My Month of Bowie, day 7: 'Pin Ups' (1973)

Twiggy meets Ziggy on the cover of Pin Ups.

The album: Pin Ups (RCA, 1973)

The cover of a covers album.

My thoughts: David Bowie really went through a remarkable run of albums between 1970 and 1973. The music he released during this time would define his legacy for decades to come. I'm only a week into this project, and I've already heard plenty of David's greatest hits. Why was he working at such a furious pace in his mid-twenties? Was he motivated by his father's death at the age of 57 in 1969? You never know when the Grim Reaper is going to come calling; better record some masterpieces while you still can.

I fully expected that Pin Ups, a 1973 all-covers album released as a concession to his label, would break the spell. But here's the miracle: it didn't. This thing is a boatload of fun, maybe the closest thing to a "party record" that Bowie had recorded to that point in his career. (The full-fledged dance music wouldn't arrive for a while.) Rock critics and Bowie purists tend to worry themselves into anemia as they analyze, categorize, and scrutinize each of David's records, especially those albums from this pivotal period of his career. They approach each LP as a mystery they have to solve, and the best place to go looking for "clues" is in David's often-abstract lyrics. Being an album of other people's songs, then, Pin Ups may not have a lot to offer these folks.

But it had plenty to offer me, the Bowie novice. Once again, my lack of expertise comes to the rescue! I don't really care that this isn't another Hunky Dory or Aladdin Sane, because I don't need it to be. When I play Pin Ups, I just hear a half-hour of great, catchy songs, only some of them familiar, performed by an ace rock & roll combo. (Bowie's band was really in the zone in 1973.) What more can you really ask of an album than that? To turn your back on Pin Ups is to deny yourself enjoyment, which is a terribly foolish thing to do. It yields no dividends whatsoever.

Imagine an alternate universe in which David Bowie had written each of these twelve songs himself. Same lyrics, same melodies, same chords. I fully believe, in that universe, Pin Ups would be mentioned in the same breath as David's other albums of the period and would be hailed today as another glam rock masterpiece. Instead, these songs all come to us second-hand from other bands (The Who, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, and more), so Pin Ups gets dismissed as a throwaway. That seems profoundly unfair to me. May I never be a Bowie purist, then. To hell with those killjoys.

Next: Diamond Dogs (1974)

My Month of Bowie, day 6: 'Aladdin Sane' (1973)

David Bowie gets personal on 1973's Aladdin Sane.

The album: Aladdin Sane (RCA, 1973)

The album's iconic cover.

My thoughts: Years ago, I read in Rolling Stone that the title and cover of David Bowie's sixth studio album, Aladdin Sane, held special significance. The title was a pun on "a lad insane," and the lightning bolt across Bowie's face symbolized the schizophrenia of Bowie's troubled half-brother, Terry. Being largely unschooled in all things David Bowie, I took Rolling Stone's word as gospel. So I went into this album expecting it to be vulnerable and quiet, full of moody, reflective piano ballads about the fragility of the mind and soul.

Boy, is Aladdin Sane not that.

The first track is a confident, Jagger-esque rocker called "Watch that Man," which sounds like something you'd play if you had access to a six pack and a Camaro and were gearing up for a loud, fun night on the town. Things get considerably weirder on the album's second song, the title track, with a clattering piano solo that sounds like Tom chasing Jerry through the Steinway factory. After that, Aladdin Sane is all over the place. Bowie albums tend to be a smorgasbord of styles, all served in generous proportions; this one is no exception. I'm led to understand that Bowie intended this album as a departure from Ziggy Stardust, the end of one persona and the beginning of another. To my untrained ears, however, Aladdin Sane sounds like a direct sequel to Ziggy. It's precisely the kind of LP that an androgynous rock star alien would have made. 

Speaking of which: while listening to this album, I could not help but think of the Frank-N-Furter character from the stage musical The Rocky Horror Show (1973) and its film adaptation The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). Frank, too, is an androgynous rock star alien, and his musical tastes (like Bowie's) run the gamut from Brechtian show music to swoony 1950s teen pop. You know how, when Frank is confronted by Riff Raff near the end of the show, he takes the opportunity to sing a dramatic ballad ("I'm Going Home")? That strikes me as a very Bowie-esque thing to do.

I mentioned at the outset of this series that my introduction to David Bowie came through a 1989 box set called Sound + Vision. Well, that set included Bowie's bratty 1971 cover of a Chuck Berry song called "Round and Round." (He recorded it during the Ziggy sessions and burned it off as a B-side.) Throughout Aladdin Sane, you can really hear how Chuck Berry's music affected a whole generation of musicians, including young David Robert Jones. How appropriate that Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" was etched onto a golden disc and sent into space by NASA in 1977. Perhaps someday, it will reach other members of David Bowie's species.

Is it strange to say that one of my favorite tracks from Aladdin Sane is Bowie's cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together" by The Rolling Stones? I take it that not all rock critics approve of Bowie's hyped-up remake—some of those spoilsports still aren't wild about what Devo did to "Satisfaction" either—but I think Bowie's rowdy rendition manages to be sexier and more fun than the original. And isn't that why we're here, ultimately? To have some fun? 

Next: Pin Ups (1973)

Joe's AI-Generated Funnies 2: The New Batch

Is it already time for a sequel? Of course it is.

My blog generates very little traffic these days, so when an article even does moderately well in terms of views, I pay attention. Recently, I posted an article called "Joe's AI-Generated Funnies!" It was a compilation of cartoons and comics I had created with artificial intelligence. In other words, fake art for real jokes. I haven't gotten any feedback, positive or negative, about that article, but it got slightly more clicks than most of my content. So I figured it was time for a sequel. Luckily, I have plenty of this stuff lying around.

My Month of Bowie, day 5: 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars' (1972)

David Bowie gets to play dress up on Ziggy Stardust.

The album: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (RCA, 1972)

The Ziggy has landed.

My thoughts: When I think of David Bowie's career, I tend to think of characters and concept albums. I mean, that's what he was famous for, right? Inventing wild new personas and then telling stories about them through song? But he didn't really get around to that stuff until his fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a collection of songs about a bisexual alien rock idol who conquers Earth with his glorious music but eventually succumbs to his own demons. Or something like that.

The thing is, strictly on my own, I might not have even gotten that Ziggy Stardust was a concept album or was trying to tell a story of any kind. A few of these songs deal directly with Ziggy and his band, and Bowie seems to be musing about rock stardom here and there. He also introduces the idea of an impending global disaster in the opening track, "Five Years." But I'm not confident I would have been able to put all these puzzle pieces together on my own.

After two listens, I've concluded that Ziggy Stardust doesn't really tell a coherent, followable story in the way that, for instance, Harry Nilsson's The Point! (1970) does. Another concept album, Frank Zappa's three-part rock opera Joe's Garage (1979), also tells the story of a fictional rocker and his fictional band, but it's way heavier on exposition than Ziggy Stardust. Note that Nilsson and Zappa narrate their respective concept albums with spoken, non-rhyming prose. Bowie doesn't bother with that here.

What really matter in a case like this are the songs, and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust has a plethora of all-time great ones on it. Besides the title track and "Five Years," we have future rock radio standards like "Moonage Daydream," "Suffragette City," "Starman," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide." But there's not a track here I'd toss into the bin. After the quieter, more piano-driven tunes of Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust finds Bowie back in full rock god mode. He sounds like music's answer to Alexander the Great. And soon, he will weep, for there will be no more worlds to conquer.

Ziggy Stardust is the second-consecutive Bowie album I wish I'd owned in physical form when I was a young man. If it hadn't gotten through to me as a teenager, perhaps I would have been ready for it by 21 or so.

Next: Aladdin Sane (1973)

My Month of Bowie, day 4: 'Hunky Dory' (1971)

Don't hate David Bowie because he's beautiful.

The album: Hunky Dory (RCA, 1971)

Bowie changes his tune.

My thoughts: Another album, another Bowie. This young man simply was not content to stay still for long. Hunky Dory marks a dramatic departure from The Man Who Sold the World, which (let's not forget) had only been released a year previously. I wonder what newly-converted Bowie fans who'd gotten hooked on Sold the World thought when they first put Hunky Dory on the turntable and heard "Changes" emanating from their speakers. ("What the hell is this? A debauched French cabaret singer? That's not what I signed on for!") 

I hope those fans got over their disorientation quickly, because they were about to hear a truly remarkable collection of songs, not just brilliantly written and performed but exquisitely arranged and produced as well. This is a great-sounding record. Of the Bowie albums I've reviewed for this series so far, Hunky Dory is the first I've been tempted to purchase in physical form. It'd be great to listen to on a rainy day when I don't feel like going out or doing anything. Bowie had already proven he could rock, but with this LP, he proved he could write earwormy pop songs with deadly efficiency. And he could do so without sounding like a mercenary or a sellout.

It amazes me to learn that this LP didn't sell well at first (reportedly due to minimal publicity from the record company) and took a while to catch on, because it sounds like an instant hit to me. Not just a hit but the next evolutionary step in pop music. This is an album that could bring different factions of the 1970s rock audience together. Maybe you dig The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Maybe Pink Floyd is more your thing. Or Lou Reed and The Velvet Underground. Or perhaps you like cast albums of rock musicals, like Hair or Godspell. Whatever. Hunky Dory has something you'll like.

I know that British rockers of the 1960s and '70s were very competitive and kept tabs on each other. It'd be interesting to know what Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and John Lennon thought when they originally listened to Hunky Dory. Hopefully, they took it as a challenge rather than a threat. God only knows what Andy Warhol and Bob Dylan must've thought of the songs directed their way on this LP when they heard Hunky Dory for the first time. I think, if I'd been them, I'd have had to listen to those songs a few times through to figure out whether I was being complimented or insulted.

It's a funny thing about David Bowie's nontraditional singing voice, complete with its impeccable English pronunciation. You'd think he'd be an acquired taste, like olives or dark chocolate, but millions of people have acquired that taste. I'm sure many people have covered "Life on Mars?" in the ensuing half-century, but what could they possibly bring to the song that Bowie didn't bring in 1971?

Next: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 241: Ed Wood's thoughts on science and technology

Isn't pretty much everything "God's domain" when you think about it?

You'd assume that the makers of science-fiction movies would generally be in favor of actual science. I mean, it's right there in the name of the genre. But, after a lifetime of watching these films, it's clear to me that Hollywood views science with extreme skepticism if not outright contempt. From exploring space to trying to eradicate disease or extend life, science almost always leads to disaster in the movies. Perhaps sci-fi helps us deal with our fears about so-called "progress," from the feeling that technology will ultimately rule and/or destroy the human race to the sneaking suspicion that, by learning too much about the world, we are in constant danger of upsetting God. 

As Ned Flanders (Harry Shearer) once remarked on The Simpsons: "Science is like a blabbermouth who ruins a movie by telling you how it ends!"

But do the movies of Edward D. Wood, Jr. reflect the general anti-science bias of popular culture? Well, it depends on the movie. 

My Month of Bowie, day 3: 'The Man Who Sold the World' (1970)

By 1970, David Bowie was eager to be the man who sold some records.

The album: The Man Who Sold the World (Mercury, 1970)

Is success in the cards for Bowie?

My thoughts: This Bowie kid's got potential, huh? He might really be going places! David Bowie's spooky hit single "Space Oddity" had gotten the music world's attention in 1969, but what would he do for an encore? The answer was a third album, The Man Who Sold the World, that built on the guitar-heavy, rock-oriented sound of his second album. I'd say this was his best effort yet. It's really remarkable how much he developed as an artist in such a short amount of time.

As I've said before in this series, I am mostly unschooled in Mr. Jones' recorded output, so The Man Who Sold the World was almost entirely unfamiliar to me. (Except for the title track, which I knew through Nirvana's iconic and surprisingly reverential cover version.) Therefore, I don't have any preconceived expectations for what these albums are going to sound like, and Bowie keeps surprising me. If I were to describe the sound of this LP, I'd say that it's like Led Zeppelin if that band were fronted by a fancy Victorian ghost. Snarly, swaggering tracks like "The Width of a Circle" and "Black Country Rock" could have come from any early Zeppelin album. Bowie's voice, especially in its upper register, has a keening quality not unlike that of Robert Plant's.

One question I've been pondering lately is: should I delve into the details of David Bowie's life as I explore his albums? My instinct was to stay away from this biographical material; I want to discuss the music, not the man. Besides, the inspiration for this whole series was an article Chuck Klosterman wrote for The AV Club back in 2009 in which he pretended The Beatles were an obscure band whose albums were being heard for the first time in decades. I wanted to do something similar to that, only for Bowie, since Klosterman managed to find a fresh angle on some very familiar material.

But I've found that it is impossible to separate the art from the artist in this case. The singer's personal life and family problems very much factored into the songs he wrote. David's father, Haywood Stenton Jones, died of pneumonia at the age of 56 during the making of the Space Oddity album in 1969. Surely, that major life event must have had an effect on Bowie, who seems troubled but unable to clearly voice his frustrations on that collection of songs. The Man Who Sold the World, meanwhile, contains "All the Madmen," which is very explicitly about mental illness and institutionalization. Bowie's own half-brother, Terry Burns, was schizophrenic, and he seems to be haunting this track... and perhaps other songs on the album, too.

Another problem: my original plan was to listen to each of these albums only once before writing my reviews. I wanted to record my immediate thoughts about these songs while they were still fresh in my mind. But I've broken my own rule three times in a row, mainly because it takes me at least two listens of any David Bowie album to get my bearings. The first time through, The Man Who Sold the World overwhelmed me with its dense, layered sound and cryptic, deliberately obscure lyrics. But a second listen brought the album into sharper focus, and I was able to appreciate some hidden gems like the mesmerizing "After All" with its curiously haunting "oh by jingo!" refrain.

So this project is already leading me in directions I had not expected to go. Who knows where it will take me in the days to come?

Next: Hunky Dory (1971)

                

Podcast Tuesday: "Still the Beaver" or "The Myth of Sissy Foods"

The unsold 1983 pilot Herndon centers around a goofy tech genius.

You might assume that, when Garry Marshall started directing feature films in 1982, he'd let his TV career quietly die out. Happy Days and Laverne & Shirley would slowly but surely run out the clock, and Garry would concentrate on movies. And, for the most part, that's pretty much what happened. From the mid-1980s onward, Garry was a known as a movie guy, not a TV guy.

But he did make a few last attempts at getting another sitcom going in the 1980s. One of his most intriguing misfires is Herndon (1983), in which future Seinfeld star Michael Richards plays a clumsy tech genius named Dr. Herndon P. Poole and a mustachioed Ted McGinley plays a down-on-his-luck wheeler dealer type named Shack who finds much-needed employment at Herndon's Silicon Valley startup. Garry directed a half-hour pilot written by Happy Days veterans Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, but ABC didn't take the bait. The network aired the pilot just once, then forgot about the project. Garry and everyone else involved moved on to other things.

This week on These Days Are Ours: A Happy Days Podcast, we take a good, long look at that unsold pilot and talk about whether or not Herndon should have become the first major sitcom to take place in the tech industry. We'd be tickled pink if you'd join us.

My Month of Bowie, day 2: 'Space Oddity' (1969)

David Bowie reintroduced himself on his second album.

The album: Space Oddity aka David Bowie (Philips, 1969)

Bowie tries again... with new hair.

My thoughts: Being the ultimate theater kid on his self-titled 1967 debut album didn't work—at least commercially—so for his second self-titled debut album in 1969, David Bowie switched things up. In his case, a single song changed the course of his career, his life, and popular music in general: "Space Oddity." Fifty-six years later, the song still sounds as ominous, tender, and haunting as ever. It's like David had a half dozen great musical ideas simultaneously and managed to fit them all into one coherent song. (I wonder if David ever heard the Langley Schools Music Project version of that song.)

Nothing else on Space Oddity is as memorable as the title track, but I don't side with those who say the rest of the album is disposable or worthless. Critics well-schooled in all things Bowie tend to turn up their noses at this album. But I have an advantage over the experts: as a relative newbie, I'm just ignorant enough to get some enjoyment from these songs. I don't have a paradigm for what a Bowie album "could" or "should" be, so Space Oddity sounds just fine to me. And other people must like this album, too, since I'd definitely at least heard of a couple of the other tracks on it, namely "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" and "Memory of a Free Festival."

I immediately noticed and appreciated that Bowie's second album is a lot more rock-centric than his first. The guitars and vocals are both more aggressive this time around. You can really hear it in tracks like the bluesy "Janine." In 1981, Devo were through being cool. Well, in 1969, David Bowie was through being uncool. Maybe he remembered what century it was and got hip to the times. I think, if you were a college kid in 1969 who wanted something to listen to while getting comfortably high on a Thursday night, you could do a lot worse than Space Oddity.

I have some quibbles about the album, but they're minor ones. Space Oddity has a few too many midtempo numbers that just sort of plod along for a few minutes without going anywhere terribly interesting. The "Hey Jude"-style singalong chorus on "Free Festival" could have been trimmed just a smidgen. And it seems like about half the tracks start with the same strummy guitar sound. But Bowie definitely isn't phoning it in on this record. I'm not sure exactly what message he's trying to get across, but he's certainly passionate about something. You wouldn't mistake him for some random schmo who brought an acoustic guitar to a coffee shop open mic night. His word choices are too specific for that and his vocals too dramatic.

I doubt I'll revisit this album after the project is over, but I don't regret spending 45 minutes listening to it. If nothing else, the title track still resonates with me. "And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear." Great line. And I think it settles the debate as to whether this song is about an astronaut or just a drug user getting high. Because nobody sees a junkie overdosing and asks, "Who are you wearing?"

Next: The Man Who Sold the World (1970)

My Month of Bowie, day 1: 'David Bowie' (1967)

David Bowie (1967) captures the singer at his nerdiest.

NOTE: For the month of September, I have decided to listen to every official studio album by English singer David Bowie (1947-2016) and record my thoughts about each of them.

I went through a brief but rather intense David Bowie phase when I was a teenager. As a high school freshman, having never purchased so much as a single by the Thin White Duke, I mysteriously used my birthday money to buy the elaborate four-disc box set Sound + Vision (1989). I can still remember the baffled cashier at the mall saying, "You must be a big David Bowie fan," and not knowing what to say back to him. Honestly, I think I'd heard about the career-spanning Bowie collection on MTV's Week in Rock. The box set was considered pretty innovative at the time because the fourth disc was actually capable of playing video: specifically the 1980 music video for Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes." That was quite the technical feat in 1989.

My David Bowie starter pack.

I spent many hours listening to Sound + Vision, more or less enjoying what I was hearing but never quite comprehending it. I found that, by shining a flashlight through the clear plastic cover, I could project a giant picture of an unsmiling, alien-like David Bowie on the ceiling of my bedroom. (I'm not sure if that was the intention of the makers of the album or not.) That gave me nearly as much entertainment as the music itself. A few songs stood out to 14-year-old me—"Space Oddity," "Moonage Daydream," "Changes"—but most of it went soaring over my acne-scarred head. After a while, I unloaded the four-disc set at a local used record store. What a dope I was.

I've long felt I missed the boat on David Bowie. I know he's a major figure in the history of rock, with millions of devoted fans and countless accolades. I gave up on him too quickly, just because his arty, angular songs didn't immediately hit me like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones did when I was in high school. And so, to correct the mistakes of the past, I have decided to devote the entire month of September to the music of the late David Robert Jones. What I plan to do is listen to each of his solo studio albums—no compilations, rarities, side projects, movie soundtracks, posthumous releases, or live albums—and keep a journal of my reactions. Think of this as a science experiment in which we subject a lab rat (me) to external stimuli (the music of David Bowie).

Before we even embark upon this monthlong journey, I want to make a few things clear. I am neither a Bowie fan nor a Bowie detractor. I am merely someone who is Bowie-curious. This series of articles is not meant to be a history of the man or a serious critical appraisal of his music. It's simply an informal journal based on my spontaneous reactions to his albums. That's the adventure I want to take. And where better to start than at the beginning?

The album: David Bowie (Deram Records, 1967)

Neither sexy nor cool. But fun.

My thoughts: David Bowie proves himself to be many things on his debut album. He is witty, creative, tuneful, clever, innovative, charmingly quirky, and almost impossibly English. Two things he is not: sexy and cool. God, he was such a nerd in 1967! It's hard to believe he was only 20 when this thing came out, because his dry, powdery voice makes him sound much older. On the upbeat numbers, he sounds like a sinister children's show host; on the ballads, he sounds like Grizabella from Cats. "Love You Till Tuesday" is the closest thing to a typical '60s pop song on the album, but even here, he sounds more like a chaperone than one of the kids at the dance.

None of this is meant as a complaint. In fact, the more I listened to David Bowie, the more I ended up liking it. This album was famously not a hit when it came out, but I can't really imagine it connecting with the pop audience of 1967. For one thing, David had not found his groove yet, and I mean that very literally. When I think of the singer's most popular music, I think of songs deeply rooted in American rock and soul. But here, he's as British as beans for breakfast. I kept hearing traces of The Bonzo Dog Band and Anthony Newley. "Uncle Arthur" could literally be on a Bonzos album with no changes. "Please Mr. Gravedigger" would have fit in comfortably on The Dr. Demento Show. (Indeed, the Doctor played an early Bowie track called "The Laughing Gnome" on his show from time to time.)

There's a slightly unsettling "renaissance fair" vibe to much of this album. If you like Punch and Judy shows, court jesters, and dancing around a maypole, David Bowie is the album for you. I think this LP would have been a big hit on Summerisle, the spooky island from The Wicker Man (1973). Unfortunately, Summerisle is fictional, and David Bowie had to sell records in the real world, so he changed course. I don't know if Bowie would have ever broken through in the rock world with material like this, but if he'd pursued a career writing stage musicals (as he once dreamed of doing), he might have given Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice a run for their money.

Next: Space Oddity (1969)