David Bowie Album by Album: Aladdin Sane, Pin Ups and Diamond Dogs

Last time I covered but one David Bowie album, so it seems like I owe an extra. Today I’ll do just that in the continued exploration of Bowie’s discography, taking us through the rest of the glam rock period and proto-punk, because things certainly changed after this period. 

Aladdin Sane is up first; conceived and recorded during Bowie’s U.S. tour of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Aladdin Sane is often described as “Ziggy does America”. And that right there seems to be the perfect explanation of the album. Sure, Bowie “killed” the character of Ziggy Stardust on stage during the tour, but his spirit clearly lived on in the titular new character. So similar, that Aladdin Sane’s iconic cover, of a lightning bolt make-up adorned Bowie, is often mistaken as a Ziggy Stardust look. In this album Bowie definitely looked further into his friends and influences of Iggy Pop and the Velvet Underground, as they showed him what it meant to be in the dark corners of America’s cities.

Joining Bowie on the journey was still the Spiders: Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick “Woody” Woodmansey, and the arrangements they provide are as tight as ever. Truly one of the best rock n’ roll back-up bands ever formed. They are undoubtedly a huge part of what makes the glam rock era Bowie so prevalent and beloved to this day. But what makes a huge part of Aladdin Sane memorable is the addition of avant-garde pianist Mike Garson. Take note on the second track, the title track “Aladdin Sane”. The tune grooves and rocks as solid as any of this period of Bowie, and then comes the piano. All over the place, schizophrenic keys dance a manic dance around the rhythm section’s infectious groove, and then outlasting the rest of the band as Garson refuses to let go of the final notes. Garson’s style gives the song a manic, mesmerizing quality that stands as a shining moment on the album. Garson would pop up with Bowie a few times sense, most notably on Bowie’s 1993 album Outside. But that of course is for another day.

(The ever iconic Aladdin Sane album cover. Photo from Wikipedia)

Aladdin Sane has a unique place among Bowie’s catalog, it’s arguably more famous for it’s album title than any song on the album, save for perhaps the popular single “Jean Genie”, a full blown 50’s rockabilly tune riding a cocaine high straight to oblivion. The album as a whole has received mixed reviews over time; some critics argue it deserves a higher place than Ziggy, giving the listener more power and stomp than the previous album, where as others see it as a slap-dashed hodgepodge of what Ziggy had already put forth, albeit a different theme. I personally wouldn’t put it nearly at the heights of Ziggy (then again, I don’t put much up there) but the album still garners praise from me. Top tracks include the jungle rhythm fury of “Panic in Detroit” (I swear it’s not just the nod to the city I live in that makes me like the tune), the aforementioned “Aladdin Sane”, and the album high-note, “Time”, which again features Garson’s piano, narrating a earth-shattering waltz from the Spiders, as Bowie frantically shrieks in a stage musical fashion (It’s easy to see how The Rocky Horror Picture Show is pretty much influenced straight from glam era Bowie) about he monster that is the concept (or personification of) time itself, and it’s affect on one’s ability love. “We should be by now” he voices in protest as Ronson’s guitar does what it does best: climaxes over and over. Aladdin Sane as a whole is a great view of the outsider’s look into America in the seventies, the drugs, the style and above all else perhaps, the terror.

Released a little over half a year after Aladdin Sane in 1973 is Pin Ups, an album consisting completely of cover songs.

(Pin Ups cover, featuring Bowie and 60’s-era supermodel Twiggy. Photo from Wikipedia.)

This could make it more of a footnote in Bowie’s vast catalog, but it bears some mentioning, if not only because it is a solid album, but it is also the last time the Spiders from Mars (aka the Hype) were together with Bowie, although Mick Woodmansey would be replaced with Aynsley Dunbar. Mick Ronson would go on to have a successful solo career (which Bowie would collaborate on every now and then) and also as a recording and touring musician for many other big names, including Morrissey, John Mellancamp (Jack and Diane owes a lot to Ronson) and T-Bone Burnett. Woodsmansey and Bolder would briefly reform the Spiders (without Ronson, but with Mike Garson and a few others) and release an album, before breaking up permanently. So in a sense this album is the last hurrah of the glam rock era, as Bowie would begin to go in new directions afterward. The concept of this album stemmed from Bowie’s desire to give America a taste of a lot of the 60’s-era British rock and roll that influences him during a lot of his formative musician years, with covers from bands such as The Kinks, The Who, Them, Syd Barret era Pink Floyd and the Yardbirds. Bowie’s balls-to-the-wall rendition of Them’s “Here Comes the Night” and the silky-sexy version of The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” are the highlights of the album for me. Also it’s worth noting the Pink Floyd song “See Emily Play”, and that in the early 2000’s Bowie joined David Gilmour (of Pink Floyd) on stage for a rendition of the early Floyd song covered here.

With the Spiders disbanded, and without his ace in the hole guitarist Mick Ronson, where would Bowie go? Was glam rock dead? Well, kind of. For Bowie’s next effort, 1974’s Diamond Dogs. Glam got dirty. Bowie took over lead guitar duties himself, which many have cited his more abrasive, harsh style of guitar playing “glam-trash” and a key influence on the first wave of British punk bands such as the Sex Pistols.

(Diamond Dogs album cover, photo from Wikipedia)

His style is evident in one of his most well known songs, “Rebel Rebel”, Many of the arrangements were composed while still touring Aladdin Sane, with Ronson still an influence factor on some of the songs. But Diamond Dogs reflected a change, and not just in band members for Bowie. Beginning as an attempt to make a theatrical production based on George Orwell’s dystopian fiction novel 1984 (as seen in songs such as the titular “1984”, “Big Brother” and “We are the Dead”) the author’s estate denied him the rights, so instead he crafted his own post-apocalyptic world set in New York City, and created the new, yet still rather Ziggy influenced character of Halloween Jack. On the title opening track, Bowie sings of Jack “The Halloween Jack is a real cool cat/And he lives on top of Manhattan Chase/The elevator’s broke, so he swings down a rope/Onto the street below, go Tarzie, go man go”, and with the roaring opening line “This ain’t rock n’ roll, this is…GENOCIDE!” Bowie takes us to a world of decrepit cities, and the punks and prowlers who live, love and die in the ruins of skyscrapers no one can remember why they were built.

(David as Halloween Jack, in 1974)

Orwell’s novel’s themes of oppression and submission, and the possibly futile attempts to fight them remain clear in the album’s themes and lyrics, but the real treat is Bowie’s continuing demolition of rock n’ roll as dedication to the art. Take in point the three-song mini-epic “Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)” which pretty much encapsulates and finishes the glam period, and “1984” and “Rock and Roll with Me” provide soul-inspired rifts that Bowie would delve into further in his next album, Young Americans, and pretty much create a whole new sub-genre in the process.For now though, Diamond Dog’s frantic nihilism and shattered glam puts the final nail in the coffin for the glam period, and Bowie would push forward in a different way, never staying with one concept for too long, the gears in his mind always shifting toward something different and new.

David Bowie Album by Album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

My series of David Bowie love-fest posts continues today, and I must admit, I’m not sure I can gush any more over one Bowie album than this one. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (we’ll just call it Ziggy Stardust from here out) is not only my favorite Bowie album, it’s one of my top albums from anyone. It is, simply put, one of the best pure rock n’ roll albums to grace popular music. It is the epitome of what a great rock n’ roll record can sound like. Sprawling, wild, silly at times, and gut-punching at others. Let’s go into a little of the famed album’s history, and then a track by track review. 

(the iconic album cover)

By 1972, touring for Hunky Dory, Bowie had become a fairly big sensation in his native England. In the U.S., he was still mostly known for his earlier hit “Space Oddity” and not much else. But he still managed to come to the states several times to promote his albums. During his travels, particularly in New York, he became friends with many of the players from the Warhol scene, as well as the burgeoning N.Y. punk scene (this still a few years before it would kick off), as well as fellow rock icons Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. The N.Y. scene was filled with many LGBT members, drag queens and kings, exotic dancers, and all sorts of drug-fueled personalities. All these scenesters would go on to become part of what Bowie would craft into the Ziggy Stardust persona. The name itself is taken from several influences, including Vince Taylor, an English rock musician who after much drug use believed himself to be a demi-god, Iggy Pop’s wild rock animal image, and an early psychedelic folk artist called the Legendary Stardust Cowboy. Bowie has also made mention of a tailor shop called Ziggy’s he had passed by, and it seemed fitting due to his creation’s outlandish clothing styles that would soon be put to great effect. 

Ziggy Stardust would become more than just an album, he was a character, a persona for Bowie to play. He was Bowie, but he wasn’t, further demonstrating that the man is an actor of rock music. He creates and plays roles, in a very method-actor approach, he becomes them, and Ziggy is by far the most well-known of these roles. The flaming red hair, the psychedelic alien fashion, the drug-fueled, ambiguous sexual preference, and the sheer rock star image is a memorable outlook indeed, and even his later personas of Aladdin Sane and Halloween Jack are often mistaken as Ziggy, and indeed that bear much resemblance, proving that Bowie couldn’t let go of the character easily. But why the character? Why the transformation? I think Bowie was reaching for this idea for some time, as his previous albums have sung about youth revolutions, freedom from any one system, messianic delusions, and the dawning apocalypse. Now it was his time to streamline these ideas into a single story. And that’s what Ziggy is, the central character in a story, just told in rock music form. The story of a near future when the world has only a few years left in it, with a feeling of doom and dread over everyone’s lives, a young man hears a message from an alien, a starman, about a race of aliens that can save Earth, if only the kids hear it. The boy who hears this message sets out to spread the news, in the only way he knows how, music, and the message ignites a spark in the youth, and the boy, now calling himself Ziggy Stardust, becomes a drug-fueled, alien sex god, believing himself to be one of the aliens, the savior of the world, and the harbinger of  anew age. It is only finally on stage when the aliens can finally arrive, but they are a race of black hole jumpers, composed of anti-matter, and to exist in our plane they must tear Ziggy himself to bits, using him to become corporeal, and so the messenger is sacrificed. But then what? Are we saved, or just victims of a rock n’ roll suicide? The answer is left ambiguous, and at the end of touring for the album, Bowie did “kill” Ziggy, and so he could move on to the next phase.

But at the heart of all this alien-god, impending doom, runaway youth story is the music. That’s what really counts. Here we have glam rock at it’s pinnacle. Glam was meant to be the return to rock n’ roll at it’s core. Loud, fast, simple and free of the pretensions that many had felt had taken over the style. Rock had become bloated, overly complex, long, and well, in Bowie’s (and other like minded, such as Marc Bolan, Iggy Pop and later, Queen) opinion, dull and obsolete. Why listen to ten-minute long songs, with a three minute drum solo? It’s not impressive when everyone’s doing it. Where was the fury? Where was the lust? Where was rock n’ roll? Glam was created to bring it all back. Glam, unlike the rockabilly acts it was returning to, however, was, well, glammy! It was meant to be flashy, a spectacle. A real show. Inspired by the Warhol superstars he had met, and then circus performers he had traveled with in the early to mid 60’s, glam would take the music of before, but inject it with a wild side never seen before. And who better to create the sound to match this image than Bowie’s tight backing group, the Hype? Or, as they would become known as, the Spiders from Mars. Mick Ronson is once again at the forefront, his blues-rock guitar riffs igniting at every twist and turn. He is joined by Trevor Bolder’s bass, keeping the rhythm lean, mean and powerful while Ronson cuts loose, in tandem with Nick Woodmansey’s thundering drums. So let’s get to it then, track by track.

“Five Years” opens the album, and it is to me one of the best openings to a rock album, and of my overall top Bowie tracks. A soft steady drum beats on like a heart beat, soon being joined by a few rhythm guitar strums, a prickly bass and a piano, that as they all come together, and get joined by strings, it gets louder. Bowie croons about the world ending, as I imagine a young man walking down a suburban city street on a cold, rainy fall day. His head is down, his hands are in his pocket, he thinks about a girl he liked “You’re sitting in a ice cream parlor/smiling and waving and looking so fine/Don’t think you knew were in this song” . Eventually, all the pain and confusion about the end of the world becomes too much, and his screams at the top of his lungs “Five Years!/That’s all we’ve got!/Five years!/My brain hurts A LOT!” as Ronson’s guitar cuts in, and the song gets louder and louder until it suddenly ceases, and we’re left with the quiet drumbeat again. 

Then comes “Soul Love”. Another fine steady rhythm section opens up, with Bowie singing about a girl at a graveyard. But it’s not as dark as the last song would make us think. “Idiot love will spark the fusion” he sings, as kids all over fall in love and lust and back again quickly, without thinking. With such little time left, people can cut loose and follow their hearts. But as he says, “All I have is my love of love/and love is not loving.” The people in song can experience, but how much can they truly feel? The band’s easy-going jam let’s the song flow by, and Bowie plays a sexy saxophone that adds to the song’s love vs. lust dilemma. Then, like the previous song, it fades off.

And then “Moonage Daydream” explodes. This is one of the prime examples of why Mick Ronson was one of the true guitar gods. His guitar licks are an orgasm of the electric. You can hear exactly why Bowie would imitate fellatio on stage to Mick’s guitar during tours of the album. “Moonage Daydream” seems to say that lust has won the conversation of “Soul Love” and that this is what the youth wants to experience in their little time left. The space age cosmic jive is what our protagonist, Ziggy, is hearing, yearning for the come true. But again, whatever the lyrics mean, with it’s space face’s laser guns and electric eyes, this track is all about Mick and his guitar.

(Bowie on Top of the Tops, performing Starman)

“Starman” is next, and it is the song that launched Bowie into stardom once again, with a striking performance on England’s Top of the Pops program. Here, Ziggy hears the message from space, that there is hope in the last few years of Earth, and he is to be the messenger. He calls his friends and they begin to form their band and go to spread the news. This was probably many people’s first exposure to the glam rock song, and the outlandish costumes and style that Bowie and his crew were showcasing. But at it’s heart, the song is pure pop-rock perfection. A catchy, jumpy piano and guitar riff narrate, and it’s nearly impossible to not sing along. It’s infectious and fun, and shows that under all it’s pomp and flash, glam rock was a successor to the rock sound pioneered in the fifties. You can dance, jump and sing along and, as Bowie sings (as the voice of the Starman) to “let the children use it/let the children lose it/let the children boogie!”

Side one closes with a Ron Davies cover, “It Ain’t Easy”. A hard-rocking stomp-er, with a huge backing chorus, the song, while not a Bowie original, seems to fit in with the narrative as it foreshadows the journey Ziggy will go through on side two.

“Lady Stardust” opens side two, or act two of the musical play that the album really is. A bright piano, similar to songs like “Oh! You Pretty Things” or “Life on Mars?” begins as Bowie sings about the enchanting titular Lady Stardust and her connection to Ziggy, who is no longer the young man of side one, and now is the harbinger of a new sound, a new era. The song is softer than much of the album, and seems almost romantic, as the Lady sings “of darkness and despair” but their is still a glimmer of hope when Ziggy and the band play on, as “the song goes on forever/and it was all right”

“Star” continues Ziggy’s journey, as he comes more and more sure of his message of peace and love and aliens, but he also becomes more and more obsessed with his ego. Fueled by the sex and drugs, he sings “I could make the transformation as a rock n’ roll star”. The song plays quick and fast before climaxing (okay I’m probably making too many sex metaphors in this review, but oh well) into a crashing piano and warping guitar, perhaps signally that Ziggy is indeed, “falling asleep as a rock n’ roll star” but how much longer will he able to do it for?

“Hang on to Yourself” follows as sort of an answer to that question, and it is a straight-forward rock n’ roll song, but is interesting to note that Bowie had released an earlier version of the song (along with “Moonage Daydream”) a year previously, under the alias of Arnold Corns, indicating that the Ziggy persona had be in a cocoon stage for some time. The song, like others, is very sexual in nature, as Bowie sings about a girl, “she wants my honey not my money/she’s a funky thigh collector/layin’ on electric dreams” and that perhaps for all his message and image, Ziggy is just another lust filled youth, spiraling towards the end of the world, and the end of his won life. Maybe. Or it’s just another solid rock song, something to drive the album forward before it his the titular track, the one-two punch of “Ziggy Stardust” and “Suffragette City”.

(The alien sex messiah, Ziggy Stardust)

And here we are. The famous guitar riff and Bowie’s shriek that kicks off the track “Ziggy Stardust”. Acting as kind of a synopsis of all that has been happening, Bowie, seemingly singing as followers or perhaps as the members of the Spiders from Mars, as they remember the man, the legend. But the album isn’t over yet, so what is to come of Ziggy? Here is idolized, crucified, and idealized. “Making love with his ego/Ziggy sucked up into his mind”, Bowie laments the fate of the kid who wanted to save the world, only to fall to the demons of rock n’ roll, scrutinized and destroyed by those who had once followed him, and he sings, “When the kids had killed the man/I had to break up the band”. But the song’s strong stomp is not the end, and the curtain has not yet fallen.

“Suffragette City” is the epitome of a great rock n’ roll song. At it’s core, it uses familiar riffs and chord progressions straight out of Chuck Berry or Little Richard’s playbook, but with Bowie’s signature style and flair. Released as a single, it didn’t fair as well originally, but has caught on with time. Particularly rocking and catchy, with that ever-dramatic pause and hook of “Wham Bam! Thank you Ma’aam!” the song acts as a break from the story, perhaps to remind us what Ziggy’s message of love and rock was all about, as the singer laments “his school is insane/my work’s down the drain” and perhaps, without Ziggy, life might remain hectic, but it’s lost some of that cosmic magic.

We’re at the end of the album now, the curtain falls with “Rock N’ Roll Suicide”. When performed live, Bowie would have the aliens finally come down, revealing themselves, but as said earlier, they have to tear Ziggy Stardust to pieces in order to appear in our dimension. Ziggy completes his messianic mission by being sacrificed on stage, and as earlier foreshadowed, the aliens have come, but at what cost? Perhaps the Starman was wrong, earth is not saved, or if it is, life just reverts back to the norm. The revolution was televised, and then the end was, too. I imagine “Rock n’ Roll Suicide” the same way I imagine the opening track, “Five Years.” A young man, with his hands in his pockets, walking down a suburban city street on a cold fall day. He thinks about aliens, and drugs, and rock n’ roll, and the end of the world, and how fragile life is. It is achingly beautiful and painfully short. But then, down the street, there’s that girl. Maybe the same one Ziggy saw in the ice cream parlor. She’s still here, too. And she sees our narrator (again, was he is a devotee to Ziggy, or a member of the Spiders? He is us, regardless) and she comes to him. “Oh no love! you’re not alone/No matter what or who you’ve been/No matter when or where you’ve seen/All the knives seem to lacerate your brain/I’ve had my share,/I’ll help you with the pain/You’re not alone!” One of them surely tells this to the other. They both lived through it all, and whatever time they have left, they can live through it together. “Gimme your hands/ ‘Cause you’re wonderful!” The boy and girl hold hands, and aren’t so cold anymore.

Of course, all of this is open to interpretation. Perhaps I got it all wrong. But these are the images that I see every time I play this album, every time I allow myself to be taken up and away by the album. In the car, screaming the words at the top of my lungs. This is one album I go back to again and again, and even though I find tracks on other Bowie albums even more enjoyable than lot presented on Ziggy Stardust, the fact is no album makes me think of the endless possibilities of youth and rock n’ roll, of love and lust, of freedom, than this album. That, and aliens. Hard to top all that, really.

David Bowie: Album by Album: The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory

Continuing where I left off last week, navigating the mind-blowing narrative that is David Bowie’s studio discography, we’re officially in the 1970’s now. When we last left our hero, Bowie was following the successful single, “Space Oddity”, with it’s far-our cosmic folk vibe, and a decent album that allowed him to hide that strange debut a few years previously. Where does he go next, still so early in his career, before him and his creation, Ziggy Stardust, would become household names? Well, let’s put on his 1970 album, The Man Who Sold the World, and find out.

(The Man Who Sold the World album covers, the original release, and the more famous “Bowie in a dress” variation. Photos from Wikipedia)

Did you put on the album? I hope you did. If you didn’t, you’re missing out. The album’s first track, “The Width of a Circle”, kicks off with a striking power chord, courtesy of Mick Ronson. His name isn’t nearly as famous as I feel it should be. Ronson is a huge reason why we have glam rock, and probably a good chunk of punk rock, too. Arguably the first of many excellent guitarists Bowie teamed up with, Ronson’s massive talent and blaring dedication the art form of electric guitar defined Bowie’s early 70’s output. But he is not alone. Along with him, rounding out the rhythm section for this album is Tony Visconti on bass, who would later establish himself as one of Bowie’s top collaborators, both on instruments and producing a large amount of the albums to come, and Mick Woodmansey on drums. This backing trio would call themselves The Hype, and eventually with a few lineup changes, would evolve into the famous Spiders from Mars. And boy, does this band know how to jam. Bowie’s first two albums were a little disjointed, but with this powerful backing crew to help mold his songs, the 70’s were sure to be a fine era for the man. “Width of a Circle” is nearly eight minutes long, and it, along with a lot of the album in whole, sounds like Black Sabbath could have been playing the tunes. Quite a change from spaced-out folk (not that Space Oddity didn’t have it’s hard rock moments), The Man Who Sold the World is an English R&B, early heavy metal explosion. Sabbath and Zeppelin, along with the original 50’s rock and roll staples, are heard throughout the album. “Black Country Rock”, the third song, really feels like Bowie and Jimmy Paige were hanging out and jamming together. That’s how good Ronson is, right up there with Paige. At least in this fanboy’s ears. Despite it’s heavy metal atmosphere, Bowie hasn’t completely let go of his folksy side, as “All the Madmen” features recorder-like instruments by it’s bridge. But lyrically, while continuing to build on themes Bowie has had before, The Man Who Sold the World gets darker in mood. Topics range from insanity and schizophrenia “All the Madmen” (something Bowie had a deep connection with,through his diagnosed older brother Terry, who he would sing about more in later songs), “Savior Machine”  speaks of omniscient computers, and he even gets pretty political in “Running Gun Blues”, bemoaning a soldier in Vietnam (again, similarities could be made with Black Sabbath and “War Pigs”). “After All” and “The Supermen” begin Bowie’s flirtations with occult and horror lyrics, with frequent nods to the works of Kafka and Lovecraft, as well as Aleister Crowley. The title track itself, made famous decades later with Nirvana’s Unplugged performance, details being lost in a post-Apocalyptic world, and it’s interpretations range from a meeting with the Anti-Christ or Devil, or a doppelganger. A moody, slower song among all the fasting blues-rock present in the album, a heavy bass-line and whirling guitar riff that add to it’s greatness; it’s a stand-out track, which really says something considering the top-notch quality of this album. The dark tone of this album influenced lots of goth rock, post-punk and heavy metal bands, but the album also stands at the beginnings of glam rock (along with Mark Bolan’s T. Rex, who already building their own legacy, and Iggy Pop, who was a huge influence and close friend of Bowie’s), and we’ll see that trend continue with the next album, Hunky Dory.

(Hunky Dory. Photo from Wikipedia)

Hunky Dory, released in December of 1971, nearly a full year after The Man Who Sold the World, is sometimes considered to be Bowie’s best album, even when compared against the forthcoming Ziggy Stardust, or other stand-outs such as Station to Station and Low. Obviously we’re talking about something big here, then. “Changes” begins the albums, and that being one of Bowie’s best-known songs to this day, might have something to do with that. With it’s easily recognizable piano melody and catchy composition, complete with lyrics about a new wave of kids making their way in the world, and their refusal to stop, well, changing, “Changes” truly marks the beginning of the most beloved of Bowie-eras and styles. And in complete contrast to the dark blues of the last album, in the man’s words, “watch out, you rock n’ rollers!” 

The Hype, that backing band I had mentioned early, changed themselves a little bit, with Trevor Bolder on bass and trumpet, reliable Mick Woodmansey staying on drums, Mick Ronson adding several more instruments to his repertoire, he gained a larger role on this album helping Bowie with many of the song’s arrangements. Completing the lineup is Rick Wakemen (Yes, the guy from, uh, Yes) on keyboards. Wakeman’s playing is distinct, and all over the album. Combined with Bowie and Ronson’s arrangements, the whole album leaps, struts, and dances in power-pop perfection. “Oh! You Pretty Things” is the prime example of this. A catchy, jumpy piano drives the song, with a thumping rhythm section for the chorus, Bowie’s monstrously operatic vocals being followed up by a wonderful backing vocal from the rest of the crew. It’s a beautiful dynamic, and Bowie’s lyrics constantly improve. Still referencing all his literary ad philosopher favorites, such as Nietzsche here, Bowie croons about homo sapiens being pushed aside for the next wave of humanity, the homo superior. Maybe he liked the X-Men, too. “Oh! You Pretty Things” seamlessly transits it to the bluesy, “Eight Line Poem,” which again gives Ronson some center stage. This album, more than any other Bowie solo effort, featured even contributions from the other musicians. The album is still undoubtedly David’s, every song, every word and composition is his, but the other members of the band’s fingerprints are everywhere. One of my personal favorite songs, not just of Bowie’s, but of anyone’s, “Life on Mars?” follows “Eight-Line Poem” and I must admit, I can’t listen to it and type at the same time. I’ll post a link to the video, with Bowie, bright and shining with his flame-red hair and shiny blue suit in front of a stark white background, and let the song take you away, too. Take a few minutes, the review will be there when you get back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v–IqqusnNQ

How’d it go? Brilliant every time. Okay, we’re back. The song highlights Bowie as the actor, the man who takes the stage, and can fill in a multitude of roles. Bowie is the method actor of music, and here we see him beginning to step into the androgynous sex-god persona. But while this album was taking great leaps forwards for Bowie, it also contained aspects of the other albums. “Kooks”, a song written for Bowie’s then infant son, Duncan Zowie, is acoustic and nearly silly, it could have fit on the debut album. “Quicksand”, an epic five minute R&B rocker, may have been conceived during the last album, especially with it’s darker lyrics, focusing on quitting religious and political beliefs, and waiting for the end, as Bowie bemoans “Don’t believe in yourself/Don’t deceive with belief/Knowledge comes with death’s release”, “Quicksand” wraps up the first side of the album, and it’s hard not to immediately flip to side two. The second half of the album, for my money, isn’t as powerful as the first, but still has plenty of wonderful moments. These next songs are mostly tributes to some of Bowie’s influences, the cover song “Fill Your Heart”, the aptly titled “Song for Dylan” and “Andy Warhol” are pretty straightforward in nature, but “Queen Bitch” takes the cake as the best of them, being a Velvet Underground style song about a self-styled New York sex goddess, you can hear Bowie and crew fawning over Lou Reed and his bunch. Ronson’s guitar riff is mesmerizing in it’s simplicity, and I have a feeling every English punk band guitarist tried to learn this song when starting out. “Queen Bitch” is a raucous romp, and is followed by the final track, “The Bewlay Brothers”, which is at first jarring from the sequence of songs just played. It’s longer, slowed down, featuring whimsical (yet morose) strings and warped vocals. Similar in spirit to The Man Who Sold the World, but perhaps even more vague and open to interpretation, the song entices the listener to think, but about what exactly can be unclear. Religious, occult, and even possible a little autobiographical, Bowie himself has cited it as one of his personal favorites, being featured on his hand-picked compilation album, iSelect. It wraps up Hunky Dory, and certainly leaves the listener wanting more, and wondering what Bowie could possibly come up with next. Which direction would he take? He’s been theatrical, ominous, psychedelic, folksy and poppy before, and on Hunky Dory, pretty much all of those at once. Clearly in his dress style he was becoming more and more outrageous, but what kind of music could accompany this look? Well, less than a half a year later, the world would find out with the debut of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and we’ll find out more about that with my next installation of this series, and as “Changes” put it perfectly, we shall “Turn and face the strange”.

(Bowie and Mick Ronson, with Nick Woodmansey on drums. Photo from TheGuardian.UK)