Bowie Album Survivor: Final Round
 

Is it worth a try? He has nearly thirty albums. Would anyone be interested in a thread like this? I'm sure you all know how it goes: vote off albums until we're left with the best Bowie album.

If there's enough interest I'll get it running. If not, please delete the thread some kind mod.

Apparently it is. And we are off! Thanks to grindy for compiling the lists and separating them into rounds. Here's the full thing:

Current round in Green.

Round 1:
4. David Bowie (1967)
3. David Bowie (Space Oddity) (1969)
2. The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
1. Hunky Dory (1971)

Round 2:
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
2. Aladdin Sane (1973)
5. Pin Ups (1973)
3. Diamond Dogs (1974)
4. Young Americans (1975)

Round 3:
2. Station to Station (1976)
1. Low (1977)
3. “Heroes” (1977)
5. Lodger (1979)
4. Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

Round 4:
1. Let’s Dance (1983)
4. Tonight (1984)
5. Never Let Me Down (1987)
2. Tin Machine (1989)
3. Tin Machine II (1991)

Round 5:
5. Black Tie White Noise (1993)
3. The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
1. Outside (1995)
2. Earthling (1997)
4. Hours… (1999)

Round 6:
2. Heathen (2002)
4. Reality (2003)
3. The Next Day (2013)
1. Blackstar (2016)

Finals:
2. Hunky Dory (1971)
1. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
4. Low (1977)
6. Let’s Dance (1983)
5. Outside (1995)
3. Blackstar (2016)

I love you, TH. We can add Tin Machine if you want more albums.

I was thinking of a builder/survivor, where we give and take away points from albums. It would last longer.

I think the standard survivor rules work best. I'll put the list together and post it tomorrow.

I'm in ...course I only know a few albums outside his first 10 years but I'm still game.

I am fully on board with this.

Why not? I need to get on with it anyways. Been really lazy with my Bowie listening until today.

Man like monkeytennis is #in

Go for it TH.

I'm also in... for as much time as I can afford. I'll see how it goes.

I'm in. I think for the most part the survivor style is an efficient way of determining a group's ranking for albums

I tend to oscillate between Low and Scary Monsters as my all time fave Bowie album, but if I had to choose only one Bowie album that I could listen to for the rest of my life I would have to pick Low. Blackstar I'd probably put on par with Heroes so it would probably make my top five.

One suggestion I would make would be to put the albums in "heats". Like, Bowie's first four albums in one battle, then his next four, and his next four, etc, until you reach the end of his discography and then have some kind of tournament for the winners. Or something like that.

It would extend the thread, encourage more involved discussion since people would be able to focus on a fewer number of albums at a time, and most importantly, it would give those of us not entirely familiar with his discography a chance to catch up, since it would be pretty much impossible for me or many others to be involved if we had to worry about voting for every single one of his albums all at once.

Count me in.

https://33.media.tumblr.com/8696501c...OYe1sdng4q.gif

Great idea.
I was reluctant to participate because listening to 15 albums I hardly know/remember in a short time period isn't something I'd like doing.
We could do it in batches of five albums. It'd be very vaguely separated according to his different phases as well. (For example all the Berlin albums would be in one battle.)
There'd be six albums in the last batch, but we all know which one would win that round anyway.

I agree that it would be more fitting to do potential battles according to "periods" rather than a fixed number of albums, but I wouldn't know where to start with Bowie, so if Trollheart (or a forum consensus, which I believe would be more appropriate considering the circumstances) goes with grindy's idea, we'd need some Bowie nerds to come up with a proper grouping of album battles.

There are too many transitional and even throwaway albums to really do period battles.
I'm absolutely no Bowie nerd though, so someone more knowledgeable might have an idea how to do it that way after all.

*looks at Pet_Sounds*

Could work easily.

ive only listened to a couple of his albums but im down for this too. i'll give me a chance to discover more about him.

That's who i was thinking too.

*also looks at Smegma-Covered Bellend*

I'm positive towards the idea of organizing the game in heats too, makes it much more manageable.
The only problem I could possibly see is that, since only one album wins out from each eat, we may not necessarily get the albums deemed to be the "best" competing in the final round, because there's a possibility that f.ex. two albums from one heat is in the voters' opinion better than all the albums from another given heat, but only one in each heat will reach the final round. But I guess that's just the name of the game.
So yeah, despite that it seems to be a good idea and will probably encourage greater participation too.

Ok, well I'm back after an unexpected enforced absence (thank YOU, Virgin Media! :mad:) so having read what's been said here, does anyone feel confident taking on arranging the "heats" as it were, since I am a fan but not a very knowledgeable one (only getting to hear his first albums for my discography in the last few days)--- happy to defer to/take suggestions from anyone more versed in his catalogue.

Note: Urban would be perfect for this, but then, it's far from a perfect world.

More or less agree, but I would move Ziggy out of round 1 and have round 1 as the pre-Ziggy era. Put into round 2 and have that as the glam era.

I would also move Station to Station so it's with the Berlin era.

After that I would just do it by decade.

Good idea! Like that?

Round 1:
David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (Space Oddity) (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)

Round 2:
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)

Round 3:
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
“Heroes” (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

Round 4:
Let’s Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)

Round 5:
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
Hours… (1999)

Round 6:
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)

yeah, spot on.

I realised when thinking about this how isolated Young Americans is. Doesn't really fit into any era or sound.

Don't think I ever heard that one. Seems to be an unusual one indeed.

I'd probably bump Scary Monsters up into round three as Let's Dance was a clear delineation when he dumped Tony Visconti for Nile Rogers.

It might be a good idea anyway, because Round 4 would be pretty boring, since Scary Monsters clearly stands out there.
How about moving it back and then moving Black Tie, White Noise into Round 4? I don't remember it at all, but I think it's one of his worse as well, would fit nicely into that round.
I'll edit my post accordingly.

Round 4 without Scary Monsters is basically his 3 EMI records but White Noise could probably get tacked on as he went with Nile Rogers again on that one.

I'd be happy to, but grindy has already done an admirable job.

This is pretty solid, although I'd almost be inclined to lump Young Americans in with the Station to Station/Berlin era because of the soul influences. I'd also suggest a separate bracket for Tin Machine (I believe there are four albums).

Edit: What does everyone thinking of tossing in Labyrinth?

I haven't heard Young Americans so I'm in no position to judge, but I have the impression that it's considered a much weaker album than those four and would therefore not be an interesting contender.
Tin Machine have two albums. You think we should add them? Bowie always insisted, that he was just another bandmember here, that it was not him with a backing band.
It'd be also difficult to group them, since, as far as I remember, his other albums from roughly the same time period are very different.

I'm going off the fact that a Tin Machine song was included on his greatest hits album.

Maybe we should make an oddball category for all the albums that don't quite fit.

I'd be a little reluctant to complicate it further by including Tin Machine and making an oddball category, but I'm sure you're much more of a Bowie expert than me.
Let's hear from the others, I don't feel confident enough to really put my foot down here.

I took inventory the other day and the only albums I'm missing are his self titled debut and the two Tin Machine. The Tin Machine has never really grabbed me from anything I've heard but it sounds like Bowie credited the time as revitalising his own approach to music so maybe it would be good to factor them in.

How about this? The Tin Machine albums stick out in that group, but it's Bowie. We'll never be able to make uniform groups, he's generally to diverse.

Round 1:
David Bowie (1967)
David Bowie (Space Oddity) (1969)
The Man Who Sold the World (1970)
Hunky Dory (1971)

Round 2:
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
Aladdin Sane (1973)
Pin Ups (1973)
Diamond Dogs (1974)
Young Americans (1975)

Round 3:
Station to Station (1976)
Low (1977)
“Heroes” (1977)
Lodger (1979)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

Round 4:
Let’s Dance (1983)
Tonight (1984)
Never Let Me Down (1987)
Tin Machine (1989)
Tin Machine II (1991)

Round 5:
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
The Buddha of Suburbia (1993)
Outside (1995)
Earthling (1997)
Hours… (1999)

Round 6:
Heathen (2002)
Reality (2003)
The Next Day (2013)
Blackstar (2016)

Sounds good, although if we include Buddha of Suburbia he has other soundtrack albums such as Christiane F.

And Labyrinth.

Had no idea it was a soundtrack.
Don't really remember the album. Apparently it wasn't really a soundtrack, more inspired by the soundtrack he's done and I read that a few even consider it a turning point in his style. Sounds like an exception, doesn't it? Don't think that including all soundtracks is a good idea. The list seems pretty neat to me like it is.

Yeah, fair enough. Christiane F is more of a compilation anyway so a bit redundant. Labyrinth probably has more of a case for inclusion though.

But Labyrinth is more of a compilation as well. In the sense that there are some songs that are distinctly by Bowie and some by Trevor Jones. All according to wikipedia, never heard it myself.