David Bowie Scary Monsters album released

Scary Monsters David Bowie

Released: September 12, 1980 Peak: 12 US, 12 UK, 9 CN, 15 AU Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.3 UK, 4.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. It’s No Game, Pt. 1 [4:20] Up the Hill Backwards [3:15] (3/28/81, 39 CL, 13 CO, 32 UK) Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) [5:12] (1/2/81, 34 CL, 9 CO, 20 UK) Ashes to Ashes [4:25] (8/1/80, 79 CB, 4 CL, 2 CO, 1 UK, 3 AU) Fashion [4:49] (10/24/80, 70 US, 79 CB, 79 HR, 12 CL, 5 CO, 5 UK, 27 AU) Teenage Wildlife [6:56] Scream Like a Baby [3:35] Kingdome Come (Verlaine) [3:45] Because You’re Young [4:54] It’s No Game, Pt. 2 [4:22] Songs written by David Bowie unless indicated otherwise. The Players: David Bowie (vocals, multiple instruments) Tony Visconti (producer, guitar, backing vocals) Carlos Alomar, Robert Fripp (guitar) George Murray (bass) Dennis Davis (drums) Chuck Hammer (guitar synthesizer) Roy Bittan (piano) Andy Clark (synthesizer) Pete Townshend (guitar on “Because You’re Young”) Lynn Maitland, Chris Porter (backing vocals) Total Running Time: 45:37

Rating: 4.081 out of 5.00 (average of 26 ratings) Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: After David Bowie’s artistic, but less commercially-driven Berlin Trilogy (1977’s Low and Heroes and 1979’s Lodger), he “returned to relatively conventional rock & roll with Scary Monsters, an album that effectively acts as an encapsulation of all his ‘70s experiments.” AMG Despite the conscious move toward creating more accessible music, Bowie employed many of the same musicians he’d worked with over the last few years. That included his core group of guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist George Murray, and drummer Dennis Davis who’d been with him since 1976’s Station to Station. Collaborator Brian Eno, who’d had a heavy influence on the ambient sound of the Berlin Trilogy, was out, but Bowie brought back Robert Fripp, the King Crimson guitarist who’d worked on Heroes. Pianist Roy Bittan, who’d played on Station to Station came back into the fold since he was recording Bruce Springsteen’s The River at the same time in the same studio. “Reworking glam rock themes with avant-garde synth flourishes, and reversing the process as well, Bowie creates dense but accessible music throughout Scary Monsters. Though it doesn’t have the vision of his other classic records, it wasn’t designed to break new ground…While the music isn't far removed from the post-punk of the early '80s, it does sound fresh, hip, and contemporary, which is something Bowie lost over the course of the ‘80s.” AMG The album opens with the sinister guitar loops of It’s No Game (No. 1), which also featured screaming vocals reminiscent of John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band. WK It features lyrics read by Japanese actress Michi Horita in a “macho samurai voice” which Bowie insisted on to “break down a particular type of sexist attitude about women.” WK The album ends with It’s No Game (No. 2). It has different lyrics than the album opener and is generally more mellow and meditative. Up the Hill Backwards focuses on the struggle one endures facing crisis. It includes a misquote of the self-help book I’m OK – You’re OK, which has been interpreted as a reference to Bowie’s divorce from his wife Angie. WK “Musically, it features unusual time signatures and a Bo Diddley-inspired beat.” WK The title cut grew out of a 1975 song “Running Scared” which Bowie had played for his friend Iggy Pop. The rhythm section was inspired by Joy Division; Davis’ drumming has been compared to their “She’s Lost Control” song. WK Scream Like a Baby also grew out of an earlier song – “I Am a Laser” from the early to mid-‘70s. The lyrics focused on the instability of political imprisonment while the music was of a contemporary new wave sound. WK The lead single, Ashes to Ashes, revisited the character of Major Tom who Bowie created in his breakthrough single, 1969’s “Space Oddity.” Now ten years older, Tom is described as a junkie – a parallel to Bowie’s struggles with addiction in the 1970s. As Bowie said, “You have to accommodate your pasts within your persona. You have to understand why you went through them. You cannot just ignore them.” WK The song, which hit #1 in the UK, was promoted with what was then the most expensive video ever made. WK Author Nicholas Pegg says the song kickstarted the New Romantic movement. WK Fashion was reminiscent of Bowie’s own “Golden Years” from 1975 because of its mix of reggae and funk. It grew out of Clark spoofing reggae on his synthesizers. Lyrics such as “we are the goon squad” and “turn to the left, turn to the right” provoked elements of fascism. It was the album’s second single and was supported by another well-received video. The refrain-free Teenage Wildlife was the longest song on Scary Monsters. It is structurally similar to “Heroes<” and has backing vocals reminiscent of the Ronettes. The lyrics have been interpreted as an attack on Bowie imitators such as Gary Numan or even a reflection on his younger self. WK Similarly, Bowie reflects on the younger generation and offers them advice in Because You’re Young, a song he dedicated to his son Duncan, then nine years old. The Who’s Pete Townshend served as a guest guitarist on the track. Kingdom Come was a cover of a Tom Verlaine song. He was invited to play with Bowie, but his part wasn’t used. There’s no certainty he was even recorded. Instead, Robert Fripp played the guitar parts. Music journalist Peter Doggett described the song’s arrangement as “an unhappy cross between Motown sound and the sterility of American AOR.” WK From a lyrical standpoint, the song expresses similar themes of “frustration, boredom and repetition” as found on other tracks of the album. WK Pegg described the album as “the triumphant culmination of Bowie’s steely art-rock phase and a crucial doorway into early 1980s British pop.” WK Bowie himself consider the album to be “the epitome of the new wave sound at the time.” WK All Music Guide’s Stephen Thomas Erlewine said it “was created as the culmination of Bowie’s experimental genre-shifting of the ‘70s. As a result, Scary Monsters is Bowie’s last great album.” AMG Notes: The 1992 Rykodisc reissue adds the 1979 recordings of “Space Oddity” and “Panic in Detroit” as well as the singles “Crystal Japan” and “Alabama Song.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for David Bowie AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia First posted 2/20/2008; last updated 8/1/2021.

   

David Bowie Low released

Low David Bowie

Released: January 14, 1977 Peak: 11 US, 2 UK, 56 CN, 10 AU Sales (in millions): -- US, 0.1 UK, 2.5 world (includes US and UK) Genre: classic rock

Tracks: Song Title (Writers) [time] (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts. Speed of Life [2:46] Breaking Glass (Bowie/David/Murray) [1:51] (11/17/78, 41 CL, 15 CO, 54 UK) What in the World [2:23] Sound and Vision [3:03] (2/11/77, 69 US, 88 CB, 18 CL, 5 CO, 3 UK, 74 AU) Always Crashing in the Same Car [3:29] Be My Wife [2:55] (6/17/77, 29 CL, 20 CO) A New Career in a New Town [2:51] Warszawa (Bowie/Eno) [6:20] Art Decade (Bowie/Eno) [3:43] Weeping Wall [3:26] Subterraneans [5:39] Songs written by David Bowie unless indicated otherwise. Total Running Time: 34:34 The Players: David Bowie (vocals, multiple instruments) Brian Eno (keyboards, etc.) Carlos Alomar, Ricky Gardiner (guitar) Dennis Davis (percussion) George Murray (bass) Roy Young (pianos, organ)

Rating: 4.244 out of 5.00 (average of 27 ratings) Quotable: Low provides “a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll.” – Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album: After living in Los Angeles and dealing with drug addiction, Bowie and his friend Iggy Pop moved to France in 1976 to sober up. The pair of them recorded The Idiot, Pop’s debut solo album. They traveled to Hansa Studios in West Berlin to mix the album and Bowie became fascinated with the city. In September 1976, Bowie began work on his own album, Low, the first of three albums which became known as the Berlin Trilogy. Brian Eno, who’d explored ambient music in his work, heavily influenced Bowie during this period. He has been mistakenly attributed as the producer of the Berlin Trilogy albums, but they were actually produced by Tony Visconti, who’d worked with Bowie on previous albums. Eno, however, “functioned as a conduit for Bowie’s ideas, and in turn Bowie made the experimentalism of not only Eno but of the German synth group Kraftwerk and the post-punk group Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream.” AMG “The record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll,” AMG including experimental rock such as post-punk, electronic, and ambient music. Side one consisted of “short, direct avant-pop song fragments.” WK “The guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while Bowie’s vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed.” AMG “Sound and Vision has a shimmering guitar hook” AMG and doesn’t feature Bowie’s vocals until the 1:45 mark. Eno said it was done to “confound listener expectations.” WK The lyrics reflected Bowie’s mental state after his drug addiction. He called it his “ultimate retreat song.” WK Always Crashing in the Same Car referenced an incident during Bowie’s time in Los Angeles when he kept ramming his car into that of a drug dealer’s who was ripping him off. Lyrically, it was a metaphor for repeating mistakes and Bowie’s obsession with travel and constant lifestyle change. WK On Be My Wife, Bowie was lyrically reflecting on his “feelings of loneliness, inability to settle, and plea for human connections.” WK Musically, it “subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion.” AMG The second side consists of longer, mostly “atmospheric instrumentals.” AMG “The electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop.” AMG Warszawa was named after the Polish city of Warsaw. Bowie visited it in April 1976 and wanted to capture the desolate landscape in music. The haunting song was mostly composed by Eno. Biographer David Buckley called it the album’s “most startling” piece. WK Art Decade, about West Berlin, was a pun on “art decayed.” It was Bowie’s reflection on “a city cut off from its world, art and culture, dying with no hope of retribution.” WK Weeping Wall was “meant to evoke the pain and misery of the Berlin Wall.” WK It featured Bowie playing all the instruments himself. It was influenced by composer Steve Reich. Bowie described Subterraneans as a portrait of “the people who got caught in East Berlin after the separation.” WK it was originally recorded for the soundtrack for The Man Who Fell to Earth, which starred Bowie. The director, Nicolas Roeg, decided against the music, wanting a folksier sound. WK The album was originally rejected by RCA, who wanted something in a more commercial vein like preceding albums Young Americans and Station to Station. Bowie refused and RCA delayed the album from its intended November 1976 release because they considered it “distinctinly unpalatable” for the Christmas market. WK It was eventually released in January 1977 and received little promotion. Sounds magazine’s Tim Lott called Low “the most difficult piece of music Bowie has ever put his name to.” WK Phonograph Record’s Bud Scoppa said it was “the most intimate and free recording this extraordinary artist has yet made.” WK NME’s Ian MacDonald described the album as “stunningly beautiful…the sound of Sinatra reproduced by Martian computers.” WK The New York Times’ John Rockwell said “the instrumentals are strange and spacey. Nevertheless, the whole thing strikes this listener as remarkably, alluringly beautiful.” WK The Observer’s Ron Hart said “Low is an album that will make you dance, think and weep all in the span of 38 minutes.” WK Notes: The 1991 Rykodisc reissue adds a remixed version of “Sound and Vision” as well as previously unreleased songs “Some Are” and “All Saints.”

Resources and Related Links: DMDB encyclopedia entry for David Bowie AMG All Music Guide review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine WK Wikipedia First posted 2/20/2008; last updated 7/31/2021.