David Bowie

Another radical shift, with this album opening with a sci-fi introduction and going into a dystopian narrative inspired by George Orwell’s 1984. This was Bowie’s last glam album, and has some great examples of stomping rock to enjoy with Rebel Rebel being a highlight for me. It’s not quite up to the level of the previous ones, but you get the sense that Bowie is itching to move on again, and the funky guitar on 1984 gives us a clue where he’s heading next.

A contractual obligation covers album of 60s music, six months after Aladdin Sane and coming off the back of an emotionally draining tour doesn’t sound promising. However, as the cover of Let’s Spend the Night Together proved, Bowie is the consummate chameleon and absolutely smashed this compilation of 60s R&B, psychedelia and Merseybeat numbers. Highlights are a Brechtian See Emily Play and a slowed down Can’t Explain.

Even while he was in the middle of a tour with the Spiders From Mars, Bowie was keen to move on from his Ziggy persona. This album saw him transform into Aladdin Sane with the iconic lightning bolt makeup and name alluding to his fear of the schizophrenia that his brother had suffered from.

The sound also noticeably changed with the addition of pianist Mike Garson, giving this album a mix of hard rock, glam, soul, experimental avant-garde jazz and Brechtian opera. I was lucky enough to see Mike Garson playing this album in full a couple of years ago and he really is an astonishing pianist.

The lyrics also push the boundaries particularly the bit about falling wanking to the floor on Time. I remember being in our local Co-Op where they would allow the staff to play their own choices over the in store speakers and somebody picked this album - can’t go wrong with cuddly old David Bowie, right? - but they’d evidently forgotten about this one!

I think that seeing David Bowie singing Starman on Top of the Pops is one of my earliest musical memories and was certainly the first time I thought that music could be transgressive and thrilling, even if I couldn’t have expressed it in those words at that age. I just knew that here was something new and different, and that it would be part of my life forever more. This album still moves me more than fifty years later and is still astonishingly prescient.

Another album that didn’t really sell much on first release - the record company really didn’t know how to cope with Bowie! So many classic tracks on this album, but the one I keep coming back to is Kooks, written shortly after the birth of his son. It’s just such a warm and lovely song, summing up how those early, chaotic days with a new born in the house feel. I also want a bipperty-boppity hat!

One of Bowie’s talents is attracting musicians to his band that reflect precisely what he wants to do. This album saw the first appearance of Mick Ronson and Woody Woodmansey immediately shifting this album into a hard rock/prog sound, accompanied by Tony Visconti with a solid bass. It was around this time that Bowie got his band to wear superhero costumes on stage and more or less invented glam. The cover photo is also fabulous!

This is the one that caught the zeitgeist of the space race and established Bowie as an otherworldly musician unlike any of his contemporaries. I listened to the 2019 remix by Tony Visconti which sounds fabulous in Dolby Atmos bringing out details that were muddied in the original release. Aside from the iconic opener, the highlight is Memory of a Free Festival with Bowie playing a flawless harmonium.

This is a really unusual debut album that at first hearing seems quite at odds with the better known tracks to come. However, there are themes here that will crop up at different times over the next 25 albums, especially on Blackstar. This is not a rock album - it’s much closer to the older traditions of music hall with some unusual instruments and a lot of humour. You can also hear David’s distinctive vocal style developing in real time.