Also highly recommend he listens to the song "No Plan" that was recorded for Blackstar but didn't make the album. It's so beautiful and it's a shame not many people heard it.
Also my favourite! My top three would be Stations to stations, ziggy stardust, and black star. Black star really blew me away when I first heard it, especially so late in his career and at his death bed.
@@Atom-E.B.E. They are both masterpieces but completely different. They couldn't be any more different. Some people absolutely hate Scary Monsters. Its not a pop album. Althought some pop tunes likes Ashes and Fashion but the best tracks are the punky/new wave style songs with Fripps guitar.
I was lucky enough to see Bowie live on 2 occasions. One was during this period, and I got to hear station to station Album live..was just mind blowing as a then 16 year old .still remains my favourite to this day .
That Wild is the Wind drum fill is LEGENDARY. It's truly sad that this album was made while in such a dark place, cocaine addiction at an all time high, barely eating anything, going borderline insane (honestly without borderline, he was hallucinating), it's just like you said, he was full of fear and paranoia. The industrial ish beat of Station that morphs into this energetic groove where its very obvious the side effects of the cocaine, the cry for help to a higher being in Word on a Wing (what a performance, god), the drug induced TVC15 (based on one time Iggy Pop got so high he thought the tv had eaten his girlfriend), Stay with its need for connection, just so much amazing work. But god, Wild is the Wind really is the perfect closer. Despite being a cover, he makes it his own fully, a powerful, emotional ballad featuring Bowie giving one of his most tender vocal performances of his career, full of yearning and need, I think everyone is on point, his band all do amazing (huge shout outs to the DAM, Dennis Davis, Carlos Alomar and George Murray, who would be Bowie's rhythm band from this album till Scary Monsters, they're my personal favorite). Just, what an amazing note to end this, one of my favorite albums ever. I cannot wait for the Blackstar reaction, but I still would maybe do a few classics first, and maybe throw in some 90s or 2000s album for a switch up. From the 70s, you can go back with either Aladdin Sane or Diamond Dogs, or continue the Berlin trilogy with Heroes, whatever you do, it's gonna be awesome!!
Great reaction! I was 14 when this came out in January 76. Still one of my all time favorite albums. One of Bowies greatest and one of the greatest albums of the 1970’s. From what I’ve always understood, Bowie had spent the summer of 75 filming The Man Who Fell to Earth in New Mexico and unknown to him his management had booked a world tour starting in January 1976. So when he got back to L.A. the end of August early September, not having an album to tour on, he got his band together, and with a few ideas and snippets of songs he wrote and recorded the album in the studio in less than two weeks. He always worked fast, even without the coke. But he was on the verge of something major, possibly death. He was already in cocaine psychosis. He would go a week, two weeks without sleep. He OD’d more than once and his longtime assistant CoCo Schwab saved his life. That same autumn he was renegotiating his contract with his manager Tony Devries on the advice of John Lennon. Bowie had signed with Devries in 1970, and being young, naive and trusting didn’t realize the bad deal he signed. Of Bowies income from record sales, concerts, merchandise etc, fully 50% went to Devries before any operational expenses were deducted. Those came out of Bowies share. It took a few years for the reality of this to really sink in and caused a lot of unhappiness for Bowie. Perhaps the coke was a way to escape thinking about how he’d been screwed. So during the legal wrangling he had to put a concert together, rehearsals, staging etc, and the result was the creation of his most severe character; The Thin White Duke and a minimalist stage show and lighting inspired by Hitlers Nuremberg rallies as documented in Leni Reifenstahl’s film The Triumph of the Will. All black and white, klieg lighting, walls of white neon tubes and the only color Bowies slicked back red/blond hair. It was spectacular. Low was the comedown.
Fun fact‼️The reason the piano playing is so gas on TVC15 is because it’s played by Roy Bittan who is famously the piano play for Bruce Springsteens band ( the E street band)
Great review as always mate, I would love for you to check out all the other stuff bowie has done over the years before coming to blackstar but that's prbly too much too ask for so I'm gonna narrow it down too three records that encapsulate bowie really well: Hunky Dory: One of bowies best, brilliant lyrics Aladdin Sane: Prime glam rock bowie, brilliant successor to ziggy stardust Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps: Personal favourite of mine, great experimental bowie
Great choice! Bowie had retired Ziggy (and his glam looks) by this point; his 'persona' for this era is "The Thin White Duke" en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thin_White_Duke Funk starts bleeding into his work around this time and in general his music style expands, adds more experimentalism as well. Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick (guitars) are great all over this record.
@@jyjjy7 Its a strange one. There was no lead up to it, as a track from the previous album sounding anything like it, or anything that followed. The soundtrack album, Buddha of Suburbia has at least one track from it that made it on Outside but sounds completely different. Some people absolutely love it. I play it now and again but the singles from it are fantastic.
I would recommend Aladdin Sane, (more avant-garde than Ziggy, but still glam) Diamond Dogs ( Great lyrics and Dark Subject matter) And Heroes…. As good if not better than Low…Then you”ll be ready for Black Star.
If you listen to more Bowie before Blackstar, I'd recommend some wildly different flavors like Earthling, 1. Outside, or Reality. They're not my favorites or least favorite, but they call Bowie a chameleon for a reason. He's just got so many eras to explore. Thanks for even covering him in the first place!
Thank you for your reaction. Bowies back catalogue is so brilliant, Scary Monsters and Lodger are so worth listening to, but his music is just so amazing and he was frequently ahead of the curve, so much so that when you look back it's hard to believe how early some of his albums are. He was a true icon and a giant of the rock and pop world, his music will still be inspiring others for many many years to come..
Highly recommend 1. Outside, imo his best album. Takes a lot of inspiration from the early 90s hard-rock and industrial scenes, very interesting sound.
"Paranoia" - yeah, I can see an undercurrent of that. He was fleeing a whirlwind, cocaine-fueled life that had him down to 90 pounds, barely able to walk even a few feet and close to death from subsisting entirely on a diet of peppers and milk. _Aladdin_ _Sane_ and _Diamond_ _Dogs_ are essential listens. After the "Berlin Trilogy" albums, _Scary_ _Monsters_ wraps up the 70s period during which his vocal range was the greatest (chain smoking increasingly affected his voice during the 80s and first half of the 90s, though he regained much of it by the end of the 90s).
I hate to be like this cause I know you wanna get to Blackstar so bad but I think you need to take in more Bowie albums before you head into that one, there are just too many eras of Bowie and important moments in eras you have already done. I definitely think you should listen to Heroes even though its part of the Berlin trilogy because its just such a classic. You gotta listen to Outside because its just so out there and you can hear this era reflected a bit in Blackstar in a cool way. Hunky Dory is also another big one, it came before Ziggy Stardust but has some amazing songs on it. Gotta do Scary Monster(and Super Creeps) AT LEAST to cover 80's Bowie but then the very next album is Let's Dance and although some consider this to be too mainstream sounding it represent and entire era of Bowie and I think is still essential. Lol if you get through all those then I think you've heard enough to hear Blackstar. But wtf do I know, if you really want to do Blackstar next just do Blackstar.
Station to Station really is a flawless album, I see it as on par as Low but both are 10/10 albums You should review The Idiot by Iggy Pop, it's kinda like Bowie's bridge between Station and Low. Another masterpiece
Station To Station might just be my favorite Bowie album. It’s transcendental in an almost electronically ominous, mechanical way. The lyrics especially capture me on this album, Word On A Wing pulls at my heartstrings.
I wouldn't do Blackstar yet, it's amazing but it's also a kind of coda and I think it hits even harder in that context. Heroes, Scary Monsters, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane, all brilliant.
This is my favourite Bowie album. Its a complete masterpiece. He was coming out from the soul boy sound of Young Americans and was listening to a lot of Kraut Rock, Neu! and Kraftwerk which is reflected in the title song.
Aladdin Sane then Space Oddity followed by Diamond Dogs then Young Americans followed by Hunky Dory then The Man Who Sold The World.....and finally Heroes. That should keep you busy for a while!
Album recommendations: Waiting to Spill- The backseat lovers When we Were Friends- The backseat lovers Something you needed- Flipturn Shadowglow- Flipturn Songs- Adrianne Lenker Unreal Unearth- Hozier Close to Paradise- Patrick Watson Young Americans- David Bowie Everything so far- Pinegrove RMCM- Richy Mitch & The Coal Miners Good For You- Houndmouth The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We- Mitski
This album is a sort of transition from the soul and funk on the album before this (Young Americans) to the art rock he would go on to make in Berlin (Low and Heroes). It's probably my 2nd favorite after Low. Check out Heroes if you want to listen to more Bowie. It's the follow-up to Low and it's pretty similar in style and both have an almost instrumental and ambient B-side It would also be cool to see you listen to some Joni Mitchell. I recommend her albums The Hissing of Summer Lawns or Hejira.
Station to Station was the product of Bowie's move to Los Angeles. Many of Bowie's ideas were products of reaction to where he was living at any given time. In LA, he ended up getting deeply involved in the celebrity culture there in the 70s and it worsened his cocaine habit, which in turn was exacerbating his mental health issues. Station to Station was kinda infamous for being the album associated with his brief period playing the part of the Thin White Duke and flirting with an aesthetic that seems suspiciously fascist. Like the Thin White Duke was a sort of evil counterpart to his past characters.
There are lots of great bowie albums u should listen!! I highly recommend Earthling (industrial Bowie) and Heathen (a very dark album that I love very much). But whatever you choose to do next im in for all of it!
Still remember hearing this album for the first time. I was lying on the floor so that the speaker lined up with my ears. I still remember hearing that opening with the sweeping static, instantly knew I was in for a treat!
As an illustration of just how much coke he was doing: during the recording sessions he stored his pee in the refrigerator so that witches couldn't steal it.
You really also need to listen to the Scary Monsters Album and to the Aladin Sane and Diamond Dogs albums. Before you do Black Star. He did 26 albums and there is a huge variety to his style, on all genres! Then you will understand Blackstar much better. Young Americans is also very important. It would be nice if you could do all of them. :) I have been a Bowie fan since 30 years. 🙂
The sound of this album took me a bit to get into, but after a few listens, I began to really love it. Especially TVC 15 which that intro threw me off, but once it picks up, it’s awesome.
You should really do more Bowie before Blackstar imo. 3 more sounds about right to me. I recommend you choose one of the albums from either all of these pairs then you'll have a good enough overview of his work; Hunky Dory or Diamond Dogs Heroes or Scary Monsters 1. Outside or Earthling
One of my favorite albums! An album just came out recently called Diamond Jubilee by Cindy Lee. Highly recommend checking it out, it received a 9.1 from Pitchfork and I personally think it’s an absolute masterpiece.
i would do at least hunky dory & heroes before blackstar, but there's even more classics in it's discography you should definitely do, at some point atleast. also volcanic bird enemy by liluglymane is mu fav bowie albm
been here long enough for you to cover my favorite artist in the world *3 TIMES ALREADY*!!! before you get into blackstar, I am begging you to listen to Heroes, Scary Monsters and maybe Hunky Dory before that. There are just too many top-tier bowie albums.
You should really look out some images of Bowie in 76'... Even though he was in an incredibly unhealthy bend he looked absolutely gorgeous!!! (though he looked gorgeous nearly his whole life)
Kind of nerding out here, but he undoubtedly looked worse in '74. From what I've read, I think he was trying his best to detox on tour (which started in the first week of February '76). Most of the pics you see of him regarding this period was pulled from either a Steve Schiapiro photoshoot in May 1975 for Rolling Stone, or stills from The Man Who Fell to Earth. He and Iggy had 2 cheat/binge days. But he had his assistant Coco with him, mostly feeding him something more than milk. Mixed success, but Berlin was ahead.
@@evanwright9016 I didn't know he and iggy had two cheat days at that time...(is it bad I think he was beautiful in 74'? like a vampire... There's something almost romantic about his emaciated gauntness at that time)
Wild is the wind is actually a Nina Simone cover, quite possibly the only time I’ve ever heard a cover of one of her songs that I thought was on par if not better than the original
You gotta do some more 70s and 80s bowie before blackstar, scary monsters and space odyssey/bowie2 and Hunky Dory! at least I'd say Earthling, the next day, Alladin sane and heroes are worth it too. I know it's a lot, but it's legendary stuff.
You should listen to hex by bark psychosis. It’s an amazing ambient post rock album (somewhere between talk talk and air) and im sure it would take you away imediatly.
No you have to lesson to black star the last!!!!with your look(compliments),try the the,particularly uncertain smile ( the album version with jool holland)
LOVE YOUR VIDEOS MY GUY a few recommendations: Process - Sampha (experimental r&b, great production) Nurture - Porter Robinson (light summer electric with fun production) Koi No Yokan - Deftones (very heavy, sexier and heavier radiohead imo) OIL OF EVERY PEARLS UN-INSIDES - SOPHIE (experimental electronic) Hypochondriac - Brakence (very experimental emo rap, glitch pop) Reading Writing And Arithmetic - The Sundays (the smiths ish, with beautiful female vocals)
Wild is the Wind is a cover of a Nina Simone song which I would highly recommend you listen to as it is one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded. I do think I prefer David Bowie's cover only slightly.
Moreover it's a song from eponymous movie, composed by Dimitri Tiomkin and performed originaly by Johnny Mathis. But Bowie covered Nina Simone's version of course. And his cover is brilliant. All three versions are different and I have to admit that Bowie's version is my favourite.
I love you, cuz I love David Bowie. He’s imo the best solo artist of all time and I really appreciate that you listen to him! Big thanks. Please also listen to “The Decline of British Sea Power” by Sea Power. It’s a really interesting indie-rock album by my favorite band. Check it out!
