Bowie's "debut," of course, wasn't really his debut; he'd been trying to make his mark since 1964, jumping from style to style with one failed single after another, but this was the first time he'd recorded enough tracks in a single general style to have enough for an album. There's an expanded re-release floating around, extensively covering all of his mid-to-late-60's attempts at music-making, but I'm content to have my single-CD 12-track release. As for the music, this is Bowie trying to make a Something Else/Between the Buttons-style musichall/Brit-pop collection, but not really succeeding. His singing needed a lot of work at this point; the opening "la la"'s in "Sell Me a Coat" are the worst example, but there are more than a couple of moments on the album that make it obvious that Bowie wasn't going to have any success along the path of croon-balladeering. The music is full of "cute" (read: stupid) sound effects like the British announcer at the beginning of "We Are Hungry Men," the lyrics are extremely childish in an unimpressive way (he's clearly gunning for a Ray Davies or Syd Barrett approach, but failing), and the music has pretty much no grounding in rock music whatsoever.

Still, while I don't like this album much, I can't really hate it either. "Love You Till Tuesday" is a fun orchestrated pop song, and his "da-da-da-dum" singing is a terrific touch. Other songs are all afflicted by an excessive amount of twee or by silly lyrics or by silly sound effects, but it's hard to point to any one particular song and go "Man, this is horrible." Taken in other contexts, the songs on here could have made cute diversions; put together, the effect is a little underwhelming. If you're a major Bowie historian, you'll want this or one of the expanded releases of this, but regular Bowie fans could probably do fine just to find "Love You Till Tuesday" on a compilation or something.

For this album, David decided to play a Dylan-influenced hippie. There's a lot of acoustic guitar, and a lot of rambling, borderline nonsensical lyrics and melodies, and whatever else Bowie's checklist indicated to him he'd need to act the part. The most Dylan-ish tracks on the album, alas, are the worst, and they're pretty long. "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" might have been borderline acceptable at 3 minutes (the opening 30 seconds or so, with the moody acoustic lines and melancholy pings of electric guitar, show a lot of promise), but it gets extended to a nearly unbearable 6:12, featuring ridiculous lyrics, endless harmonica solos and other features that would have best suited a mocking satire of Dylan rather than an homage. "Cygnet Committee" is even worse, taking almost 10 minutes to go absolutely nowhere and providing nothing in the way of interesting melodies or intriguing atmosphere. I almost went with a 7/10 for this album, but these tracks have just gotten worse for me with each listen, and they're the main reason I can't give this album anything higher.

There are some other mediocre throwaways (the brief interlude "(Don't Sit Down)," "Letter to Hermione," "Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud"), but fortunately the rest ranges from good to great. The opening title track, of course, is the main reason that people have any significant interest in this album; it's just about the best moon landing-inspired song not found on To Our Children's Children's Children. This, of course, is Bowie's famous "Ground control to Major Tom" song, tracking Major Tom's trip into space from launch until he makes it out there and ground control loses him (immediately after the great simple exchange of, "Tell my wife I love her very much,"/"She knows"). The music is full of fantastic elements, from the nearly perfect use of mellotrons in the right spots, to the great set of melodies, to the simple epic guitar lines before the upward synth line that proceeds the "floating" breaks, to goodness knows what else. If nothing else, this is the first time to indicate that maybe, just maybe, David Bowie was actually a potentially major talent.

The other good tracks, somewhat oddly, are all on the second half of the album. "Janine" has a nice mix of acoustic and electric guitars and a melody with an interesting flow, and Bowie's rough vocals somehow serve the song well. "An Occasional Dream" could have made a decent (not great, but decent) Moody Blues song; "God Knows I'm Good" is a surprisingly charming story (with a nice melody to boot) of a woman stealing food and pleading that God knows she's still a good person; and of course, "Memory of a Free Festival" ends up working as a Bowie version of "Hey Jude." The main song isn't especially great, moody accordion notwithstanding, but the extended coda, featuring the repeated phrase, "The sun machine is coming down and we're gonna have a party," is reeeeally addictive. Besides, the moody accordion never disappears! It's a nice touch, what can I say.

Overall, Space Oddity is a decent enough effort, but it's pretty clear that Bowie was going to have to head in yet another different direction if he wanted sustained success. Of course, just how true that statement would turn out to be over the years wouldn't have been apparent at this point, but that's aside the point. As with most Bowie albums, you're best off grabbing the better material and ditching the rest.

So anyway, this being largely the work of his new guitarist and his producer, this largely ends up as a messy hard rock album that often borders on heavy metal. Of course, Bowie's voice doesn't really work with this approach; he sounds far too weak and wimpy here to live up to the riffs and sounds that often dominate. Still, there's at least one classic here in the metal area of things, courtesy of the opening "The Width of a Circle." I kinda hated it at first because it was so loose in structure and without any especially strong riffs, but the guitar work is energetic and varied enough that it won me over, and the "heavenly" section with the "oh oh oh ..." vocals is rather nice. Unfortunately neither "Saviour Machine" (which has some weird annoying synth sound on top of the main guitar riff), "She Shook Me Cold" (interestingly ugly at first, but turns into a boring jam) or "The Supermen" ultimately satisfy me on the heavy rock side of things. They're dark and moody and twisted, I get it, but I just don't find them interesting enough for me to care, and that's a good chunk of the album down the drain right there.

Of the remaining five tracks, the infamous title track is easily my favorite. I know it was slightly overexposed in the early 90's thanks to Nirvana covering it, but so sue me, I like the riff, I like the "Oh no, not me ..." counter-melody, I kinda like the lyrical subject matter, and I just think it's clearly the best song by pretty much any measure. The other four aren't fantastic, but they're good enough: "All the Madmen" is a good mid-tempo heavy stomper (though the carnival sounds, as much as they may match the subject matter, annoy me a bit) about a world where the only sane people left are in asylums; "Black Country Rock" is another decent mid-tempo rocker that's at its best when the guitar parts harmonize; "After All" is a nice low-key acoustic number on an album that badly needs a nice low-key acoustic number; and "Running Gun Blues" is an okayish acoustic-to-electric song with "controversial" lyrics and a terrible vocal delivery. Namechecking, wooo.

The thing is, there are some elements that make me want to talk myself into liking the album more. I mean, the atmosphere and the lyrics do work together in a pretty intriguing way on the whole, and it definitely has some strong standout tracks. It would probably help if the album had more strong material in the second half (aside from the title track, the second half is kind of a wasteland) and it left a stronger impression on me at the end. As is, there are plenty of Bowie albums I'd rather listen to than this one.

The first half, of course, contains two of his biggest hit singles ever, and they're both top-notch as far as Bowie goes. "Changes" is a little rambling in the verses, but the instrumental breaks and the chorus are as interesting as can be, almost reminding me of prime Elton John but retaining a brand of intrigue that's definitely unique to Bowie. "Life On Mars?" somehow didn't grab me much the first couple of times, as it struck me as just an unremarkable over-orchestrated ballad; now, I'd have to rate it as one of the greatest over-orchestrated ballads I've ever heard. The lyrics, about wanting to lose yourself in a fantasy world because the real world is dull and uninteresting, are phenomenal, and Bowie belts them with passion over a combination of a good orchestral arrangement and great Rick Wakeman piano lines. Who'd have thought such an interesting combination of bizarre social commentary and catchiness could have come from a "My Way" parody?

The first half, aside from the semi-fillerish, kinda lazyish country of "Eight Line Poem," also contains three songs that are among my favorite Bowie pop songs. "Oh! You Pretty Things" is upbeat piano pop of the highest caliber, both in the verses (which strangely, though not enough for me to claim any sort of ripoff, remind me of Procol Harum; I keep getting "The Milk of Human Kindness" going in my head when I listen to this) and the ridiculous chorus, which basically turns the track into a sexually ambiguous Paul McCartney song. "Kooks" might be intended as a relatively slight track, intended for his son, but it strikes me as a nice ode to a warm friendship, and I've always enjoyed it. "Quicksand" doesn't have an especially strong melody, but it gets by on atmosphere and, shockingly, emotional power; the line, "And I ain't got the power anymore" has to be one of the most emotionally punchy moments in his whole catalogue.

As mentioned, the second half isn't quite as fantastic as the first, but it's still decent. "Fill Your Heart" is a silly cover with singing that might generously qualify as mediocre, and not one I especially look forward to hearing. Then comes a three-song "tribute" portion that strikes me as kinda bizarre; "Andy Warhol" starts with a seemingly random synth sequence played over conversation between Bowie and the producer about how to pronounce his name, but at least it turns into a mildly interesting up-tempo, downbeat acoustic number. It kinda strikes me as a stylistic leftover from Space Oddity; the good half, I mean. "Song for Bob Dylan" has some nice electric guitar licks, but aside from the namechecks, I'm not really sure what it has to do with Dylan; the lyrics certainly don't seem especially influenced by Dylan, aside from maybe a couple of lines in the chorus. Fortunately, "Queen Bitch" (a clear Velvet Underground/Lou Reed tribute) is top-notch, laying out all of the glam-rock elements that David would draw upon for the next couple of years, and it can compete with the best material from those albums.

The album ends on a somewhat deceptive note with "The Bewlay Brothers," but it's not a bad note. David returns to acoustic singer-songwriter mode, and the climactic moments, from when those painful (in a good way) guitar noises pop up, through the "... we were so turned on" lines, are enough to make the song worthwhile. The "main" melody isn't especially impressive, and I haven't the slightest idea what the lyrics are about (or if they're supposed to have meaning), but the song is a success no matter what.

So hats off to David Bowie! This wasn't quite his commerical breakthrough (it still took Ziggy to get him over the hump), but it's his artistic breakthrough, and history has rightly treated this well. I'd actually consider recommending getting this one first; it's not representative of his overall sound, but then again, no Bowie album is representative of his overall sound, so you might as well start with something that relies solely on musical merit, if you get me.

Well, maybe it's just the passage of time, or maybe it's just all of the times I've ended up listening to the album (perhaps leading to some form of Stockholm Syndrome), but my appreciation for it has gone up enough over time that I admire it at a level that's reasonably close to how most other people treat it. I still consider it pretty weak as far as all-time great albums go, but as far as very good albums go, this is fantastic. An album with 11 songs, a few of them terrific, none of them bad, all of them with at least some distinctly interesting aspects, with reasonable diversity, has to be given a very high rating, doesn't it? If not, there's no sense to this whole reviewing business.

One aspect of the album I consider a bit of a misnomer is the way this album is labeled as a "glam" album. Calling Ziggy a "glam" album is kinda like calling The Beatles a "guitar-rock" album; while there's probably more glam on the album than any other particular genre, there's not so much more glam here than every other genre combined that narrowly pegging the album into that category necessarily fits in. I mean, "Soul Love" is basically a soul song (naturally) at heart; "Five Years," "Starman" and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" could have belonged in a Broadway show without much difficulty, and "Lady Stardust" is basically a conventional anthemic piano ballad. Sure, the other songs on here can basically be pegged as glam rock (either partially or entirely), but still, those tracks make up just a little more than half of the album.

Neither the glam portion of the album nor the non-glam portion is quite perfect, but they're each really good on the whole. "Five Years" introduces the concept (not really focused upon the rest of the album), of an alien rock star come down to cheer up the world before it ends in five years, and while it ends up somewhat overdramatic (not necessarily in a bad way, but not necessarily good either), I do find I feel a genuine twinge of emotion in the line, "I never thought I'd need so many people." It's rambling, yet like much of the rambling material on this album, it ends up being quite memorable at the same time. "Soul Love" isn't quite great either, but it's definitely really good, especially in the first half of the verse melody and in the closing "chorus" lines of, "Inspiration have I none/just to touch the flaming dove/All I have is my love of love/and love is not loving."

Skipping ahead (sticking to the non-glam tracks for now), "Starman" is the point in the story where Ziggy writes a song to inspire hope in the world, and it's only fitting that it should be one of the highlights of the album (and Bowie's career). The verses feature a nice low-key guitar groove that reminds me a lot of Loaded-era Velvet Underground, but it's the grandiose chorus, less rock and more showtunes (and just fine for it), that makes this song work as well as it does. And don't you forget the simple repeated piano notes that bridge the verses and the chorus; the song wouldn't be quite as great without it. Elsewhere, "Lady Stardust" may be glam in subject matter (about Ziggy in drag, playing his songs), but it's just top-rate piano balladry as far as I'm concerned. And finally, "Rock and Roll Suicide" is as over-the-top as the album gets, and while I don't love it (I still don't feel like it ends the album on quite the high note that other people seem to think), I'll definitely admit that the mix of Bowie's screams and his deep-voiced backing vocals provide some real power.

Among the glam tracks, the only one I'd consider a weak link is "Star," yet even that one works as an enjoyable boogie-rocker with addictive guitar and piano parts. "Moonage Daydream" has one of the most fascinating choruses I know, careening from anthemic majesty into angry riffage in an incredibly intense jolt, while bringing great power to a section whose lyrics start with "Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe" and end with "Freak out in a moonage daydream oh! Yeah!" The cover of "It Ain't Easy" has never been one of my absolute favorites on the album (oddly, it didn't even belong to the album originally, as it was recorded during the Hunky Dory sessions), but even I'd be hardpressed to deny the impressive contrast between the countryish licks and the stomping "IT AIN'T EASY..." chorus. It's not really a classic, but it kinda feels like one.

The remaining tracks are grouped together on side two, and they're an impressive bunch. "Hang on to Yourself" is often considered a quintessential glam-rock song, but I'm not sure I'd have known that if I hadn't been told; all I know for sure is that the riffs are just heavy enough without losing any crispness, the song is as catchy as anything on the album, and that the tempo feels just about perfect. The title track is, of course, the album's brief full-fledged return to the concept, and while I don't really care about the lyrics, I do care about the interesting combination of the slow winding riff in the verses and the more driving, powerful riffs in the chorus, and I enjoy the song plenty. And finally, as for "Suffragette City," is there any Bowie song that would be more of a blast to do in karaoke? It's not just the great riffs, and not just the "WHAM! BAM! THANK YOU MA'AM!" after the false ending; there are just so many fun vocal moments in this song that I can't even try to count them. If "Starman" is the best of the softer songs on the album, then "Suffragette City" is definitely the best of the harder ones.

Again, the album is a long, long way from perfect, but there are so many nice aspects that a grade less than this seems absurd. Don't get it first - there's an unreasonable chance of disappointment, I think, and Bowie's made better albums - but get it relatively early.

Aside from the Stones cover, the three songs on here that tend to get the most attention are the title track, "Time" and "The Jean Genie." The title track (full title = "Aladdin Sane (1913-1938-197?), where the first two years were right before the beginning of the World Wars, suggesting WW3 was imminent, I guess) is Bowie at his genre-smooshing best, as he manages to create a sort of psychedelic torch-jazz ballad that ends up featuring one of the most insane avant-garde jazz piano parts ever to make it into the realm of rock music. I'm the first to admit that I might not fully admire that piano solo on its own or in other contexts, but here, over the insistent beat (kinda reminding me of how, in the Roxy Music song "If There is Something," the music changes so dramatically over the course of the song while the beat never changes), it sounds amazing. "Time" is also an interesting inclusion, based more in early Broadway/Vaudeville (at least, towards my understanding of the early parts of those genres) than in rock music (even though Ronson's guitar work largely corrects the imbalance, and provides some of the most memorable parts of the song), and featuring great imagery in phrases like "Time - he flexes like a whore / falls wanking to the floor" and "... in quaaludes and red wine." I know that a lot of people like to trash the song for being overly melodramatic, and they probably have a point, but this is a case where I mostly lean in a more positive direction. And finally, "The Jean Genie," of course, was the album's big hit single, but truth be told I'd have never guessed that was the case without being told. Whatever, it's a good enough straight-ahead rock song with more naughty lyrics, and I can see why it's universally liked.

The rest of the songs aren't especially fantastic on their own, but they work pretty well in aggregate, even though I'm still not sure to what end. The opening "Watch That Man" is Bowie and Ronson practically jumping out of their shoes to make their own version of a typical Stones rocker, and while they don't really beat the masters at their own game (I feel like the song is a little too long for the material), it's a fun way to start the album. "Drive in Saturday" is basically a slightly tweaked doo-wop song, and while it definitely doesn't leave much of an impression once it's done, Bowie's delivery is goofy enough (and with interesting enough lyrics, I suppose) that I can enjoy it while it's on. "Panic in Detroit" is the kind of "social commentary" about American cities that could only be done by somebody who's only seen American cities on TV or in movies, but while it's sort of ridiculous, it's fun to hear an urgent quasi-post-apocalyptic rocker set to a Bo Diddley beat. "Cracked Actor" almost seems a little too pleased with itself in its critique of commercial popularity etc, but there is a strangely attractive sense of urgency in the combination of the chorus and the pounding beat. It's nowhere near a classic, but it's nice enough. Among the ballads, "The Prettiest Star" is a decent enough pop-ballad, but nowhere near the standard of beauty set by something like "Lady Stardust," but the closing "Lady Grinning Soul" has a lot of moody atmosphere that hooks me in, especially when David sings, "she will be your living end."

Ultimately, rating this one is kind of a major pain (I went back and forth between an 11 and 12 about half a dozen times). Is it clearly a good album? Yeah. Should any Bowie fan have this? Yeah. Should any general fan of rock music have this? ... ... Probably, yeah. Do I feel any impact from this album once I'm done with it, apart from a couple of songs? Not really. Do I have anything resembling an "Aladdin Sane mood?" I really doubt it.

Well, um, this album is really bad, especially given how promising the track listing makes it look. I'm only familiar with a few of these tracks in their original versions, but they're all tracks I've always liked, and I figured that, at worst, Bowie would give them slightly eccentric tweaks that would produce alternate versions I could come back to once in a while. What I didn't expect was for him to suck so much of the life and enjoyment out of these songs, and for every single change to be one for the worse. The only track that I end up enjoying in its entirety, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," is the one where Bowie takes a relatively conservative approach and doesn't tweak much. People tend to offer praise towards "See Emily Play," but I'm at a loss to understand why. I do admit that the addition of an extended pseudo-psychedelic section at the end is kinda neat, but the main portion just doesn't sound good to me at all. "Where Have All the Good Times Gone?" is decent enough, but far less exuberant than the original; "I Can't Explain" is slowed down to a crawl and made sleazier, I guess, but the saxophone and David's singing don't help things much; and "Shapes of Things" is about a dozen times worse than either the Yardbirds original or the great Jeff Beck version on Truth.

So anyway, like I said, I don't know the original versions of the other tracks on here, but I'm willing to bet that the originals all sounded way better than these covers. Ronson does his best to save the album from Bowie's, um, "inspirations" and his awful singing, which is what saves the album from an even lower grade, but even he can only do so much. I think what ultimately irritates me the most about the album is that it sounds like a two-week tossoff project by a drug-addled superstar who's come to believe his own press, which I'm guessing isn't too far from the truth. Bowie could have, nay, should have made something better out of this project, but as is, it's an album that most people can do without.

While the album was a commercial success (and at least somewhat of a critical one as well), and one that certainly ended up having an influence on punk rock a few years later (what with the stripped-down approach to the guitars and the pessimistic political outlook), I have trouble seeing this as a very good album. There are certainly some strong songs, and a lot of care has obviously been put into crafting the lyrics and the atmosphere, but not once do I feel like I'm listening to anything resembling even a minor classic (even when I'm listening to songs that are great or come close to it). The first and last tracks, for instance, don't mean much of anything to me, whereas I can tell they're supposed to mean at least something. "Future Legend" is full of imagery of a terrible future, and contains the infamous line, "This ain't Rock and Roll, this is Genocide!" at its conclusion, but I don't find it especially interesting or enticing. The finale, "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family," is just ridiculous; the riff is nice, but the cycling of the same phrases over and over again starts to get on my nerves in a hurry, and while the final "Bruh Bruh Bruh Bruh ..." that the recording tape accidentally produced is a cute touch, it doesn't quite satisfy me as an ending.

So that leaves nine tracks. Three of these are taken up near the beginning of the album, in a suite comprised of "Sweet Thing," "Candidate" and "Sweet Thing (Reprise)." It's not exactly bad; I find it somewhat interesting to hear the smushing of grumbly guitars with over-the-top "soulful" (except for the part in "Candidate" where Bowie starts rocking out a bit) singing about various political-ish things, at least until the last minute of "Reprise" where it just becomes a slow noise-fest. The problem for me is that I come out of this suite, every time, feeling like I've just wasted my time on 9 minutes of music that hasn't left me with a single strong lasting impression. I'm not even talking about interesting melodies; I'm talking about having something interesting enough happen that I'm thinking about it five seconds after the suite is over. There are some individual interesting moments, but there sure aren't a lot of them.

So that leaves six tracks. One of the tracks with explicit reference to 1984, "We Are the Dead," is a slow electric keyboard ballad with a decent atmosphere, but there's too much rambling and too little melody for my taste. And so that leaves five tracks that, finally, I definitely like more than not. The title track shows Bowie's continuing fascination with Stones-ish rockers, and while I don't care one way or another about most of the lyrics here, there is definitely something appealing about how he sings the "Call them the diamond dogs" chorus and throws in "aah-oooooooooooooo" cries from time to time. "Rebel Rebel" also betrays heavy Stones influence, but it takes a step beyond in a key way; not even in a song like "Satisfaction" had they ever grabbed onto one single riff and ridden it the entire song, verses and chorus alike, without throwing in a secondary riff at some point. The first time listening to the song, my reaction was that I couldn't help but admire the riff. The second time listening, my reaction was that the song was kinda stupid for not having any significant modulation at any point. The third time through and beyond, though, I couldn't help but admire the balls to do something like that; no wonder punks liked this album. Of course, the lyrics are infamous as well, but I don't really care about those one way or another. Oooh, mentioning cross-dressing and gender-ambiguity, how brazen and rebellious.

On side two, we kick off with the slow and passionate "Rock 'n' Roll With Me," an organ-y number that probably would have been better on an album with fewer mid-tempo and slow numbers (though hearing it after "Rebel Rebel" is a bit of a start), but that I'm still glad is here. I don't really know how much emotional sincerity actually went into making this song, but ehn, you gotta take what you can get with Bowie. A couple of tracks later is "1984," the album's main highlight, where David decides the best genre for a song about the definitive bleak future political tale is ... funk/proto-disco. The combination of the wah-wah's, and the twilight zone synth lines in the beginning and end, and the over-the-top blaxploitation strings, and the epic deep backing harmonies, and the great hook of "In 1984 (who could ask for more)" is mind-boggling, and it makes me wish more of the album hit these heights. And finally, "Big Brother" starts off a little slow (cool 70's keyboard-based introduction notwithstanding), and I don't love the verse melody, but the "Please Savior, Savior, show us ..." bridge is really nice, and the melody to the, "Someone to claim us, someone to follow ..." section is fantastic and epic in all the ways I like. Shame that the song is immediately followed by the "Every Circling Skeletal Family" song.

Overall, I like a good portion of the album, but it's just a drag to try and make it all the way through it in one sitting. If I were more of a Bowie fan, I'd probably have a better appreciation for things like the "Sweet Thing/Candidate" suite, and I'd better appreciate the bleak future he's putting to song, but as is, I'd rather listen to albums I enjoy. Make sure you hear the best stuff here, however that may be, but don't worry about the remainder.

The first problem is that, while David and company certainly lean their performance in the direction of soul, they also make an attempt to have the performance qualify as arena rock, and the combination doesn't work well at all. There's a good chunk of electric guitar posturing, yes, but there's no real energy or power or anything along those lines that's required for decent arena rock. Look, I get that Bowie wanted to get away from his glam posturing of a couple of years previous, but I'd almost rather that he'd gone all out with his reinventions and completely ditched any rock presence whatsoever, somewhat like what he did on Young Americans (not that that's a great album, but it would be funny to hear the back catalogue sounding more like that than this). I mean, what's the point of hearing the guitar line of "Rebel Rebel" over and over again if it's going to be played in a lazy, boring manner? I'm not saying I'd want to hear more of the lazy saxophone wailing that Bowie seems to think is all you need to make something into soul, but if he'd spiced things up a bit, thrown some diversity and variety into the mix, and had basically taken more care in forming this concert (like, say, including more than one cover of an old soul song), he could have had his own Live at Budokan years before Dylan did it (and yes, I know most people don't like Dylan's reinventions there, but I think they're a crackup). Alas, pretty much everything gets pegged into the same halfhearted arena soul hole, and it's not a great time.

The second major fundamental problem is that Bowie's vocal performance is horrendous. His voice clearly starts to deteriorate less than a quarter into the show, and he becomes less and less able/willing hit the right notes with any significant power as time goes on. If ever somebody wanted to make a serious argument that Bowie is secretly a terrible singer, this concert would pretty much have to be exhibit 1a, wouldn't it? I'm not asking for exact duplication of studio performance, and I guess that Bowie thought that just getting roughly in the neighborhood of correct notes was what constituted "authentic" soul singing, but I don't think it would have been too much to ask for something better than what we got here.

As for the songs themselves, the upside is that most of the Diamond Dogs performances (and he ultimately does all of the material from that album except "Future Legend" and "We Are the Dead") are pretty good (aside from the travesty that is "Rebel Rebel" here), and "Time" ends up sounding right at home and goofily enjoyable as ever. Oh, and I guess "Space Oddity" sounds ok enough. On the downside, he massacres one previously good song after another from Man Who Sold the World through Aladdin Sane (as well as a so-corny-it's-almost-funny rendition of "All the Young Dudes"). What's funniest to me about these performances is that, especially because of the prominent saxophone wailings, these actually end up sounding a good deal like the pseudo-rock performances that crept up in Frank Zappa's final live tour, except Frank was more diverse and inventive in his rearrangements and constantly had tongue planted firmly in cheek. If you're going to have songs that are as heavily tied to great performance and clever arrangements as to solid melodies, then you have to have great performance and clever arrangements for them to work. Strip away those strengths and you're left with the muck that makes up this album.

Ultimately, I think there's more salvagable material here than many people might believe, but that's not saying much. If you absolutely have to get this, make sure you get the full remaster that restores the whole concert in order and has supposedly superior sound quality to the original (I'd hate to imagine how that would have sounded, as the sound here isn't exactly pristine), but you'd be better off just not getting it.

Of course, as much fun as can be had in ruminating over what this album means (a silly thing to do, given how lightweight it is), I can't escape the fact that I only enjoy three tracks on here: the title track, "Fascination" and "Fame." The title track is an upbeat classic full of lyrical allusions to not-so-upbeat social issues, and the backing vocal-driven groove is one of the most addictive ideas to make it onto a Bowie album. Plus, David's singing here is far better than anything on David Live, especially in the great moment when he sings, "Ain't there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?" in falsetto.

The other two great tracks of this album join it on the list of "awesome songs to listen to when driving down a highway on a sunny day." "Fascination" may just be straight-up dance music, but between the funky guitar licks, the backing vocals and the various keyboard sounds (I know it's not listed, but I'm pretty danged sure I hear a clavinet in there, which is good given my theory that there's pretty much no track that can't be improved with the addition of clavinet), it lives up to everything I'd hope for from such a track. Bowie's singing is no great shakes here, but I can work around that. And as for "Fame," well, I wasn't too impressed on first listen, but every listen since has driven home to me why even detractors of the album tend to praise this one. This one has a co-writing credit for John Lennon, but that's probably overkill; his contributions were limited to having provided Bowie inspiration for the lyrics and in contributing some backing vocals. Nah, this one belongs to Bowie (and to Carlos Alomar, Bowie's new guitarist, who contributed the main riff that drives the song) and he deserves all the praise for it. The main thing that interests me in the song is how it's just such a strange combination of funkiness and noisy stiffness, the kind of music only a really drugged-out white man trying to play the black man's music could conceive. I mean that as a compliment, obviously.

Too bad that's only three songs, with five remaining. The only track that stands out strongly is the ill-conceived cover of "Across the Universe," with Lennon himself providing background vocals (given that Lennon hated the song seemingly within a few weeks of first writing it, it's not too surprising he gave his blessing to this version getting recorded). Let's just say that Bowie gave it a poor vocal interpretation and leave it at that. Otherwise, the album is pure muzak; "Somebody Up There Likes Me" and "Can You Hear Me" each could have been decent songs at half of their final lengths, but as is, they fail to leave a good impression (whereas "Win" and "Right" don't leave any impression at all).

Anyway, if you can find this for really cheap, give it a whirl, but otherwise, just look for the worthwhile tracks online. Thank goodness Bowie started snapping out of this phase about as quickly as he got into it.

And to think, all that needed to happen for this album to come about was for Bowie to go insane. There have only been a few albums where the drug use that went into its creation has reached legendary status (like Syd Barrett with Piper at the Gates of Dawn), and Station to Station certainly qualifies for this list. No matter how many times I read about it, it's almost impossible for me not to giggle uncomfortably when reading about Bowie's experiences during this time; from the diet of cocaine, peppers and milk to the series of hallucinations of witches coming after his semen and Jimmy Page plotting against him, to whatever other horrible things may have happened but were lost to the winds of time, it seems almost a blessing that Bowie's recollection of that time escaped him in later years. His cocaine use of the time (in the sessions, but also in the Young Americans tour) also prompted the creation of a new persona, The Thin White Duke, who was basically an expression of whatever latent fascist/nazi tendencies Bowie might have had deep down inside. All in all, this was not a happy time to be David Bowie.

It was sure a happy time to be a David Bowie album, though. The album has but six tracks, three on each side, and each side follows the same approximate pattern; sci-fi guitar-rocker with lots of great piano, followed by funky poppy guitar-rocker, followed by epic anthemic soul-influenced ballad. Not too surprisingly, I find that the ballads let down the album a bit, but only a bit; "Word on a Wing" threatens at times to get tacky, and "Wild is the Wind" threatens to get boring, but thankfully they never cross their respective lines. "Word on a Wing" apparently meant a lot to Bowie, reflecting his struggle to find spiritual meaning in a world fogged up by cocaine, and while there are a few too many levels of cynicism built up in me to love this (I'm still not ready to take the falsetto singing of "My breath is like a word on a wing" fully seriously), I definitely enjoy it much more than not. "Wild is the Wind," a cover of an old Johnny Mathis song, is given a tasteful, low-key guitar-driven arrangement, and while I'm not sure about the length or much of Bowie's singing here (waaaaaay overdone in the second half especially), I have to admit there's some strong emotion in the moment that he sings, "Don't you know, you're life itself!" It's a strangely unsatisfying way to end the album, but it's a good song regardless.

The funky poppy guitar-rockers are way better, anyway. "Golden Years" has to be one of the most impressive "multi-purpose" songs I know of; you can dance to it, you can play air guitar to it, you can sing it in karaoke, and you can put it on at a party and suddenly make the room seem a lot cooler than before. It's definitely one of the most impressive pop songs Bowie ever did, and boy howdy is it catchy. "Stay," on the other hand, doesn't earn its keep through catchiness, but through some of the best funk, groove-based guitar playing you'll ever hear on an album made by a British white guy. It's not just the guitar playing that makes this groove work so well, though; the bass and the bongos and the mellotron (!!) make the whole thing as addictive as could possibly be. The song doesn't rely solely on the merits of the groove, though; the whole chorus, starting from "Stay, that's what I meant to say ..." is impossible to resist, and the verses definitely have their charms as well. Yup, if anybody ever tells you, for whatever reason, that they dislike "Stay," they're probably lying to you.

It's the two representatives of the first category, though, that make this album so immortal. The opening of the ten-minute title track would have been a total shock to listeners back when this came out (as if seeing a ten-minute track on a Bowie album wouldn't have been shock enough); the first minute combines AWESOME hellish guitar noises with actual train noises, before transitioning into a stomping noisy groove driven by a simple bass line, a two-note piano line and those wonderful guitar textures. The introduction ends up lasting more than three minutes, which on paper seems way too excessive for such a simple set of phrases, but while I might have gotten slightly bored with it the first couple of times I listened to it, I'd never dream of it now. The introductory groove is then used to underpin a "normal" song for a couple of minutes, and then, just when it seems things are starting to run out of steam, the song completely changes directions and becomes some of the coolest five minutes of rock music made in the 70's. This is close to the ultimate nonsensical 70's rock groove, combining lively piano (without which the groove wouldn't be half as interesting), some great understated guitar licks and some of the most hilariously paranoid and confused lyrics ever. Aside from the awesome line, "It's not the side effects of the cocaine, I'm thinking that it must be love," it also has one of the greatest "I can't believe somebody actually wrote and sang these lines" stanzas of all time: "It's too late to be hateful/it's too late to be late again/it's too late to be grateful/THE EUROPEAN CANON IS HERE!!!!" Look, this song is completely ridiculous on paper, but put it all together and it works as well as anything Bowie did in his whole life.

And yet, "TVC15" is even better. Listen to it for thirty seconds, and you'll think it's going to be a throwaway barroom piano song; listen to it for another couple of minutes, and you'll realize you're listening to a song about his girlfriend crawling into a TV and getting lost inside. Listen to the rest, and you'll hear a combination of lyrics ("My baby's in there someplace!!!!"), melody and arrangements that surpasses even the second half of the title track. The metallic guitars, the lively piano playing, the incessant "Oh my T V C 1 5, oh oh, T V C 1 5," chants, and that nagging piercing sound that should be a saxophone but may be just some bizarre keyboard sound (I don't see a saxophone listed in the official credits for the track) ... all of this adds up to nearly the best argument ever made in favor of cocaine usage by major rock stars. Well, if you ignore the massively debilitating physical and mental side effects, of course.

This album, simply put, is stupendous. All Bowie fans should own it, of course, and anybody who claims to be a serious fan of 70's rock music but doesn't own this album is a liar. Plus, if nothing else, it's probably the single strongest counterexample to the general idea that Bowie never actually innovated; the raw materials might all be familiar, but the synthesis of the various parts here pretty much has to be considered one of the main roots of the post-punk movement that would start a few years later.

This album, of course, marks the beginning of Bowie's collaboration with the great Brian Eno, known as the "Berlin Trilogy" due to Bowie's relocation from L.A. to Germany. Eno did not serve as the album's producer (that was Bowie himself and old friend Tony Visconti), nor did he do much songwriting (his only formal cowriting credit here is on "Warszawa"), but his impact was felt nonetheless as a crucial sounding board and guide for Bowie's ideas. The general approach was to take ideas that had previously been introduced by various krautrock bands (not to mention Eno himself) and to try and fuse them with Bowie's more commercialized sensibilities. This isn't to say, of course, that this is anywhere near a commercial-oriented album; to the contrary, the entire second side is basically ambient music, while the first half is bookended by instrumentals and full of, how can I say this, "jagged" instrumental textures. Yet the tracks on the first side are all rather short, showing an attempt to take the ideas that influenced him and chop them up into something easier to digest. For the most part, he definitely succeeded; all of the beeps and boops are fused with an amazing drum sound, and on the first side, when the goal is memorability, the songs tend to be catchy more often than not.

Ultimately, the album consists of 11 tracks that I like, and not a single one that I love or would call a classic. On the first side, what throws me off the most is the perpetual feeling that I'm listening to songs that are only 85% finished, even though I know that every single one has been polished and finished into exactly what Bowie wanted. The "regular" rock instruments all sound simultaneously raw and processed, and while the combination is fun, it's also disconcerting.in a way I don't always like. The melodies, as much as I enjoy them, still leave me with a, "Wait, what? The song's finished already?" feeling when a given song ends; again, it's a neat effect, but this is a case where neatness doesn't leave me feeling entirely satisfied. Plus, I'm not sure I really like Bowie's singing in much of this side; except for when he sounds completely ridiculous ("Breaking Glass" and "Be My Wife," perhaps not coincidentally the ones I enjoy most on side, even if I still don't quite adore them), I find myself almost forgetting I'm listening to songs that actually have vocals. This might have been the intended effect, but again, that doesn't mean I have to love it.

Still, like I said, I like all of the songs on the first side more than not. The opening instrumental "Speed of Life" (featuring the "Hot Blooded" riff) immediately makes it clear what kind of album this will be; "normal" foundations messed up as much as possible in the details by a fascinating drum sound, a bunch of great synth sounds alternately carrying the melody and giving texture, and guitars treated into oblivion. "Breaking Glass" may last less than two minutes, but it has the album's funniest lyric ("Don't look at the carpet/I drew something awful on it"), and the combination of great hard rock (from the guitar and the drums) with goofy synths makes an unforgettable impact. "What in the World" features noises that would later make their way into Pac-man, underpinning a bunch of lyrics that make little sense when read as text but still create an overall sense of paranoia and (possibly, I'm not sure) desires for a girl. The best part of the song, anyway, is the swooping guitar noises that pop up briefly in the second half before heading into a more conventional guitar part.

"Sound and Vision" is often singled out as the album's best track, but I've never really seen why it's especially better than everything else around it. The main guitar lick is a simplistic marvel, and I like the descending synths near the beginning, but the "main" song portion just seems like a typical Low pop song, and nothing more remarkable. "Always Crashing in the Same Car" would probably impact me more if Bowie had been able to better articulate his vocals; as is, I have to rest my enjoyment on the processed guitar playing (almost sounding like Dave Gilmour in a couple of moments) and the melody. I've read the lyrics, and they're plenty emotional (a great look at self-frustration about making mistakes over and over), but some better singing wouldn't have hurt. "Be My Wife" is a standout if only because of the fantastic repeated ascening deep piano line, but the vocal melody is a minor marvel as well, and almost enough to make me single it out as especially great. And finally, "A New Career in a New Town" closes things out with another instrumental, featuring some nice harmonica interplay with a rather moving synth line. It's not superb, but it's pretty nice.

The second half is 4 lengthy ambient drones (with some wordless vocals in the first track and jumbled lyrics at the very end of the last track), and this is where opinions split a lot. I, of course, have no problems with ambient music, so dismissing these tracks is out of the question, but I don't love these as much as I do the best stuff on "Heroes". The one portion that reaches up to no-doubt-about-it greatness is the first two-thirds of "Warszawa," which has to be one of the most depressing and moving themes (and to think it's just based around A-B-C on a keyboard, before changing keys) I've ever heard. So sue me, I'm a sucker for a mellotron/chamberlain flute part over well-arranged synths. I think the track weakens a little bit once the wordless harmonized vocals come in, but not too badly.

The other three tracks are decent enough. "Art Decade" starts off with an effect I remember from Another Green World (on "In Dark Trees" if I remember correctly), and centers around a single theme designed to portray the decaying culture of West Berlin. "Weeping Wall" is a tweaked adaptation of "Scarborough Fair" over busy percussion (I'm pretty sure I hear a lot of xylophones and vibrophones in there) with lots of synth and guitar noises thrown in, and the closing "Subterraneans" depicts the hopelessness of East Berlin through a lot various ambient tricks. None of these, frankly, are among the very best ambient tracks with which Eno would ever involve himself, but they're not among the worst either, and they definitely work as part of an overall suite.

Overall, I'll never quite adore this album, but I still think it's extremely nice, and I'm happy to listen to it from time to time. Don't get it before the albums that bookend it, though.