Just a quick note to everyone interested: Shadows at Dawn, my short story collection, has been available for free from Amazon.com in the Kindle eBook format.
This offer, however, ends today, January the 6th.
Thus, if you have a Kindle or read books via your computer or mobile device, please take advantage of this offer. If you like what you read (and I hope everyone does!), please provide comments…I welcome them! Please click on the image below or link below to reach the Kindle download page:
Continuing my list, we move from David Bowie’s early albums to the ones that made him, justifiably, very famous. First up is the album many consider David Bowie’s masterpiece:
In 1972 David Bowie released The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders of Mars. It was a concept album whose underlying story was the rise and eventual fall of a fictional music superstar. As many have noted, it could well have been David Bowie willing himself to superstardom. Focusing on this album, I’m presented with a genuine problem. Given I’m looking back at Mr. Bowie’s albums and taking one song I consider the “best” of the particular album and one that is a close runner up, with Ziggy Stardust there are just so many great songs. How to chose one as your favorite and one as your second favorite? To me, its far easier to pick the one song I think is my least favorite on the album (the cover of Ron Davies’ It Ain’t Easy, while not a terrible song, is simply not as strong as the other songs on this album, IMHO).
Ok, enough quibbling. What is my favorite song on Ziggy Stardust? At this point in time, it may well be Lady Stardust.
There’s something magical about this song, which focuses on a star struck fan’s reaction to the Ziggy Stardust “show”. Yes, there are definite homosexual overtones, but idol worship has never been presented in such a startling, heartbreaking fashion.
My runner up? Again a very hard choice. And, again, at this time I’ll go with Rock and Roll Suicide.
Another very touching song. Despite its depressing sounding title, the song is uplifting, encouraging. A great, great conclusion to an equally great album.
Following the smash success of Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie’s followed it up with Aladdin Sane, an album more than one critic noted was “Ziggy Stardust goes to America”. While this album wasn’t quite as good from start to end as Ziggy Stardust, it is nonetheless one of my all time favorite Bowie albums. Two songs stick out. First, the incredible Panic In Detroit.
My runner up favorite is the album’s final song, the mesmerizing Lady Grinning Soul.
Pin Ups, an album composed entirely of covers of songs, proved to be the last full album David Bowie would do with guitarist Mick Ronson and the rest of the “Spiders From Mars”. There are many who consider this an inferior work, given that it is composed of covers and features absolutely no new David Bowie material. I’m on the fence with the album. I think there are some great tunes there, particularly Sorrow.
Runner up? How about a cover of Pink Floyd’s See Emily Play?
Having moved on from the “Spiders From Mars”, David Bowie decided his next album would be another rock “opera”, this one telling the story of George Orwell’s famous novel 1984. However, Mr. Orwell’s widow refused to allow his work be used, thus David Bowie had to switch gears and released, in 1973, what would be his “glam rock” swan song, Diamond Dogs. While there remained two songs that were obviously inspired by 1984, the album had enough other material, I suppose, to avoid a lawsuit. My favorite song on this album is one of David Bowie’s absolutely best rockers, a song that features Mr. Bowie himself on guitar! The song? Rebel Rebel.
I’m going to cheat with my second favorite track from this album. For this song was never a part of the original album’s release. In fact, this song languished in the vaults unheard until a special edition of Diamond Dogs was released on CD in 1990. But it is so damn good. Behold…the alternate version of Candidate.
Next up: Soul and the Berlin trilogy
Listening to BBC’s Inspirational David Bowie made me think back to my own feelings regarding David Bowie’s albums and career. In all the blog posts I’ve written, I’ve mentioned my favorite Bowie songs, but never really looked at his works album by album. As a mental exercise, I considered several albums and which song I considered the “best” song of said album and which would be the runner up for the best…again, in my opinion.
Given Mr. Bowie’s long career and many albums, this is a task that will require more than one post. A couple of rules, first: I’m focusing on the actual albums released under his name and ignoring the voluminous singles (including those released before his first “official” album release), live albums, duets, movie scores, and side projects. I may get to them eventually as there is plenty of good stuff there, but for now, the albums and two best songs (IMHO!) themselves.
First up, the three albums from his early years that lead up to the glam era…
Mr. Bowie’s first album is Space Oddity. Originally released in 1969, this album, in my opinion, isn’t one of Mr. Bowie’s stronger efforts. Nonetheless, far and away the best song on this album and a terrific piece is the song the album was named after, Space Oddity.
Runner up: The Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud.
David Bowie’s follow up album, The Man Who Sold The World, remains one of my favorite works of his. The best song on that album, far and away, is The Man Who Sold The World.
Choosing a second great song from that album is a little harder, but I’d go with the very psychedelic/early metal Width of a Circle.
Which brings us to the last of the “early” albums, 1971’s Hunky Dory. Many consider this the first “real” David Bowie album (I tend to think The Man Who Sold The World is). There is little doubt, however, that between this album and the last David Bowie was building up his skills. While The Man Who Sold The World sounded like early metal, Hunky Dory was far lighter in tone and featured the hit single Changes. My favorite song on that album, however, has to be Life On Mars?.
The runner up is a tough one. There are several really great songs on this album. If I were pressed to note one above the others, I might just go for the Lou Reed-esq Queen Bitch.
Next: The Glam Era
Those who have frequented my blog know of my love for the works of one David Bowie.
Not so very surprisingly, a few other people have very positive impressions of the muscian/actor as well. BBC Radio 2 offers a great one hour or so long program on Mr. Bowie’s career in light of his 65th birthday (note the actual program will only be available for 5 more days, until Monday the 9th of January):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b018l9kh
And a little video of one of my favorite David Bowie songs…
Articles like these by Charles Kenny and posted on Foreign Policy are incredibly fascinating -to me- and open my eyes to realities I hadn’t quite considered.
While many point out the negatives of the concrete jungle many of us live in, Mr. Kenny points out that living with a bit of concrete is actually a good thing, both financially and from a health standpoint.
As I said before, a fascinating article:
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/03/paving_paradise
Politics, like sports, can be a fascinating thing to watch, and last night turned out to be another example, in my mind, of why the Republicans face an incredibly uphill battle to unseat Barack Obama. Yes, I know there are pundits far more knowledgeable of the system than me who speak of a “squeaker” election.
So far, I have strong doubts about that.
The Republican’s most viable candidate, again in my mind, is John Huntsman, but he was an almost complete no show in Iowa. While he may surge a bit in New Hampshire, it just doesn’t seem like he’s got enough interest to secure the nomination.
The “strongest” candidate and yesterday’s Iowa winner was Mitt Romney. But he appears to have a ceiling of support that rises to not much more than 25% (which is what he scored, not so coincidentally, in Iowa). I suspect he will eventually get the nomination, but when one on one up against Barack Obama, I believe Mr. Obama will prevail.
Then again, I also feel that both these individuals, Mr. Obama and Romney, are essentially the same politician…moderate Republicans of yesteryear who show some liberal tendencies but may be more comfortable with the policies and philosophies of a Eisenhower, Nixon, or Ford rather than a Roosevelt, Kennedy, or Johnson.
Then again, we’re talking politics, and individual opinions are as easy to find as solid truths are virtually impossible to ascertain.
I was growing increasingly dissatisfied with the blog software I was using and decided the New Year was a good time to make a change. What you see here is a quick fix, a temporary blog that is nonetheless to my eyes far nicer than what was going on before. As time permits (and my knowledge of Word Press increases), I’ll do tweaks as well as links to my old posts.
In the meantime, I hope that those reading this post have taken advantage of the FREE KINDLE EBOOK download of my short story collection Shadows at Dawn. If you haven’t, the promotion will be in effect through Friday, January the 6th and can be reached at this link:
