Okay well this remains as decent a debut as I remembered it. I love "Rubber Band", I think "Sell Me a Coat" could have been a future Bowie masterpiece, and of course there's a heavy Beatles/Kinks/Floyd-circa-Barrett influence on most of the material here, but I think it shows an artist who had so much more to give realising that he was perhaps a little restricted, leading to a change of direction for his second album, which would spawn his first hit single, and establish him as a proper music star. There's a lot of controversy in some of the lyrics too - listen to "We Are Hungry Men" -
"Legalising mass abortion/ We will turn a blind eye to infanticide" - to say nothing of the unmistakably Hitlerian rant and the reference to cannibalism. Heavy stuff, surely, for the "swinging sixties".
Sounds like three guys from Charterhouse listened to this, as there are echoes of early Genesis in "When I Live My Dreams", with their debut only coming out two years later. Nice ballad. I'm not sure whether or not I'm becoming a tuba fan, but I must say I really like both "Rubber Band" and "The Little Bombardier" though the end of "Join the Gang" sounds like someone has had too many beans for dinner!
And yes, as I remembered, "Please Mr Gravedigger" is a great little semi-macabre
a capella song that shows what Bowie would be capable of later. Love the sneeze (excuse me!) to tie in with the rain. Great little album. I'd give it a 3 I think.