It's been awhile since the last exciting Record Guide, and honestly there are only a few artists left for whom I feel qualified to write one. My good friend ANCIANT (“A New Career in a New Town”…Bowie song) is the real Bowie expert, and I invited him to write a guest guide for Bowie. But I’ve been listening to a lot of Bowie myself lately, and I was in the mood to discuss his music. (ANCIANT is welcome, of course, to respond at length or even to write a counter-Guide and I will still happily publish it here. That would be cool.)
The cliché about Bowie is that he is the ultimate musical chameleon. And while there is definitely truth to the cliché, it also sells him a bit short. Because not until the late 1980’s and beyond does he begin to merely follow trends. During the 70’s, he either started them or took them forward in new directions. Or, as in the case of his Berlin Trilogy, he brings them to the mainstream.
I think it is probably a toss-up between Bowie and Neil Young as to who was the most consistently great, prolific and most important rock artist during the 1970’s. (I guess Led Zeppelin would also be in that conversation). Album after album during that decade Bowie broke ground, was brilliant and turned in unanticipated, different directions.
It is interesting to note that Bowie also probably could not hit it big nowadays. As with Springsteen, he did not hit his stride commercially until several records into his career. Like with NFL teams and their quarterbacks, the record companies these days are not that patient to allow proper artistic development. Bruce did not have a hit record until his third. These days his label would have dropped him by then (and actually, Columbia was about to drop Bruce in ’75 if Born To Run wasn’t a hit.) With Bowie, it was really his 4th record that was destined to become a classic. So, David Jones...
David Bowie (1967) *
You know, some artists come out of the gate on their debut fully formed with brilliant work (The Doors, Zeppelin come to mind). Not so with Bowie. Only interesting in retrospect considering who Bowie would become. These are music hall style songs that almost sound like novelty songs, and some are really laughable. Not that you can’t do this style in a serious manner (The Kinks did it brilliantly during this same time period), but Bowie doesn’t pull it off. Many people don’t even acknowledge this record as part of the real discography, preferring to pretend that the story starts with the next one.
Space Oddity (aka David Bowie, aka Man of Words, Man of Music) (1969) ***
Here Bowie is folk/psychedelic troubadour. There is one bona fide masterpiece here, and it is the title track. He had the luck/savvy to release the song as a single several weeks before the Apollo 11 landing, and so space-themed things were all the rage. But it has lasted the test of time and remains an arresting, haunting, gorgeous piece of storytelling. There are some other very good songs here as well, even if they don’t match that song. “Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud” and “Memory of a Free Festival” are memorable, “Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed” has a great groove and “Letter To Hermione” is pretty.
The Man Who Sold the World (1970) ***
Once again shifting sounds, Bowie leaves the psychedelic folk of SO and creates a harder edged rock record. Some consider this to be the birth of glam, a genre for which Bowie will soon become the patron saint. While good, I do find a sameness about these songs where they kind of all blend together. Bowie is an artist who has benefited greatly from collaboration with musicians on his records, and he has an impressive record of working with innovative guitarists. Crucially he is fairly generous in allowing his musicians to contribute and shine (although he did not use Stevie Ray Vaughan to full effect on Let's Dance, I must say). This is where the crucial Mick Ronson gets onboard. The expansive opener “The Width of a Circle” is impressive and almost proggish. “The Supermen” is also great (although I prefer the version released as a bonus track on Hunky Dory). As with the last record, it is the title track here that stands above the rest, though.
Hunky Dory (1971) ****
It has taken me years to properly appreciate this record, but now I get it. Sonically, he takes the best of his two previous records and melds them together. The acoustic guitars are prominent and many of these are folkish songs, but Ronson is also here to add some grit and glam touches. It is here where he really plays with what will become a key theme on the next few records, ambiguous sexuality (“Queen B**ch,” “Oh! You Pretty Things”). He pays tribute to some contemporary heroes (“Song For Bob Dylan,” the riffy “Andy Warhol”). He also returns to space themes with the beautiful “Life On Mars,” and I guess classic “Changes” could stand as his artistic manifesto.
There is no questioning the impact of TRAFOZSATSFM. Arguably THE glam record, it is a concept album about an alien rock star of ambiguous sexuality, and through this construct Bowie explores themes such as fleeting fame. He became a superstar as Ziggy, his stage alter ego of the period. But as to the actual music. First of all, guitarist Mick Ronson is as responsible for the great sound here as Bowie is. His guitar work is awesome. While acknowledging the huge impact and influence of this record, I personally find it far from his best. About half of the songs are bona fide Bowie classics: “Ziggy Stardust,” “Suffragette City,” “Moonage Daydream,” “Starman” and the wonderful opener “Five Years.” But the rest of these songs I don’t consider top shelf Bowie. Am I wrong here, ANCIANT?
Alladin Sane (1973) *****
The conventional wisdom is that Ziggy Stardust...is the classic, and this follow-up is still fantastic, but not quite as great. I flip that wisdom. I much prefer AS. It is in much the same style, only grittier and glammier. From the raunchy Ronson crunch of opener “Watch That Man” to the sleazy toss-off cover of the Stones’s “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” AS feels less labored over, looser and a lot more fun than its more celebrated predecessor. And here’s the thing I always like about Bowie’s best music, he lets his great supporting musicians really stretch out and shine. The title track is a pretty conventional Bowie track of the period until pianist Mike Garson cuts loose on a daring, almost free jazz freak-out solo, showing a willingness to stretch the boundaries even here.
Pin-Ups (1973) **
This is the minor place holder that it seems like it would be. Bowie covers some of his favorite British rock/pop songs from the likes of The Who, Them, The Yardbirds, Pink Floyd, The Kinks, etc. He doesn’t improve on any of them. “Sorrow” is nice.
Diamond Dogs (1974) ****
I don’t really get the, err, dogging of this album. It is actually one of my personal favorites. He was entering a period of intense cocaine addiction, and the whole glam thing was getting stagnant and he was clearly needing a new direction, yet the dystopian visions and strung out decadence here really work. He wanted to do an ambitious concept album based on Orwell’s ‘1984,’ but couldn’t get the rights, so he kept some of the ‘1984’ themed songs and put out a post-apocalyptic record (and you know how I love post-apocalyptic entertainment!) “1984” is great, and of course “Rebel Rebel” possesses one of the all-time classic guitar riffs.
Young Americans (1975) ***
Bowie’s glam was clearly coming to a creative dead-end, and he had been listening to a lot of soul music at the time, so he decided to have a go in his own unique way. Bowie is about as white as they come, and he called his new direction “plastic soul.” It is actually fitfully good. The title track is the clear standout, of course, but “Win” is underrated. Interesting to note John Lennon’s involvement in this record, he co-wrote and played on “Fame” and participated in Bowie’s not very good cover of “Across the Universe.”
Bowie is now the Thin White Duke. His intake of cocaine was prodigious by this point, and Bowie claims to have little recollection of recording this record at all (much like Pete Townshend claims to have no memory of making All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes). No matter, it is still quite good. Brilliant in parts. Usually transition records don’t stand up to the fully formed starting or ending points, but here he manages to transition from his plastic soul and lay some sonic groundwork for the bold work around the corner, while still creating a work of substance in and of itself. The multi-part title track is almost prog, and the wonderful “Golden Years” is funkier than anything on Young Americans. Interesting record in that it really is caught between two phases of his career. I don’t like “Wild Is the Wind,” though.
“The Berlin Trilogy”:
Low (1977) *****
“Heroes” (1977) *****
Lodger (1979) ****
Bowie relocated to West Berlin for awhile for new inspiration and to get a handle on his drug problem, and hooked up musically with Brian Eno. Bowie and Eno ended up making three records commonly referred to as “The Berlin Trilogy.” The first two, at least, are masterpieces. Inspired by a burgeoning interest in visual art and the German music scene (especially Kraftwerk and Neu), Bowie and Eno boldly cast aside structure and created songs that were jarring, jagged, fragmentary and experimental. Rarely has a mainstream artist such as Bowie taken such risks and come out so successfully with product. On the second side of the first two records, the mood shifts dramatically to ambient instrumentals more in keeping with much of Eno’s work. Low is the most risky and brilliant of the trilogy, but “Heroes” does contain some more fully formed songs, including what may be Bowie’s single greatest song in the soaring title track. Lodger is more accessible while still staying somewhat experimental (no instrumentals and more recognizable song structures), but it is also the least interesting of the three.
Scary Monsters (1980) ****
Considered by many to be the last great Bowie record. In fact, many times as Bowie has released a subsequent record and a critic likes it, you will often see the phrase “his best since Scary Monsters,” as if this were the benchmark for his last work of significance. Critics also often claim that it is a grand summation of his disparate styles up to this point. I don’t really hear that, though. To me it sounds like a natural progression from The Berlin Trilogy, as Lodger moved away from the most extreme experimentalism yet maintained some outside the box musical thinking, I hear SM continuing in the same vein. And it is a better record than Lodger, although Eno is now out of the picture. “Ashes To Ashes” is fantastic, and gives us an update of Major Tom’s condition (from “Space Oddity”). “Teenage Wildlife” is near epic, and features some wildly great guitar playing from Robert Fripp, while “Scream Like a Baby” is one of his more underrated songs.
Lest you think that I will just rate every Bowie record highly, he will come back down to earth post-1980 in Part II of the Record Guide. But his 70’s work is practically unassailable, rivaled only by Neil Young and Springsteen in consistent greatness during that decade, and only Neil in how prolific he was. I will also address live Bowie and compilations in Part II.
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