David Bowie

[Kinetic 0]

My video store girlfriend is barely tolerant of my Bowie fanboyism, so I've never been able to convince her take The Man Who Fell to Earth home with us. I have seen Diary of a Mad Black Woman, however, and would rate it slightly below Big Mama's House but considerably above The Nutty Professor in the rich but somewhat limited canon of films featuring young black men dressed as old black women.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Ziggy

Hunky Dory

Low

Heroes

Aladdin Sane

 

I haven't heard Lodger either. But speaking of the Eno albums, I was listening to Here Come The Warm Jets while driving around today, feeling like the glammiest little nerd I could be.

 

As for Bowie movies: I was very disappointed with his brief role in The Hunger, as a dying vampire. Dude is only in it for about 30, 35 minutes, and the rest of the movie is Susan Sarandon and Catherine Deneuve getting into some really weird lesbo business. Which is perfectly fine, but a little disappointing when you're promised Bowie.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I like The Man Who Fell to Earth, but—and as much as I am loathe to use this phrase—it's not for everyone. It's such a bizarre and weird movie. (I don't toss around "weird" lightly, mind you.) There's so much about it that makes it ripe for high comedy, yet the film takes such a solemn, elegiac tone. I can understand hating it.

[Kinetic 0]

Lodger isn't all that great. "Red Money" is, for whatever reason, the same exact song as "Sister Midnight" on Iggy Pop's The Idiot, only with different lyrics. "DJ" is a half-baked Talking Heads rip-off. I've seen praise for "Repitition" because it deals with domestic violence in a non-heavy-handed sort of way, but it's still a pretty mediocre song. That said, "Look Back in Anger" has a great vocal performance and "Boys Keep Swinging" is fun. I'd recommend this album just to be able to say that you've heard it.

 

Here Come the Warm Jets and Taking Tiger Mountain... are both fucking brilliant albums.

[5_moves_of_doom 0]

I, too, have never heard Lodger.

 

For some reason I always imagined Station to Station fitting in with the Berlin trilogy better than Lodger, which is a theory that is mostly unfounded, aside from looking at the song lengths. I also have never heard Scary Monsters, though. What is it like?

[5_moves_of_doom 0]

This is supposed to be a really good book:

 

 

I just got this today. The one on Sign O The Times was nifty as hell, and while I might prefer Prince to David Bowie, I am very much more interested in the production of Low, since it basically started post-punk in general (well, not the first post-punk album, but one of the landmark ones that developed the genre.)

 

I really don't see how the hate for the ambient side got started. The tracks are not hard to get through. In fact, they're awesome. And while my two favorite tracks can be found on the first side, I would say that side two is just as solid as side one, and is completely necessary for the listener to cool down from the scorching intensity of the album's first half.

 

SIDE 2:

- "Warsazawa" is bleak, chilling, sparse, and downright haunting. Probably my favorite of the four closing tracks overall. Sounds like one of the more dramatic pieces off of the Final Fantasy VII soundtrack, which is definitely a good thing. The wordless vocals at the end are awesome, too.

- "Art Decade" has some nice muted horn, and is a bit more playful than the previous track. Semi-playful melody that lightens the mood a bit after the previous track. Uplifting all the way through, which disproves the theory that the entire second half of Low is "a downer." Great song.

- "Weeping Wall" has got some mean vibraphone/xylaphone in it that sounds like Tortoise twenty years before the fact. Some mean sounding guitar in the background as well, along with some menacing synth that keeps the "Berlin" feel intact. This sums up the second half of Low very well in my opinion, in that it is ambient music that is so damn good and complex/multi-layered that it loses its ambiency in the process.

- "Subterranean" -- doubtlessly -- is the track that makes most think of the word "anti-climatic" when they think of Low. But in my mind, the three tracks before this were anything but anti-climatic, and this -- the one truly low-key and unobtrusively ambient track -- is simply anti-climatic in how beautifully understated it is, not in the fact that it's a throw-away. Some beautiful sax and synth-strings abound, and I must say that if I were Bowie, I would have no regrets about ending my best album with a song like this rather than something poppier a la the closer on "Heroes".

 

I didn't really intend to write a track-by-track review... but... there you are. Can someone please be more detailed about why exactly they don't like the second side? I think it's as good as either side on Hunky Dory. Not necessarily better, but definitely as good.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

I love the second side. Won't find any complaints from me. Those top three albums are more or less interchangeable as far as greatness is concerned.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I mean, who cares about anything else the English have done, outside of beer.

 

Stonehenge is pretty tight. As was the black market trade of Cromwell's skull.

[Si82 0]

I just finished listening to "Hunk Dory" and it's a fine album. I still prefere "Ziggy Stardust" but it has some awesome tracks like "Changes" and "Life on Mars?".

[5_moves_of_doom 0]

I finally bought Lodger yesterday, and I have just started listening to it... so far, it seems to be Roxy Music meets Kraftwerk meets Talking Heads (Remain In the Light period, majorly) with Bowie singing. I like it a lot, but it doesn't have the untouchable mysticism and utter religious-experience qualities of either Low or "Heroes". I think I will stand by my assertion that Station to Station sounds like it belongs in the Berlin Trilogy more than Lodger does.

 

Also, no instrumental second-side? WTF? I like Bowie's more compact songs, but not one song on the album hits the five-minute mark. That's not really a bad thing, per se, but it does make it harder to really get into each song since they end so quickly.

[Copper Feel 0]

I don't like Low: it feels really empty like a fracture of something great, and it always seems to leave me cold.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

DONT LOOK AT THE CARPET

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I DREW SOMETHING AWFUL ON IT

[Guest Sylvan Grenier]

I finally bought Lodger yesterday, and I have just started listening to it... so far, it seems to be Roxy Music meets Kraftwerk meets Talking Heads (Remain In the Light period, majorly) with Bowie singing. I like it a lot, but it doesn't have the untouchable mysticism and utter religious-experience qualities of either Low or "Heroes". I think I will stand by my assertion that Station to Station sounds like it belongs in the Berlin Trilogy more than Lodger does.

 

Also, no instrumental second-side? WTF? I like Bowie's more compact songs, but not one song on the album hits the five-minute mark. That's not really a bad thing, per se, but it does make it harder to really get into each song since they end so quickly.

I liked Lodger. I like Low more, but man, those sixteenth-note rhythms in "African Night Flight" are oodles of fun. Does remind me of Talking Heads, except more tolerable. I have about a 25-uninterrupted-minute limit for David Byrne's voice. I don't care for Ziggy Stardust though.