special introductory
paragraph!
Early On (1964-1966)
The World Of David Bowie
Space Oddity
The Man Who
Sold The World
Hunky Dory
The Rise & Fall Of
Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Aladdin
Sane
Ziggy Stardust:
The Motion Picture
Pin-Ups
Diamond
Dogs
David Live
Young
Americans
Station To
Station
Low
"Heroes"
Stage
Lodger
Scary Monsters
(And Super Creeps)
Let's Dance
Tonight
Labyrinth Soundtrack (with Trevor Jones)
Never Let Me
Down
Black Tie White
Noise
The Buddha Of
Suburbia
Outside
Earthling
...Hours
Bowie At The Beeb: The Best Of The BBC Sessions
Heathen
Reality
Although best known as the lead singer for
The Tin Machine, David Bowie actually had a long illustrious career with ups and downs
before he joined the band, and Black Tie White Noise was not,
regardless of popular opinion, his first solo album. He has been around since the late
60's, changing his persona as often as most people change their pants (every four or five
years), presenting himself in such guises as The Great White Doke, Ziggy Spacedust and
The Thin Man. Personally, I think his hits are money, but I've always had difficulties
enjoying his full albums. He has a knack for playing a really generic melody, then
changing it ever so slightly so that it sounds ugly, wrong and shitty. If memory
serves..
To be honest, I haven't heard any of his albums very many times, so what you are going
to be experiencing as you read these reviews is a real-time demonstration of a child
growing into a man. Not just metaphorically either; I'm one year old right now and I
plan on reviewing only one album a year until I run out of ink.
"Not just metaphorically either; I'm one year old right now and I plan
on reviewing only one album a year until I run out of ink. "
..... in the David Bowie intro and it should have said this :
"Not just metaphorically either; I'm one year old right now and I plan
on reviewing only one album a year until I run out of crayon. "
I don't know if you've ever had unpleasant dealings with blowhard celebrities as I and people in my line of work (investigative journalism) do on an hourly basis, but I'll be good and goddamned if I'm letting some dinky little man call me "...a jerk" and "...a jerk" after I spent four days coming up with the whimsical idea of dressing my penis up like a microphone and taking a whiz on Tom Cruise's nose. It's not my fault he can't act, it's not my fault he reads everything backwards, it's not my fault the Scientologists are blackmailing him for gayness, and it sure as HELL isn't my fault that he's marrying a fetus. So don't go asking ME, "What's so funny about that?" and don't go asking ME, "Why would you do that?" and "Why would you do that?" And don't go telling ME "that's incredibly rude" and that "I'm here giving you an interview and you do something really nasty." And don't go asking ME, "Do you like making less of people?" Because the day that Tom Cruise actually ACTS in a film, rather than just smugly reciting his lines like a fratboy and clenching his jaw during the 'serious' scenes, is the day that Johnny Depp realizes that his "anti-Hollywood" schtick doesn't make him look cool or intelligent so much as immature and desperate (ie "Look at me! Look at me! I'm different!").
And that's today's Hollywood Minute. I'm Gene Siskel, and you can catch me here every Saturday night at 6 AM reporting from Bald Person Heaven, the eternal paradise for bald people (except for female chemotherapy patients, who go to Hell). (And are given cancer in the first place because they're feeble-minded whores that God hates).
Hi, I'm Mark Prindle, world-famous Record Music Reviewer. I don't mean to blight, but something must be done about dead people and how they're constantly taking advantage of my Internet account. I'm PAYING for this web space - isn't there some way of keeping corpses from scrawling their SHIT all over it? If my readers wanted to hear the latest celebrity gossip, they'd turn on their Entertainment Weekly TVs or buy a copy of That's Incredible! But such is not the case; rather, they turn to Mark Prindle, well-established Internet Guru of Musical Opinion, to direct them towards the latest releases by The Music Explosion and Ghoul, and away from the smegma-drenched ego squirts of Tori Amos and David Bowie. Have you heard of David Bowie? He's AHSOME!
Hang on one second. I just received an important email from Fliers F. Baggiest. Hmm, says here that I can get OEM software including Microsoft/Microsoft Office, Adobe, Macromedia, Corel, even titles for the Macintosh up to 80% off. Apparently I need to see it to believe it, I can download it straight from this site by going here, keep in mind I'll need to burn the ISO to a CD, if I don't have a CD burner I can go here and have them mail it right to my doorstep at no extra cost. This is exciting and important stuff, Mr. Baggiest! No wonder you wrote your entire message as one endless comma splice!
Back to Bowie. Bowie wanted so dearly to be a pop star. It was his biggest dream. Granted, EVERYBODY who pursues a life in popular music wants to be a star, but Bowie's attempts have always been a bit more obvious than most because he's based his entire career on ripping off other peoples' sounds. "Oh! He's such a chameleon! Always changing!" Yep, changing to match his surroundings. Although the world will forever be grateful to him for saving Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, the man has never had a creative idea in his life. And he has ALWAYS been this way -- for proof, check out this collection of early Bowie singles and demos dating from 1964 to 1966.
Let's see what kind of innovative ideas we have here. First there are four tracks by "Davie Jones with the King Bees" and "The Mannish Boys," presenting Bowie as a gritty blues-rocker like the Stones or Yardbirds, but with a punch-in-the-mouthingly raspy, nasally voice and the stupidest fake American accent since George Washington (prickin' Limey cur). When this approach failed to pan out, Dave moved on to drafting some man-and-his-guitar Gene Pitney/Donavon ripoff dicktrickle with greatly improved vocals but still not much in the way of melody. No hits there either, eh? Why then, how about some Who-style rave-up garage Nuggets? Surely there'll be a hit THERE, yes? No. A couple of the songs are Friggin' GREAT and definitely SHOULD have been hits (!!!), but quality alone was never enough to satisfy the young Jones' yearnings. He was in it for the fame, not the self-actualization. Thus he moved on to uncompelling Jonathan King ballads, gentle Association hippy pop, girl-group imitation (David Bowie with The Lower Third!?), orchestral pop, swing jazz, bubblegum - ANYTHING FOR A POTENTIAL HIT! But no go.
The optimist would argue that Jones/Bowie's early stylistic flailings simply show that he is a man of many musical styles and interests. However, (a) most of the songs are so cliched and un-non-in-compelling that it's clear he knew Jack Schidt about songwriting, and (b) he was pretty obviously just following trends in hopes of finding success on somebody else's proverbial coattail. (Or CAT tail! Ow! Can you imagine stepping on a cat's tail? Ha! We all can, yet NONE of us can!) I mean, I don't really CARE either way, and certainly he wasn't the only songwriter to follow musical fads in the '60s - I guess I'm just tired of Bowie being celebrated as a trailblazer when he was actually a born follower of limited abilities. How indeed has one man managed to write and record so many grievously bland songs encompassing so many different styles? (And I don't just mean from '64 to '66).
Still, four of these songs are fuckin' great as a boner (awesomely loud stomper "You've Got A Habit Of Leaving," super-catchy Pebbles-rocker "Baby Loves That Way," surprisingly smart Easybeats/Whoer "Do Anything You Say," speedy jazz swinger "Good Morning Girl"), so I gotta give him that. And you'd have to have a heart clogged with cement not to smile at David's hilarious 1964 Mr. T parody, "I Pity The Fool." Honestly, I should just face the fact that the fucker does have some killer material. Not enough to warrant his legendary celebrity status, but enough for me to stop bashing the prick all the time! In fact, if you were to take the best songs off of each of his albums and put them all together, they'd be called Changes I and II.
Incidentally, am I the only one who noticed that Johnny Knoxville's Hollywood career hasn't exactly 'taken off' since he stopped dropping croquet balls on his nuts?
This collection of early tracks is probably
available under many different titles - my version is called The World Of. and
features a Ziggy-period Bowie pic on the cover to screw the buyer five ways til Sunday.
Not me though, as I bought it for .99. This music is sissyish, "childlike,"
prancey-fairy
folksy ULTRA-British music with lots of bells, horns and pianos piled on top of the way-
in-the-background acoustic guitar, bass and drumkit. I suppose some of this is meant to
have a "spyhceedicl" feel to it, but mostly it just sounds like a solo Davy Jones album
(it's no coincidence that Bowie's real last name is "Jones" - no coincidence at all. NO
COINCIDENCE. *moves eyes nervously back and forth*), Check out these dipshit
song titles - this is like the WORST misuse of Syd Barrett's "starry eyed acid child"
motif: "There Is A Happy Land," "Silly Boy Blue," "Come And Buy My Toys," "Sell
Me A Coat" - You know, I actually really like "Sell Me A Coat": unlike most of the
record, that track has a beautiful horn line in the verse and decent enough chorus too.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a pretender (HAHAHAHAH!! WHEEEEE!): there
are some really good tunes hidden within these GROOVES: "There Is A Happy Land"
has a terrific bass/drum sound, "Silly Boy Blue" is a slow organ song with one superloud
drum smack noise that creates a strange sick mood (as opposed to the rest of the record,
which sounds like Rainy Day London in the Spring - and of this I do not hyperb),
"Rubber Band" is so goofy it's great and "Let Me Sleep Beside You" is a great driving
pop rock song that sounds like the Moody Blues if they had Michael Meyers' "'Elo my
name Is Simon! I like to do drawrings!" character singing lead (zeplin). The rest
though
- just nothing new and good here. Irritatingly sugary orchestrated child folk and bland
pop - not to mention "She's Got Medals," which couldn't be more of a "Hey Joe" ripoff
if it was titled "Hey Joe, She's Got Your Balls Dangling Out Of Her Ear." And
missed notes? OH! The missed notes. The Bowster does fine in the lower registers, but
check out every instance in which he tries to hit a high note. FLAT! WAVERY!
ATROCIOUS! By the way, did you ever notice that "The ABC Song" and "Twinkle
Twinkle Little Star" have the same exact melody? That's the kind of thing that can
really
piss a guy off.
God. The obvious things one learns. I'm a simp. (son.)
The guy has hereby left childlike folk mostly behind and
is trying to replace it with slightly more "real" adult music with snatches of
psychedelia,
blues and pop rock. Sidenote: I'm suffering from a horrible hangover right now, so this
review is going to be pretty disjointed and boring. Bowie's emphasis is still mostly on
acoustic guitars and his own weak voice - he tries to hit WAY too many high notes on
this one and sounds just awful - but the tunes are much less sing-songy la-de-da. It
still
has Rick Wakeman on mellotron though, as well a cellos, flutes and organs going down.
Seems you can take the Renaissance Festival out of the boy, but you can't take the shitty
songwriting out of David Bowie! No no, I'm being unfair. It's just that he keeps
setting up these really simplistic but ugly, wrong-sounding melodies that aren't very
catchy at all. He tries to kick out the jam sandwich once or twice, sure (especially in
the
blues rockin' "Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed," which would be a good little
Stonesy rocker if not for the fact that Bowie drags the two chord moronfest on for
SEVEN EXCRUCIATING MINUTES), but for the most part, we're talking acousticy
songs with electric soloing and overblown orchestration on top that are obviously
reaching for something great, but completely fail due to mediocre melodies. Honestly,
most of this album is comprised of truly forgettable songs whose chord changes are so
unforgivably generic that Bowie's only "creative" input seems to be just throwing extra
chords in at random, as if he gave the band a sheet of paper saying "play generic melody
in key of E for four bars, then oh I don't know F-flat or M-sharp or Q-tips or whatever
the hell would make it sound really ugly, then back to generic melody in E. Repeat.
Fade!" The standout song is of course the title track, which discusses a fellow named
Major Tom who goes into space as an astronaut and decides to stay out there. It also
influenced a fantastic song in the mid-80s by some dumbass guy who had a minor hit
called "Major Tom." Unfortunately, nothing else on the album resonates anywhere near
as much as that song. Except of course the lengthy fade-out ending to "Memory Of A
Free Festival," which you may know as "the lengthy fade-out ending to `Hey Jude.'" Or
perhaps the descending bass line in part of "Cygnet Committee," which you may know as
"the bass line to `Tales Of Brave Ulysses.'" You know, he really did have a crappy
voice at this point in his career. His voice wavers all over the place as he
amateurishly
tries to hit high notes that he simply can't reach. Say - the liner notes say that his
music
is "both ecstatic and uncomfortable - discomforting." I actually think that's a really
good
description. But I don't think "uncomfortable music" is necessarily something that one
should be striving for! Come on, Bowie. Hurry up and mature - I'm not digging this
directionless early stuff. Here's my closing one-liner - "If I wanted my ears filled
with
piss, I'd come HANG OUT WITH YOU (fag)!" As a side note, I purchased 16
Sesame Street albums earlier this week (including Grover Sings The Blues!), so
be sure and send Rich Bunnell (mprindle@nyc.rr.com) a bunch of emails telling him
how much you want me to review them. I don't make these decisions anymore. Turns
out that difficult, important decisions of that nature can wreak havoc on the OCD-addled
mind.
Known for the stunning title track, and commonly referred to as "The one with that Major Tom song on it," Bowie's first official record is a little... different. That is to say - as opposed to being a complete trendsetter, he spends most of the album's playing time imitating both Bob Dylan and generic psychadelic music. Why anyone would want to mirror either one is beyond me - however, there are a couple of fine songs on here. The afformentioned title track is, like I said, stunning, "Janine" is a catchy piece of rollicking pop, "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud" and "An Occasional Dream" are both really pretty (albiet unmelodic), and, for some reason, I absolutely love "God Knows I'm Good."
But it's got the ugliest cover photo of Bowie in rock history! And the rest of the songs are just lame, unnoticable things or tunes that have about thirty seconds of catchiness and five minutes of boring music with ugly chord changes. I mean - Bowie obviously wasn't a great songwriter at this point, but these songs are bad even for early attempts. He's trying so hard to be different - finding new chord progressions - that he don't realize it's just hideous!
I really like the songs I mentioned, though. I like to think of this as David's "embarrassing baby photos" - it's so ridiculously pretentious, you can't help but laugh.
I need to come clean about something here. I've never
been terribly impressed by David Bowie (pronounced "Boooee"). He has always struck
me as an extremely normal person of average intelligence who has been told over and
over again that he is a genius so he goes out of his way to dress like a clown and create
pretentious "art" that hardly ever rises above generic rock, characterized by unexpected
shifts into odd, unappealing chord sequences and topped by a nothing British bland voice
of nothingness (though his later low croon sounded pretty good, I thought). I have
always been confused by people who put him up on a pedestal because aside from an
album's worth of great hit singles, he has never struck me as anything more than a
simple-minded follower, definitely not an innovator (or at least, not an innovator of
anything worth innovating!). But he has a ton of fans, so I'm going to try really hard
to
focus on these records and both describe how they sound to me personally and come to
an understanding of how everybody who likes him is somehow not a stupid asshole with
ears literally dripping shit all over the floor. This album is the first to feature
legendary glam guitarist Mick Ronson (see my Meatmen reviews to learn of a time when
I couldn't remember who he was), who brings more of a blues/rock feel to Bowie's acid-
folk-pop. The bass is superloud on the whole album, with the usual high level of
acoustic
strumming and Ronson tearing away at his distorted pre-New York Dolls swagger every
once in a while. David's still singing too high and missing notes aplenty, but he does
come up with a few killer songs (distorted rocker track 2, oddball bass walker track 9
and
especially the somber, "Space Oddity"-style title track, made famous to a younger
generation when Kurt Cobain And His Nirvanas put it on their Unplugged
album). There's also an interesting UFO-ish sound that pops up in a few tunes - I guess
it's a synthesizer or one of them antenna deals or something. Unfortunately, a whole
heck of a lot of this stuff is either instantly forgettable or really lame. Track 5 and
track 7
in particular are miserable blues-rock shit. "I killed the gooks"? That's not a good
lyric!
And then there's track 6, in which he tries to recreate the psychedelic avant-jazz rock
of
the first Alice Cooper album. Maybe these songs have titles - I didn't care enough to
check. There are lots of things going on in the mix in each speaker - synth, electric
guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals, drums, bass, sometimes more, but only about half of
every
song has a RIFF that tugs the brain and says "Hey, dance to this - this is pretty good."
Then they drift off into pointlessville and it takes `em forever to come back. Maybe
it's
the sci-fi weirdness that appeals to people - you got me. I find him about as lovable as
Elvis Costello, whom I find about as lovable as a restaurant chef squeezing pus into my
soup.
Okay, you know the title track, right? Nirvana did a swell version of it on their "Unpugged" album, and it's had quite a bit of airplay since. Well, it's a real killer - a depressing dirge anthem with twiddling guitar riff, an awesome bassline in the chorus, and this funny percussion that almost makes it sound happy. Almost.
While the rest of the album doesn't stray much from that very dark mood, it doesn't come anywhere near to improving it, either. The opener, "Width Of A Circle," is, in my opinion, just boring, boring, boring - and the T-Rex homage "Black Country Rock" is just stupid, stupid, stupid. The rest of the songs just don't grab at all - the exceptions being the Syd Barrett homage "All The Madmen," and the utterly spooky "After All." I really like them both - problem is, the rest of the songs are just crap, crap, crap.
In conclusion - a few good songs, but otherwise just a waste of my hard-earned cash.
Also, like most albums, TMWSTW proves management means everything. A little
reworking and a bit more effort could have made some of the poorer songs on
the album fantastic. 'Holy Holy' (the original 1970 version!) should have
been on the album. And (although I know all you Hunky Dory maniacs out there
will want my scalp) I firmly believe 'The Beweley Brothers' should be the
last song on TMWSTW. I've listened to it straight after TMWSTW finished and
it's a truly fitting finale- and it sounds like it belongs on it. (There's
an incredible Bowie song called 'Shadowman' which is unreleased that would
be a perfect ending for Hunky Dory and should replace The Beweley Brothers.)
you're saying exactly what every other Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane Bowie fan have been
saying to me about this album for aaaages.
this is the only Bowie album except for Low and 'Heroes' that i actually found
interessting. no way you could have given this album time. my guess is you never EVER gave it a
chance. you just heard Ziggy Stardust and picked up Bowie's previous albums cuz you felt
you had to cuz your a such a 'big bowie-fan'.
i find all these commercial success-albums (1972 - 74) to be totally uninteressting
plainly cuz such a huge amount of bands have been ripping it off for the last 3 decades. if
you give this album a chance you will soon hear the pure brilliance of All the Madmen,
After all, the Supermen and She Shook me Cold. these lyrics are the BEST Bowie's ever done.
all of you embrace the title track just cuz it's on every goddamned singles-collection
and cuz it was such a important breakthrough song in Bowie's career. commercially!
I really do have sensational legs though.
I haven't listened to this album properly yet. All The Madmen and the title track are good songs though.
Music made in the 70's, sounds so clear, so crisp, like every instrument has its own space and was recorded pretty much as is, but it's not all beer and skittles, "After All" is so slow, even I fall asleep at the wheel and "The Supermen" is just plain weird. And the four bonus tracks if your lucky enough to have this rereleased version, show me that Bowie was never stupid, because NONE of these should have been on an album (including a most insipid early version of Moonage Daydream, WITHOUT Ronsons' blistering crank right up, then record in the next room, guitar solo). But it could be worse, we could be discussing an EAGLES album, so, who would have thought, that it would be 30years BEFORE Bowie descovered THE PIXIES.
Comment: An important document on Bowies meteroric rise and fall to stardom, but there's probably more people who haven't heard this, than people who have. Also Greenstein, if you had your own music site, you would get heaps of hate mail.
My rating is, for an early, early period Bowie, it's not that bad of 8's
This album is not perfect. "Running Gun Blues" is a cartoonish, ill-considered, and finally laughably bad song about a psychotic Vietnam soldier that is dated, overblown, and stupid (though still catchy), and "She Shook Me Cold" is a blues-rock jam about a straight hookup with drugged Bowie vocals and a wah riff that was probably meant to kick ass in a Cream-esque vein, but just sounds like Tony Iommi with indigestion instead. Normally, that would be pretty damn cool, too, but the song is just too unfocused to make any real kind of impact. These two relative misfires only show how great the rest of the material is.
"Width of a Circle" is an eight-minute epic with an unforgettably toxic main riff, verses where Bowie waxes incomprehensible about God, Khalil Gibran, and his reputation sweeping home in drag, a middle-and-ending section so blatantly alluding to and documenting a gay hookup that you'd have to be dead to miss it, completely ass-kicking instrumental interplay, strangled, ripping Ronson guitar solos, and interestingly psychedelic late '60's/early '70's production effects like backwards echo. Simply put, the song rules merciless quantities of ass. Other quality rockers here include the heavy-R 'n B-esque "Black Country Rock," with an absolutely beautiful, momentary Ronson guitar opening that has nothing to do with the actual song, wild Bowie vibrato, and even wilder Visconti bass, the bizarre, heavy-handed metal of "The Supermen," which features more great bass from Visconti and successful, though hilariously grandiose tympanis doubling up with the drums, and the strange herky-jerky riffing, burbling synth, and cartoonish, but still unsettling technology-gone-insane lyrics of "Saviour Machine."
The album's peak is with the slower material, though. All of the songs are very disturbing (which is somewhat odd for Bowie), and all of them are superb (which is also somewhat odd for Bowie). "All The Madmen" starts off with a depressive acoustic riff, and then can't decide if it wants to be a distorted, angry, overblown rocker or a weird examination of mental illness and asylums from the inmate's view, and ends up becoming both. The incohesive tone actually works here - insanity is not a cohesive thing, and the schizoid push-and-pull between the two halves of the song are really evocative and unsettling, climaxing in one of the weirdest mid-song breaks you will ever hear. "After All," the slowest song on the album, is where the synth work is most effective - the bridge section where the synth and the carnival organ mirror the sung verses is truly creepy - and probably features Bowie's best untreated vocal of the entire set. That leaves the title track, which is as chilling, painful, and terrifying as the day it was recorded, and an early Bowie masterpiece that went unappreciated for years until Nirvana famously did a wonderful acoustic cover of it for their legendary Unplugged album. While Kurt Cobain's uncomfortably personal interpretation turned the song into a meditation on total alienation, Bowie's version is cold, reptilian, and almost flippant, which highlights the soulless betrayal and resignation of the lyrics even more. (Bowie's phased vocals certainly help in conveying the heartlessness of the characters - or character.) It still sounds scary and hopeless.
Overall, this album, to me, is where David Bowie really got his shit together and started making good music consistently, and it's undeniable that The Man Who Sold The World is unique within his discography. It isn't where you should start with him, but it is a rewarding and bizarre listen. I'd give it a high A minus.
Or perhaps the REAL problem is that those first three
albums were geared towards my DICK. And my dick, she don't have good mustical
taste's! With Humphrey Dorby, David Booie has found a piano-filled style of
such garnish and clear vision, it's hard to imagine that he is the same artist who
floundered his way through The Man Who Sold The World Of David Bowie, Space?
Oddity!. Every track features a catchy normal melody, strong, mature playing, clear
production (Hornys! Violince! Sexophones!) and TUNEFUL(!!!!!), at times double-
tracked (for fullness) vocals. Lots of bouncy piano and acoustic guitar will greet you
as
you enter and carry you along as you encounter such highlights as the groovy pop ballad
smash "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!," dark and plotting-something-probably acoustic evilness
of radio's popular "Andy Warhol (jiiiiing-a-jiiiiing-a-joobyjoobyjoobyjooby-joo!)" and
the wild fun glam riff rockage of hit record (and VU homage) "Queen B-tch" (I can't
write the whole second word because it's as offensive as that time I dipped my balls in
your ice water in the middle of your graduation speech. Hey! They were hot!). One
question that DOES arise when I think of this album, however, is this: why is Mick
Ronson's glam pants action NOT the center of musical attention? Most of these songs
are so pianoey, it's like bisexual Elton John was hanging out in the studio, helping out
his
bisexual friend David Bowie to create a pleasant, normal-like, non-psychedelic album
designed for bisexuals of all genders to have bisex to. Alas, it's not Elton John at
all, but
RICK WAKEMAN! From YES! RICK WAKEMAN! FROM YES!!!! FROM
YES!!!!! ARE YOU READING ME??? RICK "PATRICK MORAZ" WAKEMAN!!!
FROM YES!!!!! So it is as they say apparently - David Bowie is not the throwaway
irritant I previously accused him of being. These are nice tunes! Not a single bad song
from beginning to end. Some of them are a little more "Show Tuney" than I would
normally enjoy, but no more so than your favorite Elton John songs. His vocals are much
stronger than before, as is his songwriting. I gotta hand it to the guy - he actually
DID
manage to pull his creative muse out of the huge pile of earwax in which it, or rather,
which it created in the world and then became. or instead to be.. Look, not every
sentence I write is going to win the Academy Award for Best Actor.
Wow! David finally grows as a songwriter, branching out to include piano and strings, and writing classic tunes such as the anthem "Changes" and the beautiful "Life On Mars?" It's packed with fun, silly songs - "Oh! You Pretty Things," "Kooks," the still-kind-of-dark "Andy Warhol" - but it also has a great dirge in the form of "Quicksand." A lot of folks complain that it's too long - I, for one, think it's an ultracool tune. The album closer is sort of gloomy, too - until David screws it up by throwing in those stupid helium voices.
A couple of songs aren't that great, but the ones that are more than make up for it. The Velvet Underground homage "Queen Bitch" honestly sounds nothing like that group, but I still like it. The album, as a whole, has a great mood to it - fun but also pretty dark. And there's evenbetter ones on the way!
As for the rest of Hunky Dory, first rate lyrics, first rate musicianship, solidly
entertaining, not a single weak track - could this be Bowie's greatest album? If there weren't
so many other great albums it'd be a shoe-in...
David Bowie : an interesting, charming and smart character. His music : basicly overrated.
Have you heard that song that goes "Ch-ch-ch-ch-
changes!"? Aw man, it's the coolest. It goes "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes!" It's not on this
album though. Let this serve as official public notice that I stand by my original
conviction that this album is overrated.. Now don't get me wrong - it DOES have a
bunch of killerass wicked boner songs that tear up your radio dial like an angry Moroccan
looking for a DVD copy of The Secret Of Nimh (hey, similes don't grow on
trees) - but as a cohesive whole, there's a bit too much nostalgia mongering for my
tastes. Let's go back to the beginning. Have you heard that song that goes "Ch-ch-ch
- NO NO, I'M KIDDING YOU! I'M ooo For this album, David Bowie "reinvented"
himself as a glam rock star named Ziggy Stardust. And here is my first problem with the
record - I constantly hear it referred to as one of the top "glam" albums, yet, by what I
could have SWORN is the definition of glam, THERE'S ONLY LIKE TWO OR THREE
GLAM SONGS ON HERE!!!! Isn't glam that stuff with like loud generic style distorted
rock and roll decadent guitars? Like The Sweet and The New York Dolls and The Alice
Coopers and Queen? If that is correct, then "Suffragette City" is basically the only
glam
you're going to find here. Luckily, it's one of the greatest, hardest rocking glam songs
EVER! But most of the rest of the album (aside from "Hang On To Yourself," which is
The Ramones four years early) is piano-heavy theatrical Elton John-style stuff. Or is
THAT what glam is supposed to be? If so, FUCK GLAM UP THE ASS! But be careful
`cuz your penis might be worn down from FUCKING JAZZ UP THE ASS! To my
point: Certainly the title track is a classic, but it don't exactly ROCK. or even GLAM,
does it? Does it glam? And "Soul Love"? That's SOUL! "Starman"? That's a show
tune! "Lady Stardust"? Reginald Dwight stopped in to see what condition his condition
was in! "Star"? That's bouncy `50s style doowop! More like "SHITman," "Lady
SHITdust" and "SHIT" if you ask me! But the title track is still "Ziggy Stardust" and
not
"Ziggy Shitdust." And it's not just the lack of glam - that in and of itself is a
minor,
minor complaint that just happened to occur to me. My real complaint is that those songs
that I cleverly replaced the word "star" with "SHIT" in really aren't any good. I mean,
I
can see liking PARTS of "Star" (the chorus is pretty glammy, I admit. I ADMIT WHEN
I'M WRONG! Except for that whole "Girls pee out of their butts" thing that I believed
when I was 6. I still insist that this is the case. Girls just haven't noticed yet,
because
they're out shopping.), but the other ones are REALLY awful. Musical clich‚s that go
nowhere and teach you nothing. "Soul Love" isn't exactly a stroll down Fleet Street
either. Unless you're a retard walking with shoes on your feet. Ah! I forgot the most
important part. It's kind of a rock opera - based on the true story of that comic strip
Ziggy.
There are two types of Bowie fans - those that think this is his best album ever, and those which hate it and find it to be tremendously overrated.
I am neither one.
I think that it's a great album - but not his best. It's got a cool concept (a post-apocalyptic rock band), and great songs (very few of which fit into the story at all), but it honestly doesn't stand up against a lot of other albums that he recorded afterwards. This is a very low nine - only because few of the songs are at all great. But what a fine collection of good songs!
The classics include the absolutely amazing glam-punk of "Suffragette City," with it's hookline of "Wham! Bam! Thank you, Ma'am!", the title track (featuring the ultimate "pied piper" guitar riff), the catchy, corny single "Starman," and the sad ballad "Rock `N Roll Suicide." But the rest of these are good, too! Sure, they're just really simple rock tunes, but they're quick, catchy, and quite fun!
A "best of" collection would be a better first buy, seeing as there aren't as many standout tracks as the critics would have you believe. But this is certainly an essential album - if only for the four songs I mentioned.
WHAT A CAD.
Bowie, of course.
Dammit, I haven't looked at the other reader comments yet. Did 50 million
other people say these things already?
And I agree with you, it doesn't quite gel into a cohesive whole. But fuck
it--every single one of these 11 songs rules. 10 out of 10.
This is the only Bowie album I've ever heard, too. He'd better not suck on
all his others.
Ahhhhhh! This album shows David Bowie at his most
glamourous - his guitars are so loud and his voice is so confident and his songs are so
sexy and his picture on the inner sleeve is so embarrassingly homosexual. The hit single
is glam classic rock and roller "The Jean Genie" and don't even TRY looking for another
hit because you won't find it here. WATCH THAT MANB! That's not a hit. You all
work, right? Qhat about a work WIFE? I don't have one right now but such things are
important. It's hard to go to work or school without a cute girl to look forward to.
And
what if you realize that a girl on your favorite music message board is cute? Do you
start
acting more maturely? Or do you keep doing your sophomoric boy-humor? I guess it all
depends on how dependent you are upon the Internet to get your kicks. Me, I hang out
with teenagers on the Music Babble message board because adults are too mature to want
to have anything to do with me. And when I read my work, I am too disgusted to think
that I deserve to hang around adults. It's all lies. Here's a piano - hang on while I
adjust
my tie. MY BALL-TIE! Id on't really wear a ball-tie. I used to, but the world
has changed since I returned from the Happy WQard Faith Machine. Triumph. Wars.
Tar. Tar. ALADDIN SANE Rats are now remote control. I think it looks cruel, but
they tell me that it makes them happy. Happy, sad - don't take life too (clich‚)
seriousl.y
- nobody (clich‚) makes it out alive. These songs are good. NOTHING ELSE
MATTERS - NEVER CARE FOR I saw Nick Cave last night and thought again about
"entertainment for a living." I have tremendous respect for anybody who can pull it off.
I know just from minor-league experiences that it is hellish. After three similar shows,
the boredom kicks in something fierce. But then what do you do? The fans expect a
certain thing. HOW CAN YOU not play "The Mercy Seat"? Nick Cave is a brilliant
songwriter. David Bowie is a hack. Fuck David Bowie. Nick Cave has some of the
most brilliant lyrics. His images are so vivid and frightening. He is a brilliant
songwriter- who else could have written "Fifteen Feet Of Pure White Snow"? It's about
God destroying the world a second time with a DIFFERENT form of precipitation. Of
course it's beautiful. It's SNOW. But it's death. Suffocation. Either that or it's
about
cocaine addiction, but I doubt that. He hasn't been on drugs for ages, and he's totally
into Old Testament-style religious terror. David Bowie is a hack. He's simply no Nick
Cave. He relies on generic rock and pop forms, with his shitty voice and generic or
UGLY melodies. I don't care if you think I'm drunk, because I know for a fact that my
tummy is full of non-alcoholic alcohol. With pot and crack. David Bowie is a genius for
retards. If you think he's great, you are a fuckin jerkoff with a slow mind. He is a
half-
wit who lucks into catchy melodies every once in a while. This album is good, but by
"good," I mean that some of the melodies are catchy. Listen to what Nick Cave has to
say about a man being led to the electric chair: "AND THE MERCY SEAT IS
WAITING - AND I THINK MY HEAD IS BURNING - IN A WAY I'M YEARNING
TO BE DONE WITH ALL THIS MEASURING OF TRUTH - AN EYE FOR AN EYE
AND A TOOTH FOR A TOOTH - AND ANYWAY I TOLD THE TRUTH - AND I'M
NOT AFRAID TO DIE." So what does David Bowie have to say - "His name is always
Buddy!" Fuck you, David Bowie. You're too fucking stupid to ever hold a candle to
Nick Cave. But how much more money do you make, you talentless shit? "Suffragette
City" was as brilliant as you will ever get. I'm sorry to be so mean. I'm not really
trying
to attack YOU, I promise. I'm being mean because I'm intoxicated and I just saw Nick
Cave last night. Lord knows that I will never be as great a lyricist as Nick Cave.
Maybe
I'm just jealous. David Bowie has a lot of catchy tunes. It's not fair to blame him on
his
success. If nobody had ever heard of David Bowie, I'd be raving about him. But Nick
Cave is amazing. Just amazing. His lyrics are so brilliant. And I NEVER rave about
lyrics, because most of them are so lame. Nick Cave is extremely talented.
EXTREMELY talented. I urge you to go out and buy some. Let's talk about the
album now. It's theatrical! Like the last album, but more glam. Mick Ronson rocks it
to
and fro! There's still some piano and 50ish teen lust, as well as Andrew Lloyd Weber-
style "emotions represented by overblown fakery" but more so, there's just crunchy glam
guitar. I LIKE GLAM GUITAR! It makes me feel sleazy and decadent, but in a
nostalgic way instead of a GG Allin way. Jesus Christ, check out "Cracked Actor" - that
song is BOMBASTIC and GREAT! But some of the songs are, you know - like the title
track just repeats the "Tired Of Waiting For You" bass line for like five years. And
fuckin "Time" is that same old Elton John piano horseshit. And "The Prettiest Star' - I
HATE THE 50s - THAT"s WHY I STAYED IN MY MOTHER'S VAGINA
CLINGING FOR DEAR LIFE FOR A FULL 14 YEARS UNTIL NIXON WAS
SAFELY IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE COAST WAS BEER. AND HE DOES
A CRAPPYASS VERSION OF THE ROLLING STONES' "LET'S SPEND THE
NIGHT LICKING EACH OTHERS' DUODENUM." I don't need you to tell me that
this review is not very good - I just need you to carry my long flowing King's gown
while I walk down the street to collect my trillions. Francis Bacon. Do this - take a
shit and then stick your hand in the toilet and pick up the pooplog. Then try to jam it
up
your pisshole. There! Now you know how it feels to have as little talent as David
Bowie, the least talented man in the world Nah just kidding. If he was untalented, he
wouldn't get so many 7's. He's a talented guy. I'm just sticking rhubarbs up your
metacarpus in the name of NICK CAVE! NICK CAVE! NICOTINE CAVEAT!
NICODERMUS CARPE DIEM! THIS IS A SECRET. SHHHH. ARE YOU READY
FOR JY SECRET? HERE IT IS, MY SECRET: EVERYTHING FEELS WRONG
A TREMENDOUS DEAL OF THE TIME. I SEARCH FOR PERFECTION WHERE
LIFE OFFERS NONE. AND IN THIS WAY, I AM UNLIKE EVERYBOY ELSE IN
THE WORLD BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL HAPPY ALL THE TIME AND DON'T
UNDERSTAND TMY PLIGHT. I CAN'T even lift my head. I like everything except
this Matthew Sweet cd that Rich sent me. If you ever need proff that David Bowie is
talented, just play him back to back with Matthew Sweet. Holy Christ, is generic pop
rock worthless. What am I getting out of this? I'm LOSTING full hours of my voice
sitting through this worthless pissfart. Don't ever do anything. Because you'll never
be
as good as the top 16 artists. So why bother, loser? This is all hypcoricsy. My home
is
beautiful. Youth is painful - I used to be there. You hang excuse me YOUNG people
just need to hang in there. I I I I I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII Hey I'm not a
ba guy,
jimbobbil. MATthe SHIT oncccnd AND THE MRECY SEAT IS
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Awful make-up he's wearing on the cover photo. Looks like an extra on the
set of Flesh Gordon.
Nick Cave's an interesting bugger! Albeit difficult as heck. Tender Prey's
the only CD of his I've heard so far (thank Only Solitaire's recommendation
for that), but after two listens, I'm alternately intrigued and
disappointed. He's one helluva songwriter, that I can tell already.
Eh. . . but there's problems: awful production--REALLY REALLY awful,
somewhere between Sonic Youth's early EPs, Black Flag's Damaged, and 1982
Cocteau Twins, and Nick Cave's voice, which sounds like really angry, drunk
Ian Curtis on a particularly sarcastic literary rampage. Then again, that's
better than just plain really angry, drunk Ian Curtis, period. See, Bob
Dylan may be a bad singer, but he at least gives the impression of aiming
squarely for the notes of the melody. Cave doesn't give a fuck whether he
hits the damn notes or not. He's going to declaim, son, and you better take
what you're given. Maybe I should wait for Boatman's Call.
Oh, but the songs. They're good. Melodic, dramatic, and they sound really
good after two listens. You're like: "HEY! This is actually above average
songwriting. Not beeeeeeehd" (Cartman voice) The only problem is, because
of the horrific production and the bad singin', it's only IMPLIED good
songwriting. You have to work the songs through a mind-filter before you
strike gold. That's good, but not Automatic for the People good. Why I
made that comparison is a mystery for us all.
Good songs. Except for "New Morning." It's a crap song that's crap. Why
he had to put it at the end of the album I have no idea.
David Bowie? A GOD on Ziggy Stardust. A WAD (of chewing gum, albeit
flavorful) on Aladdin Sane. Go glam rock.
And I'm with you on that Matthe shit oncccnd business.
Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo indeed.
Far as Bowie goes - Alladin is actually my fave Bowie album because he is staright up glam here. The only thing he did fairly well. He wrote some decent ballads like "Starman" and "5 Years" too and he would do "Low" later. But AS is IMO the centerpiece.
My God, the bias in these reviews is despicable. As a
professional music journalist, you really must learn to keep your personal opinions in
check and simply describe the music as is, and perhaps utter a few platitudes about its
political significance. Let me illustrate my point with a brief review of this
LP: Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture is decidedly a double-live document
of David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust" period. Set against a backdrop of Watergate and a
growing economic recession, the pubescent fantasy offered by Ronson, et al was happily
accepted by music fans as a respite from the growing disillusion of everyday life. The
drums are decidedly crisp, the bass is arguably loud, David's voice, one might decide, is
rough and out of tune and the set list, it could be argued, features both classics that
alone
make this record worth the price of admission ("Ziggy Stardust," "Suffragette City,"
"Space Oddity," "Changes") and arguably unexpected covers and songs penned for other
decidedly artists (an unexpectedly brash and powerful version of "All The Young Dudes"
that rivals the Hoople's rendition, Jacques Brel's pompous "My Death" and "White
Light/White Heat," by Bowie's obvious key influence and creative mentor, Lou Reed).
With the legendary Ken Fordham on sax and up-and-comer Brian Wilshaw on horns, the
stage show was replete with ego, dripping with pretension, yet somehow stinking to high
heaven of good solid pop/rock music in the era of glam. Oh my, I must say I didn't
mean to include such vapid terminology as "stinking to high heaven." I of course meant
"decidedly." And that, my (john) good man, is how a true music journalist operates.
POOP! POOPIDY-DOOPIDY-DOOPIDY-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (does
funny hand trick that makes it look like thumb is being ripped in two)
I realize that it seems a little condescending to give one of
the highest grade to an ALL-COVERS album, but the fact is that Bowie is apparently
much more capable of recognizing a great song than writing one of his own.
Check you out all these cover tunes that he and Mick Ronson all glam up: Pink Floyd's
"C. Emily's Play," The Who's "I Can't (have) Eggs Plain" and "And He Weighed Annie
Hall's Underwear," The Easybeats (featuring George Young, older brother of Malcolm
Young and Angus Young, and presumably son of Neil Young and adulterer of Loretta
Young)' "Fried Dates On My Mime," The Kinks' "Wear A Vulva Goat Tie, Scott?"
(later to be covered by Van Halen!!!!!!!) and The Yardbirds' "Shave Some Thingies."
Believe me! It's a great album that can't be beaten! If only it had The Five Americans'
"Wes' Turn, You Nun," The Electric Prunes' "I Had Two Pints Of Cream, Last Knight"
and The Hombres' "Lead Tit Balls Hang Out," it'd be stupendifferly
fabulimiddy! Was that okay, Mark? Please let me know,
Normally I'm not a big fan of covers albums, but this one works brilliantly
like no other I've heard. Since I'm not familiar with the original versions
of all of these songs, I can't compare them, and therefore these all sound
like supercharged Bowie originals to me! Oh, if only the panzi could write a
whole album of original stuff this good!
Pin Ups plays like a greatest hits album...all the songs are strongly
written, unique from each other, have great melodies, and given the early
70's Bowie treatment, making them all his own. I'm not sure whether these
songs all sound like material he would have written simply because of his
unmistakable vocal style combined with Mick Ronson's awesome off-beat guitar
playing, or because he just picked songs which originally had qualities
similar to his own. It really doesn't matter either way, because the
performances are electrifying! But despite the above mentioned Bowie
treatment, you won't really find any of his occasional tendencies towards
fruity artsy fartsy glam pop here...this album rocks hard! Harder than any
of his own originals! And it's even raw and filthy punky in many spots, a
lot like the Stooges or early Alice Cooper! And check out Bowie's bizarre
vocal chops on "Here Comes The Night"!
Anyways, awesome album...great singing, playing, arrangements, production,
and song selection. "Where Have All The Good Times Gone" is the only song I
recognize, and while this version is fine, it's not nearly as great as the
version covered by Van Halen 9 years later! So, 9 out of 10, only because
Bowie didn't write the music!
Whistle, whistle, whistle a happy tune! Whistle, whistle,
whistle a merry tune! Whistle, whi - Oh! I didn't see you over there! Hello, and
welcome to my work environment. As you can see, I am wearing a full suit right now -
pin-stripe gray with a light blue shirt and grey tie with squares (aha! Spellcheck
accepted
BOTH spellings of "gray"! Let me try one more - "grae." Awww! Come on you
fuckin' pissdick!!!!). This is because I am critiquing the Diamond Dogs product
by artist David Bowie, released to the public by the RCA recording corporation in 1974.
It sold a number of units, I'm told, so I am here to make a recommendation regarding
whether or not the 18-25 demographic with a household income between $20,000 and
$49,000 should spend $18 on a new copy of this disc down at the local Record Bar.
Certainly I support capitalism in all its forms; however, I must warn those of you who
purchase musical products based on "quality" and "not sounding like shit" rather than
"status symbol" or "trying to show off to your little arty butt-friends" that this may
not be
the album (or, in fact, artist!) for you. Please, sit down in that swivelly chair
on
the other side of my office and let me explain: Don't swivel too much - it's not
actually a swivelly chair; it's just really close to breaking in half. You see, I found
that
particular model in the front yard of some smelly Puerto Ricans in my neighborhood.
But we can discuss Latin American commodities at a later time. You see, Mr. Bowie
(nee Jones) has decided to move on from his "Ziggy Stardust" glam period. However, he
hasn't come up with anything new to move on TO! So instead, we find ourselves with a
piece of work that seems to be somehow based on George Orwell's 1984 literary
product (also very successful, I'm told) and sounds like glam music that has been
slightly
slowed down, made a little bluesier and recorded inside a gym locker at the bottom of the
ocean (figure out the unstated play on words - FIGURE OUT THE FUCKING
UNSTATED PLAY ON WORDS). The album had two hits, both of which are
somewhat indicative of the direction he chose for this release - perhaps in your youth,
you purchased the "Diamond Dogs" and "Rebel Rebel" 7-inch singles for your collection
- BUT it should be understood that neither of those rocking "tunes" are anywhere near as
cocaine downer-sounding as the rest of the record. A lot of it, in fact, reminds me
personally of another fine work of commerce released in the early 70s = The Rolling
Stones' Goats Head Soup. Everything just seems murky and odd. A little tired.
Instrumentally, you shall encounter lots of guitars (all played by David "Letterman"
Bowie! Can you believe that fucking shit? Who thought he had any talent AT ALL?!),
plus some pianos, organs - and hold on tight - AN EARLY DISCO SONG! AND IT'S
NO GOOD AT ALL! Another interesting thing, if I may loosen my tie for a moment
- track A on this LP, a short pretentious stupid intro called "Future Legend," mentions a
locale entitled "Love Me Avenue." Maybe you weren't there (but then again maybe you
were because believe me the place was PACKED), but a long several times ago, an
Atlanta band called "Love Me Avenue" played at the Wreck Room in Atlanta when I was
KNEEHIGH TO A GRASS(-smoking Dennis)HOPPER. The lead guitarist was a
seXXXy long-haired devil named Mel who had surrounded himself with a seXXXy
drummer, a seXXXy glam singer and a fat dorky bass player who kept shouting, "Whoo!
That was an original! Whoo!" into the mic at the end of every song. If you look very
closely, you may hear this self-same statement REFERRED to at the wee end of "Jello,
Iced Tea And A Slab Of Fried Okra," a non-hit single from my old band Low-
Maintenance Perennials' debut CD Work Bench Drawer which to date has sold
less than 15 units. In summation, David Bowie is underrated. Oh wait no, that was
a typo. I meant "a fagit."
Unfortunately, being very poor I didn't actually have a cassette player to play it on. Never the less I lavished my attention on the cassette itself, whining
over the canine Bowie on the cover and those short stumpy blue men in the background.
I listened avidly to the radio waiting for tracks from the album that I could check were actually on the track-list printed on the cover.
In my fetid bedroom that smelt of...well, we won't go into that, I heard for the first time, one saturday afternnon in 1983 "sweet thing" and I have to say, I
had never heard anything like it in my life. It was so deformed and rancid and felt like the way I saw the world had become in recent years. My cover
listed "Sweet Thing" as a reprise and I assumed that the whole 9 minute cycle was duplicated twice on my cassette.
I recall the glorious day i nicked a cassette player from a car in the area (or neighbourhood as you say over there) and getting it home plugged it in and
slung on Diamond Dogs, while literally slavering at the mouth. My god what I experianced over those next 40 minutes. True there were parts I didn't like,
and still don't, notably "When You Rock and Roll With Me" but overall I got my œ2.50's worth. Remember this is my first album. If knew then what I now
know about what was coming up, all the gupp and shite and turgidity that is Bowie after "Scary Monsters" I would've loved it even more than I already
did. "Sweet Thing" remains for me the defining moment of the album. Sadly I only have it on cassette and I don't have a functioning player at the
moment.
The thing that really bugs me about Hendrix is the way that he's always asking me questions. "Are you experienced?" No. "Have you ever been to Electric Ladyland?" No - I didn't even know that studio was still around! "Can I stand next to your fire?" No! I paid a lot of money for this fire, and I'd rather not have you vomiting all over it. (A TRUE conspiracy theory = A. Jimi Hendrix was afraid of his manager, who had been linked to the mafia and the CIA. B. The amount of alcohol in Jimi Hendrix's stomach was more than a human being could drink in the time period it would have taken to cause his vomiting death; in other words, the wine was FORCED down his throat. C. Jimi Hendrix's manager made more money from releasing postmortem Hendrix releases than he ever made while Jimi was alive. IT'S TRUE! I heard it from a source of questionable reliability!). So whenever I'm in the mood for some good old black person funky rock music with SOUL, I turn to David Live. I bet you're thinking to yourself, "Gee, I've never heard anybody make that argument about this album before." Well, that's because IT'S NOT FUCKING TRUE!!!! WHY THE FUCK HAS "THE GREAT WHITE MORON" DECIDED THAT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO TAKE GREAT OLD GLAM CLASSICS LIKE "REBEL REBEL," "SUFFRAGETTE CITY," "ALADDIN SANE" AND "ROCK AND ROLL SUICIDE" -- AND COMPLETELY REMOVE EVERY SEMBLANCE OF "MELODY" THAT THE SONGS EVER HAD?!?!?!?!!? DOES HE HONESTLY THINK THIS IS "SOUL" MUSIC BECAUSE HE'S GOT THE "MEDIOCRE WHITE DUKE" DAVID SANBORN PLAYING A SAXOPHONE? OR BECAUSE HE TOLD THE GUITAR PLAYER, "DON'T PLAY THE ACTUAL MELODIES. JUST PLAY REALLY REALLY LONG SOLOS THAT DON'T GO ANYWHERE"? OR BECAUSE HE'S WEARING A STUPID WHITE "MATURE" SUIT AND REDUCES THE VOCAL MELODIES TO HIS MISGUIDED APPROXIMATION OF "SEXY" HALFASSED SPEAK-SING? THIS ALBUM IS A PIECE OF SHIT ALL DRESSED UP LIKE A FANCYPANTS! LOOK AT THAT DUMBASS PHOTO OF HIM ON THE COVER!!!! .. ... ... ... .. NOW FOR THAT PHOTO TO HAVE APPEARED ON THE COVER MEANS THAT MR. BOWIE MUST HAVE LOOKED AT IT LONG AND HARD AND THOUGHT TO HIMSELF, "MAN, I LOOK REALLY GOOD WITH MY TIMELESS WHITE SUIT AND "SHORT IN FRONT, LONG ON THE SIDES" HAIRCUT. AND THAT LOOK ON MY FACE? I LOOK LIKE A FULL WEEK OF NONSTOP ASSFUCKING HAS CREATED A BACKUP OF HARDENED FECAL MATTER IN MY LOWER INTESTINES! AWESOME! LET'S GO WITH IT!" On the day of reckoning, I don't know how I'm going to be able to justify giving this record 2 points higher than a 1. I guess there are a few songs in this world that are absolutely impossible to ruin, no matter how rottenly you play them. Plus, the best song on here is a COVER!: the classic Stax record classic "Knock On Wood" classic. If you like double-albums that don't even come close to actual "music," make this your next purchase right after Metal Machine Music and the double-album version of Loverboy's "Lovin' Every Minute Of It" single. Huh? Well if it doesn't exist, it SHOULD! Just so nobody would BUY it! (asshole)
OK, that's not really true. In the 80's I bought it used and really loved
it. Then I lost it sometime around 1989 and every 1 star review I read made
me want to buy it again so a couple of years ago I did. And I was slightly
disappointed, but still thought it was a solid 6—which means I like it at
least SIX TIMES more than the average of all reviews I’ve ever read.
Wondering why, I realized it was all about Diamond Dogs (the album, not the
song), which is the album this tour supported and has somewhere around SEVEN
tracks on this album. And Diamond Dogs is probably my favorite Bowie album,
so now it all makes sense.
So if you listen to Diamond Dogs enough to get a little tired of it and wish
"Boy, I wish there were versions of these songs that were a little different
so I could keep listening to it some more," then you should get this album.
The bonus is that you can hear what "All the Young Dudes" would have sounded
like if Bowie hadn’t given it away, and "Time" which sounds far better than
the album version (but not as good as the Pink Floyd version).
And while I have the attention of Dog lovers, if you've ever wondered what
Diamond Dogs would have sounded like as a big Broadway musical, then find
the version of "1984/Dodo" that was released on the Sound+Vision
compilation. Because that was Plan A for the material before the album was
recorded. Except it was going to be called "1984, but he couldn’t do that
because someone else already copyrighted those numbers.
On this album, David Bowie refashions himself as a
funky soul African-American with saxophones, wah-wah pedals, electric pianos, female
backup singers and a coating of overserious disco r'n'b sex so thick and juicy, it's like
walking into a strip club and taking a bite out of one of the naked people up there
(usually
frowned upon). This is the most unpredictable stylistic change you will find throughout
his wild, woolly, eminently unsatisfying career, and a short-lived change it proved to
be!
Nevertheless, the album is pretty intriguing if not particularly un-makefunof-able.
HOLY SHIT, I JUST REALIZED THAT IT'S DAVID SANBORN THAT PLAYS
SAXOPHONE ON HERE!!!! REMEMBER DAVID SANBORN??? THAT REALLY
COOL WHITE GUY THAT PLAYED SAXOPHONE ON LATE NIGHT TV SO
MANY YEARS HENCE???? Well, it's him. The only other famous person on here is
backup singer Luther Vandross. Everybody is a bunch of no-names like Pablo Rosario,
Earl Slick, Willy Weeks, John Lennon and Jean Fineberg. You're gonna recognize
two of these songs when you buy the album. The first of these will be the title track,
strangely entitled "Young Americans" (this is incredibly ironic, since David Bowie is
from Portugal) and "Fame," a great classic funk rock tune that does not include the lyric
"I'm gonna learn how to fly," no matter how many copies of the album I've opened in the
store and scrawled that line onto the little sheet with the words all over it. He also
does a
cover of - you ready for this? You're totally gonna laugh at this - The Beatles' "Across
The Universe"! Obviously he got permission from his little alcoholic friend but still -
surely he doesn't fancy himself anywhere NEAR the level of songwriting genius that the
Beatles were, right? I mean, even Ringo - hell, even Cynthia Lennon probably writes
better songs than this twit. But speaking of this song, people often moan and complain
about David's corny Vegasy Tom Jones approach to the song, but I'm here SOLELY to
tell you that the song is so great, it cannot be ruined. Even Bowie makes it sound
great. Whew! Well, my purpose in life has been fulfilled - time to return to my home
planet! WHOOSH!!! (Rich, it would be great if you could put together a nice special
effect of a spaceship flying up the screen here - money is NO OBJECT, as long as you're
paying. Thanks, Rich!). (Oh! Also, thanks for all the blow jobs!) (Hee hee -
now's when we find out whether Rich actually reads my reviews before he posts them.
HEEEEEEE!) Did I ever tell you about how Rich made me go on a music-related
message board and post the subject line "*washes everybody away*," and then sign it as
"A Giant River Of Cum"? Jesus Christ - what's UP with that Rich guy and his
shenanigans? Here I am trying to present a positive Christian viewpoint on popular
music and he's trying to drag me down into his gutterworld of sewage and whores!
Oh, and this album is terrible.
By the way, my buddy made me keel over with laughter the other day when he
said "Reunite the Beatles! Only two more bullets!"
By the way again, ya ever see that episode of Rock 'n Roll Jeorpardy with
George Clinton as a contestant? He just stood there with a zombie-like gaze,
sorta like a Haitian voodoo shaman or something smelly like that and didn't
even try to answer a single question, while Dave Mustaine answered like 99%
of them and got them all right, the fuckin geek!
I guess "celebrity guest appearances" by Dave will have to become a tad more
regular so that he can continue his drug habit unabated now that he can't
play guitar anymore! He really has to do something about that hurtin' hand
of his though...I imagine that slappin the salami on a regular basis would
make for some fine physio-therapy.
It's not like the asshole is gettin laid anyhow!
Just like to say this record is shagging music, the kind of stuff todays bump' n' grind merchants are rolling off of the conveyor belt called R&B, but Our Hero got there first 25 years earlier. And it has Luther Vandross guesting (probably with the offer of a free lunch thrown in), how more hip do you want? Claustrophobic production job though.
This was originally given a high 7 until Rich Bunnell
confronted me in the gymnasium, roughed me up and said, "But it has "TVC15' on it."
And that's all it took to convince me to change a high 7 to a low 8. This one only has 6
songs, but they run the gamut of poorly produced, muddy goodness all up. The title track
starts us off with some rock that abruptly turns into a cheery Elton John-style pino corn
stalk. "Golden Yearss" was the funky wonderful single, "World On A Wing" is really
BAD piano Elton John puke (which I just did a couple of minutes ago thanks to the
business end of a toothbrush - you see, a number of alcoholics vomited down my throat
tonight, inebriating me in the context of a twilight massacre). "TCV16" makes it hard to
sing the tile and that's funny, and the song is cute. "Stay" is funky as greatness, and
"Wild Is The Wind' is romantic guitar beauty of the cocaine snort citytime Don Henley
sex variety. But he IS SINGING LOW! HIS VOICE IS LOW! LOW! LOW! LOW!
LOW! It reminds ome of Iggy Pop, with David Bowie telling him what to do. That gets
me - that David Bowie "influcneced" Iggu Pop, when Iggy is naturally so much greater a
talent and interesting human being. If you're okay with 6 songs, you're okay with
Station To Station. Ther's not room for filler! The whole idea of getting drunk
to write a better review is a charming one, but I drank so much tonight that my stomach
felt like it was on fire. I hurried home, induced vomiting, and now I'm basically sober
except less smart than I would be if I were sober. To conclude, this album is diverse -
it
is NOT a natural follow-up to anything he's done before. And it's a lot of fun to listen
to
the whole way through. Definitely one of his best, if not his absolute best. So grits
were
.
Anyways, I ask, why have legions of Bowie fans commented on your reviews of Ziggy and Hunky Dory, while omitting to follow up on your (embarrassingly drunken) approval for Station to Station?? Station to Station's a top Bowie album! Quite obviously, THIS is the album with which one starts an "intelligent David Bowie album collection." This album offers a great, revealing dose of Bowie's classic, one-of-a-kind croon, in the title track, Golden Years, Stay, why, in all of the songs, except for the abrasive TVC15 chorus. This album's got hips. It's got uber-hot guitar-work from Slick, or Alomar, or both. It's got good lyrics! & the title track is ominous! Spooky, too! Until the cathartic disco climax, at which point "It's too late" to stop the rock-rhythm boogie train! The whole album feels really smart and ironic! And there's whistling, if that's your thing!
Yea, as I suggested above, if yer new to Bowie, START here and work chronologically through Low (by the way, the cover's a visual pun on "Low Profile," which is what Bowie was on about in Berlin), "Heroes", Lodger, ending with Scary Monsters (which is still too, er, scary for me to really embrace, though its greatness is impressive and clear). The prior glam stuff is fun but dated, while (for me at least) these albums represent Bowie's artistic pinnacle. Yes, pinnacle I say!!
& still I wonder, how the heck hadn't anyone said anything about Station to Station before me?! I rule the Bowie page!
This album defines Adult Orientated Rock and that is no bad thing....the title track, starting off slowly and building speed like the train it is about, Golden Years, that effortless tune drifting away like a hot summers afternoon, containing that classic line "run for the shadows", with the whistling at the end!!!..Word On A Wing, understated, beautifully played, yes TVC15, (played at Live Aid!) 10/10 for the idea and lyrics if not necessarily the tune itself, Stay, my personal favourite, which seems to go on forever, forgotten who played bass but they did a damn fine job holding the thing together, finally Wild Is The Wind, top production, "don't know you know your life (pause for effect) it's hell", (cue drumroll), a perfect ending to the best album of this man's career to date.
Comment: Second only to that horny old K9, "Diamond Dogs" (a real downer of an album from the end of the first period Bowie, in the mid 70's, that had the hit single "Sweet Thing" (reprise))
My rating is a 9
"Low." What is "Low"? Webster's defines it as "near to
the ground; depleted; soft; sad; trough (n)." But to the rest of us, it means simply
"stumpy." To achieve the most accurate musical depiction of "stumpy" possible without
the aid of hatchets, Bowie called up his best friend Brian Eno, former synthesizer
fiddler
with Roxy Music and ongoing electronics-freaker solo artist/pornography aficionado.
The result is an album that sounds an awful lot like Brian Eno, but with David Bowie
singing. Side one is a new wavey-ish collection of Devo-style stilted jaunty guitar
pop songs with weird bubbling, shrieking and pippity-poppy synth noises layered on top.
An interesting sound definitely, with a very active lead guitar fighting for prominence
against ridiculous artificial noises that keep popping in and out ("What In The World"
has a HILARIOUS synth effect - it sounds like somebody is playing Pac-Man in the
recording studio! And this was 1977! Long before Pac-Man and Monaco GP had
captured the hearts of a tender young nation yearning to breathe free!). Bowie trumped
nearly everybody on this one, beating out the Talking Heads, Cars and even Alice Cooper
at usurping the technological obsessions of Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream and whoever
else were into that crap. So I'll give him "properties" for that. I'll also give him a
hearty
hi-ho for the song title "Sound + Vision," which, in my opinion, would make a great
name for a box set someday. Maybe one by Bachman-Turner Overdrive. The
problem for ME is this: side 2 is just a bunch of Eno ambient crap! Instrumental,
nearly
amelodic, bland. The only real winner there is "Weeping Wall," a cool gamelan song
that gets absorbed by Snakefingery guitar and synths by the end. If you don't know what
gamelan is, definitely look into it. It has to do with these clinkety note thingies
being
played in rapid succession with lots of repetition - very mesmerizing yet kickass at the
same time. I'm no expert on it - and in fact I wouldn't be surprised if somebody were to
tell me that "Weeping Wall" is NOT a gamelan song - but boy does it sound like one,
and boy is it awesome. As for the other three songs on side two - hey, if you're into
pompous, dramatic, slow-moving synths, wouldn't you rather buy a recent Burzum CD
so at least you can feel really evil walking down the street with it before you put it in
and
fall into a coma? OH NO! Maybe that's his whole intention - to commit MORE
murders by BORING EVERYBODY TO DEATH!!!! Heh heh - Bowie fans love my
black metal humor. Hey check this one out - Why did Abruptum cross the road?
Because Hellhammer had stolen the master tapes of In Umbra Malitjag
Ambulabo, In Aeternum In Triumpho Cenerrath and was laughing and waving them
up in the air slightly out of the reach of "It - The Evil Dwarf," so "It" needed to go
ask
Grutle Kjellson if he could borrow his long pointy sword to get it back! HA AHEHHE!!!
AHAHHA!!! HHEA A m.
This is the second of three LPs Bowie did with Eno
(called "The Berlin Trilogy" in homage to that song "Take My Breath Away" from
Top Gun), and it features an even denser mix of electronics, guitars, pianos and
rhythm section - instead of bleeps and bloops atop songs, the noises are now meshed and
integrated into the songs, making for lots of disorienting, exciting noisescapes (not to
mention some ugly vomitous crap like "Blackout"). Even something as deceivingly
normal-sounding as the classic title track's gentle piano and delayed-guitar poppiness
(which foreshadows the gorgeous work Eno would do with Ireland's own U2 on The
Joshua Tree and The Unforgettable Fire, which I've heard referred to as
The Forgettable Album, incidentally) nevertheless phases a golden wash of lush
swooshiness like an ocean of bliss around the heads of those like myself who find My
Bloody Valentine'sLoveless fair too tinny and bottomless to have any hypnotic
effect whatsoever. So the record sounds like a mature, layered, alternately
mesmerizing and irritating rock and roll album (rather than the new wave/power pop
focus of the last album) - UNTIL side two brings yet another 20 minutes of ambient
instrumentals. Not that they're all THAT bad (honestly "Neukoln" is among the coolest
background music I've ever heard - excellent sax wash and cool noises), but taking the
place of what could have been actual *songs*, it just again makes me feel like Bowie
completely turned the record over to Eno so he could go to Studio 54 and give Lou Reed
a shakey-squirt. Dude, I TOTALLY just made up the term "shakey-squirt"! Which
reminds me - don't you think this War Against Terrorism would be a lot more fun if we
started calling them the "Weird Al" Queda?
(a few months later)
So............. I'm thinking to myself......... hmmm......... it's 4:52 A.M. in the morning, why am I up? I'm still not sure, but I feel like putting something new on "Heroes" because my last little coment sucked. So I just took this shark quiz, I was supposed to find out, based on certain behaviors, what kind of shark I am. So, I was excited, WOW! maybe I'm a great white or something........ and it took me like 45 minutes to find out. I'M A NURSE SHARK! It was gay. I was UPSET.
You know what else is gay? Calling everything gay. But really, this book, called Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. That's gay. It's the most bloody boring book I have ever read.
Oh yeah, Star Wars wasn't too bad, nope, not too bad. Not as good as say........ Microbiology: A Chest of Drawers! But really. You see, even the strongest household soaps kill only around 15 percent of bacteria. AND Japan and South Korea have two of the highest average IQ scores in the world, actually, they might even be 1 and 2. BUT, American Jews have average IQ's of 115.
David Bowie is British.......... I think their scores average like......... 102? or maybe 104.
You know, I just saw Labyrinth, a movie David is in, it was interesting. It has that actress........ what's her name........ Jennifer Conley...... or something, who won some award, I think, for A Beautiful Mind. Yeah, that was an interesting movie. John Nash, what a genius, I'm bloody jealous. SO, from what I remember.... his theory must have done something with economics, I mean, they're talking about Adam Smith and how John proves him wrong.... blah blah blah. Then he gets Schizophrenia. I'm not sure what kind. Maybe paranoid scizophrenia. Yeah, I bet. Hmmmm.... what are the kinds again? Paranoid, catatonic, disorganized... and somthing like residue or reoccuring or something. Psychology, interesting stuff. That reminds me, when I saw Annie Hall, I realized that all the damn Manhattan Jews were talking about was Marxism and various Freudian terms. Are Jews still stuck on those topics now, I wonder. I mean, c'mon.
BUT really, the best of Bowie are "Heroes", Low, and Station To Station, the rest can eat my shorts. But, in the end, the best of Bowie usually doesn't seem to amount to much anything. Pitchfork magazine can just take that.
Another upsettingly bad-grammar and punctuation induced comment from Matt Byrd.
What an idiot.
PLEASE NOTATION: I am herewith reviewing the most recent remaster of this legendary double-live album, complete with different song order and three extra songs. So if you've only got the LP version, this review will be like an ice cube to a spider: cold, wet and big!
At this "stage" in his HA HA AH! HA AHA HA ! Hey, maybe they should have called the album Stag because he's so fuckin' sexy on the cover. Or Sage because he's such a genius. Or Stae because that's what illiterates will want to do when his awesome music starts playing. Or Age, because that's what he's doing gracefully. Or Ge because he brings good songs to life. Or Tag because no matter what price they put on it (the price TAG), it'd still be worth it because he's so great. Or Ag because that's what you'll be yelling when it ends, you'll be so sad. Or Stage because it's a live album.
This live album features live performances of live songs previously appearing dead on such albums as Low (6 songs), The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (5), "Heroes" (in quotation marks) (4), Station To Station (3) and Young Americans (1). If you went to this concert expecting to hear your favorite spicy delites from Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory, Diamond Dogs or Aladdin Sane, well I'd say you're up Shit Creek without a paddle! Luckily Shit Creek, though malodorous, is mostly solid, so you can walk to the nearest shoreline and walk home from there.
Several of these songs are the loveliest and most evocative songs ever recorded by Mr. Bowie, full of interesting guitar textures, odd note phrases and unforgettable hooks. That's because they were written by Brian Eno. Most of David Bowie's contributions, on the other hand, are tuneless disco funk crap. How did this guy manage to write songs as kickass and bubbly as "Suffragette City" and "Hang On To Yourself" anyway? Did Mick Ronson write those or something? At any rate, "S.C." isn't even on here, but "H.O.T.Y." sure is - and baby, it's 'HOT!'(y)
Though this certainly isn't a must-own, at least David doesn't rework the songs as soul music like he did on Live. These basically sound like the album versions, with slight variations due to band membership shifts. It's all pretty dark and dancey, but strangely sluggish - dance music for heroin heads (or 'mushroom heads,' in youth slang) perhaps?
Incidentally, I know you think it's a big game and all, but believe me if a bunch of spiders really DID come down from Mars, it would be no laughing matter. I hope David Bowie takes this into consideration the next time he decides to be 'artistic.' Remember when he recorded The Man Who Sold The World and then a man really DID sell the world? I don't see anybody laughing about THAT! And Christ, if I find one more of these dogs made out of diamonds, I'm gonna piss a brick. Ahh!!! Scary monsters!!!
Ahh!!! An Earthling!!!!
Ahh!!!! Reality!!!!
Maybe I should go Outside for a couple of Hours and calm down. I'll see you Tonight.
Ahh!!!
Ahh!!!
Ahh!!!
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CHOO! . . . .
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(*is offered job of head writer on Mad TV*)
Da woild would have you believe that this is the least
good of the Bowie/Eno collaborations, but that's like saying that You Can Tune A
Piano, But You Can't Tune A Fish is the least good of the REO Speedwagon live
LPs. It's not that these songs are any BETTER than those on the last two (though several
of them are), but that there are more "songs" to enjoy. NO AMBIENCE! Instead, this is
a collection of more normal new wave/rock - he has smashed the guitar/piano pop/rock
and kooky electronics together into the same songs with good solid American results.
Nice diversity as well, with piano pop, World Beat, violin reggae, guitar rock, funky
disco-rock and slow industrial groove framing such oddball items as "Repetition," whose
woozy bendy lead guitar make the record sound like it's all warped from sitting in the
sun
getting a tan, "Look Back In Anger," which sounds an awful lot like the Electric Light
Orchestra letting their hair down for a light-hearted cover of Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant
Song," and "Boys Keep Swinging" which has FAG LYRICS FOR HAVING SEX WITH
A BOY, PERHAPS FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF A PRIEST BECAUSE
THEY'RE ALL PEDOPHILES. Eww. Who needs lyrics like "Life is a pop of the
cherry"? My final synopsis - it's a really dancey record, and quirky (perhaps TOO
quirky for many critics?), but also awfully interesting in the production department with
lots of little effects and repeated noises that you likely have never heard in pop music
before. And NO AMBIANCE!!!!! That's right - no atmosphere at all! Thanks for
NOTHING, Ozone Layer! Mark this date: May 26, 2002. That was the day I became
a vegetarian. I'm not kidding! I watched Animal Planet for 5 hours on a flight a couple
of days ago and finally decided that I like gentle animals far too much to eat them. It
would be ONE thing if McDonald's served Wolverine McNuggets or Big Shark Mac, but
no cow, pig or chicken has ever attempted to harm me or my family and regardless of
how tasty their meat might be, I don't want them to die. Let the cow live and give milk,
let the chicken live and give eggs, let the pig live and just "Oink" all the time. It
may be
a stupid, smelly animal but as far as I know, it's not going out of its way to burn down
buildings or knife people in the park. My New Idea: LET'S EAT CRIMINALS!
<
An oddball mixture of murky, grubby, clueless robotic
dance/romance funk/pop/rock. Not nearly as "mature" or sterile as he would sound in
three short years, Bowie at this point just sounds confused. Eno is gone and he's left
with
all these different influences yanking and pulling at him from all angles of his brain
(one
ghastly song even reprises "Major Tom," a little-known character that appeared in an
obscure early album track!!!!). It's not an uninteresting record though - just not
particularly good. You'll shake your tail feather (slang term from the `50s, presumabl
Sorry to bother you but you wrote :
"Baa Baa Black Sheep" has that same melody too.
MY GOD!! I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT THOUGHT BEFORE! wowowowooowOOOWW!!
THAT'S INCREDIBLE!! MY ENTIRE THREE-YEAR-OLD HISTORY HAS BEEN REWEITTEN!!
AHHHHH!! (choo)
5/10
Okay. I'm not going to support this record to the extent that I did The Man
Who Sold The World; cause while I really like the overall ambient and
psychedelic rock sound, the album as a whole really does leave something to
be desired. But there are some redeeming features! Why does no one ever
mention 'Unwashed and somewhat slightly dazed' when they talk about this
album? I reckon it's one of Bowie's most catchiest rock tunes. Why it was
never released as a single is totally beyond me, cause I'm sure it would
have been a hit (a shortened version anyway!). 'Letter to Hermione' is truly
beautiful, and of course 'Space oddity' is a gem. Maybe I'm just a sucker
for epic rock songs or something cause I think 'Cygnet Committee' is
horribly under-rated! Let's not forget that rock music is about storytelling
and poetry. This is a great song about hope, which builds and builds and has
a great climax. It's always been seen as pretentious- but when the fuck has
Bowie not been pretentious? Listen to this song and it will grow on you!
The book 'Bowie Style' mentions a song called 'Hole in the ground' which was
recorded during these sessions but never released on the album. I can't find
anything about it, but it'd be interesting to see what it's like. Bowie does
have a terrible tendancy of leaving good songs off albums! (and leaving
shitty ones on them!)
I just want to say that you have no idea how much I long to see Prindle review those sixteen Sesame Street albums.
5/10
Hold your horses honey! TMWSTW is not a waste of hard earned cash! Far from
it! I'll be the first to admit that it is far from perfect. Bowie wasn't at
the peak of his song writing skills, and some of the songs can be
irritating. But the real trouble with the record is that it lies in the
shadow of his following records. Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust are just such
kick arse records that anything before them would have looked shit. But
there's a lot going for TMWSTW. It's incredibly unique. While Bowie got
'hard' on albums like Heroes and Scary Monsters, there's no other album in
the Bowie canon that sees him delve into metal. This is one of those early
heavy metal albums like Black Sabbath that aren't perfect but still fucking
original and brilliant and a landmark in music history. 'She shook me cold'
is just a fucking awsome metal song. Ronson's guitar seriously kicks arse.
'Saviour machine' is some of Bowie's finest lyrics, and the moog synthesiser
used in the song has an incredibly haunting effect. And 'The width of a
circle' is not boring, boring, boring! I'd go as far to say that it's one of
Bowie's greatest songs. The lyrics are surreal and exciting, Ronson's guitar
work is truly sensual, and Bowie's voice has a raspy thinness to it that
just makes this song a tour de force. It taps into the darkness and mystery
of metal and blues music that Black Sabbath's first album of the same year
did. The key to understanding this is to actually listen to the album. I
remember the first time I heard the Heroes album. After falling in love with
Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardaust I thought it was the most fucking awful thing
I'd heard. But I now consider it to be one of the finest (if no the finest)
records ever made. While I don't consider The Man Who Sold The World one of
the finest records ever made, it is still a great album and has to be
listened to to be understood. It's not single quality. You can't pop it into
the Cd player and just listen to The Supermen in the spur of the moment.
That particular song has to be listened to in context. Same for Running gun
blues. Not a great song in it's own right, but quite accomplished when
placed with the other songs. TMWSTW demonstrates Bowie power of transporting
you. It's a dark and haunting album that takes you to not very nice places-
but it's an experience only Bowie can give you! Lie on your bed in the dark
and listen to TMWSTW and you'll seriously go for an adventure. It's a raw
and exhilirating experience.
this is a horrible, horrible review Mr. Greenstein.
This album is so underated! Personally, I think it's one of Bowie's finest
and most consistent efforts, despite the horrid mennonite dress he's wearing
on the cover. See, if I was doing the whole drag thing, I would put more
effort into it, like donning skin tight slut wear like tight little short
shorts (like the ones Tom Selleck wore on Magnum PI) shave my legs, cake on
tons of whore make-up and have those open-toe come-fuck-me stiletto platform
heels while I'm on a pink satin bed with my legs spread. *sigh*...Bowie's
lack of shock sense is discouraging.
im listening to this lp as i review this...no im not a bowie enthusiast,but i can't help
but notice his genius in his satirical and usually misunderstood deram recordings...his
"space oddity album" strikes me as a new way to do folk,unmemorable at first because its
so different but becoming more understandable as truly authentic folk music with real
passion in the lyrics and great care taken in presentation...which brings us to "the man who
sold the world",its rather agitating to see that your take on it has it being boring
bluesrock crap:the point seems for this highly original and imaginative artist to meld his
unique kind of folksong to a black sabbthy type instrumentation,but don't be fooled,theres
still the psychedelia and offbeat colorings as well as the terrific lyrics not to mention
a topnotch band backing him up...i find this album thoroughly exciting and contrary to
the popular critic line an album which shows bowie at his most realistic,undiluded and
rawest ...bowies voice?again,theres some validity to the adulation masses of people heap
upon him:his voice sounds like a fifth beatle,actually i hear john lennon with a
georgeharrison intro/outro-spective flavour,although on the strange "superman"he sounds like a
cockney d slimeball villain...i believe the album that follows this is a great pop album and
"ziggy stardust" is challenging but sees him going further into the realms of what
interests me least about him:glitter,overproduction and image...theres more than a grain of
truth to the fact that part of the appeal of an artist like this,as bowie himself will
admit,is based on his appearance/image which,from my observations has amassed quite a
following of straights and notsostraights...the aspect that many fail to acknowlege is that this
marketing tool has enabled him to do just about whatever he wants
artistically(within'those conceptual parameters),so even the stuff we most overlook by him has an
artistic/intellectual validity...i noticed this most when i saw his live audience-request show on bravo
(yes,someone made me watch it!),i was amazed by how much the man cared about what he was
doing,enough to rearrange his material quite dramatically with his new band...one
shouldn't be put off by the fact that his later material('73 on) seems socially directed,a
closer look at his earlier recordings reveals that bowie was so extremely different and
misunderstood that,for the sake of being successful,he really had to redirect himself...yes,his
character explorations enabled him to connect to a wider audience...as one who has been
known to don a frogs head now and then or pump iron to get attention i fully realise the
logic of such behavior.
I'd just like to point out that All The Madmen is not a Syd Barret tribute as far as I know. Instead, it's about Bowie's half-brother, who was a patient in Cane Hill Asylum [a now disused mental hospital near where I live] for a while, until he killed himself in 1985.
I know it's uncool to like early Bowie albums but Lulu covered "The Man Who Sold The World", I mean LULU! How cool is that? and a band who's name I can't recall but their lead singer should have finished reading "How To Safely Clean A Loaded Gun". This album is remarkable for a couple of things, the song, "All The Madmen" is Bowies first taste of prog/glam (althrough I'm not Mr music head, so I could be wrong on that one) and it's the first album with ace guitarist, Michael Dwight Ronson (b.1958-1995) (who incidentally has an action hero actor brother, Charles Ronson, who's films include, Magnificent Seven, Magnum Force and Boogie Nights) Also Michael Dwight Woodywoodmansey (b.1957) played drums, so all they really needed was a Trev (b.1923) on bass (who didn't know it at the time but would later write a book about his time as a gay school teacher) and they would become the "Women From Venus, Spiders From Mars".
David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World is an extremely underrated album that documents a part of Bowie's evolution that we'd never see again. Basically, Die-vid rocks the fuck out on this album more than he almost ever would again, which is definitely a reason to get this. There is a lot of hard rock influence on this album and it shows on many of the tracks, but David still gives the album that trademarked Bowie-treble sound that would distinguish every damn one of his early albums, up until Aladdin Sane. Actually, this album stands out production-wise for having one of the most unique mixes I've ever heard. The entire album sounds really rainy, depressive, and downed out - gray and lonely. Mick Ronson's lead guitar is often really sludgy, but somehow still sounds thin and sharp. Tony Visconti's Gigantor bass dominates the sonic landscape, but never seems to have any real bass presence. Mick Woodmansey's drums are often thin enough to sound like they may go into tin can territory, but they never do. Ralph Mace, who makes his only appearance on a Bowie album here (is this actually just a Bowie pseudonym? I've never heard of this guy doing anything else), contributes Moog synthesizer that sounds like the long-lost alien brother of Ray Manzarek's Vox organ, and often sounds nearly as nursery-rhyme disturbing. Bowie's vocals are, without fail, distant, completely European, cold, sometimes processed, a little ridiculous, and maximally weird, and on almost every song there's that thin Bowie acoustic-rhythm track that would be another one of his early trademarks.
Not bad at all. Sure, there's some filler, but a lot of the material on this record is powerful. I think that this is where David's efforts began to pay off.
9/10
What do you mean a couple of the songs aren't GREAT? They're all
GREAT! (Well, "Fill Your Heart" isn't, but it's just a cover...) "Life on Mars?"
is DB's best song EVER, bar none. Even "Space Oddity" pales next
to it. "Changes" and "Oh, You Pretty Things" are absolute pop classics.
The rest aren't as well known, of course, but they hold up just as
well. "Quicksand" and "The Bewlay Brothers" aren't really overrated - I've
actually never heard of anyone liking them - and are both quite
enjoyable listens. "Kooks" is fair (relative to the rest, that is), but "Andy
Warhol"...YEOW!! "Queen Bitch" sounds like Lou Reed at the
beginning, but quickly turns into something else (equally likable, however). The
"Song for Bob Dylan" is a personal favorite, cause I'm such a
Dylan nut. A little weird, but awesome. The whole album rocks. His best, even
after Ziggy. 10!
Why is everyone so down on "Fill your heart"? It's a great performance on Bowie's part, I
think. Why? Because the song is so finely balanced between absolute sincerity and
mercilessly taking the piss. Every time I listen to it I still get that giddy feeling as I think
I know that he must really mean it - how could he sing it in such a heartfelt way if he
didn't - and then suddenly, I think - you're such a fucking idiot, listen to his voice,
man, he's laughing out of his backside while he sings this sentimental twizz. The point is,
I guess, that there's a kind of beautiful tension between these two extremes that is
never resolved, which makes the song exciting to listen to every time.
'Quicksand' and 'The Bewlay Bros.' are so baaaad that every time I want to hear them, I want to kick seven shades of boiled shite out of that
posing, tenth-rate, pretentious, arty-farty, plagiarising little queen-fuck that is Dame David Bowie. The songs are so dated and so irritating that
they make even Elton John's most toe-curling musical moments seem positively entertaining. And the man Bowie is a cunt. Just read any one of
his self-absorbed, show-offy interviews.
Ah, but Elton never did anything quite as wonderful as 'Quicksand' did he? Well, did he?? 'Quicksand' rules more than sex with everyone i've ever
wanted to have sex with. It really is that good! And, i'm a sexy guy!!!
One of the great thing about Prindle is he gets you all worked up to the point where you're boiling and then you see he gave the album an "8." It's a high ranking, but I'd go up a
notch because of sentimental reasons. Maybe that's what makes Mark the owner of this site and me just a trivial little music collector emailing Taosterman on a fucking
Sunday night. "Quicksand" is brilliant and the Ryko release (I guess the catalog's on some major now, all spruced up for you to buy again) includes the demo which just
knocks the piss out of the admittedly overproduced original. I put "Queen Bitch" on a comp tape for my then-girlfriend and we later got married. That's enough for me to
keep this one at a "9," or a "10" if my then-girlfriend was Bo Derek.
i might be gay.thats what i say everytime i listen to this ultra catchy skippy dippy collection of cabaret songs.that bowie shore can write a darn good melody.the first 2 songs are pop classics.Changes and Oh you pretty things are just great pieces of songwriting by a bisexual man unless that man is mick ralphs.then 8 line poem is a nice quiet diversion that grows on me like a flesh tuxedo.Life on mars is another great piano driven songs.which reminds me that rick wakeman has sucked for all but 40 minutes of his life and this is it.theres 2 rockers in song for bob dylan and the ultra mega great QUEEN BITCH what a fucking riff.and mick ronsons guitar playing is second to no other bisexual other than you guessed it mick ralphs.2 little catchy side pieces in Kooks and Fill your heart.Andy warhol is a personal favorite with that great little acoustic line in the verse and bowie's ultra cool bisexual voice in the chorus.quicksand is very nice with yet another grand chorus and seriously fucked up lyrics.The Bewlay Brothers is the greatest song ever written.
What I love most about this album is that the synthesizer noise on "Life on Mars?" sounds very much like Disney, and I was listening to this song and "Space Oddity" when i was in Disneyland's Tomorrowland. "Fill Your Heart" may sound weird and silly, but it helps change my life whenever I feel depressed and hear voices in my head talking shit. This wonderful song relieves, and Bowie is like a therapist to me. This is a perfect album that gets me to like Bob Dylan!
Contains one of the only two sublime songs Bowie has ever written : Life on Mars. The second one is Heroes.
9/10
Mark, I'm afraid I've just lost total respect for you. "By the numbers
rock 'n roll with no reason to exist"? Give me a break! Why don't you just
say the same thing about London Calling while you're at it? A perfect 10.
Honestly, why does nobody ever mention "Five Years" as one of the most heart-wrenchingly, cynically beautiful songs Bowie ever recorded? This
whole album's great, but the only reason I still put it on nowadays is for the first track. The atmosphere is maintained so steadily and majestically
throughout that whole tune, the lyrics so poetically ominous...how can it be overlooked? I mean, it's the first thing Bowie shoves into your face on
this record, for Christ's sakes!
I agree that both "Suffragette City" and the title track are absolute
classics, but i also love the rest! I dont hear anything awful or boring or
uninteresting in my shit filled ears. I also thought i was the only one who
thought "Hang On To Yourself" sounded like The Ramones before The Ramones
even formed yet! I like it more now that you've mentioned it! "Starman" quite
possibly is my favorite song on the album. I love the distorted "glammy"
guitar, the orchestration (mellotron? whatever it is), the "na-na"'s at the
end and the chorus, even though it sounds so much like "Somewhere Over The
Rainbow" so i can understand how you might think it sucks! "Five Years" is
absolutely powerful, and i love how it just builds and builds until it ends
on that same drum beat it started with. "Lady Stardust" may sound like Elton
John but its quite a nice piano ballad to me. Overall i give this album a 9.
Whatever people think of Dave Bowie's early seventies albums in the cold
light of hindsight, in the context of the UK music scene at the time he was
important. Don't know about the US but here (UK) he was mostly appreciated
by young teens who heard something in his pretentious weird-o-sexual
orange-haired sci-fi constructions that chimed with their adolescent
going-throughs. Bowie was pop; he was never really an artist for adults
(thank God) but he did his job, i.e. suggested something beyond and above
the mundane restricted world of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin etc. 13-year-olds
were not to know that his lyrics were mostly rubbish. That said, this album
still sounds alright, mainly cos of Mick Ronson's great guitaring (see also
'Queen Bitch' on Hunky Dory, and many others). Also, the timbre of Bowie's
voice was fresh then. Now, of course, we are all sick to death of it.
Anyway, there was no need for Suede to come into being; once was enough.
Death to Suede!
Definitely overrated, but still an excellent album. In comparison to a lot of other crap released around the same time (anything by Chicago or Jethro Tull, for example) this
sounds heavenly. Now, however, it still sounds good. A little dated, and not utterly packed with strong songs, but still holds together pretty well. I personally don't much like
"Starman" or "Ziggy Stardust", but "Hang On to Yourself", "Star", "Rock and Roll Suicide", "Moonage Daydream", and "Suffragette City" are all classics. 8/10
Funny tidbit about "Suffragette City" - Alice Cooper has claimed for years
that Bowie had a nasty habit of ripping off whatever he was doing in the
early 70's, and one of the things he likes to point out is that he claims
that "Suffragette City" is a virtual copy of Cooper's own 1971 garage-glam
classic, "Under My Wheels"...at first I couldn't really hear it, but upon
further listenings it became very obvious to me that the background music is
very similar, and that you can easily interchange Bowie's shouts of "It's a
suffragette city!" with Coop's shouts of "You're under my wheels!".
The Ziggy review is the funniest fucking thing I've read in a long time.
How can you give this the same rating as friggin Tormato?. Ziggy Stardust is gruesomely overrated but is nevertheless one of Bowie's best albums and far better than that worthless piece of shit Yes album (I'm talking about Tormato not The Yes Album). The lyrics are utter hogwash though as Bowie was definitely no Bob Dylan (that's for sure!). However this still deserves an 8 in my view.
Glam rock started in 1971 with T. Rex's Electric Warrior. Half the songs on
here sound like ripoffs of the style of those. And Elton John ripped part
of his "theatrical" piano ballad style off Bowie. So yes, this is what
glam's supposed to sound like. It was Bowie (and his guitarist, Mick
Ronson), in fact, who invented the "loud generic style distorted rock and
roll guitars" glam style heard on a couple of the songs of this album.
so wat if bowie ripped of Alice Cooper? so wat if ziggy isn't glam? so wat if ziggy takes it up the ass from mick ronson? So wat if he rhymes too with two in "Starman"? it's fukin classic and I give it a 10.
Nick Cave rules more than god himself. Alladin Sane isn't half bad either, you know? It's very easy to be utterly dwarfed by the talent of Mr Cave,
but come on? Mr Bowie did well here. True, the Stones cover sucks. But then, what do you expect? Wait until 'Rebel Rebel' comes along. Dave
out-stones The Stones! But, that's on a later record, and has no relevance to Alladdin Sane whatsoever!!
I just want to say that I saw Nick Cave about a month ago, and agree with Prindle wholeheartedly. The man amazes me beyond words. It also makes me wonder how many
other mind-bogglingly brilliant artists there are out there that I'm not familiar with because of their obscurity, and then I glance at my CD collection and note how disturbingly
loaded it is with mediocrities like the last three studio albums by Metallica, and feel a quick stab of depression.
Probably Bowie's best Ziggy-era album. Basically, all of the songs are good except his rather nasty version of "Let's Spend the Night Together". (What was he thinking?) The
atonal piano of "Aladdin Sane" is great, wonderfully bizarre, and even the attempted tough-guy rock of "Cracked Actor" works. Sort of. Regardless, it's also got "Panic In
Detroit" and "Drive In Saturday" on it, which are two of his finest songs. So I think it deserves an 8/10.
To be honest, I only listened to Ziggy Stardust once, but I agree with you,
Marky Mark, that it is quite overated. While I found it to be good, I
definitely didn't think it was some sort of watershed in rock history the
way it's made out to be. I found some of the material bland, while Aladdin
Sane rocks! I prefer Aladdin Sane over Ziggy simply because I think the
songwriting is just as good, if not better, and more energy has been added
in. The only problem I have is that all these early Bowie albums seem to
have pretty lousy production. Just compare to Black Sabbath albums of the
same era and you'll notice.
If my memory is right, wasn't it a fold open album and on the inside he's wearing some kinda sheer body stocking and his chest is poked out and the palms of his hands is on his back? I showed it to a guy at work and he looked at it and laughed for five or ten minutes. I guess the crotch shot got to him.
The first time I listened to this I just didn't get it at all. Unlike pretty much every other of his other 70's albums, this one didn't leave a very good impression on first listen, in fact the only song I could remember was "Watch That Man" and the only memorable thing about that one is the chorus. Also a couple songs felt like COMPLETE T-Rex rip-offs. One has the bongos/congas groove, one has soulful black female vocals, etc. But the more I listen to it the more i like it. Still, it seems like a record that's unjustly canonized..
Actually, for the record (vinyl), I'd like to say that I think this LP is
exactly as good as Nick Cave's Tender Prey, the CD that "Mercy Seat" comes
from. Keep in mind, I only listened to Aladdin Sane once and I've heard
Prey twice already. That said, the first run-through, I thought it was
exactly as good as David Bowie's Young Americans. Which I've never heard,
of course, but I've heard it sucks.
Nick Cave is of course a bad mother f*cker even though he and the Seeds have become middleaged aged a little dull; his lyrics (you're right) are powerhouses. You might really been buzzed because you sure hit some typos LOL
Way to raise the middle finger to the allmusic guide..... your review totally owns pretentious avant-garde critics like Thom Jurek who worship stupid random noise bands like Acid Mothers Temple.
"Weird Al" Yankovic
Maybe Pin Ups is one of Bowie's best cause nearly every song on it is solid, unlike most of his albums. Take another look at the track list, it's damn near faultless. And the
Spiders of course may not top the originals, but there's some rockin' music on here! It's deserving of the 8/10, cause it's a great album. Screw the Ziggy concept, entertaining as
it was, this is just having fun and isn't that what rock's supposedly about?
We agree again on this all covers album! Awesome, ain't it? And
embarrassingly more rocking and consistent than his own studio albums haha!
Quite a strange way to end his (arguably) most creative, unique, and
respected career period. Apparently this was the last album to feature the
wonderful Spiders From Mars backing band he had used since 1970's The Man
Who Sold The World.
This is what i'm talking about, this is easily my favorite Ziggy album. The band he has on this recod is just sooo tight. Damn it's awesome.
"Rebel Rebel" is a great song...for the first minute. After that it just
gets as repetitive as a jackhammer drilling up yer anus. No bridges, no
choruses, just one verse and one nifty guitar riff over and over and over
and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over
and over and over and over
This was the first album I ever bought. I used to do a paper round in those days and I remember the huge cardboard cut out of Bowie (to whom this
album is credited - not David Bowie) in full Dog regalia sprawling six feet across the record shop's ( or record store to you yanks) window.
I ahd heard Rebel Rebel, Diamond Dogs and 1984 on the radio I had in my bare and cold bedroom. One week I actually went out to the record shop and
handed over œ2.50 for a cassette copy of the album. I recall stammering as I asked for the album from the sexy 23 year old shop assistant. I recall also
being awfully aware that I was the most spotty, ugly, squatted individual who had ever walked the Earth. The shop assistant went off and whispered to
the shop manager who looked at me like I was a proto-stalker or something. You can see what I liked about the album - Bowie felt a freak at the time and
so did I.
I disagree with you Mark, I dont think "1984" is no good at all, in fact it's probably the most solid song on the whole album. I do agree with you that this is one of those downer albums, but it's not a peice of crap. I am a little bit sick and tired of all the praise that "Rebel Rebel" receives, it's certainly not Bowie's best so please stop that bull shit.
.
Back in '74 four or five of us guys rode to Greensboro in a brand new Nova to the first concert we had ever been to. It was to see Bowie when he had his 'Diamond Dogs' tour. I think that the tickets were like eight or ten bucks apiece. This one friend and I liked it but I didn't know about the others. Bowies' biggest prop was a giant hand that he got into without us looking and the hand came down and a gaudy-looking purple light was coming out of it and he was sitting in the palm of this thing. I bought the eight track of "David Live" after it came out and this one friend and I thought that it was pretty good at the time but when the eight track broke like they usually did, I didn't replace it. I figured that it wasn't essential like "Blood on the Tracks", which everybody liked. - A five.
Great review. I've only ever heard samples of this but it really does sound
like one of the worst albums ever. If I rember rightly, at the time Lester
Bangs described it as 'dismal flatulence', which sums it up perfectly.
After all the reviews I've read here, I can't believe this is the first one
I've ever written-in about. But here I am, because I've wondered why albums
everyone hates so much stay in print, but now I know because I love this
album.
Yeah, really, what is with that guy?
What the hell is this shit? This is fake, lousy, obnoxious garbage! "Can You Hear Me" is gorgeous but the rest of it is slick goldfish-bowl-of-cocaine processed cheese. I don't
remember any of the songs besides "Fame", the title track, and "Can You Hear Me". But it can't be that bad if it just floated away after hearing it. So much for resonance.
Almost as bad as Hours.... 4/10
I think 6 is a bit generous for this. Soooooooooo slow and boring. What the
hell happened? I mean, it's not like the previous albums were works of
genius, but most of them were at least one half to three quarters full of
decent to good songs. I guess I can see how the Thin White Puke started to
get labelled as the Chameleon before he joined the Chameleons UK. I respect
him for taking a stab at different genres of music that nobody expects him
to fiddle with, but the final results are pretty weak indeed. This stuff
doesn't come anywhere near the real funk and soul that came out in those
days in the States ('ere's lookin' atchoo, George "Fat Fuck" Clinton),
although the song "Fame" rules, thanks to Lennon. Ever seen Lennon's video
for "Property Of Goatfucker"? Man I'd love to give that bitch a tit fuck.
This album here kept me from buying anymore Bowie albums. I remember seeing him lip-synching the words to "Fame" on 'Soul Train' one Saturday afternoon and thought it was a joke. He even faked the high pitched ramblings of 'Fame! Fame! Fame! Fame! Fame!' right down to the lows that come at the end of the song. And "Across the Universe" is downright depressing. Luckily I bought the eight track and it eventually broke.
Hi Mr Prindle!
Mark, been reading through your review archives for months now, and you've done an amazing job. Consistently, surprisingly funny and readable reviews. Thanks for finally adding a Meat Puppets section (yer Mirage review's a bit... um... unexpected, of course). Dude, might I add that you need to start a Kinks record review section, like, now. Because the Kinks rule (have proof, & it's a-called Lola vs. Powerman Part 1!!).
Hello Mr Stuebing I've just joined you on here. Top Bowie album for me, the natural progression from Young Americans, looser production, more groovy. A time capsule of the whole 70s Rock Star-coke-limo-private jet-dyke of a girlfriend-Jimmy Carter for President lifestyle (OK scratch that last one)
Hello Stuebing, might as well join in, maybe Station to Station is Bowies most mature album of them all (that's not saying much, J) and possibly his most conceptual (although "Golden Years" doesn't seem to fit here and is the weakest track and the title track although surprisingly sophisticated, is a little bit clunky, and with its "It's too late" refrain, lyrically no "Macarthur Park"). Recorded in a sort of "let's snort so much cocaine, that it's all over our noses, lips, down the front of our shirts etc" fashion, then "slow the songs right down and drag them out, repeating the chorous, 20 times, so that only six fit on the "album" (term used to describe the musical format of the time, also LP or long player). "And use SAX, plenty of SAX, to flesh out the sound and we'll add in synth, congos, bongos, finger clicks and whistling". "Make it a real downer". "But let's use really talented session musicians, (I'm looking at you Carlos Alomar), guys from really famous bands, (I'm looking at you Roy Bittan) and any other blow throughs, (I'm looking at you Earl Slick), that just want a "top up" (term used to describe drug addicts and there habits) and they can "jam" (term used to describe loose music) on the ends of the songs and we'll spend four days solid in the recording studio, with little or no material". "And I'll throw in some Hebrew and songs about God, so that people can hear that I'm in touch with myself" Yip, I can see it now. So, the middle of the middle period Bowie, not really a good place to start if you suffer from depression but with songs like "Stay" which could be the mirror image to say, I don't know, something by a really popular band in the late 80's that had a hit album called "Remain In Light" and it's the dopey lyrics in "TV15" that MAKE IT, but the real jewel here is, "Wild is the Wind" it has his best?!? vocal delivery (which I am reliably informed is a COVER) honestly, I didn't think he (Bowie) could sing until I heard that song. It is him isn't it?
Ha! Great black metal joke! There's probably only
about 8 people in the world who would get it, though.
"It" and Hellhammer!! Oh man, that's rich.
Eh, this review is bloody not in the right for a stompin' good time. I give Low a 10. Low, Heroes, Station To Station are albums that seemed to be above what Bowie would ever make.... and they are all stellar. I still need/want to listen to Heathen and Reality, but I have a feeling that these will end up being a wee bit better. So, Low, you either think it's not-so-good/bad or GREAT. It's kind of take it er leave it.... like Mako sharks, which ill eat'cha.
THIS is David Bowie at his best. Well, this, "Heroes" and Station To Station; glam-rock be damned. The last five songs are the ones that get on peoples nerves most often....... I guess Eno was still perfecting his amelodic crap... ok, sorry, I actually like 'em. A New Career In Town and Weeping Wall are the tow highlights of this 'side two'. Warszawa is pretty good too. The ambient instrumentals, in short, are just not as compelling as the instrumentals on "Heroes" this may have something to do with Bowie's vocals on some of the tracks which only distract from the synth washes which, alone, are just melodic enough to keep Low on a plane and not drag it down. I got to empasize, though, I REALLY don't think Bowie should have added his voice to ANY of the ambient tracks, it's very distracting. I'll get used to it. Speed Of Life is perhaps one of the hookiest instrumentals that I have ever heard, it's damn good. Low, of course, has no songs that are quite as compelling as the title track of "Heroes" and the instrumentals are also not as interesting as the ones offered on "Heroes" but it is also a bit more even than that album. Heh, heh, kind of like Bookends and Bridge Over Troubled Water! It's a very interesting album, a 9.5 from me.
Without this, there would be no Berlin Pleasure Victim e.p. and Terry Nunn would have moved up to "Senior Whore Waitress" at the local sports bar. I understand you're
point, but again, memories make this album stand out for me. Alone, with an ounce of good weed, a freshly printed Bachelor's Degree, unemployed in my old bedroom of my
fucking parent's house, side two of "Heroes" prevented me from selling the weed, buying a handgun and blowing my head off. The routine was to put on side two, take small
hits, exhale the smoke through a cardboard paper towel tube stuffed with Bounce, go to bed, and get up in the morning to look for a fucking job in the classifieds. I repeated
this for three weeks, found a job, and saved up enough money to get my own apartment with "Heroes" in a box labeled "B" for Brian, not Bowie. Thanks Eno!
Oh, man, you're givin' me brain tumors made of weasel hair with these reviews, 'Heroes' is a fine album, worthy of a 10........................... except fot Sons Of The Silent Age and The Secret Life Of Arabia............. which is Lodger-level material............. review some Prince, Stevie Wonder and Elvis Costello albums...... if you want to...... if not, oh well, I guess.
To me this is THE BEST David Bowie album. The guitar playing is amazing, the rhythm section is the tightest of all Bowie records and the songs themselves are twisted, catchy and very original. All songs are different from each other but the album is tied together by the production and performances. I could never understand why a lot of people hate this album; well, it is kind of weird, but that’s the whole appeal, I mean, take “African night flights”, this is a fucking weird song, but it KICKS ASS!!, and so does “Repetition”, and “Look back in anger”, and “Red Sails”, you get the point… This is the David Bowie I grew up to love, this album is the reason I like David Bowie as a musician. People can say what they want about “Lodger”, but never before and after has Bowie created an album as peculiar and intriguing as this one. What the hell where these guys thinking in the studio? “Yassassin”?- crazy stuff in here.