The alternative Let's Dance

If post-disco-white-boy-funk isn't your cup of tea, you might enjoy these versions of the first 3 killer tunes from 'Let's Dance'.

First up:
'Modern Love' gets the haunting slide guitar and girly vocal treatment from The Last Town Chorus



And now for the original Iggy Pop version of 'Little China Girl'.



Last but by no means least, my favourite of the 3:
M. Ward's acoustic folk take on 'Let's Dance' as featured in the fantastic New Zealand indie flick 'Eagle Vs Shark'.

Let’s Dance – April 1983

After all that ‘Berlin trilogy’ stuff (yawn) our chum David seems to have his sights set firmly on being a global pop phenomenon in 1983. So he hooked up with Disco Legend (or should that be ‘Disco Leg End’ by ’83?) Nile Rodgers to unleash ‘Let’s Dance’ on an unsuspecting world. The single rocked a million dance floors and the album proved to be his biggest global hit since ‘Station to Station’ in 1976. The title track is still an iconic groove, but how does the rest hold up 25 years later?
Well, for an album with an open invitation to dance for a title it’s surprisingly down beat…..

What’s Good
2 words: MODERN FREAKIN’ LOVE!
Wait, is that 3 words or 2 words with a little gramma 2.0?
Either way, ‘Modern Love’ is the bendy parts on a bee’s leg. It is the Wrath of Khan. It is finding you’ve learnt Karate when you thought you were waxing an old man’s car. It is a single mum scribbling in a café all day only to find she has written the biggest seller in the history of children’s literature. It is your best friends baby daughter.
Well maybe not. But it’s good. It’s really really good.
Okay so it’s cheesey. But cheesey-like-good-cheesey, not cheesey-like-bad-cheesey.

‘China Girl’ is a good little pop song. Plus it’s nice that the Bow-ster put it on this album just so Iggy Pop could continue eating, (or so the story goes).

I really like ‘Let’s Dance’ but I’ve heard is so many times growing up that it’s impossible to dissect what makes it good. Just like ‘Space Oddity’ and James Bond movies on a bank holiday weekend. It should have it’s own English Heritage blue plaque.

‘Without you’ is a pretty nifty tune and was a single in some countries.

What’s Bad?
Everything else. ‘Richoet’ is a song of 2 halves: it starts out decent enough but becomes another bout of flippin awful Bowie reggae. Who would ever dance to this?
‘Shake it’ is more upbeat but pretty naff. The other 2 tracks are just forgettable filler.
And I could have done with out 7 and a half minutes of the title track, ta.

How many Good tracks? An uninspiring 4 out of 8.

Bowie-o-meter: 50 Ziggys.
10 for every good song, an extra 5 for ‘Modern Love’ and an extra 5 for being the first Bowie album this year that my wife let me play in the car.

There’s nothing wrong with calling your album ‘Let’s Dance’ and filling it with slightly dour songs. But what is disappointing is how forgettable most of this album is, especially when compared to the first 3 “killa choons”.
Are these really the best 8 songs he could come up with at the time?
If so, wouldn’t it have been better, artistically speaking, for Ol’ Dave-oh to wait until he had a few more songs you could hum?
‘Let’s Dance’ is yet another Bowie album with some brilliant obvious singles but very little else in it’s favour. Sadly as it was a platinum seller, he didn’t learn a thing from this disappointing album. As we’ll see with his next long player: ‘Tonight’.

Christiane F. – April 1981

The Bow-sters next release isn’t really a proper album. It was released as a tie in with the movie of the same name, which tells the true story of a young drug addict and Bowie fan in 70’s Berlin. Dave-0h even makes a cameo as himself.

The album’s two songs of interest are a version of ‘Heroes’ which is mostly sung in German and a natty live version of ‘Station to Station’.

The rest of the album features the best songs from ‘Station’, ‘Low’, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lodger’, making it a nice little retrospective of the years that Ol’ D.B. was either influenced by or working in Berlin.
Track listing wise it’s “All Chilla’ and No Filla’ ”, making it every German’s favourite Bowie album. And a pretty good purchase for anybody unfamiliar with this period of his work and not to sure where to start.

Scary Monsters – September 1980

After sharing creative credits on his last 3 albums ‘Scary Monsters’ sees a more independent David Bowie, apparently determined to mold himself into a Pop Star once again. ‘Low’, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lodger’ had done for him what ‘Kid A’, ‘Amnesiac’ and ‘Hail to the Theif’ did for Radiohead. They freed Ol’ D.B. from the public’s previous perceptions of his work and sound, sold OK and even introduced him to some new fans along the way. But just like Radiohead, after 3 albums of ‘experimental music’ Bowie found himself in a brand new pigeon hole, and one which appeared to bar him from mainstream success.
According to producer Tony Visconti Dave-oh abandoned his ‘Berlin’ loose approach of developing songs in the studio, often writing lyrics at the last minute. Instead he worked alone to craft his songs, coming to the studio ready to go. The resulting album sounds a lot more focused and a lot more pop orientated then anything since Pin Ups in 1973. But is it any good?
I’m glad you asked.

What’s Good?
‘Scary Monsters and Super Creeps’ is a typical Bowie single and could have been on any of the last 3 albums. It’s infectious, memorable and still sounds a little bit edgy even 28 years later. And it kicks off the most consistent runs of decent songs of any Bowie album.
‘Ashes to Ashes’ is personally my favourite Bowie single and helped to kick start the music video revolution of the early 80’s. But don’t hold any of that against this sublime pop tune which overshadows the whole of the rest of the albums, and to an extent, the whole of the rest of the guys career.
‘Teenage Wildlife’ is a piece of work; both immediately up lifting and condemning. It features some interesting lyrics in which D.B. slates the New Wave kids who had named him as an influence and were busy racking in the pop £’s.
And ‘Fashion’ is good fun. “BEEP BEEP.”

What’s Bad?
Whilst there’s nothing bad on the album, a few of the songs are pretty forgettable. There’s certainly nothing special about ‘Kingdom Come’ and ‘Because your Young’ and it’s a shame they are lumped together towards the albums close. The only track I really didn’t like was ‘Up the Hill Backwards’, mostly because of the chorus line backing vocals. Perhaps it sounded fresh in 1980, but it’s pretty crud now.

How many good songs?
6 out of what the track lists says is 10. But really it’s just 9. So er, 6 out of 9 then, right?
Bowie-o-meter: 80 Ziggys.

Scary Monsters was a UK number 1 album and is the album that ALWAYS gets a name check when David Bowie releases anything new (“His best album since Scary Monsters!”). So it did a good job of getting our boy back into the main stream, shifting the units AND influencing those all important music journo’s.
28 years later it holds up pretty well. Some of it now sounds a bit ‘worthy’ (this was the decade that brought us super star charity singles by the truck load).
But overall it’s still a very solid album.

Lodger - 1979

Ol’ D.B. spent 1978 touring ‘Low’ & (shudder) “Heroes” before going back to the studios with Messers Eno & Visconti to work on ‘Lodger’. The album is considered the 3rd part of the ‘Berlin Trilogy’, which is daft as it was produced in New York City and Switzerland. This time around there are no instrumentals and things are a bit more pop orientated. At times the album has a playful tone. Production anecdotes abound of band members swapping instruments and songs being contracted out of the shared chord sequences. ‘Lodger’ is one of the more forgotten Bowie’s albums. It’s easy enough to get hold of the CD re-issue, but it’s not an album that gets talked about much. Unlike Hunky Dory and “Heroes” which are both rubbish, as regular readers know well ;-)

What’s Good?
‘Red Sails’ romps along like it really does have the wind behind it. Weirdly the instrumental synth section sounds just like the music in the bar in Superman 2.
‘Boys keep swinging’ is sing-a-long light hearted fun about the wonders of masculinity. ‘Look back in Anger’ is flippin nuts, one of the best Bowie songs I’ve ever heard. Apparently the NME described it as the “low point of the album” which is proof that they don’t know nothing.

What’s Bad?
“Heroes” ended with some pretty bad world music, and ‘Lodger’ picks it up and stretches it out a bit with ‘African Night Flight’ and ‘Yassassin (Turkish for Long Live)’. Hands up who wanted a David Bowie reggae song? (Please leave the internet if your hand is raised).
‘Red Money’ is a bore and a disappointing closer to an otherwise pretty good album.

How many good songs?
6 out of 10? Not bad

Bowie-o-meter: 70 Ziggys.

Lodger is a fairly average album with it’s share of stand out moments that make it worth a listen, but you’re just as well down T’other day Rueben described this and ‘Heroes’ as ‘Bowie in the studio cranking out albums when he should have been taking some time to figure out his next move.” The man has a point!

“Heroes” - 1977

“Heroes”

See those speech marks? Apparently they’re ironic. Hmmmmm.

Following on from the triumphant experimentation of ‘Low’, “Heroes” was released just 10 months later. The album is the only one of the ‘Berlin trilogy’ that lives up to it’s name as it was recorded and fiddled with in West Berlin, a mere stones throw from the dreaded Wall. The same wall David Hasselhoff would one day tear down with his bare teeth during his frantic search for freedom.
“Heroes” followed the previous albums format with one side devoted to songs and the other to heavily Eno influenced instrumentals. The title track is one of the best loved Bowie singles and was named his best song ever last April by Mojo magazine.
It was the NME album of the year back in ’77 and has 5 stars on the American ‘Allmusic’ guide.
I flippin loved ‘Low’ so I came to this with my tongue hanging out, eagerly expecting to lap up more of the same.

What’s bad about it?
First track ‘Beauty and the Beast’ gets things off to a very under whelming start, featuring dire lyrics and a terrible (and terribly loud) female backing singer. Closing track ‘The Secret Life of Arabia’ is equally naff, a piece of cod-world music with more nonsense lyrics. Any album book ended by these two duffers would have a hard time. The rest of “Heroes” is an even split between decent stuff, some of it very good, and dull filler. Ultimately it’s the filler tracks that are the biggest problem with the album, making “Heroes” a highly forgettable album.

What’s Good?
Who doesn’t love the title track? The production job is a land mark in rock history and the song itself isn’t too bad either.
‘Joe the Lion’ is a crackin’ song, as desolate as “Heroes” (the song) but with out the star crossed lovers. Apparently it’s a tribute to an artist who had himself nailed to his VW Beetle in 1974.
‘V2 Schneider’ is a fun instrumental dedicated to the Kraftwerk co-founder and ‘Moss Garden’ is among the best of the Eno-Bowie instrumentals.
But 4 good tracks is a pretty poor showing.

How many good tracks?
4 out of 10

Bowie-o-meter: 45 Ziggys.

Before I knew a single Bowie album track I knew the legend of “Heroes” and it’s status as a ‘classic album’. It beats me how such a bland collection of material ever made a dent in popular culture. For me this is one of Bowie’s weakest albums yet. I can’t even think of anything pithy to say about it, it’s that forgettable.

Low - 1977

Poor David Bowie. Years of the cocaine fuelled excesses of mid 70’s rock stardom nearly wiped him out. How else do you explain ‘Young Americans’ (pause for laughter). After touring ‘Station to Station’ and finishing the publicity rounds for his first big acting job (‘The Man who fell to earth’) it seems Dave-oh wanted to keep a low profile. In interviews of the time he talks about being so reliant on his ‘people’ that he didn’t even know who to book a plane ticket. I guess he figured it out some how as ‘Low’ was recorded in Paris with all twiddly bits done Berlin in 1976. This was the start of his ‘Berlin trilogy’; three albums synonymous with synthesizers, experimentation, and former Roxy Music member come ambient daddy Brian Eno.

‘Low’ is nothing like any previous Bowie album. There are no big characters, no sweeping narratives and few songs. Half of the album is given to instrumental pieces whilst the songs that do make it are short and sketchy.

30+ years after it’s release in January ‘77 Low still regularly makes music critic lists of all time greatest albums. Stroof, Pitchfork have it as the greatest album of the 1970’s. But is it any good?

What’s good?
There’s only so much Bowie the average person can take. As much as I liked ‘Station to Station’ as this fortnight started I needed a Bowie break. I begrudgingly pressed play on track 1 I was knocked out. ‘Speed of Life’ was a revelation, all catchey hooks and synth’ cool.
‘Breaking Glass’ and ‘What in the World’ are good enough little songs in their own right, with the latter sounding like a Mario Bros remix years before the Nintendo revolution.
‘Sound and Vision’, ‘Always Crashing in the same car’ and ‘Be my Wife’ are three of the best Bowie songs ever. Each one is more infectious and atmospheric then the last. Then ‘A New Career’ breaks the tension with what sounds like Bowie making a guest appearance in The Red Hand Gang or The Kids from Degrassi Street. That’s side one. Side two is more relaxed but no less compelling.

What’s Bad?
You must have got the idea by now, this album don’t do ‘bad’.

How many good tracks?
11 out of 11. SCORE!

For my money ‘Low’ is easily Bowie’s most compelling and inventive album since Ziggy. Best of all, for every track that’s experimental or atmospheric there is a killer “choon” to balance it out. ‘Low’ is pop reinvention at it’s best.

Bowie-o-meter: 99 Ziggys, all trying to keep a low profile amongst teh freaky teens in late 70's Berlin.