Press your space face close to mine

So here we are in 1972 for David Bowie album no’ 5: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (and I thought MWSTW had a some what cumbersome title!).

Stuff of note: Incase you weren’t sure , this is the album where he puts on make up and pretends to be from space. What the betting that Dave’oh was so off his box one day that he thought Marc Bolan was the saviour of mankind, only to realized upon sobering up that he had a crackin’ idea for a concept album. In doing so he finally scored a hit on the album charts (no 5 in the UK no less), got on Top of The Pops and had a single in the UK top 10 (‘Starman’). Oh and his last 3 albums were re-issued and charted as well. Let’s hear it for perseverance!

The good bits
All of it, there’s not a bad track. I first got this a year ago and was blown away. From opening track ‘Five years’ to uber album closer ‘Rock n Roll Suicide’ it’s quality all the way. None of those dodgy rhymes that plagued some of the previous albums and every single tune is a winner. The lyrics to ‘Lady Stardust’ are like a career blue print for all the bands that have meant the most to me. And did I mention ‘Moonage Day Dream’ yet?

The bad bits.
None. Not any.
I didn’t rate ‘Hang on to yourself’ when I first heard it. But it’s so good on the ‘Ziggy’ live album that I grown to enjoy the album version to.

How many good tracks? 11 out of 11. 7 of which are amazing.
How many bad songs? 0

Bowie-o-meter: I give it 95 Ziggys
(because only God gets 100, though I’m not sure why he’d want them)

Pa-ru-pa—pa-pumb. Me and My drum.

The only surviving member of the all conquering Electric Warrior T.Rex line up is drummer Bill Legend.
He’s got his own charming little web site that tells his story, complete with scans of aeroplane menu’s from old tours and photos of his church. It’s a cute little home grown site, especially the part about how much he loves being a Christian and drumming. See for yourself!

http://www.presentation-partners.co.uk/legend/Story/lifestory.html

Bowie vs Bolan round 5 : 1971, The ‘T.Rex-tacy’ edition!

So far it’s 3:2 to Marc Bolan. And ain’t no way Ol’ D.B. is going to equalize this year.

Here’s why:

So it’s ’71 and Dave’oh has released one of his best singles (‘Changes’) and Hunky Dory which is still his most critically acclaimed album some 37 years later, but which neither Simon nor I have a lot of love for. And none of it bothered the UK charts in any shape or form, despite Radio 1 airplay.

Marc Bolan on the other hand released Electric Warrior, which also remains his most critically acclaimed album some 37 years later. But unlike Bowie, it scored a UK no’ 1. And better still, it’s one of the most atmospheric and yet still fun albums I’ve heard. He also had two no’1 singles and a journo some where dubbed the nations teens as suffering from “T.Rex-tacy”.

So an easy win for Marc Bolan then.

See you next year.

In the year 1971

Whilst David Bowie was being kooky and most of the world turned a blind eye, stuff like this was making headlines:

After failing to get their at all in 1970, the Americans landed on the moon twice. They even took a car up this time to make it more interesting for the viewers at home. Bored with the moon, the Russians sent their 2nd probe to Mars which is much cooler don’t you think?

The BBC launched the legendary Open University which went on fill late night and early afternoon TV schedules with bearded men in lab coats for years to come.

The UK and Ireland both switched to decimal currency.

Andy Warhol was big news. He had a film out, set up his video factory an had an exhibition at the Tate in London which largely consisted of mug shots of people who were far to hard to ever go to an Andy Warhol show. Oh the irony.

The French Connection and Dirty Harry did impressive box office and lead to a spate of 70’s ‘dirty cop’ movies.

The troubles in Northern Ireland snowballed. The first British solider was killed in in February. 43 soldiers and 100 civilians were dead by the end of the year. The British government adopted a policy of internment without trial in the province, the consequences of which were truly terrible, as we’ll see in 1972.

The Hunky Dory Backlash (Mahbenja's 2p's worth)

So Hunky Dory;
“a sweeping, cinematic mélange of high and low art, ambiguous sexuality, kitsch, and class" (All Music Guide)?

Or, Hunky Dory;
“reminds me of how naff he was when he started.” (Rueb’s over at The Line of Best Fit)?

Let's give it a bash:

Stuff to note:
This is D’boys 3rd record company and his 4th album. But despite John Peel rinsin’ oot the crackin’ single (‘Changes’) the album still failed to chart (although the single reached no’ 66 in the USA). Exactly how does a person manage to release 4 commercially dismal albums off the back of one novelty hit record about lonely space men?
From looking around the internet (and spending a regrettable portion of my life reading the UK music press) it’s safe say to that Hunky Dory is David Bowie’s most critically acclaimed album. But the world is hungry to know how this “stylistic kaleidoscope” (All Music Guide again) coloured the last 2 weeks of my life.

Here goes:

The good stuff:
Stroof where did all the rock pomp from MWSTW go?
‘Kooks’ really did “remind me of how naff he was when he started.” But as fans of this blog know, I kinda liked a lot of that cockney stick-it-up-ya-jumper stuff, so I liked this song from the first play.
‘Andy Warhol’ struck a cord with me too, I like the chord progression a lot. Both Mick Ronson and Rick Wakeman do a brilliant job on this album and everything sounds great, especially on ‘Queen Bitch’.
And of course ‘Changes’, ‘Oh You Pretty Things’ and ‘Life on Mars’ belong in every single persons music collection. Fortunately they are on a million compilation, because….

The not so good:
The rest of this album is ruddy aweful.
Some of the lyrics…. oh dear. I thought 1967's ‘We are Hungry Men’ was bad until I heard Davo sing the following in album closer ‘The Brewley Brother’:
“Now my Brother lays upon the Rocks
He could be dead, He could be not
He could be You
He's Camelian, Comedian, Corinthian and Caricature”

Is he now? I think you can get a cream for that.

Having sold not that much of anything ol’ D.B. has a fair amount of nerve in ‘Song for Bob Dylan’.
A more honest title would have been ‘I liked you better when you sang those acoustic protest songs, and so did everybody else’. Aspiring rock stars take note: when righting a song about how a mulit million selling performer isn't as good as they used to be, please make sure that said song compares well with their work. Otherwise your kinda asking for it.

Oh and ‘8 line poem’ is a waste of space.

In conclusion:
How many good songs: a respectable 6. 3 of which are amazing.
How many bad songs: an extremely regrettable 5.

Bowie-oh-meter: 65 Ziggys.
10 for every good song and an extra 5 because ‘Life on Mars’ is just incredible. But this is my least favourite Bowie album so far (bang goes my credibility among the hobbyist music journos!).

PS. The amazing thing about Hunky Dory is how confident Dave’oh sounds, despite the failure of his previous albums. He sings like he’s really to take on the world, even during the weakest songs on the album. I guess confidence is something you need if you plan on dressing up silly and telling people you’re the androgynous rock n roll chosen one from outer space.

P.P.S. Next review will be shorter I promise.

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?