1
Nothing Bowie ever did was as good as "Ziggy Stardust" and "Hunky Dory." Sure, individual tracks hit peaks, although many will argue "Space Oddity," his very first hit, was his best, but I disagree.
I started with "Ziggy Stardust." I was in London in '72 and Bowie and T. Rex were all the rage. Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Trilogy" got slagged. But little of this translated to the United States.
So, when I returned to American soil, after a flight on a Pan Am 747 so smooth that I slept through the landing, I immediately went to Korvette's and purchased "Ziggy Stardust."
Actually, that's not the full name. It's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars." You see this was a concept. Albeit loose. It all seemed to be in service to Bowie himself, and his new persona. And eventually there was a film of that fall '72 tour, but if you were there in person...
You used to be early on things, it was a badge of honor. Then again, we were so hungry for new music, to follow these artists as they pushed the envelope, we needed to get closer, and to see them live...that's the only place you could see them. This was right before the launch of "In Concert," then again, at first, when it was brand new, the show never featured anything obscure, anything that hadn't broken or wasn't a priority at the label. So I went to the Boston Music Hall, which was maybe half-full, and the strobe lights pulsed and Bowie and his compatriots took the stage in their "metallic" suits and through the magic of the internet, I can look up the set list and see the opening number was "Hang on to Yourself," which was punk rock before the Ramones, just listen to the guitar, played, of course, by Mick Ronson, it's a weird world wherein Mark is bigger than Mick, but Mick burned out early and is unknown to the younger generation. But the point is the band started with such energy, with no artificial help, no tapes, no musicians behind the curtain, that you were immediately wowed. Watching the music come alive was positively staggering, I felt like I was witnessing something that others were clueless about, that was important, although I had no idea that Bowie would eventually become a household name.
Actually, the best song was the encore, when the band came out after all the applause with the lights turned up high and performed "Around and Around." Sure, it was a Chuck Berry number, but the Stones owned it, it was the opening number on "12x5." But Bowie had a way of making an old chestnut original, solely his own. He exuded confidence. It was like he was channeling history and making history. And there was a way he stood on stage, long arms and legs splayed, almost like Gumby, it's hard to describe his exact stance, but I'll never forget it.
2
"I'm an alligator..."
"Moonage Daydream" is my favorite track on "Ziggy Stardust." Today, people occasionally mention it, but back then...crickets.
It's the crunchy guitar, the dynamics, but mostly the descending chorus...
"Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine love
Freak out in a moonage daydream, oh yeah"
And then Mick Ronson cuts the fog once again and the biggest surprise on "Ziggy Stardust" was the cover of Ron Davies's "It Ain't Easy," which I knew from the A&M sampler album, "Friends." And the funny thing is most people have never heard the original, it's not on streaming services, but it is on YouTube: bit.ly/3oJ6OBZ and I still prefer it to Bowie's rendition because the chorus in David's cover is just too loud, too in-your-face. Listen to the original. They don't make music like this anymore, at least major labels don't sign it and most of the public is not interested in hearing it, then again the public seems to have lost touch with what a great song is...changes, melody, Bowie knew.
And it's hard to forget the lyrical lead in the title track, and at this point "Suffragette City" is a classic, but really it's all about the opener, "Five Years."
"Pushing through the market square
So many mothers sighing
News had just come over
We had five years left to cry in"
1972 was the year of "A Clockwork Orange." We were looking into the future and those on the artistic cutting edge were not painting a rosy picture, one of the reasons "Star Wars" was such a hit in '77 was because of the wear and tear on the equipment, this was not your father's Hollywood.
"News guy wept and told us
Earth was really dying
Cried so much his face was wet
Then I knew he was not lying"
This climate change thing is not new. California is burning up, there are endless hurricanes on the east coast, but there are still people denying the difference, but they're probably the same ones who were listening to "Smoke on the Water." Yes, a lot of mainstream rock was getting heavy and dumb. Not that I could not appreciate a good riff, it's just that now there was an FM station in every burg, cars even had that band in the dashboard and the rest of the country caught up with the coasts but was mired in the heaviness as opposed to going on the ride into the future, with acts like David Bowie. On one hand, "Ziggy Stardust" was a bit cheesy, this space stuff was more sixties than seventies, but American music had split into dumb or soft, forget what was on Top Forty, yet there was room for experimentation in the U.K., such that you could accept the futuristic vision on "Ziggy Stardust."
Which contained no hits.
At this point, you didn't even have to cross over to AM to go massive, but without that one definitive track that programmers all agreed on, whatever your artistic chops, you were second tier.
3
I will always love "Ziggy Stardust," it was my first, but when you loved something or someone you always went back to the catalog, which led me to "Hunky Dory," and sure it contains "Changes," but that's not why I must say it's Bowie's best album. "Ziggy Stardust" was of a piece, whereas "Hunky Dory" was at times loud and at times soft and the lyrics weren't all on the same theme, and some of them were so vivid.
I don't think I've sat through "Changes" in years, probably decades, but you have to know that it was never a hit in the U.S., and its ubiquitous play on FM was years off.
Subsequent to Bowie's untimely death, everyone agreed on the greatness of "Life on Mars." But come on, "Kooks"? That's the essence of the sixties spirit, which spilled over into the early seventies, there was still a bleeding edge outside the mainstream, made up of free-thinkers, where you felt you belonged when you didn't fit in anywhere else. And there was a similar sentiment in "Oh! You Pretty Things," which was a progenitor of "All the Young Dudes." And "Andy Warhol" ultimately contributed to Andy's image, with the Polaroid SX-70 and more rock press Warhol was part of the music firmament in the seventies, sure he sponsored the Velvet Underground in the sixties, but that was truly underground, even after Lou Reed broke.
And then there was the album closer "The Bewlay Brothers," which starts off with the feel of Neil Young's "Last Trip to Tulsa" and then ventures into a London back alley, shrouded in darkness. That was a feature of music back then, especially in the U.K., acts drove away from the mainstream, they wanted to investigate the underbelly, music was the other, so out there most people had no idea what was going on, but this feel permeated the airwaves back with the initial British Invasion and "Bewlay Brothers" is an extension of that.
4
"Aladdin Sane" was released the following spring, but it too was not a huge sales success, the album only made it to number 17, and there were no singles, but in hindsight, with the overplay of "Jean Genie" in ensuing years you'd think it burned up the airwaves back then...it did not.
"Aladdin Sane" was a disappointment. First and foremost the cover. Yes, Bowie featured the lightning bolt on his face, but the white background overpowered him and the whole effect ultimately looked cheap, especially in light of what had come before, i.e. "Ziggy Stardust" and "Hunky Dory."
But 1974's "Diamond Dogs" was even worse. There was a ton of advance press, over the Guy Peellaert cover, and now Bowie played arenas and "Rebel Rebel" was all over the FM airwaves, even if it stalled on the U.S. singles chart. Suddenly, Bowie was playing to the lowest common denominator, those who didn't get it previously, and if you were on board earlier you winced. You weren't completely rebelling, but your embrace of Bowie was not as strong.
And then came "Young Americans."
This is what cemented Bowie's place in the pantheon. Nothing he'd done previously indicated this is where he'd end up. And sure, the turn two albums later with the electronic "Low" burnished David's image even more, but in 1975 no one saw the need for a spacy rocker to reinvent himself as an R&B crooner who called himself the "Thin White Duke." FM rock stations never played black music. And R&B stations rarely embraced white acts, one can ultimately say Bowie paved the way, for Phil Collins and "In the Air Tonight" years later. But there was something winning about the sound.
I quickly burned out on "Fame," not that I loved it to begin with.
The title track is catchy, but not a home run.
But "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and "Fascination"? WOW!
Nobody ever talks about "Somebody Up There Likes Me," it doesn't even rate its own Wikipedia page. But it starts with a swagger, David Sanborn's saxophone dances all over the track and when Bowie himself finally appears a minute in it's akin to James Brown taking the stage in front of the Famous Flames. And the most magic is in the pre-chorus and the chorus itself is just the cherry on top, it's like the band is playing for itself, knowing how locked into the groove it is, how great they are, how the sound is indelible and incredible to the point it's absolutely irresistible...WHICH IT WAS! I can still remember the first time I heard it, parked behind the Hart ski warehouse in Reno in the dark.
And "Fascination" is nearly as good. The magic is in Mike Garson's clavinet and the chorus, it sounds like it's being performed in an smoky club below street level after midnight, the listener feels like they're on the outside looking in, nose pressed to the glass. This is the highest level, the biggest achievement, when you can cease being obvious, cease trying to grab the audience by the neck and be so confident that you know what you're doing is so fantastic people will clamor to get a piece of it.
And Mike Garson is the special sauce, the key to "Lady Grinning Soul."
5
"Watch That Man" was akin to "Young Americans, a solid opener that didn't quite close you, then again "Young Americans" is superior to "Watch This Man."
For the title track, "Aladdin Sane" is a disappointment, it was nowhere close to the title track on "Ziggy Stardust."
The only certified winner on the first side of "Aladdin Sane" was "Panic in Detroit." It had that futuristic feel of "Five Years." This was Bowie firing on all cylinders.
The cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together" was too obvious, and not an improvement on the Stones' original, it seemed tossed off, not of the caliber that we expected from Bowie.
Then we had the "Panic in Detroit" of the second side, the aforementioned "Jean Genie."
So we've got a whole album with only two cuts that grab the brass ring. If you were a fan of what had come before you were so eager for the album but you wondered how Bowie missed, it seemed like he hadn't put in enough effort, didn't care enough. And the truth is few people bought the album when it was released, never mind played it front to back, but if you did, you discovered the final track, "Lady Grinning Soul."
Garson's opening piano flourish and what ensued thereafter seemed more reminiscent of Broadway or a thirties Hollywood movie than anything in Bowie's previous catalog. So much of "Aladdin Sane" is obvious, at times banging you over the head, but "Lady Grinning Soul" was subtle and removed, but if you were open to the sound it rewarded you.
"Cologne she'll wear
Silver and Americard
She'll drive a beetle car
And beat you at canasta."
CANASTA? You can't be any less rock. What next, CRIBBAGE? And Visa was once known as BankAmericard and the VW beetle was everywhere and...WHAT IS THIS?
"She'll come, she'll go
She'll lay belief on you
Skin sweet with musky oil
The lady from another grinning soul"
This was no rock chick, not someone who followed the bands, but someone the bands themselves followed. But only a few in that rarefied air. These were not model beauties, but those with a pedigree, with titles, who didn't need the rock stars' money, who had their own status, this was what you reached for after all those nights with groupies in Holiday Inns, assuming you were culturally and intellectually up to it, and David Bowie certainly was.
"And when the clothes are strewn
Don't be afraid of the room
Touch the fullness of her breast
Feel the love of her caress
She will be your living end"
There's always someone richer, better-looking, more connected, that's the essence of the world, at least for males, they want to climb the ladder, peel back the layers of the onion until they get to the center, they're looking for the ultimate peak experience, even though that usually only exists in movies and music, but seemingly everybody on the planet has that carrot in front of their eyes.
"She'll come, she'll go
She'll lay belief on you
But she won't stake her life on you
How can life become her point of view"
You feel inferior. Less than. That's how you know you're playing for real, when you're uptight, when you're worried you're not good enough, won't be accepted. And what those further down the food chain don't realize is those near the top of the pyramid feel this way too, life is a corridor of successive doors you must pass through to hopefully get to the diamond, assuming you have the chutzpah, talent and flair to open the doors to begin with, most people won't take the risk, they're too afraid of failure and rejection. But you cannot reap the rewards unless you play.
Sometimes reality lives up to the fantasy. I hope you've had this experience, the night of your life, when all your dreams come true. It almost never lasts, but when you experience it you know, that warm, tingling feeling remains in your brain forever, you trot it out on occasion to feel all warm and fuzzy, sometimes you tell the tale with a smile on your face but your audience can never really grasp the essence, the feeling, for in that one night, that one afternoon, that one interlude, you reached the pinnacle, you ascended to the throne, it was your living end.
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