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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 10, 2017 23:31:38 GMT -5
Happy to hear you're enjoying Bowie's Berlin work! Low is a great album, I wasn't sure whether you'd like it at first or not but I'm glad you did. Heroes is definitely the weakest of the trilogy - Lodger gets overlooked a lot, but it's one of my favorites. If the stray Lodger track, "Fantastic Voyage," that appeared as the b-side to his Christmas single with Bing Crosby is anything to go by I've got pretty high hopes for it.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 11, 2017 9:02:35 GMT -5
I'm certainly in agreement that Heroes is a step down from Low (I rate the Berlin Trilogy Lodger, Low, Heroes) but still a strong piece of work (I have the LP cover framed on my wall at home, so I still think it's a fantastic piece of work). I don't have a lot to add here really. The title track is effortlessly the best thing on the album, and I do feel it... I dunno, it doesn't really run out of steam on the second side but it loses some cohesion at least. Some good tracks (Sense Of Doubt is amazing) but they don't quite gel in the same way they on Low. Still terrific though.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jan 12, 2017 23:33:22 GMT -5
I'm certainly in agreement that Heroes is a step down from Low (I rate the Berlin Trilogy Lodger, Low, Heroes) but still a strong piece of work (I have the LP cover framed on my wall at home, so I still think it's a fantastic piece of work). I don't have a lot to add here really. The title track is effortlessly the best thing on the album, and I do feel it... I dunno, it doesn't really run out of steam on the second side but it loses some cohesion at least. Some good tracks (Sense Of Doubt is amazing) but they don't quite gel in the same way they on Low. Still terrific though. Do you have a square sheet of paper with "The Next Day" printed on it so that you can periodically tape that over the center of your framed LP cover to "Heroes" so that you can also occasionally have a framed LP cover to The Next Day?
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 13, 2017 3:35:56 GMT -5
Urgh, don't remind me. I like the album The Next Day a lot, and I get what that cover is going for, but it just seemed like the laziest, stupidest, capital-M Marketing inspired cover ever. "Hey you guys, you know what would be, like, a totally cool idea?" Oh fuck off.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Jan 13, 2017 6:18:05 GMT -5
Urgh, don't remind me. I like the album The Next Day a lot, and I get what that cover is going for, but it just seemed like the laziest, stupidest, capital-M Marketing inspired cover ever. "Hey you guys, you know what would be, like, a totally cool idea?" Oh fuck off. If you have access to the BBC iPlayer, or some other means of getting it, the BBC showed a documentary last weekend covering the last 5 years of his life (called, um, The Last Five Years). The cover of The Next Day was talked about, and it seems to've been all more or less his idea. He worked closely with the designer on it, with various different versions featuring other album covers similarly messed with. Bowie signed off on it even when the designer had last minute doubts.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 13, 2017 7:02:49 GMT -5
I'm aware of the documentary but I haven't seen it yet, but that's interesting. In which case, this means I can blame Bowie for making a bad choice. It's not like he's never made a bad decision, as the 80's will undoubtedly prove when we get there...
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 15, 2017 19:37:32 GMT -5
Lodger (1979)This is the third part of the "Berlin Trilogy." The previous two parts have been pretty solid so I have hopes that this one will be a decent enough album too. If there are more instrument synth-rock songs I'll be happy. Pre-Existing PrejudicesI heard "Fantastic Voyage" a few weeks ago when it appeared as the b-side to the "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" single. I thought it was a pretty good song at the time, though not particularly Christmasy. Other than that I know nothing of this album. Oh, the album cover is weird, but not as weird as Diamond Dogs. Try harder DB! Songs"Fantastic Voyage" This is a pretty good tune. I like the "We're learning to live with somebody else's depression," part. Like I said when I wrote about it when it showed up on the "Little Drummer Boy" single I think it's too short. I'm also not sure how great this is as an album opener. It's kind of mellow and seems like the sort of thing that would get played in the middle of a set during a concert. "African Night Flight" This song is pretty great. I like the synths and guitars a lot. David Bowie is quasi-rapping here and oddly enough it kind of works. "Move On" I listened to this while on an airplane to a foreign land so the lyrics worked for me. It's a decent, "on the road" sort of song. The music was kind of mediocre though. "Yassassin" Synths playing vaguely Middle Eastern melodies. I dig Bowie's vocal delivery on this one. "Red Sails" Ug saxophones. The guitars are out of control. They sound kind of like Adrian Belew. I wonder if it's actually him or just someone aping his sound. In spite of the saxophones this isn't that bad mostly because of Adrian Belew or Fake Adrian Belew. "DJ" More awesome guitar noise solos. The chorus is really good and I really like Dave's vocal stylings during it. "Look Back In Anger" Much better advice than Oasis telling me not to look back in anger and a much better song to boot. "Boys Keep Swinging" When you're a boy you can wear uniforms and buy a home of your own...learn to drive and everything. This song makes me feel sorry for my daughter. I did not realize the vastness of her inability to wear uniforms and get checked out by boys or the lack of cloning prohibition she will have to face as a girl. "Repetition" Synthrock song about a loser guy named Johnny beating his wife. Beyond a single aside of "don't hit her" buried deep in the mix Bowie doesn't really sound angry or against what's transpiring which isn't really helped by the fact that this one follows a song titled "Boys Keep Swinging." "Red Money" Decent guitar noise but other than that this one didn't do much for me. Final ThoughtsThis was a pretty okay album to listen to while traveling abroad but it kind of sounded like David Bowie was running out of Berlin Trilogy steam at this point. The songs were still decent enough, but they never really reached the heights of "Heroes" let alone Low. The 70s synths are a lot less prominent than they were on the earlier two releases, which is kind of a bummer, but they are replaced with Adrian Belew style guitar noise which, frankly, is a suitable thing to replace Brian Eno synths with. And though the album lacks awesome synth-rock instrumentals, Bowie's vocals on this were consistently good throughout.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 16, 2017 5:29:55 GMT -5
DJ is one of my favourite songs ever. I know objectively it's probably not one of the greatest songs ever written, but I have an inexpressible love for it. Fantastic guitars, brilliant vocals, a pleasingly different subject matter for Bowie to be singing about (years before Costello or The Smiths tackle similar territory).... Dammit I love that song. Lodger is very much the forgotten cousin of the Berlin Trilogy (also: not recorded in Berlin, but let's gloss over that, shall we?), but it's still my favourite. I dont think it's the best - that's Low, hands down - but it was the first of the Berlin Trilogy I fell in love with, and so it will always be the one that's most special to me. Definite shout-outs for Fantastic Voyager and Yassasin, both of which are quite excellent. It's also an album that sneaked up on me - the first three or four times I heard it it left me pretty cold, then a switch just flipped and that was me forever hooked. That's pretty much in contrast to Low and "Heroes", both of which I enjoyed from the first hearing. Poor old Lodger, I know nobody else agrees with me on this, but oh well.
Fair enough about the sax on Red Sails though, I can't argue that (still a good song though!).
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 16, 2017 19:26:37 GMT -5
DJ is one of my favourite songs ever. I know objectively it's probably not one of the greatest songs ever written, but I have an inexpressible love for it. Fantastic guitars, brilliant vocals, a pleasingly different subject matter for Bowie to be singing about (years before Costello or The Smiths tackle similar territory).... Dammit I love that song. Lodger is very much the forgotten cousin of the Berlin Trilogy (also: not recorded in Berlin, but let's gloss over that, shall we?), but it's still my favourite. I dont think it's the best - that's Low, hands down - but it was the first of the Berlin Trilogy I fell in love with, and so it will always be the one that's most special to me. Definite shout-outs for Fantastic Voyager and Yassasin, both of which are quite excellent. It's also an album that sneaked up on me - the first three or four times I heard it it left me pretty cold, then a switch just flipped and that was me forever hooked. That's pretty much in contrast to Low and "Heroes", both of which I enjoyed from the first hearing. Poor old Lodger, I know nobody else agrees with me on this, but oh well. Fair enough about the sax on Red Sails though, I can't argue that (still a good song though!). I could see liking this one a lot more if I'd heard it prior to Low and "Heroes" since it really is a very good album in its own right, it's just not as good as Low. I'd say it's probably on par with "Heroes" as an album but "Heroes" has "'Heroes'" on it which is probably the best single song off the Berlin Trilogy so whatever. Honestly after Pin Ups I was ready to give up on this entire project, but I already had the "Peace on Earth" single so I figured "What the hell, it's only two songs, one of which is mostly a coked up David Bowie shooting the shit with Bing Crosby, I'll do that for Christmas and then never return to David Bowie," but the b-side to that, a song from this very album, was solid enough of a song that I decided to press on. If not for "Fantastic Voyage," I would probably not have heard Diamond Dogs or Low or Station to Station or any of the other good stuff that followed the garbage-shit that was Pin Ups. As for "DJ," I liked the song a lot, but in ranking British rock musicians singing about DJs and radio, I think I have to give the nod to Morrisey & Co. imploring me to, "hang the DJ," in "Panic."
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 17, 2017 1:42:51 GMT -5
"Panic" is a terrific song, no doubt about it, as is Costello's "Radio, Radio" - I love them both and wouldn't want to give that I thought otherwise. Both really fantastic.
As for the song "Heroes", it's what I want played at my funeral so I can't exactly disagree with you there...
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 19, 2017 0:21:55 GMT -5
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980)The 80s are upon us and David Bowie is done with Brian Eno and Berlin. This album is the first Bowie album to be released after I was born so I kind of have an idea of what follows this shortly after: "Modern Love," David Bowie and Mick Jagger looking like they want to fuck in that "Dancin' In The Street" thing, baggy suits, Labyrinth... So I'm kind of curious how Bowie gets from being a cool, artsy guy who is into krautrock and wears a cool leather jacket to being one of the lamest 80s pop stars. I think this album might offer up some clues, so let's check it out! Pre-Existing Prejudices
I know "Ashes to Ashes," but again it's from 90s alterna-rock and 00s indie bands covering it rather than the actual David Bowie song. I've liked the covers of it I've heard so I assume I'll like the original well enough too. Songs
"It's No Game (No. 1)" This is weird. Some lady sing-talks some stuff in Japanese and David Bowie screams some junk while guitars that sound like synths (or synths that sound like guitars) play a pretty decent riff. I honestly kind of like screaming David Bowie. It's a shame he didn't do it more often. There's a single scream when he screamed the word "Scream," in "Time," on Aladdin Sane and I think that's it. "Up the Hill Backwards" The music kind of sounds like something that could have been on one of Bowie's early 70s albums, but it's a pretty solid rock song all the same. I think the guitar solo at the end is pretty good. "Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)" This is great. It's almost like a proto-industrial song. The effects on Bowie's vocals and the drums (or synthesizers) that sound like 55 gallon drums getting hit are pretty rad. "Ashes to Ashes" "Space Oddity Part 2." The sci-fi keyboard noise in this pretty excellent. Bowie's singing here is great and the lyrics are pretty solid. "Fashion" Oh this song. I know this one, but mostly because of "Supermodel (You Better Work)," by RuPaul. The guitars and vocal delivery remind me a little of "Fame." This song is pretty alright but probably one of the lesser tracks on this album. "Teenage Wildlife" Some killer meedly meedly guitar shit here and more guitars that sound like synthesizers or vice versa. I wonder how old Bowie is at this point. He had a six year old kid in '77 when he was coked up and had a conversation with Bing Crosby, so he's got to be in the "too old to sing about teenagers" age range here doesn't he? "Scream Like a Baby" Fart synths. This intro is goddamn awesome. The singing and guitars during verses are great but I think the choruses are kind of weak. It kind of bums me out that the choruses are so much worse than the verses because I this is otherwise one of the best David Bowie songs I've heard. "Kingdom Come" Meh. There's some okay guitar stuff going on here but this is a pretty mediocre song. It kind of reminds me of Young Americans (the album, not the song). "Because You're Young" Rock organ ye ye! I love me some rock organ but Bowie's vocals are kind of dog shit here though. They're just happening. Shapeless word noise that conceals the awesome rock organ rocking out in the background. They are in the forefront but aren't really saying anything for most of the song. "It's No Game (No. 2)" This is "It's No Game (No. 1)" sans a Japanese lady and rage. I do not care for this. It sounds so lifeless and 80s. Bring back Screamin' Davy B! Final Thoughts
This was a pretty solid album. If I'm ranking stuff I'd put it with "Heroes" and Lodger in the tier just below Low. The songs were by and large consistently good, but there were, as I expected, harbingers for the shitty 80s Bowie to come. Surprisingly there didn't seem to be any saxophone on this album (or if there was it was so low in the mix I didn't notice it). I know, and dread, its inevitable return. If I were forced to pick a best song I'd probably go with either "Ashes to Ashes" or "Scream Like a Baby." If I were forced to pick a worst track I'd probably go with "It's No Game (No. 2)" the lameness of which was highlighted by the fact that a vastly superior version of the same song appeared on the same album.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 19, 2017 9:10:51 GMT -5
Pretty solid album? Pah! It's Bowie's best! (not my favourite, but the one I regard as his best album overall.) The first side is unimpeachable - just flawlessly perfect. Is Side 2 a slight comedown? Well yes it probably is but then again almost everything in the history of recorded music would be. That run of "It's No Game" through to the end of "Fashion" is just jaw-dropping and "Scary Monsters" (the song) is breathtaking - I get shivers down my spine every single time I hear it. What I love is how well it documents the screaming pain of withdrawal, yet is followed by a song on exactly the same subject but which takes a completely different approach to it - the listless, joyless world of a junkie unable to get the fix he needs (talk about hitting that "all. Time. Low" (heh) ).
And FWIW "Teenage Wildlife" is a song about how he's been around long enough that others (the likes of Gary Numan specifically) have appropriated what Bowie has done, rather than do something original themselves. "One of the new wave boys / Same old thing in brand new drag / Comes sweeping into view / As ugly as a teenage millionaire / Pretending it’s a whiz-kid world" is the key lyric in that song. So it's a song sung in criticism of, rather than being directly about, teenagers.
And I like the album being bookmarked by two very contrasting versions of It's No Game. I have a great fondness for albums that conclude by coming back to the point of their origin (Band On The Run, The Nylon Curtain, Scary Monsters, Collapse Into Now all come to mind), so after the rage, despair and emotional rollercoaster of the album what we've had is a kind of exorcism, with Bowie ending the album in a calmer, better place than the raw primal scream that was there at the opening. The demons have been worked through and expelled, and produced a dazzling album as a result. Whether the expulsion of those demons would be a good thing in the immediate future is a separate question (spoilers: no) but the act of their expulsion produces what is, for me, Bowie's meisterwerk.
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Post by ganews on Jan 19, 2017 12:42:49 GMT -5
I didn't remember "Because You're Young"; nice. I can't think of a single song in which I don't appreciate rock organ.
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 19, 2017 16:58:53 GMT -5
Pretty solid album? Pah! It's Bowie's best! (not my favourite, but the one I regard as his best album overall.) The first side is unimpeachable - just flawlessly perfect. Is Side 2 a slight comedown? Well yes it probably is but then again almost everything in the history of recorded music would be. That run of "It's No Game" through to the end of "Fashion" is just jaw-dropping and "Scary Monsters" (the song) is breathtaking - I get shivers down my spine every single time I hear it. What I love is how well it documents the screaming pain of withdrawal, yet is followed by a song on exactly the same subject but which takes a completely different approach to it - the listless, joyless world of a junkie unable to get the fix he needs (talk about hitting that "all. Time. Low" (heh) ). And FWIW "Teenage Wildlife" is a song about how he's been around long enough that others (the likes of Gary Numan specifically) have appropriated what Bowie has done, rather than do something original themselves. "One of the new wave boys / Same old thing in brand new drag / Comes sweeping into view / As ugly as a teenage millionaire / Pretending it’s a whiz-kid world" is the key lyric in that song. So it's a song sung in criticism of, rather than being directly about, teenagers. And I like the album being bookmarked by two very contrasting versions of It's No Game. I have a great fondness for albums that conclude by coming back to the point of their origin (Band On The Run, The Nylon Curtain, Scary Monsters, Collapse Into Now all come to mind), so after the rage, despair and emotional rollercoaster of the album what we've had is a kind of exorcism, with Bowie ending the album in a calmer, better place than the raw primal scream that was there at the opening. The demons have been worked through and expelled, and produced a dazzling album as a result. Whether the expulsion of those demons would be a good thing in the immediate future is a separate question (spoilers: no) but the act of their expulsion produces what is, for me, Bowie's meisterwerk. With regards to "It's No Game (No. 2)" the fact that it was calm was what didn't work for me because the lyrics were the same in both. I.e. It was still about fascists throwing rocks in the streets and such which caused me to read the song less as the narrator (Bowie?) working through his shit and more as him just giving up and reisgning himself to awfulness of what's going on around him. For me it's the most hopeless song on the entire album. As for "Teenage Wildlife" an old guy singing a song about how lame teenagers are is maybe even worse than what I originally thought the song to be about.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Jan 19, 2017 17:12:14 GMT -5
Seatbelts on from here, people.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 19, 2017 17:19:04 GMT -5
Perhaps my emphasis on the description of Teenage Wildlife is wrong. It's not a "get off my lawn" old man complaining about the youth of today, it's "stop ripping me off!" That's not,I think, quite the same thing. Bowie went on record as saying that he thought what Numan did he did very well, but he did it in repetition rather than being original. But if it's not for you then fair enough!
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 19, 2017 18:20:38 GMT -5
Perhaps my emphasis on the description of Teenage Wildlife is wrong. It's not a "get off my lawn" old man complaining about the youth of today, it's "stop ripping me off!" That's not,I think, quite the same thing. Bowie went on record as saying that he thought what Numan did he did very well, but he did it in repetition rather than being original. But if it's not for you then fair enough! It's still kind of an eye rolling sentiment coming from a man whose best albums are heavily indebted to Kraftwork and Neu and would later go on to put out a drum and bass album during that two month period when that was briefly a genre people gave a shit about.
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 20, 2017 8:25:31 GMT -5
Cat People (Putting Out Fire) 12" (1982)I know nothing of this song, a song called "Cat People," that I can only assume is about some sort of half-cat half-people creatures like that video game Altered Beast. Apparently there are two versions of this song though and popular opinion holds that this one is the good one, so in order to be as fair to the song about cat/people hybrids I'm listening to both versions. The single version's first because it was released first. Pre-Existing Prejudices
As I just wrote, I know naught of this song. The b-side is by Giorgio Moroder though. Split single baby! Moroder wrote every 80s movie soundtrack. I like some of the stuff he's done. Maybe his contribution to this will be okay. Songs
"Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" Canned savannah drums and crooning David Bowie. I half expect him to start bellowing about "the circle of life," like he's in the Lion King because of these goddamn drums. HAHAHA! A roaring lion and Dave Bowie shouts "WITH GAS-O-LEEEEEN!" Oh god this guitar sound. This sounds like a The Works era Queen outtake. I can't believe that this is what followed Scary Monsters. The guitar on that album was a goddamn masterwork of guitaring. This is just so 80s sounding in the worst possible way. There's a chorus of ladies halfheartedly singing "It's been so long," that goes on for awhile and then an 80s guitar solo wraps this shitshow up. This is one of the worst songs I've ever willing subjected myself to. "Paul's Theme (Jogging Chase)" Yup, this is a Giorgio Moroder 80s movie soundtrack synth song. It's got drum machines and you could imagine commandos landing a helicopter in the jungle or ninja assassins creeping about while this played. This is an infinitely better song than "Cat People (Putting Out Fire [With GASOLEEEEEEEEEEEEN])." Final Thoughts
Well, I'm not looking forward to Let's Dance now. I was already kind of dreading it because I know it's got "China Girl" on it. I hate that song only slightly less than the Beatles' "Hey Jude," and now that I'm aware of this fucking "Cat People" bullshit (and if popular opinion is correct a worse version than the one I just listened to) I'm dreading it all the more. "Modern Love" I like well enough, but I have a feeling that that one's going to turn out to be an outlier. Can I stop here and do Nudeviking vs. Giorgio Moroder instead?
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Post by ganews on Jan 20, 2017 9:11:41 GMT -5
"Let's Dance" is awesome. "Hey Jude" is the worst Beatles song and would be bottom-tier even if it were only the first two minutes.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jan 20, 2017 9:24:31 GMT -5
Sorry, Viking.
I do sincerely love the original version of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", though.
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 20, 2017 9:45:22 GMT -5
Sorry, Viking. I do sincerely love the original version of "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", though. It's okay, the Giorgio Moroder song on the b-side was pretty decent.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 20, 2017 10:12:28 GMT -5
They really couldn't have put less effort into that cover, could they? Not that the likes of Lodger's or (shudder) Diamond Dogs covers are deathless works of art, but that's really piss poor.
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Post by Prole Hole on Jan 20, 2017 18:53:58 GMT -5
OK additional: I just couldn't stand not being part of this discussion, so I went away and listened to it.
What a crap song.
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Post by Meth Lab Shenanigans on Jan 21, 2017 7:12:24 GMT -5
Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) (1980)"Teenage Wildlife" Some killer meedly meedly guitar shit here and more guitars that sound like synthesizers or vice versa. I wonder how old Bowie is at this point. He had a six year old kid in '77 when he was coked up and had a conversation with Bing Crosby, so he's got to be in the "too old to sing about teenagers" age range here doesn't he? It's about being a disposable pop star, essentially a fuck-you to all the people who ripped him off even as he faces his own imminent descent into disposable popstardom. Personally I think it's one of the finest things he ever wrote. Also, "Because You're Young" is really beautiful and people overlook it too much
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Post by Nudeviking on Jan 22, 2017 21:29:18 GMT -5
Let's Dance (1983)Before going into this project, this version of David Bowie is what I thought of when I thought of David Bowie. Not Ziggy Stardust. Not the cool European guy of Low. Not even Coked Up David Bowie hanging out with Bing Crosby. The David Bowie in my mind is always the lame 80s pop star with baggy white suits playing goofy looking Steinberger guitars with no headstocks. David Bowie with a stupid ass guitar.
Pre-Existing Prejudices
Songs from this were kind of everywhere in my youth. I don't know if it's actually true or not, but in my mind "Modern Love" and "China Girl" were monster hits that were all over the radio and early MTV when I was a small child. "Modern Love" I actually kind of like and the 7" single is one of the few David Bowie recordings I actually own. "China Girl" is one of my least favorite rock songs of all time, perhaps above only "Hey Jude" (the song I'd pick if I ever got famous enough to do Hate Song at the AV Club). "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" I had never heard before this past week when I listened to the original version which I hated. Popular opinion holds that that version is the better one so I don't have high hopes for the one included here. Other than that, I'm pretty sure I've heard "Let's Dance" and if there were other singles off this album, I probably heard them too. Expect some "Oh this song," to come. And since I don't really have a place to talk about album covers, I'll talk about it here. Is he supposed to be a boxer or something on this? I mean he looks pretty ripped here but it's really not working for me. I'll buy David Bowie as a goblin or as an alien or as Nicola Tesla, but as a bare knuckle boxer? That's a bridge too far. Songs
"Modern Love" I kind of like this song. I know some of you are going to be like "But the saxophones! They are so lame here and you seem to hate all saxophones!" Normally you'd be correct, but here they sort of work for me. I guess if you are making the most 80s pop song possible and you toss some G.E. Smith saxophone wankery in there it works out alright. "China Girl" I forgot this starts with that cliche Oriental melody thing. Gross. Things don't really get any better when Davy B starts crooning. I know everyone's going to be like, "It's David Bowie being a character...he doesn't really believe those things he's singing," but the lyrics are still gross and probably considered "problematic" in 2017. Unlike "Running Gun Blues" I was aware of the grossness of this song and did not accidental blast another problematic David Bowie song about Asian people while my wife was about. "Let's Dance" Oh this song. I don't like this song at all. It's slow and way too long. This song might be tolerable if it was like 3 minutes shorter and also had better production. The production on this is so early 80s sounding. The drums are so over processed and then the saxophones. Oh god the saxophones. So much terrible saxophone shit going on! "Without You" I liked the keyboard part here but this song feels kind of like it was only half done. It never really goes anywhere and then just sort of ends. "Ricochet" David Bowie is talk-singing. I don't think he's really done that since David Bowie: The Album. I think there's a good reason for that. There are samples of some British guy talking about factories and mine shafts while bargain basement Ladysmith Black Mambazo people yell, "Ricochet." Saxophone garbage. More early 80s production. "Criminal World" The verses sound like an 80s cop movie soundtrack. It would probably play during a tasteful sex scene. The rest of the song is a weird combination of college rock sounding guitar jangle and wailing guitar heroics and flutes. Did the Dire Straits guy play on this because this guitar solo at the end sounds like him. "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)" "Hey guys, remember that terrible song about human/cat hybrids we did for a movie last year? I'm thinking about re-recording it for this album and making the part where I yelled 'GASOLEEEEEEEEN!' as lame as the rest of the song. We'll get rid of the Moroder production too and replace it with garbage 80s pop rock production. It'll be great!" "Shake It" Generic song from the early 80s. Nothing about this song does anything to differentiate it from the countless other 80s synth pop songs released in the 1983. It's not terrible if you like early MTV style synth pop, but it's not really good either. Final ThoughtsIs there any bigger drop off in terms of quality in the history of music between albums than the one that exists between Scary Monsters and this? David Bowie had been on a Goddamn tear, and the four albums that precede this one could easily be his top four albums. Let's Dance, while not as shitty as Pin Ups, is really not good. I've heard it's going to get worse before it gets better so I guess I have that to look forward to. Doing a best and worst song thing is kind of hard since so much of this was just mediocre and there. I'll say that I liked "Modern Love" and "Criminal World" well enough and if a gun were put to my head and I was forced to pick a worst song out of the remaining mediocrity I guess I'd pick "Cat People" because it was already a terrible song before it appeared on this album and he somehow made it even worse.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2017 21:39:12 GMT -5
I like "Modern Love" and "Cat People" but this really isn't an album I ever feel the need to go back to.
The next two albums are the worst. If you can make it through the sheer drop in quality, he starts getting better in the 2000's.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Jan 22, 2017 21:59:10 GMT -5
Let's Dance (1983)Is there any bigger drop off in terms of quality in the history of music between albums than the one that exists between Scary Monsters and this? Yes. The continued drop-off in quality between this album and Tonight. Also, I disagree with Gordon in that I'd say half of Bowie's 90s albums are pretty solid. The only album yet to come that really approaches Scary Monsters quality for me though is his penultimate album The Next Day.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 22, 2017 22:05:14 GMT -5
Let's Dance (1983)Is there any bigger drop off in terms of quality in the history of music between albums than the one that exists between Scary Monsters and this? Yes. The continued drop-off in quality between this album and Tonight. Also, I disagree with Gordon in that I'd say half of Bowie's 90s albums are pretty solid. The only album yet to come that really approaches Scary Monsters quality for me though is his penultimate album The Next Day. The Next Day being his best post-Scary Monsters album is an opinion we share. Though I've been listening to "Reality" recently and there's a lot of good shit on that.
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Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Jan 22, 2017 22:28:50 GMT -5
Yes. The continued drop-off in quality between this album and Tonight. Also, I disagree with Gordon in that I'd say half of Bowie's 90s albums are pretty solid. The only album yet to come that really approaches Scary Monsters quality for me though is his penultimate album The Next Day. The Next Day being his best post-Scary Monsters album is an opinion we share. Though I've been listening to "Reality" recently and there's a lot of good shit on that. I love what I've heard of Heathen so far.
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Post by ganews on Jan 22, 2017 23:36:34 GMT -5
Let us pause and remember that's Stevie Ray Vaughn's cool riffage playing on "Let's Dance".
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