David Bowie - Diamond Dogs (1974)

Part 3 of the glam Bowie trilogy:

After the full-bodied avant-garde flourishes of Aladdin Sane, the wispiness of the production here is a huge disappointment- it’s even more noticeable than on Ziggy. Bowie, handling production duties, gives himself little to work with. A lethargic, substance-ridden corpse vaguely resembling Ziggy Stardust (or the barely re-branded Halloween Jack) had sacked his spiders and decided to play guitar here, and he’s also seemingly decided to stop singing. Efforts to make his bored-sounding vocals at all compelling on the title track include the use of a cheese-grater-esque vocal filter (try singing into moving fan blades- you’ll get much the same effect).

There are some interesting songs here- notably the melancholic “Sweet Thing”, scrapped stage number “1984’”and glam classic “Rebel Rebel”- but the rest of the album is marred by unenergetic performances and just functional guitar work (it has recently become apparent that the album’s one memorable lick- the riff from “Rebel Rebel”- may well have been, to an uncertain extent, appropriated from Jayne County). The flawed humanity of the last two albums has been replaced with a wall of aesthetic and lyrical cynicism (“As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare … Like packs of dogs assaulting the glass fronts of Love-Me Avenue”), delivered with little conviction or excitement.

There are bits and pieces to be salvaged here, and opening monologue “Future Legend” is good for a campy sci-fi laugh (Fleas the size of rats sucked on rats the size of cats/And ten thousand peoploids split into small tribes)- but overall this Diamond Dog is a tired old mongrel- time for a signature metamorphosis, David.

59

David Bowie - Aladdin Sane (1973)

Part 2 of the Bowie glam reviews:

When we last saw Ziggy, he was contemplating suicide in front of a stage full of admirers. It’s clear now that what he really needed, more than anything, was a trip to the States.

Aladdin Sane or ‘Ziggy Discovers America’ is undeniably weird. Opener “Watch that Man” should be an instant glam classic- but Bowie’s voice is so far down in the mix that, on public transport, it sounds like an instrumental. With jazzy pianos, thick guitar chords and camp backing vocals, this should be triumphant. As it is here, however, it becomes vaguely unsettling. This all makes sense on track two, the avant-lounge piano freak-out that is “Aladdin Sane”. Bowie sung about the dark underbelly of the pop world on Ziggy- but now it sounds like he knows what he’s talking about.

Witness the schizophrenic pace changes from thick, sleazy rocker “Cracked Actor” to the slow fade vaudeville mindfuck of “Time”- the pretense of Ziggy disappears as it seems that Bowie himself is, probably for the first time in his career, emoting.

There are mistakes here: the Stones cover “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and remade early Bowie single “The Prettiest Star” are, for this reviewer at least, skippers. All is almost forgiven however, with Bowie’s two best glam singles- “Drive in Saturday” and the crunchy R&B anthem “The Jean Genie”.

Weird, dark and uncomfortable- this is something of an overlooked (outside of its iconic cover art) classic. Bowie makes being all over the place sound compelling and seductive- it’s hard to see how he could keep it up (here’s a clue for the next review- he couldn’t).

90
(84 - AI)
Combined Rating = 87