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| This month, David took me from crayons to perfume and then back to crayons again. |
I've had a lot of jobs over the years: middle school Spanish teacher, customer service representative, freelance writer, etc., etc. Some of these I've liked better than others, but they all eventually ended for one reason or another. I've quit a few of them and have been fired or laid off from a few more. One thing they all had in common, though, is that I didn't really
understand them until they were over. Every time I've walked away from a job (or been kicked out of one), I've thought, "If I were just starting now, I'd know better what to do."
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| Does this thing count? |
And so it is with this foolish David Bowie project of mine. I decided to do this series of articles at the end of August, pretty much on a whim. My "research" was looking up David's name on Wikipedia and scrolling down to
the list of studio albums at the bottom of his page. If you're wondering why I covered certain albums and not others, it's because I was following that list. That helped keep the project to a manageable size. (I'm still deciding whether or not to cover the posthumously released album
Toy from 2021. This month isn't quite over yet.)
Apart from knowing a few of his more popular songs (like "Life on Mars?" and "Ashes to Ashes"), I was largely unfamiliar with Bowie's vast and varied career before embarking on this monthlong journey. As a result, I didn't really know what to pay attention to or what to focus on when I reviewed his albums. Having now listened to 26 of them in a row, I think (or hope) I have a clearer idea of what David Robert Jones was capable of.
What, then, are my main takeaways from this strange month? What did I learn from all this? Well, above all, I've learned that the cult surrounding Bowie is more than justified. He was an enormously talented, complicated, and endlessly odd and inscrutable man. He made albums you could get lost in. Not all of his ideas were to my liking, at least not on first listening, but I appreciate that his mind and his music went in many different directions. It is very difficult to categorize or summarize David Bowie because he didn't stay in any one place long enough for you to pin a label on him. If someone asks if you like Bowie, the only sensible response is: "Which Bowie do you mean?"
The 26 studio albums David made between 1967 and 2016 cannot be adequately appreciated in a rapid-fire series like this one. All I can really do is get a general sense of what each LP is like and then move on. Before I started writing these articles, I toyed with the idea of giving each of David's albums a letter grade. But there was no way to summarize my feelings in a single letter, so I gave up on that idea almost instantaneously. And I can't really give you a list of my "favorite" Bowie albums either, since I haven't lived with them long enough to develop that kind of relationship with them. What I can do is divide these 26 albums into some broad categories. Think of this as musical triage.
Albums to listen to first: Hunky Dory (1971), The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (1972), Aladdin Sane (1973), Young Americans (1975), Let's Dance (1983), Blackstar (2016)
Here's your Bowie starter pack. Six albums. That's not too many. Why these six? Well, I wanted to include four of the albums from the period (early-to-mid-1970s) that I feel was David's pinnacle of creativity and innovation. This was the music that I enjoyed most while exploring his discography. After that, I'm including Let's Dance because I think it's a good indicator of how Bowie's career and image evolved after the '70s were over. And I'm ending the list with Blackstar because, if you've come this far, you'll want to know how the story ends.
Albums to listen to next : David Bowie (1967), The Man Who Sold the World (1970), Pin Ups (1973), Station to Station (1976), Low (1977), "Heroes" (1977), Lodger (1979), Scary Monsters (1980), Earthling (1997), Heathen (2002), Reality (2003), The Next Day (2013)
Ready to continue along the path? Honestly, it was difficult to avoid putting several of these albums in the previous category. The entire Berlin trilogy (1977-1979), for instance, should really be up there. But I feel that those albums would be best appreciated by listeners who had already become acclimated to Bowie's music, so I put them here. Then, there's Pin Ups, an album I really liked but one that is generally dismissed by Bowie experts and rock critics as a footnote at best. What do I do with that one? I put it here. My advice remains the same: forget it's a covers album and just enjoy it as a half hour of (great-sounding) music.
Albums I didn't really get: Space Oddity (1969), Diamond Dogs (1974), The Buddha of Suburbia (1993), Outside (1995)
All this month, I've felt a bit like an old-timey detective in a movie. My assignment was to follow this David Bowie guy around for four weeks and see where he went and what he did. A few times along the way, I lost the trail. These were those times. I do not say that these are bad or unsatisfying albums, just that I'd have to spend more time getting used to them before I could say anything intelligent about them. Outside, especially, would benefit from further study. I never even figured out who killed Baby Grace.
Albums that didn't really affect me one way or the other: Tonight (1984), Never Let Me Down (1987), Black Tie White Noise (1993), Hours (1999)
There were no albums that I out-and-out hated this month. There were, however, a few that I listened to and just said, "Meh. What else you got, Bowie?" Is it a coincidence that these records are all from the '80s and '90s? No, it is not. You might be surprised to see the well-regarded Black Tie White Noise in this category. That album did very little for me, I'm sorry to say.
This series is called My Month of Bowie, and the last time I checked, September hath thirty days. That means I have three days left to tie up some loose ends. So that's just what I'll do. I hope you'll stick with me for the last three bonus articles. Otherwise, see ya 'round like a record.
Next: Iggy Pop's The Idiot (1977)
