Kinetic's Top Five of the week

[Guest Kinetic]

Seeing as how it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to find reasons to continue coming here (despite the reemergence of my supposed doppelganger, Incandenza) and the show of interest from a few people for my assistance in discovering music, I'm going to attempt to post my personal top five bands/albums/etc. in a thread every week until I get tired of doing so. This week has been a particularly lucrative one on the album accumulation front, as I discovered that my roommate has a CD burner and is willing to put out. Many long, sweaty, hunched-over nights in front of the computer have been wasted to bring you this list, so I certainly hope that you all take it to heart. Anyway, here goes:

 

1. David Bowie's Station to Station. This is one of his more accessible post-Ziggy Stardust 70s albums, featuring some excellent faux soul backing vocals on songs like "Golden Years" and an awe inspiring breakdown on the second half of the title track. This is roughly as good as Bowie's other great achievement (in my opinion, anyway), the first half of Low, only without the post-accident Brian Eno-isms to muck things up in the second half. Highly reccomended.

 

2. Speaking of Brian Eno, his early solo stuff is God-like. Literally everything on the first two records (Here Come The Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)) is sheer brilliance, from the loopy pop of "The Papa Negro Blowtorch" and "Needles In The Camel's Eye" to the eerie "Driving Me Backwards" and on and on. Before and After Science is a fantastic record, as well. Download "Backwater" or "By This River" for samples of the many moods of Brian Eno. His ambient stuff is pretty all right as well, although obviously probably not for those of you suffering from Attention Defecit Disorder or anyone who's particularly adamant about having things happen in songs.

 

3. All right, so, a while back I derided Elton John on this very board for not having recorded enough good songs to justify his standing as one of the most popular recording artists of all time. And I was right. But the few good songs that he has recorded are all compiled on the first Elton John's Greatest Hits album, which comes highly reccomened from your's truly. These include the unspeakably awesome "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and the somewhat less so everything else. I can even find a soft spot in my heart for "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting."

 

4. Everyone enjoys pop music, whether they care to admit it or not. We're wired to enjoy this stuff, howevery fluffy and inconsequential it may be, and there's no use trying to deny it by hiding behind your wack-ass indie/metal/whatever cred. So with that in mind, pick up a copy of the engaging book Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth at your local library, if at all possible. You'll learn more than you ever wanted to know about such musical luminaries as The Archies, The Monkees, The Ohio Express, David Cassidy ("I Think I Love You" deserves a list of its own, preferably titled "Why 'I Think I Love You' by David Cassidy is the greatest song ever recorded"), ABBA, and more. It's more compelling than it sounds, I promise.

 

5. Anything on Motown.

 

Enjoy.

[Guest Incandenza]

Don't trash the second half of Low, you bastard.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

Try as I might to love him, I’ve only gotten myself to the point of “sometimes like” with David Bowie, beyond Ziggy and his utterly awesome singles throughout time. He’s in top vocal form on Station to Station, though, especially for “Word on a Wing.” I agree with your assessment—at six tracks, it’s precise enough to avoid the infamous instrumental sides of Heroes and Low (though I do rather like Low's--I'm much more particular about Heroes). There’s also a certain charm to the fact that this was his last huge cocaine blow-out album, and he doesn’t seem to remember the process of actually making it in the least. That’s some high quality autopilot there, and it amuses me that one of his most accessible albums stems from a blow-fest of epic proportions.

 

On the Motown front, I’m reminded of Sam Cooke. Abkco just re-released some of his albums in super-duper SACD remasters, and I’ve really been digging the retrospectives (there are two—Portrait of a Legend or something like that which covers his whole career, and Keep Movin’ On, which seems to be the more interesting of the two, sorting out a bunch of stuff from the last few years of his career). You don’t really realize how many huge songs this guy had till you sit down, listen to 10 or 15 tracks, and realize you know every goddamn one of them.

[Guest Incandenza]

I'll give you that second half of Heroes--excluding "V-2 Schneider"--is a tad questionable. Even when Bowie throws a "song" at the end of it, it's some horrid pop disco trifle.

 

Everything else, though...

 

MY MY SOMEONE CALL PRIEST

 

EDIT: Oops, that should be "fetch" and not "call."

Edited July 9, 2003 by Incandenza

[Guest goodhelmet]

ah david bowie...

 

you know, i don't really dig the whole berlin trilogy. at heart, i am a rock n roll guy and bowie seemed to be experimenting for the sake of experimenting rather than trying to make good songs.

 

as for his first 5 albums or so... some of the best records ever made. BELIEVE THE HYPE!

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

But now, what the hell is this? Aladdin Sane re-released in packaging just as expensive as the reissue of Ziggy? They better not pull the early albums in their nice and pleasant 13.99 prices till I get done buying them someday. Woof.

[Guest Kinetic]

I'm fortunate enough to have friends who own all of the David Bowie stuff that I'm interested in. Low and Station to Station are, like I mentioned earlier, my particular favorites. Beyond that, though, I find his stuff (beyond the singles, like Edwin said) to be sort of hard to get in to. Diamond Dogs, for instance, has some horrible crap on it. Not Gary Glitter or Jobriath terrible (to name a few of his less distinguished contemporaries) but certainly not good enough to warrant more than a few listens, just to make sure that it's a bad as I thought the first time around.

 

Sparks' Propaganda and Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life are on the short list for next week's top five currently.

[Guest saturnmark4life]

I'm fortunate enough to have friends who own all of the David Bowie stuff that I'm interested in. Low and Station to Station are, like I mentioned earlier, my particular favorites. Beyond that, though, I find his stuff (beyond the singles, like Edwin said) to be sort of hard to get in to. Diamond Dogs, for instance, has some horrible crap on it. Not Gary Glitter or Jobriath terrible (to name a few of his less distinguished contemporaries) but certainly not good enough to warrant more than a few listens, just to make sure that it's a bad as I thought the first time around.

 

Sparks' Propaganda and Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life are on the short list for next week's top five currently.

FINALLY someone else on this board recognises Sparks. Godlike.

[Guest TheGregWitul]

It's good to see people into the music of Bowie, especially the music he put forth during his prime years (1975-1980). My favorites of his are the Berlin trilogy (especially 'Low' (My alltime favorite album) and "Heroes"), and part of the reason why I love the first two Berlin albums so much are the instrumentals. A lot of people give Brian Eno too much credit. While Eno was a creative force, Tony Visconti was the album producer, and had a lot more to do with the actual construction of the album than Eno did. Sure, they played around with Eno's 'Oblique Strategies' cards, but Eno only has a couple actual song writing credits on 'Low', while he has five or six on "Heroes".

 

I'm not trying to knock Eno down, as he is an amazing artist, more than I am trying to show that Tony Visconti played a huge role in the albums set up. He was, after all, the same man who produced all of Bowie's classic albums. If you are looking into getting into Eno's work, check out 'Another Green World', his best album. The albums Kinetic mentioned are all great as well, as is 'Before And After Science'. Also, the song name is 'Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch', not 'Papa'...

 

Also, do not forget about Iggy Pop. Iggy's two classic albums ('The Idiot' and 'Lust For Life') were both produced by David Bowie with Tony Visconti. They were recorded in Berlin while Bowie (Along with Iggy) worked on his trio of albums. Some amazing songs are to be found on both discs, including the original Iggy version of 'China Girl'. The first track of 'The Idiot' (Sister Midnight) is also to be found on the last track of 'Lodger', in the form of 'Red Money'. A lot of people say that Bowie and co. were lazy and recycled the backing track, but that is really not the case. 'Sister Midnight' was the first track recorded when Bowie and gang left for Berlin, 'Red Money' was the last track recorded before Bowie left Berlin and basically made his eventual return to the mainstream (Not really with the stunning 'Scary Monsters', but more so a few years later with 'Let's Dance'). If you spot the lyrics in 'Red Money', you can spot the line; 'Project Cancelled', a fitting end to the brilliant Berlin trilogy, really a must have for any serious music fan...

 

And yeah, Bowie was pretty coked out during the sessions for 'Station To Station'. He basically doesn't remember anything, other than yelling at Earl Slick to play his guitar to a similar sequence or chord. He didn't even remember where the album was actually recorded. He found out when he read up on the album sessions some years later. While that was his last real coked out album, he didn't kick the drugs until years later (Mid 80's), although he did far less. He sounds his coked out best on 'Low'...

 

Some great recs there, Kinetic...

 

 

j.

[Guest MrRant]

I am only a singles Bowie fan. I've listen to some of his albums and just went "eh".

 

I have the Elton John Greatest Hits CD and it truly is top form from the first track to the last.

[Guest spiny norman]

I think Bowie's work post-Diamond Dogs is quite good in its own right but isn't given the credit it deserves because everything beforehand is so awesome, whereas this is only good. Life On Mars is my fave Bowie.

 

Elton John is brilliant though. Some of his 80s stuff is a bit passable, and his work from the late 90s onwards isn't too crash hot either, but he has had an all in all impressive career. Someone Saved My Life Tonight is my personal fave of his.

[Guest Kinetic]

I checked out Honkey Chateau from the library the other day and that one's not too bad. I think my problem with Elton (as well as fellow adult contemporary superstar, Billy Joel) is that whatever sort of merit his music may have is obscured by my perception of him as a lame old tool of the recording industry. See also: Stewart, Rod. If only these people had died young rather than growing old and boring and taking up golf. But, that said, David Bowie is as old as any of those guys and is still a thoroughly respectable human being whose current public persona doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of his back catalog. So maybe Elton John and his ilk are really just lame old codgers...does that diminish the quality of some of the stuff he did when he was younger?

[Guest Incandenza]

Should I do one of these top five things? Since I've been told that some people are under the impression Kinetic and I are the same person, this would be a fine way to illustrate that we listen to very different things. Also, I gathered that there are people who were interested in what I had to say vis-a-vis music.

[Guest Edwin MacPhisto]

You should, but only under the condition that one of your five is the 2 Fast 2 Furious soundtrack. That's what I really care about.

[Guest Incandenza]

I'm going to do this slowly, piece-by-piece.

 

Ruins

Dump

Jim O'Rourke

Racebannon

Les Savy Fav

 

Later on today, I'll say more about them. Stay tuned!

[Guest Kibagami]

I'm genuinely surprised to see Ludacris left off of that list.

 

K.