13 Bowie Records You Should Hear

I think there should be a place in heaven for somebody like Bowie was. He did a lot for music and his music did and still doing a lot for people around the world. It’s timeless and his name is timeless.

I have made a task for myself, to choose those albums, that you may probably skip, just because not everyone has time to listen them all. I’ve got an article about 12 LPs of man you should skip, and now is fair to talk about records that you definitely should check out.

Let’s start from the bottom.

After failed at his debut David decided to make another try and start over, second atempt is much stronger. Funny thing, his most famous song on this. Some would say that the rest of the LP is nothing special, I wouldn’t say so. Bowie loved other musicians’ works, and if 1967 output had Syd Barret’s vibe, this one’s got Dylan, to my ear it sounds folky, and I like almoust all of it.

I thought about skipping this one too, but I listened it one more time and found interesting thing about it… a lot of good songs! It’s hooky as hell, and I can do nothing about that, except like looking for water, cause this disk is hot. Those tough guitars at the start of “Fall Dog Bombs the Moon”, man… and what a line this song got… man… “Devil in her bleeding face”… man, I’m looking for water. But the main thing why I didn’t skip this, it’s because Bowie is reflecting here on his past. When he cryies in headphones “And there is never gonna be anough money”, and “sex”, and “never getting old”, it clicks in you, maybe he already thought about his death back then. “New killer star”?.. Sounds like another star is coming, replacing this one…

Why you should listen this? It’s his last. Does the death of the star is elevating music on this one? Yes it does. Is it bad? I don’t think so. I decided to listen all his albums the day before he died, and what is in the end? Self-titled track is a revelation and you probably don’t need anything else, someone will bravely cry “I’m a blackstar”, but it wont be a new Bowie persona, it will be absolutely different man… or maybe not. Do you believe in reincarnation? So many questions and so little answers.

His LPs have got some cool ass cover arts. This is one of those. It rocks, everybody loves him, it’s 70s, what else do you want? But wait a second… did Bowie become self-confessed? “Watch That Man”, “We love Aladdin Sane”, Ziggy Stardust got a stellar illness and became new persona again? But songs are so good, damn you “Jean Genie”! Lasers, blazers and razors while pullin’ the waiters, isn’t it one of the coolest vicious combos you’ve ever heard?

Not a popular choice for one of the best David’s albums, but I think it rocks. Thing is, I don’t mind covers on this one at all, they kinda show Bowie as a part of a generation of The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and others. Another part is that it’s just fun to listen, psychedelic moments are trippy and danceable moments make me wanna dance, enough for a good record.

Another relativlely strange pick from Bowie collection. It sounds trashy and directionless, but somehow it all works for me in a best possible way. “Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats” is total trash, hilarious trash, and then Rod Stewart shouts “This ain’t rock and roll! This is genocide!”. Yes, indeed it is. And “Rebel Rebel” is here, one of his best songs, and cover art is something (check out the back side of the LP).

“Scary Monsters, Super Creeps” line from the title track could sound silly, but when Bowie sings that, it sounds heavy and even smart anouf to analize what the hell was happening in his mind. Japanese girls and revelations about past of Major Tom, strange mix, that only one man could pull off. Are you happy? Good. I’m happy too. And “fashion” also sounds a little bit like a “fashist”, or am I tripping? Oh, nevermind, just don’t listen to me.

This dark glam rock album is a true Bowie masterpiece, he finaly found his voice on this 3rd LP of his. Guitar playing is captivating, and psyhodelic lyrics are strong. The only thing that bothers me is the ending, it should have ended on superior “The Man Who Sold The World”, but it falls down at the end with “The Supermen” instead. But despite that, it’s fascinating how Bowie loves to sing about menkind in general, and nevermind who those men are: madmen, gunmen, men who’s selling the world or supermen, they all are the same at the end, creatures of a mastermind, who looks at them somewhere from the planet Mars and occasionally takes guitar in his hands to play something similar to Earth music.

This is an iconic photo here. The record is continuation of “Low” ideas, not as striking though. Songs are not as genuine in my opinion, as on a predecessor. Because of that, wordless part of the album sounds almost superb. But what makes this strange cold collection of music to stand out is a title track. The music and words are both just beautifull on this song. My favorite line is “I, I wish you could swim / Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim”. Other actual songs may sound theatrical and even cartoonie, I’m talking about “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Secret Life of Arabia”. Though, second one is a cool ending, and that is a fact. The whole record is cool actually, and that is that.

Dystopian future, planet Earth will die in 5 years, starman comming from the sky to save us all. Some would ask, what is si-fi book/movie is this (probably some cliche)? But it’s not a movie, nor a book, it’s an epic David Bowie album about Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Why this is so good? I think because it sounds so intence at the end so you want to strike somebody with a laser beam, because Bowie was reflecting there about absolute definition of a rockstar. And his thoughts were so clear, that they became real, and he became a rockstar himself, an absolute rockstar, not a filmstar.

“The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust” will partialy repeat the formula of this, without a doubt, a great record. But this one is definitely more appiling to me, ’cause of more colourful songs and music, it may be called the greatest tribute album of all time. It does the same, what the Beatles did on their iconic photo of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”, referencing their influences and just important figures, the music of “Hunky Dory” is paying tribute to Lenon, Dylan and even Andy Warhol. It’s like all genres of movies combined in one, from comedy: “I’m not a prophet or a stone age man / Just a mortal with potential of a superman” to absolute drama: “I’m sinking in the quicksand of my thought / And I ain’t got the power anymore”. And it were two lines from the same one song!

This may be the most perfect Bowie album, because of it’s minimal aprouch, only 6 tracks under the gorgeous cover art (I prefer colour version). Every song is important here, all were developed to the maximum potential, and lyrics here sound maybe the most mature out of all his 70s records. He can sing about praying to god in one track, and in the next about praying to TV. He’s made songs not about love, but about how man behaves while feeling love, and it’s damn smart. And the last cover-track, made by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington, is the most impactful and powerfull, with Bowie howling “Wild is the wind”, makes me feel tears on my eyes.

It is the very next album after “Station to Station”, and it continues some of it’s ideas, but “Low” sounds a lot different. Synths are all over the place, half of an album doesn’t contain songs, only music, and another half got some songs, but they are minimal, few lines and it’s over. This is his most challenging and most rewarding record and I was considering it as a garbage for a long time, but at the end I found something special about it. As a part of Berlin trilogy this album was made during the Cold War, while developing this LP Bowie could see the wall right through the windows of a studio. And that division on capitalist and communist worlds are present in the album, but what is worse, cold like death and slow movement of a Soviet Nation, or pulstation of near out of control life of “free” west world? And it is striking, how Bowie could catch the atmosphere of Europe on the second part of the record. American probably would not understand that, Lars von Trier depicted the same mood perfectly in his film “Europa”, it’s daunting, it’s depressing, it takes powers from people and it’s old. But the most important, what brings tears to eyes, is not thoughts about divided world, which is dissonance, but harmony delivered by thoughts about “sound and vision”, about visions caused by sound and about sound that was created through certain visions. The track, that contains this line is like the “Low” itself, or better say “low profile”, first half is music and the second part is words.

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