"Beware the Savage Jaw...." In Praise Of....Diamond Dogs by David Bowie

'Nuff said. Marc Bolan at his absolute worst wouldn't touch a line like this with a ten foot pole.

"When You Rock & Roll With Me" = song as lame as something found in Broadway production of "Grease".

Consolation: nothing on this album is quite as bad as "Lady Grinning Soul".

To be fair, the title song would be an OK Stones ripoff if it was maybe half the length that it is. It makes its point quickly and then proceeds to plod on (I agree) endlessly and pointlessly. And introducing these characters - Halloween Jack (I think I can type that name with a straight face), etc. - that never get mentioned again throughout the duration of the record. See what I mean?

Good Bowie vocal performance in "Candidate". OK. Wish it had a better lyric, though. Every time I heard "Boys/boys/ it's a sweet thing", I always thought of Ferry singing "Here's looking at you kid". Yep, it's a Roxy Music rip-off. And not a good one at that.

"Rebel Rebel" has a great riff, surely. But I think this one also goes on too long and pointlessly. Really, I think you can objectively state that the entirety of side one consists of a few ideas - 3 short songs - stretched out far beyond what is necessary. Unless, of course, you're David Bowie and short on material and need to fill up an album side quickly.

Speaking of which, most of the second side seems much less memorable. "Rock & Roll With Me" remains a faux-Broadway piece of shit. (I'd much rather hear faux-West End pieces of shit like "Love You Till Tuesday" - it's a better song, at least.) Things like "1984" and "We Are The Dead" - hard to rememember much of anything about these.

The chant thing was at least kind of cool back in the day, if you were stoned and didn't have an auto return turntable.

Perhaps you can tell that I haven't owned or heard this lp since around 1979. I haven't wanted to either.

Incidentally, Eighties isn't Rebel Rebel, but Jane Says totally is.

LOL
[did you use your creepiest voice? "and in the death..."]

i thought the bonus cd on this new version was a missed opportunity. theres a lot of other, more interesting, rarer tracks they could have put on there instead.

QLW is right that the title track is overlong (which is a total shame, because it's such a great song otherwise), but then Bowie's albums are always most interesting where they're most flawed. Hating on "Lady Grinning Soul" seems historically uncharitable to me. As to charging Bowie with "rip-off": you're kidding, right? Pastiche is ALL he ever did, and he was quite obvious about it: only dumbasses ever called him "original," since originality is the most overrated trope in the whole critical galaxy.

BUT When You Rock and Roll With Me is a song that has always kind of gripped me and made me want to swoon. It sort of reminds me of Prince.

Oh please don't ruin it for me. Prince is great, but he doesn't TOUCH this.

otmfm

Oh, Alex. You need to hear "Strays Of The World".

I love Diamond Dogs. I was going to pick up the reissue yesterday after seeing the ad for it in the Voice. I'm saddened to read that there's not too much going on of value on the extra disc, though. Guess I'll stick to my Ryko version.

Hah! Right on.

I was in junior high when this came out and lived when I could with my Indian/Mexican GF whose father raped her any time I wasn't there and one night she shaved her eyebrows and I came by toasted on ludes and she was laying there, nude and all Inca looking, covered in red glitter fingering the DD cover and cooing "Day-vud!" while "We are the Dead" played and it became our song.

I always thought it was ROT ROT ROT etc

As for Diamond Dogs: along with Young Americans and The Man Who Sold the World, these were albums I didn't get into when I was younger, so to this day I don't know them very well. I'll give it a better listen tomorrow. I can't abide Rebel Rebel anymore and never liked the title track much, though. 1984 I only know through Tina Turner!

Didn't Transformer also start off intended to be a musical?

What a dick.

Diamond Dogs and Outside are my fave Dave CDs. The failed/goofball/miserabalist narratives adds a weirdly effective structural mood thing.

"When You Rock n Roll with Me" always seemed to be something the future desolation kids might listen to at a secret cabaret, which gave it--for me, anyway--this terribly sad, futile beauty, because, not in defiance of its schmaltz.

btw--What the fuck was a "Cooper Time Cube"? I recall DB claiming the device had much to do with the fuzz/blur guitar sound.

I love Diamond Dogs. I listened to it all the time when I was just out of high school.

if there's anything this album just taught me, it's to never listen to negative reviews.

Re "Cooper Time Cube" - If I recall my "Raw Power" liner notes properly, it was some sort of guitar-treatment device that kinda resembled a bong and was used on (I think) "Gimme Danger" and possibly elsewhere.

if there's anything this album just taught me, it's to never listen to negative reviews

lol you old

i didn't know peeps were down on diamond dogs. it's a banger 4 sho

when my 5th-grade self first heard this LP (before I had ever even heard the word "genocide"), I thought it went: "this ain't rock and roll...this is...jazz time!"

made sense to me...and in a crazy way, it still does...

"this ain't rock and roll...this is...jazz time!"

Bahahahahaahahahahahaahaha

if there's anything this album just taught me, it's to never listen to negative reviews

Because they're sometimes earned?

Diamond Dogs is fucking brilliant.

we'll buy some drugs and watch a band
we'll jump in the river holding hands

one of my favorite bowie lyrics.

you pretty much cannot fuck with diamond dogs.

I've grown to love "Sweet Thing/Candidate" (especially Bowie's wonderful, awful guitar solo on the former) and "1984," but not even the remastered version can disguise how thin this sounds. Plus, this Bowie lover has his limits for doomy doggerel.

doomy doggerel.

That was punishing.

Oh, I so love this and Alex's review is so uh-huh, thank you.

I was in junior high when this came out and lived when I could with my Indian/Mexican GF whose father raped her any time I wasn't there and one night she shaved her eyebrows and I came by toasted on ludes and she was laying there, nude and all Inca looking, covered in red glitter fingering the DD cover and cooing "Day-vud!" while "We are the Dead" played and it became our song.

-- Ian G, Friday, 18 June 2004 05:02 (3 years ago) Bookmark Link

Yeah, I thought it was weird how no one even commented on that - UNTIL NOW

what a hot story.

Sweet Thing is a brilliant track, though that bit where he goes off on one about hamburgers does my head in a bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=gnauRgyWovo

My twopennorth on Dogs.

The title track, 'Rebel Rebel' and 'Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise)' are the main reasons I find myself returning to this record, and although I'm not as keen on the second side as I am on the first, I'd still rather listen to this than 'Young Americans'.

Marcello, do we know the extent of Alan Parker's contributions? To my ears the lead on the title track sounds too gnarly to be professional (on the other hand I'm sure the magnificent, inept solo on "Sweet Thing" is Bowie's; he can't slide his fingers down the frets).

xp yeah, DD is way stronger as an album than YA (which I like, but only a few of tracks on it are essential)

...and the title cut of 'Diamond Dogs' just popped up on WinAmp random play

I've always felt this was underrated but listening to it last night my love for it went to a whole new level. It has berserk ambitions and it totally delivers on them. This is the Orwell-on-Broadway lunacy that Muse have been gunning for over their last three albums, a more persuasive take on showbiz, terror and America than Aladdin Sane, and a lyrical feast. I also realised that Blur's use of brass is almost entirely derived from the spectacular arrangements on Big Brother, not to mention Andrew Eldritch's vocal schtick. And while the intro's a dud (the album should begin with the title track's faultlessly decadent opening line) the stuttering ending is perfect. My favourite after Low, I think.

Now to read Marcello's essay.

Looking forward to sinking my teeth into this: http://thequietus.com/articles/16797-the-hideous-ecstasy-of-fear-diamond-dogs-40-years-on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7l6ixggtys&fbclid=IwAR1OGISlopn6oheciEKEhmBTNKjp8ReVdvafootgyR0cbrfJ4lJKtH2datU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p7l6ixggtys

Ugh, that splice between "Candidate" and "Sweet Thing (Reprise)" is so hideously hamfisted, everybody in the studio must have been stoned to let it pass. It annoys me so much I have to make my own edit before I can listen to it.

I like it as a splash of ice water in the face, after you jump in the river holding hands.

I am having so much fun with the poisonous people
Spreading rumors and lies and stories they made up
Some make you sing and some make you scream
One makes you wish that you never been seen