Urban Hat€monger ?

It`s fair to say that Bowie has been with me throughout my entire life. My earliest memory musically was when I was a small child & seeing the video to Ashes To Ashes and thinking it was the greatest thing in the world. It`s funny how seeing a guy dressed as a clown walking in front of a bulldozer captured my childlike imagination.Anyway , from that day I was a Bowie fan. I grew up in the 80s seeing him regularly on kids tv showing off his new videos , I remember going to the cinema to see Labyrinth even though I had a really bad ear infection at the time and could only hear in one ear.I remember watching him perform at Live Aid , I remember being disappointed my mother wouldn`t let me go & see him in Absolute Beginners at the cinema (probably wise in hindsight , it was panned by fans and critics alike).
The only time I wasn`t a Bowie fan were for a couple of years in the late 80s/early 90s when I was going through my metal phase. And that was no big deal really , I mean he was in Tin Machine at the time.But it didn`t last long and by the early 90s I threw myself into his body of work from the 70s that was unfamilier to me until then. Naturally I picked up on the Ziggy Stardust / Scary Monsters eras first , then the white boy soul of Young Americans followed by the hippy singer /songwriter era Bowie of Space Oddity. The Berlin period & Station To Station was last on my list. I guess I was more interested in straight up rock music at the time. Gradually I got bored of classic rock & found myself playing Bowies collaberations with Brian Eno much more regually until this album in particular became a huge favourite.
That is one of my reasons for loving Bowie so much , no matter what my mood or musical preferences, his body of work is so widespread musically that there is always something I can pick up on. I don`t have any scientific evidence to prove it but I would think that over the last 20 years or so i`ve listened to Bowie more than any other artist.
As far as this album goes you could see it coming listening to his previous album, Station To Station (One of his most overlooked albums in my opinion). But even so , this is totally unlike anything that came before it. Sure there are Krautrock influences , Kraftwerk and obviously Eno are huge influences, but at the time those bands were hardly mainstream. For an artist as commercially popular as Bowie to make an album like this is virtually unheard of these days. I mean hell , that would be like Robbie Williams making a post rock album.
The album itself deals with Bowies recovery from cocaine addiction , most of the songs on the album are about self destructivness , lethargy and feeling empty , which explains where the album title comes from.At that time he really was at his lowest point.He was also almost bankrupt from years of bad buisness decisions too.He took off to Berlin to get away from this with Brian Eno & Iggy Pop (Who sings backing vocals on the album)basically shut himself in the studio and spent the time putting out 3 of his most ambitious albums , this being the first.The same collaberation also saw the result of Iggy`s Lust For Life & The Idiot albums.
Another theme of the album was Night & Day , which explains why sides one & two are so radically different from each other. The working title for the album was New Music, Night and Day , which sums it up perfectly.
The first half of the album is more traditional Bowie but with Eno`s genius to spice things up a bit. One thing you notice is that the songs are really short, in fact the longest is barely over 3 mins. It opens up with the instrumental 'Speed Of Life' The sound of the album hits you straight away with the jagged synths , electronically treated drum sound and the angular guitar sound with an easily recognisable Bowie style riff , before the sythns changed tack & wash over the sound.The song is really an intro to 'Breaking Glass' which follows the same pattern with it`s wonderful funk bassline & Bowie`s deep growl throbbing through all the electronic effects. It`s only a short song and 'What In The World' comes up next pretty quickly. This is the first chance Bowie`s vocals to shine on the album , most of them are done in a kind of talk/ half singing kind of way. It`s a very disorientating song with the guitars & synths swirling around with Bowie`s voice almost lind of chipping in at random places.
'Sound & Vision' is the big hit single off the album , and one of the best songs he has ever written.With it`s gentle riff & layered sythns and huge electronic sounding drums crashing in, Bowie`s voice compliments this song perfectly but then , he does that in almost every song. This song is definetly way ahead of it`s time , people ripped this off shamelessly during the 80s , but Bowie was there first.
'Almost Crashing The Same Car' IS my favourite Bowie song EVER. A beautiful ballad that touches on the self destruction theme I was talking of earlier. It could come from any Bowie era & not sound out of place.But I think it works best in this era , the electronics make the song sound cold & harsh , even Bowie`s nomally warm voice sounds cold & isolated on this song. The effects are kept to a bare miniumum save for the drums and there`s a wonderful disjointed guitar solo that gives the song an uncomfortable edge to it.
'Be My Wife' totally changes tact , a piano driven rock song that starts out as a kind of english music hall song , and then changes to a traditional rock song with a really funky bassline , this isn`t really the kind of song this album is remembered for but it`s up there with some of Bowie`s best material.This part of the album ends with 'A New Career In A New Town' an upbeat quirky instrumental in which oddly a harmonica trades blows with the synths for the sound of the song , strange , but it works.
The second half of the album is where things go off on a tangent. 'Warszawa' is the first track where Eno`s genius is given full reign.A slow ambient / classical peice with Bowie`s voice in the background almost sounding like an opera singer. I remember hearing this for the first time and it was a huge 'WTF?????' moment. 'Art Decade' is much more modern sounding and could almost come off of any Eno solo album, in fact if you`ve ever heard Eno`s 'Deep Blue Day' off the Trainspotting soundtrack album it reminds me a lot of that.
'Weeping Wall' is 80s pop 3 years early , listing to this song you could almost imagine people like Ultravox , OMD & Visage taking notes from it. It`s a very bubbly track ,that seems to have a spooky gothic air to it, again an instrumental like pretty much all the songs on this part of the album , even the songs that do have vocals , it`s more as background noise like in most post rock albums you hear.The album closes with Subterraneans , another very mellow ambient/classical song with strings & operatic vocals with a few jazzy interludes thrown in the mix. The album doesn`t end , rather it sort of floats away a wonderful close to a brilliant album.
Even if you don`t like every song on this album you have to admire the sheer balls & talent to put something out like this.I`ve seen some people say this is his greatest work , i`ve also seem people say this is where Bowie lost the plot and started going downhill. I`m in the first camp obviously , I think this album is a work of genius and you can see the affects it had on music all through the 80s & right up to the 90s.
This album helped put electronic music on the map , it wasn`t the first , but it opened the doors.Synth pop , electronica , post rock all owe this album something , even 90s alternative music (Trent Reznor said The Downward Spiral was his 'Low'). It divides opinion probably more than any album I know (maybe Kid A comes close) but it`s for those reasons I love music.I love listening to an album and not knowing if I like it or not. It took me about 9 years to love this album , and every time I listened to it I found something else to like about it.
A really rewarding album.

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