Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs…
Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs…
Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo wop and melodramatic teenage glam.
R.I.P. David Bowie, music’s greatest innovator has died at age of 69.
The first in a series of career-spanning comprehensive box sets, Five Years 1969-1973 chronicles the beginning of David Bowie's legend by boxing all of his officially released music during those early years. This amounts to six studio albums – 1969's David Bowie (aka Space Oddity); 1970's The Man Who Sold the World; 1971's Hunky Dory; 1972's The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & the Spiders from Mars; Aladdin Sane, and Pin Ups (both from 1973); a pair of live albums (Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture Soundtrack and Live in Santa Monica '72, both released long after these five years) and a two-CD collection of non-LP tracks called Re:Call, plus Ken Scott's 2003 mix of Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust. That list suggests how "officially released" is a guideline that's easily bent.
Although conventional wisdom states that David Bowies strongest album is 1972s Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, I humbly disagree. I think Ziggys a good record, but quite a few others include better material. Predecessor The Man Who Sold the World from 1970 seems superior, as do many later efforts like 1974s Diamond Dogs, 1976s Station to Station, and 1980s Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).
When David Bowie recorded what became DAVID LIVE at Philadelphia's Tower Theatre in July 1974, he had fully made the leap from Ziggy Stardust and landed feet-first into the shoes of the Thin White Duke. Despite announcing his retirement from live performance the year before, Bowie seemed no worse for wear fronting a ten-piece directed by future LETHAL WEAPON composer Michael Kamen and featuring new guitarist Earl Slick and horn player David Sanborn. This 2-CD set finds the chameleonic performer mixing in Ziggy-era classics such as "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" with material from DIAMOND DOGS ("Rebel Rebel," "1984"), ALADDIN SANE ("Cracked Actor") and HUNKY DORY ("Changes"). The fullness of the horn section and the style of his back-up band give this set a soulful tilt powered by Slick's ballsy playing. This, along with a cover of the Stax nugget "Knock On Wood," pointed at Bowie's immersion in a Philly soul direction that emerged full-fledged on YOUNG AMERICANS.
The Sound+Vision 4 cd boxset covers DAVID BOWIE s career from 1969 to 1994 starting with the acoustic demo version of his first hit, Space Oddity to the return to his Bromley roots for the soundtrack to Hanif Kureishi s The Buddha Of Suburbia which is often cited as the most underrated piece in the Bowie canon. Sound+Vision is a collection spanning four decades, covering the 21 albums from Space Oddity through to The Buddha Of Suburbia. It s a rich survey of David Bowie's many musical lives offering a generous helping of hits, an intriguing dip into archives, classic album tracks and long lost B-sides, explosive live recordings, soundtrack recordings and remixes.
When David Bowie recorded what became DAVID LIVE at Philadelphia's Tower Theatre in July 1974, he had fully made the leap from Ziggy Stardust and landed feet-first into the shoes of the Thin White Duke. Despite announcing his retirement from live performance the year before, Bowie seemed no worse for wear fronting a ten-piece directed by future LETHAL WEAPON composer Michael Kamen and featuring new guitarist Earl Slick and horn player David Sanborn. This 2-CD set finds the chameleonic performer mixing in Ziggy-era classics such as "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" with material from DIAMOND DOGS ("Rebel Rebel," "1984"), ALADDIN SANE ("Cracked Actor") and HUNKY DORY ("Changes"). The fullness of the horn section and the style of his back-up band give this set a soulful tilt powered by Slick's ballsy playing. This, along with a cover of the Stax nugget "Knock On Wood," pointed at Bowie's immersion in a Philly soul direction that emerged full-fledged on YOUNG AMERICANS.