Bolan Vs Bowie Round 4:1970

Tis the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy and you can literally hear the death of flower power hanging in the air. David Bowie has released his third album (a rock monster, whodda thunk it!). Amongst other things it boasts a lovely cover, some decent tunes and one of the best songs of his entire career. All that, and still not a whiff of chart success.


Marc Bolan on the other hand….



After 3 albums of EXTREMELY mixed quality, Bolan ditched his old bearded bongo basher (Steve Perrigrin Took) picked up a new one (Mickey Finn) and released a proper decent album with tunes you can hum (‘A Beard of Stars’). To say that this album eclipsed all of his previous work would be to understate things just a tad.




Not content with this, ya boy Bolan shortened his musical duo’s name to T.Rex, let go of the pixie folk nonsense once and for all and released ANOTHER good album a few months later (‘T.Rex by, er, T.Rex). To my ears this album has aged really well. It sounds like the blue print for all of those big Brit Pop albums of the mid ninties (‘Suede’ by, er, Suede, ‘Parklife’ by Blur, Dodgy, Cast, Sleeper and all that sort of thing). It’s all there, the rocky songs, the slower songs, the song with a big string section, the end of album extended freak out and verses that end with a high pitched vocal line.




And then there was ‘Ride a White Swan’. Ooph. It’s credited as being the beginning of Glam Rock don’ cha’ know. And it got to no’ 2 in the hit parade.

Ain’t no contest this year.
1970 belongs to Marc Bolan.

Holy unnatural aversion Bow-Man!

David Bowie. He’s a big star with millions of fans all over the world, right?
So surely you can get everything he’s ever done on some re mastered reissue or box set some where, right?

Actually No.
Whilst none of the tracks from MWSTW were issuedas singles, in 1970 Bowie released ‘Holy Holy’. And unless you can track down the original single (or a dodgy bootleg), you can’t get this. It’s never been officially re issued or re-released.
The Bow-myster recorded a new version of the song during the Ziggy sessions in 1972 and that has been re issued plenty of times, even as an extra track on MWSTW. You can get it off of itunes right now.

But the original version? Gone without a trace.

Which suggests that Ol’ D.B. must have something of an aversion to this track. I wonder why?

The Man who let his mates get on with it....

It’s 1970. For young David Bowie this means another hairstyle, another new musical direction and another new album (of course). MWSTW (is it okay with you if call it that? I pronounce it ‘mwah-sss-tu-wuh’ with a nice hard ‘wuh’ phonic on the end) is album no’ 3 in the Bowie cannon and guess what…. it failed to chart. Ahhh. What exactly does a boy have to do to get a hit around here?

It seems like ol’ D.B. was starting to loose interest in the music business. According too Wikipedia he was so besotted with Angie Bowie (wife no’ 1) that he left most of the work to producer Tony Visconti and guitar whiz-banger Mike Ronson. I wonder if he was just a bit sick of trying to be a rock n roll star after flogging his guts out for several years.

The end result is a ‘rock’ album. For me this album is where the ‘two thousand and Bowie’ rules (which I hope you are following) really start to show their worth. If I hadn’t heard ‘Unwashed…’ and ‘Cygnet Committee’ from the Space Oddity album I would have believed the tommy rott trotted out by a lot of online reviewers about ‘Width of Circle’ being “heavily influenced by the likes of Led Zepplin”. When clearly it was a natural progression from his previous work.

Anyways, here’s what I liked and what I didn’t:

The best of MWSTW:
Opening song ‘Width of a circle’ is like a song sandwich with a meaty filling of shouty glam rock goodness (mind you, as I’ve got more familiar with the lyrics I’ve become less comfortable shouting along.).
‘Black County Rock’ is one of my favourite Bowie songs so far whilst and evidence for my theory that he wasn’t that interested in being ‘David Bowie: wannabe star’ during the recording of this album. According to Tony Visconti the songs structure was in place when recording started but no lyrics, so D-boy just bashed out a couple of lines and repeated then all the way through and then did a (highly amusing) Bolan impression to fill some time.
‘Running Gun Blues’ is more blues rock fun, this time about the pleasure of shooting people on your own time after getting discharged from the army (don’t worry mums and dads, it’s just a story!).
I also really like the last track ‘Supermen’, with it’s unusual backing vocal arrangement making it a strange but fun song.
Then there’s the title track, one of my favourite songs of the 1970’s. I don’t quite know how to describe it or why I like it. I first heard the Lulu version on TV in the 80’s and was fascinated straight away. I can say that it’s a welcome gear change from the (at times) generic 70’s rock production sounds on the rest of the album.

Oh hey, and this is definitely Davey-boys first decent album cover (in the UK at least).

The worst bits
You either like Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zep’ and the whole 70’s heavy rock sound or you don’t. Personally, nah. It’s not for me. The tracks that fit most perfectly into that bracket (‘Saviour Machine’ and ‘She Shook me Cold’) are my least favourite on the album. They grew on me during week 2, but if not for the rules I would have given up on them.

It’s not just the production, the lyrical themes to these songs are pretty tired too. ‘Saviour Machine’ is about a super computer that starts a war because it gets bored, something that Isaac Asimov’s readers wouldn’t blink an eye at.

Lastly, I don’t much like ‘All the Mad Men’. The tune is alright but the lyrics are plain ol’ vanilla flavoured ‘dumb’. Reading other reviews I was surprised to see people praise this as Bowie’s most personal song because apparently his stepbrother was locked up in the same mental institution that graces the Amercian album cover.
I am amazed at this. To me the lyrics are the usual ‘rock n roll’ nonsense about crazy people being the only sane ones. To my mind this sort of thing only serves to trivialize mental health issues. I honestly can’t believe that somebody who had witnessed the destructive nature of a serious mental illness could knowingly write such a lot of tripe about it unless under the guise of another ‘story’. So for me this song should join the ranks of ‘The Little Bombardier’ and ‘Please Mr Grave Digger’ as one of the ‘silly story songs’ that don’t quite work.

In Conclusion
It probably took as long to read this self indulgent review as it would to listen to MWSTW. So do yourself a favour and listen to it. As with the previous Bowie albums, where it really succeeds is in creating a mood which is strong enough to carry the weaker tracks and lift it above the average 12” collection of songs. But that said, it is a 70’s rock monster so if that’s not your cup of tea (it’s not mine) you might be a bit disappointed.

How many good songs? 5 or 6 out of 9
How many bad songs: None, but at least 2 that take a lot of getting into.

Bowie-o-meter I give it 75 Ziggys.

P.S. This is my Dad’s favourite Bowie album.

P.P.S. Here are the American and German album covers in all there dubious glory.

In the year 1970....

So far we've listened to and contemplated David Bowie's first 2 albums. Album no'3 'The Man Who Sold the World' came out in good ol' 1970. Let's have a shufty at that year then shall we:



The Beatles finally found time out of their busy schedules to officially break up.

The Isle of Wight festival became a legend, as did Youth Worker David Ralph who took along some teens from the Westbrook Crusaders Christian Youth Camp he was running. In later years fans were split over who Ralph resembled more, the Dungeon Master from Dungeons and Dragons or Yoda from Star Wars. Ralph is also famous for retiring from Crusader (now rebranded as Urban Saints) on a number of occasions.




Jimi Hendrix died in London. He was only 28 years old.









Tom Hanks and the crew of Apollo 13 failed to land on the moon, but went on to have a major motion picture made about how they all nearly died. The USSR meanwhile successfully landed Lunokhod 1, the first remote controlled robot to ever set foot on an alien world. They may not have won the cold war, but they sure won the war of ‘Who is the coolest’ that year!


University Campus’s in the USA were getting pretty unpleasant what with the anti Vietnam War protests and the Black Panther rallies. The National Guard even shot 4 students, at which Senator Ronald Reagan said “If it takes a bloodbath, let’s get it over with.”
Sheesh – how do guys like that get elected?
Of course nobody likes students, but I'm sure even the Republican Party think killing them is a bad thing.




The first wife of singer/song writer and Sheffield’s favourite son, John Shuttleworth died peacefully in her sleep.





There were 3,692,492,000 people living in the world. For February 2008 the global population is estimated as 6.65 billion. That’s an awful lot more people!
I wonder where they all live?

You're Coming With Me...

Part of the fun of this project is obviously discovering a whole vault of David Bowie songs I've never heard before. Part of this process is clearly a quest to find my favourite Bowie songs, and probably make my own definitive Bowie Top Twenty. Woo! If you asked me to do this at Christmas the top twenty would be made up off a stack of singles and maybe two tracks from Ziggy Stardust. Now, it could potentially be twenty album tracks, all songs I had never heard up to the time this mission began.

So, as I go through the albums (and I am sure Ben will be doing the same), I need to think: which of these songs are coming with me. Which songs are good enough and wow me enough to maybe feature in the fantastic twenty.

Sadly, nothing on album number one will be making that illustrious trip onwards into the pantheon of Bowie greatness. They barely make it into the same country I am building my pantheon in. However, for album number two, title track Space Oddity has a chance - its always been a favourite of mine (and not just for the memories of childhood it brings). If anything else was going as well, it would be Janine, for all its jingle-jangle goodness. It represents a real bite sized chunk of Bromley goodness, and is fast becoming a favourite of mine.

And that is what this is all about. Taking songs that have stagnated on albums and holding them up into the sun. Its like delving into a biscuit barrel and finding a chocolate digestive you never knew existed. The Man Who Sold the World is proving to be the best so far, showing just how exciting all this is going to be.

The Parsley On The Stalls

Sadly, I don't share Ben's enthusiasm for the debut album from David Bowie. In fact, I think it pretty much stinks the room out every time its played. There is something so desperately needy about his early music, attempts at popularity which fall way short of achieving his aims. Whilst The Laughing Gnome is not present, it is indicative of where his head must have been at that time, bobbing about on the fringes of music, desperate for a hit, anything to get him into the charts.

I am glad though that his first album did fail. Imagine how horrible it would have been if the public had embraced the appalling lyrics, the flimsy melodies and awful fake humour of this album. I am sure that Bowie would have tried to repeat the formula on his subsequent albums, in a series of diminishing returns. And would have more than likely sunk into nothingness. Thankfully, this across the board rejection of his early work caused him to re-examine his art and come back with something far stronger.

Space Oddity is way better. The song Space Oddity, as we all know, is a belter, full of interesting sounds and some amazing production (compare it to the demo on the DERAM sessions to see the difference a decent producer can make). whilst the album is still patchy in places, it is so full of life and vitality, at times exploding out of the speakers. Unwashed and Slightly Dazed is a real sign of things to come, starting small before an extended outro to knock the tightest socks clean off your feet.

If I had lived at the time of release, I would have never bought Space Oddity if I had heard David Bowie. In much the same way as I am unlikely to purchase the second Mika album, having been subjected to his debut. Between the albums, Bowie seems to change into a different artist, and for that we should all give thanks.


Scores:
David Bowie - 24
Space Oddity - 62

For a more detailed overview you can read my piece from the website Line of Best Fit here.

The Man Who Bought The Albums

Well everyone, a new day dawns and as of now, under the clearly defined rules we are now allowed to listen to album number three, The Man Who Sold The World. So we have two under our belts, and I will post my thoughts on those two in a moment or two.

The great thing about TMWSTW is the introduction of Mr Michael Ronson, whose contribution to the sound of Bowie is huge and should be given some credit. And so as a tribute to this incredible (and sadly overlooked) guitarist, here is a nifty video. It's cheating a bit as it is from Ziggy-Bowie, but I'm sure we can cut ourselves some slack for this, Mick Ronson doing what he did best, funny faces and all. Enjoy.

Bowie vs Bolan round 3: 1969

So far B-boy and, er B-boy are neck and neck with a round each.
DB took an early lead in 1967 but that other bloke stole it back in 1968.
They both had albums out in 1969, they were both established artists by then (of a sort anyway). So who will score big in ’69? Let’s have a look shall we:



Bowie: As you can see from my previous post I really liked Dave’oh’s 2nd album. Mind you, it didn’t chart.
But he did have a hit with the Space Oddity single. It was released to coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, used by the BBC in their moon coverage and reached no’ 5 in the UK hit parade. Pretty good huh.
Unfortunately his album sales put him firmly in the ‘one hit wonder’ catagorey. Oops. Hey, on a side note he got an Ivan Novello award for Space Oddity, but he had to share it with Peter Sarstedt who wrote the flippin’ dire ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ in which he claimed to be able to see inside Sophia Loren's head. How Bowie managed to drum up enough enthusiasm to keep going after that revolting predicament I’ll never know. Imagine a room full of be-suited men telling a long haired youth
“We love your song!
It’s at least as good as one of the worst songs of this, or any other decade.
You should be proud! Here, have half an award.”



"But what was Marcy-boy Bolan up to this year?" I hear you mutter with begrudging indifference.



Bolan: ‘Unicorn’ the 3rd Tyrannosaurus Rex album was released and reached no’ 12 in the UK. His highest chart position yet (for an album anyway). Not to shabby, huh?

That is, until you hear the album.

To call it a ‘mixed bag’ would be a tad generous.
The first 4 tracks sound exactly the same as his previous 2 albums, and by now I’d had as much of this self indulgent ‘pixie folk’ tripe as I could stand. Then on track 5, joy of joys, there’s a piano and a drum kit. I don’t think my mental well being could have managed another track of fuzzy acoustic strumming and bongo sillyness.
There are some good songs on unicorn: I particularly liked ‘She Was Born to Be My Unicorn’.



But the self-indulgent whimsy is in full effect on closing track ‘Romany Soup’, which features John Peels voice phasing between from one speaker to another and back again as he reads the same section of a short story TWICE! The track makes a strong argument against LSD, they should think about using it in schools.
(Kids, if you experiment with hallucinogenics you’ll end up thinking stuff like this is cool. BE AFFRAID!)



The result: I’m torn.
Bolan had his most successful year thus far and released some crackin’ tunes. But he also released some horrible dross.
Where as Bowie released a really god album which failed to chart and he became a one hit wonder.

I’m gonna cop out and make this round a tie.

1969's David Bowie: MBJ's opinion

So this is ‘David Bowie’, the second album by (dur dur duhhhhh) David Bowie. And from the looks of things it didn’t even chart (in the UK) on it’s original release. How discouraging for a young curly haired pop wannabe. This was Dave’oh’s second go at becoming famous after his first album of novelty music-hall songs tanked and his record company “let him go”.

For the purposes of this blog we’re not even going to mention re-issues. Every other review on the inter-tron seems to view this album as a set of confusing clues as to where the Bowsters’ recording career would end up. Stuff that!

At ‘two thousand and Bowie’ we’re taking each album as it comes and on it’s own terms, so lets dig in:

How many good songs? A surprising 10 out of 10
How many terrible songs? Would you believe it, not even one.



The American cover: what a beaut!

The best moments:
The album kicks off with ‘Space Oddity’, a song which any resident of the UK under the age of 39 has as part of their shared national consciousness. So much so that I think it’s become impossible to evaluate it. The song is just to familiar to be good or bad, it simply ‘is’. All I can say is that I liked it when I was a kid because I was into space adventure stories, I found it a little bit scary and I really liked the chunky acoustic guitar break. But for the purposes of this chronological exploration of ol’ D.B.’s out put, all I will say is that Space Oddity is a crackin’ album opener.

Although the song’s arrangement is quite different from 1967’s ‘David Bowie’, it’s not a massive departure from that album because it’s a short character driven story and the ‘space’ theme would have been quite the novelty in 1969, what with moon landing hi jinks and all that. It’s not until the opening bars of track 2, ‘Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed’ that it becomes obvious how different the B-boy’s approach was to this latest batch of songs: what we have here is a fully fledged rock n roll album. And in that respect it couldn’t be more different to ‘David Bowie’ (you know, the other one).

The songs are all great and real growers. My personal favorites are the epic harmonica rock out of ‘Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed’, the traditional rock stomp of ‘Janine’ and the tight instant folk pop magic of ‘God Knows I’m Good’ with it’s story of every day people shop lifting.

Even the comedy out take ‘(don’t sit down)’ works in the context of the album. And amazingly for 1969 the 7+ minute progressive opus songs (of which there are 3, ‘UASSD’, ‘Cygnet Committee’ and ‘Memory of a Free Festival’) never outstay their welcome and are even pretty decent songs. Compare that to some of the ‘experimental’ free form tat that had been floating about since ‘The White Album’ and you can’t fail to be impressed. At least I was.

The whole album hangs together beautifully. It is more then a collection of songs, it’s a train of thought and as such it’s one of those albums that makes you feel a little bit cheated if you don’t get to listen to all 10 tracks back to back.


The worst moments:
Not much to mention at all. Some of the lyrics contain the same easy rhymes that set my teeth on edge in the previous album (particularly in ‘Letter to Hermione’). But these unpolished moments are few and they don’t ruin the songs.
The last track is an extremely self important hippy affair, but the tune is strong enough to keep you listening.

Bowie-o-meter: 80 Ziggys
A very good album and well worth a listen.