Montag, 19. Nov 2012, 16:52
I knew nothing about David Bowie or his music a month ago, but now, after being enthralled by his 1972 TOTP performance of "Starman", I felt I had to have a listen to the rest of his music, right from the beginning. (Well, from 1969).
October 2012
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/76179644/Space+Oddity+HQ+PNG.png
Space Oddity - I've used the US title here so that Last.fm doesn't get confused.
Going back to this album after listening to TMWSTW and Hunky Dory, it struck me again just how fantastic the majority of it is. It might be full of young hopes and dreams and is a bit (okay, very) hippieish, but there's a tang of anger and bitterness present, especially in Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed, and the whole of Memory of a Free Festival seems like Bowie's singing with tongue firmly in cheek. And then there's the story of the Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud, a song like something out of a musical (in a good way!), with OTT flowery instruments and a bit of cheese, but at its heart is a fantastic, heartbreaking story than is told convincingly.
Favourite 3 songs:
Cygnet Committee
Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud
Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed
November 2012
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/82481485/The+Man+Who+Sold+the+World++PNG.png
Talk about a change of style. The switch from folk to something more likely early metal and even a little bit of grunge (She Shook Me Cold?) took me aback, but I should have known - this is DB. Still, as much as I despise most metal, TMWSTW was more my kind of music than his 1969 album. Electric guitars! More aggressive vocals! TMWSTW is such an interesting album though - with the exception of Black Country Rock (which admittedly featured a fantastic guitar part) and Running Gun Blues, every song had a little quirk that turned a good song into a great song.
After All is a waltz. A fantastic, haunting, waltz that is still a great rock song at its core. A recorder is used in All the Madmen - not a gimmick, it just works. And Saviour Machine tells us a terrifying story in a few breathless minutes. The title track is timeless.
3 albums in, and the TMWSTW was the one to grab my attention most quickly. It really is an astonishing record - I'm not sure how Bowie's later stuff is going to top this.
Favourite 3 songs:
After All
Saviour Machine
All the Madmen
Album rankings (yes, I know it's a bit like comparing apples with oranges, but I enjoy ranking things!)
1. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
2. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/42939481/Hunky+Dory.png
This was the first Bowie album that I had high expectations of. I'd heard it was DB's first classic album. It really took me a while to understand this album. It's largely piano-driven, and I found the songs blander and less layered than the previous two albums. Half of the songs sounded the same to begin with. Then, midway through the album comes Andy Warhol, a fantastic flamenco-style song with an insanely catchy chorus - it was the only song on Hunky Dory that I loved instantly.
I persevered because I wanted to love the album, and I wasn't happy that I couldn't tell several of the songs apart. I kept listening, and after maybe a dozen listens it finally all fell into place. I listened to Quicksand again and suddenly noticed its chilling but somehow uplifting message. The chorus of Oh! You Pretty Things, which I had been indifferent to before, now made me smile. I finally learnt to love the quirky charm of Fill Your Heart and it became one of my favourite Hunky Dory songs.
Even with the fantastic Life On Mars? on the album, my favourite was a song that didn't even make the cut back in 1971, and was instead released on one of the anniversary editions: Bombers. Bombers is an amazing track; four minutes of frantic guitar and bass with the simplest yet catchiest chorus I've heard from Bowie some far. It really deserves more credit.
Overall, I enjoyed Hunky Dory when I got to know it, but I don't exactly enjoy piano-driven music so I could never love it as much as TMWSTW.
Favourite 3 songs:
Bombers
Life On Mars?
Andy Warhol
Album rankings:
1. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
2. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
3. Hunky Dory (1971)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
Ziggy Stardust was the album I was most looking forward to discovering. Here was the first character Bowie created and gave a whole album to. Yet Ziggy's story gave me a problem - how should I listen to this album? Should I always listen from start to finish, and see each song as another step of Ziggy's story, or should I treat each song separately as I normally would?
I gave the album about half a dozen listens taking the former approach, and although I admire DB for creating an entire character and telling his story this way, it did all feel a bit tenuous. I suppose it's not intended for it to be a clear, perfectly chronologically ordered narrative, but I felt a little bit lost trying to get my head around Ziggy's tale. Still, those first few listens gave me a great feel for the album as a whole. For this album, the love at first listen tracks were Lady Stardust and…well, that was it actually. I was already familiar with Starman and Ziggy Stardust, both of which I love, but nothing else really stood out.
A few more listens and I was hooked - Moonage Daydream, Star, Hang Onto Yourself, and Rock 'N' Roll Suicide all quickly made their way into that prized category of "A_Roberts' favourite songs of all time". There's a live version of RnR suicide from Japan in 1990 that's particularly impressive, really showcasing how the song builds perfectly from start to finish.
Ziggy Stardust is an album of perfect rock songs, and it's aged surprisingly well. I wasn't particularly amazed with Suffragette City or Five Years (the album version feels a bit imbalanced - it takes forever to end), and it did feel like something was missing. It took me a while to figure it out, but whilst listening to Cygnet Committee from DB's 1969 album for the umpteenth time, I worked it out. Ziggy Stardust is missing an epic 6-7 minute song, something that might tie the strands of Ziggy's story a little closer together than a 3 minute track is able to do.
That's not a complaint about the album - I just think it was a missed opportunity. Overall, Ziggy Stardust is the strongest DB album from start to finish that I've listened to so far. My prior knowledge of Starman and the title track might have diminished some of the impact of the album, but that doesn't mean I didn't love it. This album highlights again DB's talent as a songwriter, effortlessly crafting imagery ("move like tigers on Vaseline" being a favourite of mine - oh, and also "it was cold, and it rained, so I felt like an actor") and transporting the listener somewhere else, if only for a little while. It's pretty special when a song can do that.
Favourite songs:
(I'm cheating a little here because I want to focus on songs I hadn't heard before, but Starman and ZS still deserve their place)
Lady Stardust
Starman
Ziggy Stardust
Rock 'N' Roll Suicide
Star
Album rankings:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
2. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
3. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
4. Hunky Dory (1971)
January 2013
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/40243641/Aladdin+Sane.png
How could Bowie hope to build on ZS? Unlike the previous albums, ZS and AS are very similar musically – glam rock, through and through. Aladdin Sane seems to feature much more piano, and is a little rougher and busier, but to me this was by no means a change in direction, more of an expansion of the sound of Ziggy Stardust.
During my first listen I was extremely excited by many of the tracks – Aladdin Sane and the Prettiest Star being the two spine-chilling stand-outs. AS is a very interesting album, with so much going in many of the songs there’s much to be gained from listening to it over and over again.
On many of the tracks, Bowie’s vocals are more akin to those that we heard on Hunky Dory, or even his 1969 album. There are still hints of Ziggy vocals here and there – notably on the cover of Let’s Spend the Night Together, and of course, Time.
There are some fantastic choruses here too – Drive-in Saturday is hugely powerful, with one of the most phenomenal choruses I've ever heard; plus Watch That Man is incredibly simple but amazingly catchy.
Lyrically, I don’t think AS is as strong as previous albums – there seems to be less genuine emotion, it all seems a bit too confident. There were a couple of exceptions to this – in Time, the passage which begins “Breaking up is hard, but keeping dark is hateful…” is sublime and feels like it’s coming straight from the heart, and again, lyrically, Drive-in Saturday is hard to fault.
Elsewhere, the percussion in Panic in Detroit is just enough to make it great; Lady Grinning Soul sounds like a Bond theme in all the right ways, and the guitar at the very start of Cracked Actor is incredible.
This album may be rougher and more interesting than ZS, but it’s nowhere near as consistently excellent. Let’s Spend the Night Together is tedious, Cracked Actor doesn't seem to live up to its fantastic start and I don’t see what all the fuss over The Jean Genie is about.
There doesn't seem to be a running theme or style as there have been in all the past DB albums I've listened to, which makes AS seem a bit disjointed. Still, this a very good collection of songs, even if they don’t all fit together somehow. It’s been very difficult to choose my favourites. Aladdin Sane, Lady Grinning Soul and Watch That Man all came very close to making my top three. I absolutely love each of these six songs.
Favourite songs:
Drive-in Saturday
The Prettiest Star
Time
Album rankings:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
2. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
3. Aladdin Sane (1973)
4. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
5. Hunky Dory (1971)
February 2013
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/_/62905951/Diamond+Dogs++HQ+cover.png
Studio album number 8 – and the sixth that I’ve listened to in depth – is Diamond Dogs, another concept album, this time loosely based on George Orwell’s 1984 – a book which I haven’t read, so perhaps I’m not in the best position to judge this album.
It’s clear from the first listen that Diamond Dogs needs to be listened to in order to make any sense. Sweet Thing is broken up by Candidate, and Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family follows directly on from Big Brother. I quickly found that I got the most out of Diamond Dogs if I listened to it from beginning to end in one sitting – although the running narrative isn’t clear or important, I found myself being drawn into the songs emotionally, and perhaps listening and reacting to DD as Bowie intended.
Onto the music.
Diamond Dogs is still glam rock, but darker and grimier than Bowie’s past two albums. There’s brass and piano and plenty of saxophone. There are moments of real tenderness in We Are The Dead and Sweet Thing, and lyrically, it’s impressed me more than ZS and AS. I was blown away by Bowie’s vocals on the reprise of Sweet Thing. For the first time he truly shows off the range of his voice.
The two pillars of the album are Sweet Thing – Candidate – Sweet Thing (reprise) and We Are The Dead. Both are masterpieces, sublime, stunningly atmospheric works that showcase DB’s versatile vocals, oozing emotion with every note. Bowie’s ability to convey emotion through his singing is unmatched by any other artist I’ve heard – his voice pulls you in, almost like you’re witnessing a performance rather than just listening to a recording.
DD is not as consistent as Bowie’s other albums – the title track seems dull next to the other songs, and Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me would be distinctly average if it was sung by any other artist. The funk of 1984 was a nice change of pace, but perhaps the first Bowie song that I’d found cheesy, and certainly the first that I could safely call a guilty pleasure.
Diamond Dogs is dark, theatrical and haunting; largely held together by Sweet Thing, Candidate and We Are The Dead. I really enjoyed listening to this album, hearing something different in the narrative every time. It’s very difficult to compare with DB’s other albums, as DD is more than a collection of songs, it’s a story - a story that is chillingly told and has had a huge emotional impact on me. It took a bit of getting into, but it’s worth giving DD that bit of extra time because it’s completely brilliant when you get your head around it.
Diamond Dogs is atmospheric, deep and addictive, perhaps more than any other Bowie album I’ve listened to so far. This album is a work of art. I'm so pleased that I started this trip through Bowie's albums, because if I hadn't, I probably would never have given this gem a chance.
Favourite songs:
Sweet Thing (reprise)
(best listened to with Sweet Thing and Candidate, of course.)
We Are The Dead
Big Brother
Album rankings:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
2. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
3. Diamond Dogs (1974)
4. Aladdin Sane (1973)
5. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
6. Hunky Dory (1971)
April 2013
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/82484637/Young+Americans++PNG.png
Following on from the artistry of Diamond Dogs, I really wanted to love Young Americans from the very first listen. Soul and funk aren't really my genres – they never appealed to me and I know next to nothing about them. Still, I had hoped that DB’s voice and lyrics would make it easy for me to like.
It was not the case – after my first list I was left underwhelmed. The songs felt too long and the generous helpings of sax in almost every song had aged this album more than any other DB album I’ve listened to so far. The only things that intrigued me were the We Are The Dead-style vocals on Win, and one of the re-issue’s bonus tracks, Who Can I Be Now?, whose gorgeous, desperately sad yet hopeful lyrics made it shine.
It took around 25 complete listens to YA before I felt confident in assessing it. I suspect I had to slowly tune my ears to appreciate this genre, and perhaps listen to music in a different way than I was used to with rock music.
Only two tracks stood above the others – Who Can I Be Now? and Young Americans itself. The former remains my favourite track from the YA sessions – another example of a DB outtake that outshines everything on the album (see: Bombers). The title track took a little longer for me to appreciate, but when it clicked, I began to love it. It’s another deceptively cheerful sounding track where the lyrics are full of bitterness, and Bowie’s voice is spectacular. There’s one part in the song that floors me every time I listen – I bet you can guess which part it is.
The other highlights of the album tend to come in moments rather than being sustained through whole songs. I love the deep notes in Win, the strings in Can You Hear Me’s chorus (and the whole of the final chorus), Bowie’s enthusiastic warbling in the chorus of Across the Universe, and the part in It’s Gonna Be Me where the music falls back and Bowie’s only accompaniment is a gorgeously timid piano part.
John I’m Only Dancing (Again) was the only song that I took a real dislike to – possibly because I was so fond of the original. Fame and Fascination were okay, but didn’t grow like the other songs did as I listened to the album over and over again.
Overall, YA feels as though it was heavily improvised, giving the impression of a more personal, straight from the heart kind of album. Perhaps this is one of the first times that Bowie is actually singing as himself. I’m pleased that I eventually took something good from this album – I definitely like it, but it’s probably a record designed for hot summer days or smoky bars and not Yorkshire in the winter.
Young Americans hasn’t converted me into a fan of funk, but I’ve at least learnt to appreciate it. Again, as with Diamond Dogs, I would never have listened to this kind of music if I hadn’t been discovering all of Bowie’s music. It’s definitely helped me understand the appeal of genres I had previously written off.
Favourite songs:
Who Can I Be Now?
Young Americans
Win
Album rankings:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
2. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
3. Diamond Dogs (1974)
4. Aladdin Sane (1973)
5. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
6. Hunky Dory (1971)
7. Young Americans (1975)
June 2013
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/87722555/Station+to+Station+PNG.png
Station to Station marked a lurch from the soul of Young Americans back towards rock, with another concept album and another character – the Thin White Duke.
STS is only six tracks and 38 minutes long, and I was slightly cautious about the length of the songs. If done right, six minute+ songs can be far more rewarding and satisfying than more conventional tracks, but my lack of patience means that more often than not, they become tedious or even grating.
I needn’t have worried. From the first few seconds of that whirring train noise at the intro of Station to Station, I sensed that it would be quite a special song. On that first listen I timed it – roughly a minute of the steam train sound effect, then another two minutes of excruciatingly tense build up – a simple, thudding bass line and staccato guitar start it off, then another screaming guitar part builds on top of it. This is an instrumental intro that is good enough to be a fantastic song by itself, but instead it heightens the anticipation for the remaining seven minutes of the title track.
With such a monumental build up, the rest of the song had to be extremely strong to live up to it. When Bowie’s purring vocals kick in (“the return of the Thin White Duke, throwing darts in lovers’ eyes”) the songs enters a third stage, a slow, deliberate, thoughtful passage– but again, this is just another teasing step towards the main part of the song, already five or six minutes in. A flurry of drumbeats signal a sudden increase in pace, and the album explodes into life – “once there were mountains on mountains//and once there were sunbirds to soar with//and once I could never be down//got to keep searching and searching…”
I have to stop myself – I could quite easily write down the rest of the lyrics to STS. Although the vocals are sparse and repetitive, every single line Bowie sings is a hook. Lyrically, this is a hugely confident and powerful performance – in the original mix the vocals are slightly too buried behind the music, but that’s a very minor issue and doesn’t really affect the strength of the track.
The title track of this album is extremely deceptive. Over 10 minutes? It feels more like four – it’s so perfectly crafted that not once does it drag or lose momentum. The music makes it instantly loveable, but it’s the lyrics that give it real depth, and properly introduce the Thin White Duke, a drug-addled romantic with an interest in the occult (inescapably mirroring DB at the time). My interpretation of his character (from this song) is that he’s arrived at a new town, desperate to seduce it with his sheer arrogance and ruthlessness. The Thin White Duke is as cold as ice (and perhaps not entirely mentally stable), but he knows he holds the world in the palm of his hand.
Station to Station is an unsettling but equally thrilling start to the album, and the remaining five songs take on quite different meanings when viewed under this lens. For example, Golden Years is a sprightly, catchy and uplifting, perfectly arranged pop song, but when considering it as an extension of the Thin White Duke’s narrative, it becomes much more sinister. He’s seducing a woman, offering her the world, promising he’ll stay with her for “a thousand years,” but the confidence and charm ooze through, almost like he’s performing a sales pitch that he’s done hundreds of times before.
I might well be overthinking it, but there’s definitely some darkness in Golden Years. The song deepens hugely with the single line “run for the shadows, run for the shadows, run for the shadows in these golden years.” To me, this is definitely the Duke speaking, imploring his target not to waste their youth, and to spend it with him, in the shadows. Alternatively, he could be warning her, or calling out to her once she’s turned him down. The great thing about this song, and the album as a whole, is that you can choose not to interpret it at all (and just enjoy the music), or you can delve much deeper and try to tease out some themes.
Word on a Wing closes out side one. This is one of the most beautiful Bowie songs I have heard, and it’s definitely the first song where you really feel he’s baring his heart. For the first time he sings openly of his religious beliefs, of his need for something more, but also his doubts. The sincerity and strength of his vocals fits well with gentle percussion and a simple piano part, and somehow the incredibly unsubtle addition of the organ doesn’t grate. Whilst it’s tempting to try to place this song as another part of the Thin White Duke’s story, perhaps at a moment of weakness, it’s more powerful if considered as Bowie’s song.
TVC 15 is the most straightforward song on the album, and it has not made anywhere near as much of an impression on me as the other five tracks. Nevertheless, it’s a nicely weird track that’s catchy enough for me to like it.
Next is Stay, a funk-infused track with a killer guitar riff. This one took a few listens for me to like, but listening to this live version really made me love it. Like Golden Years, it seems harmless enough at a glance, but the arrogance and silkiness of Bowie’s vocal delivery makes it rather unsettling, an effect that’s magnified in the above performance. Stay is the Thin White Duke at his most manipulative.
Wild is the Wind is an interesting track to end with. The sole cover on this album, Wild is the Wind is a gorgeous love song with Bowie’s best vocal performance I’ve heard so far. I cannot overstate how incredible his voice is in Wild is the Wind. If anyone ever claims that Bowie can't sing, point them to this song.
Does the final track show the Thin White Duke finally falling in love, with no clever words or emotional blackmailing, no charm or hollow promises? Is this him, or is it just another act to let him get what he wants? I don’t know, but I’m quite happy to keep listening to it over and over again until I find out.
Station to Station is accessible but clever, dense in places and delicate in others. It’s a hybrid of rock, funk and soul, all held together with Bowie’s ever-improving vocals. The Thin White Duke represents another intriguing facet of Bowie’s personality, but the album does not need to be viewed from the Duke’s perspective – it stands up perfectly well without it. I’m really struggling to find anything to criticise; another couple of songs would have been nice, but to include them might have taken away some of the mystery surrounding the Thin White Duke.
It’s a huge shame that Ziggy Stardust will be the Bowie character (and album) that continues to define him. The Thin White Duke is far more complex, far more fragile and far more human – and this frailty is represented perfectly in a frantic album that can be as shallow or as deep as you want it to be.
Favourite songs:
Wild is the Wind
Station to Station
Golden Years
Album rankings:
1. Station to Station (1976)
2. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
3. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
4. Diamond Dogs (1974)
5. Aladdin Sane (1973)
6. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
7. Hunky Dory (1971)
8. Young Americans (1975)
August 2013
http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/67611066/Low.png
Now I'm fully immersed in the Bowie fandom, it’s impossible for me to begin listening to these albums without having their reputations in the back of my mind. For example, I know that Outside is highly regarded by Bowie fans, Let’s Dance is good for what it is but is still disliked, and Low is a work of genius.
I also knew that Low was Bowie’s most experimental, arty and perhaps ground-breaking album. I've seen someone describe it as “music from the future,” as exciting now as it was upon its release in 1977. I also heard that it was inaccessible and takes a while to appreciate. Still, after Young Americans took me a good 20 listens to like, I'm used to persevering.
I made sure that Low had my full attention as I gave it its first listen. The seven short, almost splintered tracks that make up side one didn't seem that daunting. I loved Be My Wife straight away, gushed over the layered vocals in Sound and Vision, and loved the punchy synths in Breaking Glass.
The second side was a different matter entirely. The four instrumentals – soundscapes, if you’re feeling pretentious – intrigued me and surprised me but I couldn't really say I enjoyed them. I appreciated them, at least – the music in Warszawa twisted and turned in ways that I hadn't expected and I smiled when the theme from Scarborough Fair echoed through Weeping Wall.
The instrumentals swiftly won me over – by the second or third play through I was tempted to skip to them, rather than skip past them.
Even after spending over a month with the album, my favourite songs keep changing, but every single track (without exception) continues to grow on me.
Be My Wife is the most conventionally structured song on Low; a great song with piano chords adding a sense of jauntiness. A lively synth pulses away. Bowie tweaks his voice to that of cheeky East-ender. Then, the guitar comes in and takes over from Bowie’s voice, before the music spirals off and fades. Be My Wife is probably one of my favourite Bowie singles, and a nice moment of respite before the darker tracks on the album.
The two instrumentals that bookend the first side are earworms. A New Career in a New Town, in particular, manages to evoke a sense of childlike hopefulness, again, through synths, against the chugging of the remainder of the instruments. It sets everything up nicely for the second side. Unfortunately I've had to listen to the CD version of the album so do not get the full effect of the intended pause between the lingering optimism of A New Career and the stifling darkness of Warszawa.
The instrumentals are what Low is known for. I don’t know how to express the brilliance of Warszawa. It’s a moody, lumbering, wistful piece. Again, I find remnants of hope in the first section, but then the chanting starts, and Bowie’s nonsense is full of such heartbreaking despair that the made-up language expresses better than English ever could. Art Decade follows, a track that sounds as if it could have been recorded yesterday. It too, feels fragile. The penultimate track, Weeping Wall, is probably my least favourite on the album. I find the xylophone grating – not a fault of the music, but the instrument. The eerie synths save it.
Subterraneans is another stunning instrumental. A simple bassline, sombre strings, piercing synths and the occasional rumbling vocal combine to project such a dark, unsettling tone. It’s incredibly sad, but equally powerful. Then the saxophone comes in like a second vocalist, soaring and diving again. We get a few words more nonsense from Bowie, then the sax returns. It dies out slowly. The album ends, and it seems to take me a good few minutes to shrug off the unsettling feeling that comes with listening to side two of Low.
Low is not background music. It takes effort and concentration to listen to it and get the most out of it, but there are at least a couple of lighter tracks that require a little less emotional investment. It sounds like Bowie’s been given a box of new toys (provided by Eno) to play around with, and he’s pushing them in every way he can to get any sound he wants. Low feels like an outpouring of creativity and imagination – the shorter tracks could easily sustain their momentum if they were doubled in length – limited only by the constraints of the 12” record as a medium. I've only listened to one outtake from the album (Some Are – it’s amazing), but for some reason it feels like there should be many more. Hopefully most of them made their way onto later albums in some form.
The versatility of Bowie’s vocal and the ambition of the instrumentals could only ever result in a fantastic album. Low is powerful, occasionally dark and chilling, but always interesting.
Favourite songs:
Warszawa
Be My Wife
Breaking Glass
Album rankings:
1. Station to Station (1976)
2. Low (1977)
3. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
4. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
5. Diamond Dogs (1974)
6. Aladdin Sane (1973)
7. David Bowie/Space Oddity (1969)
8. Hunky Dory (1971)
9. Young Americans (1975)