David Bowie essaying a straightforward love song is usually cause to head for the hills (rather like learning that Paul McCartney will record one of those I'm-gonna-play-all-the-instruments-cuz-I'm-a-pop-genius albums he does from time to time). Generally the poseur is most moving when he reminds us that he is one, albeit one blessed with a preternatural gift for wicked guitarists, and versatile rhythm sections that can top or bottom as the occasion demands. Think of "Word on a Wing," "Be My Wife," or "Soul Love," in which love and narcissism are inseparable. Or the obscure "Win" from Young Americans: he learns the Bryan Ferry trick of digging so deeply into parody that he achieves an addled kind of pathos (if background vocalist Luther Vandross had recorded it himself the lyric's ironies would have exposed his questionable sexuality). Something similar occurs in 1995's "Strangers When We Meet," featuring one of Bowie's very best vocal performances, imbuing lyrical decoupage with palpable lust.

"Absolute Beginners" has never held sway; in my Bowie canon it would probably rank in the upper thirties (somewhere between "African Nite Flight" on the high end and [yes] "Too Dizzy" on the low end). This big British hit from the film of the same name (it peaked in the high fifties here) has a predictable chord structure, a pinched Bowie vocal as an unwelcome reminder of his deficiencies, and lyrics whose rather hamhanded insertion of the film title (like "Against All Odds," right?) adduced the song's boilerplate nature. Take a look at the single sleeve. Note the wide grin. When Bowie attempts "normality" he's truly frightening -- even scarier than the emaciated splendor he displayed here.

So why is it a minor triumph? Producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley -- responsible for nearly killing Elvis Costello's career with Punch the Clock and Goodbye Cruel World -- surround Bowie with a yearning string section (as expressive as Bowie is blank), a non-cliched saxophone solo that may or may not be played by Bowie himself, and a glorious percussion breakdown at the 6:30 mark in which congas, timbales, cowbells herald the recapitulation of the song's vocal and musical hook. It's the only post-Let's Dance moment Bowie in which sympathetic production reminds the poseur of his limitations so that he can transcend them.