Never Let Me Down
by David Bowie

Never Let Me Down by David Bowie
Year: 1987
Overall rank: 10,391st   Overall chart history
Average Rating: 
57/100 (from 236 votes)
  Ratings distribution   Average rating history
Accolades:
Award Top albums of 1987 (131st)
Award Top albums of of the 1980s (1,463rd)
Award Best albums of all time (10,391st)

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David Bowie bestography

Never Let Me Down is ranked 34th best out of 96 albums by David Bowie on BestEverAlbums.com.

The best album by David Bowie is The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars which is ranked number 6 in the list of all-time albums with a total rank score of 41,242.

David Bowie album bestography « Higher ranked (10,250th)
Five Years (1969-1973)
This album (10,391st)
Never Let Me Down
Lower ranked (11,439th) »
Nothing Has Changed

(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).

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Never Let Me Down rankings

Never Let Me Down rankings summary
Overall rank: 10,391st | 1980s rank: 1,463rd | 1987 rank: 131st  Overall chart history
(Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). (Last updated: 25 minutes ago).

Never Let Me Down collection

Never Let Me Down ratings

Average Rating: 
57/100 (from 236 votes)
  Ratings distribution Help Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AV
where:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.

Showing latest 5 ratings for this album.  | Show all 236 ratings for this album.

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RatingDate updatedMemberAlbum ratingsAvg. album rating
 
60/100
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06/12/2026 11:53 JamesMowbray  Ratings distribution  5,56769/100
 
60/100
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03/18/2026 21:56 Exist-en-ciel  Ratings distribution  14,68470/100
 
55/100
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03/10/2026 17:23 FrancK  Ratings distribution  52583/100
 
75/100
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12/07/2025 21:09 LukasAntoine00s  Ratings distribution  38480/100
 
70/100
 !
11/12/2025 22:53 NYAndreas  Ratings distribution  1,43344/100

Rating metrics: Help Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)

This album has a Bayesian average rating of 57.2/100, a mean average of 56.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 56.5/100. The standard deviation for this album is 19.2.


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Never Let Me Down favourites

Showing all 6 members who have added this album as a favourite

Never Let Me Down comments

Showing latest 10 comments | Show all 15 comments |
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Rating:  
70/100
From 09/28/2022 01:33 | #290017
Bowie has worse albums. This was pretty enjoyable tbh.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
50/100
From 01/10/2021 06:27 | #264129
Certainly the weakest Bowie record yet for me. Too poppy, too many electric drums, just not interesting enough for a revisit other than "Time Will Crawl" which I liked quite a bit.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | -2 votes (0 helpful | 2 unhelpful)
Rating:  
55/100
From 12/31/2019 19:02 | #246258
Decent enough.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
85/100
From 10/26/2019 06:37 | #244140
this is useally said a bad bowie album.i saw him on the glass spider tour[Wembley] I didn't like it.too much theatre and the music was not great.my only bowie show.but I be honest this album over the years has grown on me. thereis a newer updated version included on the loving the alien box set which is worth a listen. this is worth another listen too.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
75/100
From 01/28/2019 16:20 | #230902
Not what Bowie is used to do, but it's a good 80s album. And Time Will Crawl is a masterpiece.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +1 votes (1 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
From 12/09/2018 19:11 | #226633
The first 4 songs aren't terrible, but the next 6 sure are
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
80/100
From 01/28/2018 05:04 | #206681
This album deserves another look and was one of Bowie’s most successful. This continues in the same vein of Let’s Dance and Tonight. The production needs some getting used to but it was the 80s. If you can look past that there are some great tunes such as Time Will Crawl, Never Let Me Down and Shining Star.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +4 votes (4 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
50/100
From 10/08/2016 20:00 | #176570
Not quite as bad as you might expect, but certainly not very good either. Not as good as, tonight, and it's clear at this period in his career he's creatively burnt out. All in all, never let me down, is probably around about average and just above bearable.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (0 helpful | 0 unhelpful)
Rating:  
55/100
From 02/20/2016 14:03 | #160320
Released during a low period in Mr. Bowies life. This record is not his worst but it comes pretty close.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | 0 votes (1 helpful | 1 unhelpful)
Rating:  
60/100
From 01/24/2016 20:36 | #157529
This... is Bowie's worst? I dunno, I enjoyed it the whole way through.
Helpful?  (Log in to vote) | +5 votes (5 helpful | 0 unhelpful)

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