Why? Starman: rock and roll suicide good tracks

@Hecks...give it up. I have felt exactly as you have before. This summer when we drove to Florida I put on my Best of Bowie double CD...I skipped through most of it becuase I just couldn't endure it...but I really did try...

I would just watch Labrynth a few times.... that pretty much sums up the artist.

The Man Who Sold the World...by far the best Bowie album.

So far today I've been through:
"The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"
"Diamond Dogs"
"Low"
"Hunky Dory"
"The Man Who Sold the World"
"Young Americans"
and I'm halfway through "Scary Monsters"

What should be next, "Space Oddity," "Heroes," "Pin Ups," or "Lodger"?

(So far, I'm pretty sure "Hunky Dory" is my favorite.)

Hunky Dory

"Heroes" was pretty good too.

Hunky Dory

Hunky Dory

Note First that I almost always dislike Bowie albums to start with - yet every album has several masterpiece tracks, and a lot of excellent ones if you give it sufficient hearings. To my own surprise he has become my Number one artist. My favorite, which I struggled to grapple with during the first dozen listens, is the brilliant 90's album "Outside", with a sound possibly as harsh as Bowie gets, and NOT for the beginner! But note that there are vast variations in style of his albums. I think for the "beginner", Hunky Dory is the most accessible to most people and an excellent starting point. Maybe then afterwards "Ziggy Stardust". But you may not like Ziggy, and some people can't stand it. For different albums try the soul inflected "Young Americans", brassy "Black Noise White Tie", and severely under-rated "Hours".

And I note that nobody is nominating any of Bowie's 1990s albums. A great pity because there are a multitude of brilliant album tracks to be discovered - It was the 90s that for me put Bowie at the very top. People who haven't listened to 90's Bowie are really missing something from their life!!!

Alternatively! My wife really likes the 90s album "Earthling". Don't be put off by the start, you eventually get to brilliant tracks like "Seven Years in Tibet" and "I'm afraid of Americans", which are must-listen songs for every Bowie fan.

I personally don't cotton much to Bowie, but "I'm Afraid of Americans" is one of my favorites.

Bowie sucks, don't bother trying to like him

Tin Machine might be the most underrated album by a successful musician. It's actually really good.

If people have to be told that the album they didn't really like that much is actually underrated and better than you think it is....then it's probably not that good, and you are just an oddball with abnormal likes...

Just sayin'...

I think Bowie is actually a very intelligent, creative guy...maybe even a genius...but he doesn't make "good music" that has much broad appeal generally speaking. He has made *some* broadly appealing music...and then a lot of really weird, albeit highly creative, shit...

Speaking of 90's Bowie, "I'm Deranged" off the Lost Highway soundtrack is a gem.

Yes, "I'm deranged" is one of the songs on my favourite album "Outside" (which was done with Eno by the way), for which being temporarily or permanently deranged may assist in appreciation!

I REALLY like "Starman" and "Life on Mars."

"If people have to be told that the album they didn't really like that much is actually underrated "

Not liking it is not liking it, I'm just saying the people doing the "rating" are wrong. A lot of people never hear it at all because so many people trashed it. But Tin Machine is worth a listen. Try not to think of it as a Bowie album though.

I would suggest that if the majority of the people that did listen to it trashed it, there is probably a reason, and if more people listened to it, the chances that they would all like what everybody else hated that already listened to is slim to none. It's basically just statistics.

Basically, you are saying that, right now, there are, let's say, 25 people that have listened and 20 said it sucks. You and 4 others say it is good, and you insist that if more people listened that it probably wouldn't be dissed so much, because it's actually a good album.

In other words, you are saying that is another 75 people listened, that instaed of an 80% hate rate (20 out of 25 hate it), we would miraculously come to find out that 70 out of 100 like it, and it was just a fluke that of the first 25, 20 hated it.

Makes no sense. Most people that have had to endure it don't like it, and there's a damned good chance if everyone else listened, they wouldn't like it either.

I'm happy....and Bowie is happy too...that you like it....but it's probably just not a good album.

"Most people that have had to endure it don't like it"

True that, but I'm suggesting that they're not rating it fairly. If they stopped thinking of it as a "David Bowie Album" they might see it differently. Yes, I'm guessing at the internal mindset of the record reviewers, and I'm not really a psychic. My record in Diplomacy indicates that I don't know what people are thinking. But I'm pretty sure Tin Machine is pretty cool. I'm not saying it's going to win a popularity contest, because most people have no independent aesthetic sense. Krellin, you don't have opinions independent of what some group says you should hold. That's OK for you. Just check the referendum on the next album you're thinking of buying, and let me know if it's cool, just don't listen to it yourself.

Lol, good "Ashes to Ashes" reference there, Krellin.

"I'm happy, hope you're happy too..."

A Perfect Circle do a great cover of that. Here is the link in case you've never heard it.

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AG_7uhbvM-c

@tendmote....I guess it depends on what you mean by "rating". So OK....yes, if one were to look at the "creativity" of the album, how it fits in to the whole spectrum of Bowie music, etc....I guess that is what you are trying to say.

For me, I"m looking at it from the perspective of, If I'm stuck in my car driving across the country, what is the chance this album comes through my speakers....?


" Krellin, you don't have opinions independent of what some group says you should hold. " Of course my opinions are not independent. MY opinions are in large part formed by the my cultural upbringing, what I've been exposed to and have learned to like, etc. I get it.

But as for what album I will or will not buy next, I will buy it not because others told me to buy it - I will buy it *only* because I have sampled enough of it to know I like it....I don't purchase music to have a gee-wiz impressive collection that might impress the chicks...I buy it because I think it's got a kick-ass sound or whatever.

Labyrinth soundtrack.

All I can think of when I see the work Lanyrinth is a freak juggling three glass balls surrounded by muppets.....and it makes me think of Putin on another dateless night...

David Bowie didn't juggle his own balls. True story.

Putin does...

David Bowie also isn't really a goblin.

By the way, LakersFan, what I meant to tell you was that if you think "I'm Deranged" is a gem, then you may well (eventually) appreciate and enjoy a number of other songs from the "Outside" album (which is effectively a "double" album by the way) - I would strongly recommend it to you, BUT keep in mind that some of the tracks are (initially) unbearable, and most of the tracks take several listens to come to appreciate - it is well worth the initial endurance test! There are MANY gems on this album.

I'll nominate Let's Dance. While the individual tracks are not as good (to my taste) as some of the classic hits from earlier years, it is amazing to me that chameleon Bowie could completely change his image and sound to match the 1980s and still crank out hits. Let's Dance, Modern Love, China Girl, Putting Out Fire With Gasoline. Let's Dance was his most commercially successful album, which of course will make some Bowiephiles turn up their noses on principle. It's incredible that the guy who looks so slick in a grey suit and skinny tie is Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, etc.

An 80's suggestion at last! (not counting the Tin Machine album, which was not originally issued under David Bowie's name). It's surprising that it took this long.

Haha in music before all other things, breadth of appeal is utterly meaningless. The success of most American pop stars can attest to that. Music, like any other art, is good if it speaks to you. It's entirely subjective.

Except Justin Bieber. He just sucks.