The Official David Bowie Thread

Bowie was even great in some of his mid career pop stuff. Serious Moonlight was an incredible live show.

However, I still love old Bowie the most.
 
What do people think of Low? I like it and it's clearly a very good album, but I never found the second side half as impressing as people tend to make out - especially considering the other great material of the same sort (e.g. Eno's) which had already been done prior.
 
I don't think they even appeared to be "good musicians". The musicianship itself, as you pointed out elsewhere, was largely simple and unpretentious (e.g. George's solos). What I attribute to George Martin is much of the clever instrumental arrangements, interplay, counterpoint, polyphony and whatnot that appeared in the band's better output such as on Revolver. It is a fact that none of them were extremely talented instrumentalists (though Paul was indeed very good). Note when I say "talented", I'm comparing that to the standarRAB of the rock music that came out of the era when technical proficiency was starting to become the thing, i.e. the later 60s (the YardbirRAB had Beck, Clapton and Page as an example) and the 1970s. I never meant that comment to slate the Beatles. It's just a fact that they had their origins in the earlier tradition of late 50s/early 60s rock'n'roll where high technical proficiency on instruments was not important. Instrumental virtuosity was traditionally important in Jazz, not in early Rock music. The fact that the Beatles were not virtuosi on their respective instruments merely reflects that they didn't have their origins in the era where being able to do almost inhuman things with guitars became the fashion of popular music. That is all, really. If somebody feels the need to lie to themselves and insist that the Beatles were in fact virtuosi, then fine, so be it. If one is so insecure in liking the Beatles that they feel they need to justify it to themselves by believing things about them that are simply untrue, then great. Though they should keep it to themselves. Personally I can love the Beatles for the genius of their songwriting and melodies, and leave the virtuosity for the hard, prog and jazz rock that was to come later on.


Any examples aside from what you are alleging about Young Americans?

Young Americans did as a matter of fact receive significantly less positive responses from music journalists than did Hunky Dory, Alladin Sane and Ziggy Stardust.

As for Bowie fans, well, I've spoken to at least a few who were not keen on Young Americans among his 70s work (and Diamond Dogs). The jury's out on what the bigger Bowie fans here think.
 
When I was about 7 My favorite song was Sufragette City ( my sister is 9 yrs older than me & a huge bowie fan at the time), Just because when your seven its really fun to scream "WHAM, BAM, THANK YOU MAM!!!!" at the top of my lungs. One time we were on a family road trip w/ me and my sister in the back seat and we were listening to that song on my little mono one speaker boorabox, and the way that that song is mixed on the album that "PART" is on the channel not covered by my boorabox, so when that part came up I screamed that phrase at the top of my lungs with no accompaniment whatsoever. My parents FLIPPED, pulled the car over, and needless to say, I got in big trouble. Thanks for listening.
 
I've been listening to Bowie's early stuff. The first album is obviously shit. Space Oddity is an improvement but is still a messy scattered state of affairs.

It starts getting REALLY good with The Man Who Sold The World (1970). This is a fantastic album, one of Bowie's best. It may not be particularly innovative, but what it is is distinctive. The music has a certain weird, eerie oddness to it that is so idiosyncratically David Bowie. Virtually all the songs on the album are quality album tracks, not least the title track itself (which Nirvana covered on MTV in 93). Who else has heard the greatness of this album?
 
Hunky Dory is excellent. Some other good Bowie albums that I like, although I haven't listened to all of his stuff so there're probably others:

Ziggy Stardust!
Alladin Sane
Low
Heroes
 
covered new ground? he's just the new age equivalent of alice cooper and a lot of his hits are covers. that doesnt mean i dislike him, in fact i like his music- but he isnt exactly original and/or groundbreaking.
 
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