street".

[11] Having worked together sporadically since 1982, Bowie greatly appreciated Kızılçay's musicianship, proclaiming, "He can switch from violin to trumpet to French horn, vibes, percussion, whatever ... His knowledge of rock music begins and ends with the Beatles!

[14] Returning from the Tonight sessions was regular collaborator Carlos Alomar on guitar, Carmine Rojas on bass and a group of saxophonists known as the Borneo Horns.

"[12] At the time, a writer for the Canadian Press considered the record "a basic serving of high-energy, guitar rock", representing a departure from his "adventurous" late 1970s works and the "R&B-flavoured" Let's Dance.

[16][27] Compared to Prince's "1999",[26] Bowie said his vocals on the song were indebted to Neil Young, and noted that the variety of voices he used on the album were a nod to the musicians who had influenced him in the past.

[30] "Glass Spider" marks a return to the electronica of Bowie's late 1970s Berlin Trilogy, as well as influences of psychedelic folk and heavy metal.

[26] It presents a mythological story based on a documentary Bowie had seen about black widow spiders, describing how they lay the skeletons of their prey out on their webs.

[4][31] Bowie described "Shining Star (Makin' My Love)" as one that "reflects back-to-street situations, and how people are trying to get together in the face of so many disasters and catastrophes, socially around them, never knowing if they're going to survive it themselves.

It depicts the long-haired Bowie jumping through a circus ring surrounded by elements from the album's songs, including a drum, a skyscraper, a "candyfloss" cloud, and an angel from the "Day-In Day-Out" music video.

Bowie pre-recorded a performance of the song for the BBC television programme Top of the Pops, although it was not aired at the time, as the single subsequently fell down the charts.

In Trouser Press, Ira Robbins wrote, "although this casual loud-rock outing... seems on first blush to be slapdash and slight, the first side is actually quite good, offering provocative pop-culture lyrics delivered with first-take enthusiasm and carefree backing.

"[24] In Billboard, Steve Gett hailed the record as "unquestionably" Bowie's finest work up to that point, highlighting "Day-In Day-Out", "Time Will Crawl", the title track and "Shining Star",[52] another reviewer called it "a welcome return to form for the ever-ambitious Bowie",[53] and the magazine's year-retrospective issue called it "arguably the year's most underrated release" and considered the album a "Critic's Choice" for the year.

[1] Chris William of the Los Angeles Times primarily criticised the lack of innovation, finding elements from Bowie's entire career.

It's charged with a positive spirit that makes art soul food; imbued with the contagious energy that gives ideas a leg to dance on".

"[58] USA Today considered Never Let Me Down to be the second worst pop album of 1987, writing that Bowie "loses himself in a self-conscious Tom Jones disguise.

[70][71] Bowie also effectively cut ties with Alomar,[68] a collaborator since 1975's Young Americans, although the guitarist later played on the 1995 Outside Tour and on a few tracks for Outside (1995), Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003).

[laughs] In fact, when I play it, I wonder if I did sometimes.In later decades, Never Let Me Down has continued to receive negative reviews and is generally considered one of Bowie's weakest releases.

Critic Charles Shaar Murray told journalist Dylan Jones in the 2010s that he thought Never Let Me Down was "just awful" compared to Tonight, a record "of classy filler with no center".

[80] In The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Rob Sheffield wrote: "Tonight was an expensive quickie padded with lame covers, while Never Let Me Down made things even worse with originals.

[82] Author Marc Spitz noted "Day-In Day-Out", "'87 and Cry", "New York's in Love" and "Time Will Crawl" as tracks that are hampered by poor production.

[16] Perone contends that the production on "Zeroes" and "Beat of Your Drum" make the tracks sound too much like other contemporary pop of the era "to stand out as distinctive".

"[80] Author Benoît Clerc said that the album's excessive use of the Linn 9000 drum machine creates a dated sound with "a cold and impersonal monotony".

[85] Christopher Sandford describes it as "a shoddily constructed work" that lacked innovation,[41] while Thompson attributes the album's failure to it being "brutally out of sync" with the contemporary music of the time.

[86] The writers of Consequence of Sound ranked the album number 21 (out of 28, including the two Tin Machine records) in their 2018 list, arguing that both it and Tonight are due for reevaluations, as "Bowie's weaker efforts are still better than most".

A 2007 Japanese re-release of the album, based on the EMI 1999 re-issue, included "Too Dizzy" on the track listing although the song itself doesn't appear on the CD.

Early that year, musicians including Gabrels, David Torn, Sterling Campbell, Tim Lefebvre, Nico Muhly and Laurie Anderson started recording in New York's Electric Lady Studios from January to March.

He concluded that "the 2018 version of the album, with re-production and overdubs, is shorn of bombast and there are some truly lovely moments to be found", but expressed disappointment with the replacement of Rourke on "Shining Star".

[135] Langdon Hickman of Treble wrote that with the 2018 version, the album "no longer feels like a glaring misstep in his canon", but rather brings Bowie's original vision to life, sounding closer to his Tin Machine work.

[21] Erlewine, on the other hand, was more negative, writing that "the new Never Let Me Down is neither fish nor fowl: it's not radical enough to be a reimagined record – its core remains the same – and without its ornamental period feel, it seems trapped out of time.