David Bowie R.I.P

None of his 80s albs can match Berlin, Metal Machine Music, Street Hassle or Take no Prisoners, just for starters.

― Chicamaw (Ward Fowler),

too much junk on these albums, Street Hassle excepted

Nah, Berlin and Metal Machine Music are flawless. All killer, no filler.

And the lowest of Lou's '70s lows are nowhere near as low as Mistrial.

the blue mask is the only album i need post-70's.

how do you distinguish the wheat from the chaff on MMM?

I think a few Berlin tracks can stand along songs like "My Red Joystick"

also we're leaving out a certain album by the name of Mistrial on out of his 80s dossier (ha xpost)

i liked new sensations when it came out but i would never play it now.

I think Berlin is a sodden self-parody but so am I.

(only albums i need to own forever: lou reed, berlin, sally can't dance, the bells, the blue mask, rock n roll animal, lou reed live. the rest is for demented superfans who have to justify everything like sonic youth fans.)

how do you distinguish the wheat from the chaff on MMM?

I'd wager that most people feel the entire album is either one or the other.

Ecstasy is a wonderful record.

maybe the first time he hired a real producer who didn't fuck shit up, and the songs are terrific.

are we taking it for granted that transformer (famously prod. bowie/ronson) is the best one and that's why no one has mentioned it yet AT ALL?

I mentioned it. It has more than a couple tracks I don't care for.

Yeah, Transformer is pretty patchy, and the great tracks on it are so over-played and over-familiar that I can't really listen to it anymore (both times I saw Lou live - on the New York and Magic & Loss(!) tours - he wearily encored w/ 'Walk on the Wild Side' and even the audience didn't seem that bothered that he'd played it. )

But it would take a demented superfan to suggest that Transformer is inferior to New Sensations :-)

i like the 70's live versions of the best songs on transformer more than the studio versions. satellite, vicious, etc.

R&R animal and lou reed live are seriously two of my favorite records of the 70's and i am not a live album superfan. live albums that are essential to me a pretty small list.

(i am a demented dick wagner and steve hunter superfan though...)

i also like coney island baby more than any 80's record other than the blue mask. but i don't feel the need to own coney island baby anymore...

Transformer still feels pretty classic to me, that Ronson guitar sound, excellent tunes, great Lou vocals. i like the wagner/hunter attack, but my main complaint about R&R Animal is probably Lou's performances.
anyway, probably should be on a Lou thread...

Yes, let's talk about this from that Dwight Yoakam piece upthread, wau:

six months before Elvis’ death in 1977, the King had called him out of the blue to discuss Bowie possibly producing his next album.

(only albums i need to own forever: lou reed, berlin, sally can't dance, the bells, the blue mask, rock n roll animal, lou reed live. the rest is for demented superfans who have to justify everything like sonic youth fans.)

― scott seward, Thursday, January 21, 2016 9:11 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Transformer, the only album known by non-superfans, is only for demented superfans???

hahaha! don't listen to me about anything! yeah yeah transformer. haven't played it in decades. probably pretty good though.

Meantime

http://pitchfork.com/news/63059-hear-david-bowie-impersonate-bruce-springsteen-neil-young-iggy-pop-lou-reed-tom-waits-in-newly-unearthed-recording/

Oh yeah. I've said so many times

Indeed you have!

bowie producing elvis in 1977 is a ridiculous thought...

Meantime

http://pitchfork.com/news/63059-hear-david-bowie-impersonate-bruce-springsteen-neil-young-iggy-pop-lou-reed-tom-waits-in-newly-unearthed-recording/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, January 21, 2016 10:45 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the most hilarious thing I've heard in a very long time.

The second one is not Marc Bolan?

yeah sounds more like him than Neil Young imo

transformer is amazing, all the way through.

i'm a terrible bowie fan because although i think of myself as a huge fan, i really just obsessively listen to everything up through let's dance and then skip forward to the next day and http://i.imgur.com/DCfpQ4X.gif. it's interesting to read all the accounts of attempts to give another fair shot to tonight and never let me down and tin machine, and the varying opinions about the 90s stuff. i just can't see myself diving into that stuff for a very long time. i've listened to station to station roughly 3 billion times and it's still deeply satisfying, every single time, and life is too short to be listening to the likes of Tonight. i suppose i'd be interested in a playlist of only post-Let's Dance songs, though.

My range of "acceptable Bowie" is even narrower - it's basically the Berlin albums (including Stage) and the two final albums (plus the original version of "Sue"). I just bought that Nothing Has Changed compilation, the one that's in reverse chronological order, and I know I'm never gonna make it to the third disc.

Karl, having taken the deep Bowie dive all the way through '95 over the past two weeks, I will permit you to retain your superfan status within the parameters you have set. They are very sound parameters.

Karl you need to fuck with his 80s film songs, they are top drawer

I'm gonna skim back through the '80s and '90s at some point and cherry pick anything worthwhile. I'll report my findings here.

"When the fires broke out on the Rio Grande
left nothin standin but the smell of a van"

his springsteen lyrics are killing me

who has the Bowie cargo shorts photo descrined in last Sunday's NY Times? Asking for a friend (Alfred).

he sings the same lyrics for everyone xp

It's not an this thread? Also, can't Alfred ask for himself. He isn't shy.

seems like the lyrics were intended as Boss parody and then reused for the others.

I would never answer a cargo shorts question.

boss parody was the best

neil young is the last one on the tape i think

his neil is pretty solid! could imagine it being on Life or something.

He's no adam buxton :-)

Of course everyone's already heard him do dodgy impressions of a few of these! That was nice to hear tho

David Bowie scores first top forty hit in America since 1987.

Lazarus is actually kind of the least memorable song on the record for me.

He's got Iggy nailed....

Meantime

http://pitchfork.com/news/63059-hear-david-bowie-impersonate-bruce-springsteen-neil-young-iggy-pop-lou-reed-tom-waits-in-newly-unearthed-recording/

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, January 21, 2016 10:45 AM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is the most hilarious thing I've heard in a very long time.

― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, January 21, 2016 4:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha! His Springsteen parody is spot on!

His impressions are ... not very good.

I remember Eno saying that good singers tend to be good impressionists, I think he was talking about Bowie... and (whisper it) Bono.

the hot pants line

he nails a couple of 'em, but his voice provides a limited bag of impersonation tricks

reminded me of Andy Partridge's "That Wag" on "Fuzzy Warbles" where he does Robert Smith, Morrissey, etc.

Springsteen by far the best. Think I have heard him do a better Iggy impression on the officially released material.