Bowie's Greatest Album?
'Aladdin Sane' is the perfect representaion of Bowie's Ziggy Stardust period, and is a more experimental extension of his previous two albums. The songwriting is solid and the arrangements by David and Mick are spectacular; the only weak song on the album is 'Lady Grinning Soul', which unfortunately is the closing track. My favorite track is 'Time', which I think is one of Bowie's best songs. Other standouts include 'Let's Spend the Night Together' (which features a blisteringly original arrangement), 'Aladdin Sane', 'Drive-in Saturday', 'The Prettiest Star','Panic in Detroit', and, of course, 'The Jean Genie.' This is an essential though underrated Bowie album.
Bowie was always the star, but he has competition this time
ZIGGY STARDUST appropriately turned David Bowie from starving young folk singer to chameleon-like rock star from another galaxy. Of course, Bowie would eventually become satiated with the Martian character that finally brought him to the world's attention, but ALADDIN SANE shows that Bowie is rather enjoying the acclaim that came courtesy of Ziggy, and sure enough, even goes Ziggy one better. It even rocks harder, too, and not just with guitars. Pianist Mike Garson was always a background musician, but with ALADDIN SANE he threatened to steal the spotlight from under Mr. Bowie. His discordant performance on the title track is worth the price of the album alone, indicating that Mr. Garson might have some classical training under his belt, and he's putting it to excellent use. He helps, along with the late, great guitarist Mick Ronson, give the songs on ALADDIN SANE a rocking machismo Bowie's songs hadn't possessed before. This is proven the most on the Rolling Stones-inspired opener "Watch That Man" (probably best known from those fashion commercials), an otherwise-passable cover of the Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together", "Panic In Detroit", "Cracked Actor", and the undeniably bluesy "The Jean Genie" (which sounds like it was recorded more in the Mississippi Delta than in Manchester, England). Why on Earth John Lee Hooker hasn't covered "The Jean Genie" is a mystery to me. ALADDIN SANE still possesses Bowie's gifts for well-crafted melodies, and those songs provide a much-needed respite from the all-out rock assault of the previously mentioned songs. The substantial British hit "Time" (with its daring use of the word "wanking"), "Drive-In Saturday", "The Prettiest Star", and the sweeping closer "Lady Grinning Soul" show that Bowie hasn't totally forgotten the perfect pop structures that marked his breakthrough HUNKY DORY album. After another album in the Ziggy vein (the covers-based PIN-UPS), and an ill-fated attempt at breaking the Ziggy mold (the concept album-gone wrong DIAMOND DOGS), David Bowie seemed to have done his best work, and that ZIGGY STARDUST was alternately an image he couldn't shake, as well as one that couldn't possibly be improved upon. So until the soul-based YOUNG AMERICANS once again gave Bowie a reason to live, ALADDIN SANE showed that he had reached the peak of his Ziggy form, and that all he could do was go down until he found another means of creativity.
Aladdin Sane: A Tribute to the Vacuity of the American Mind
Today, there's probably a lot of people that just forget the thinking and worldview that was contained and curtailed in such historical albums as Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, Aladdin Sane, and so forth. Bowie was quite a thinker, and art was the media par excellence that allowed him to express himself and his concepts most appropriately, to convey his ideas.For one thing, David considered the geographical area of the Heavens to be an area that was vastly usurped, by men and/or by concepts (cf. Matthew 11;12), and the Stardust, the Diamond Dogs and the Aladdin albums were amply fused with apocalyptic and eschatological end-of-the-world concepts. In the soon to arrive end-of-time, both the Heaven and the Hell concepts were to be unleashed right here, on Earth.
Now back to the Aladdin Sane album, for which I am going to quote some excerpts from an article that was published in Circus in July 1973, entitled "BOWIE FORESEES THE STATES IN FLAMES - THE PERSONAL STORY BEHIND ALADDIN SANE" and which depicts the inspiration that was behind the Aladdin Sane album, namely his first American Tour...
"DAVID BOWIE SAT IN HIS NEW YORK HOTEL ROOM WRITING ABOUT THE SEQUINED CROWD WHO HAD DANCED ACROSS HIS CARPET UNTILL DAWN. THEN SUDDENLY HE WAS STRUCK WITH THE VISION OF A U.S. HOLOCAUST"
David Bowie sat in an overstuffed armchair in his suite aboard the ship Ellinis, returning to London from his first triumphal tour of the States. His delicate brows knit in a look of perplexed recognition as he read Evelyn Waugh's "Vile Bodies" - a 40 year-old, futuristic novel about a society of "bright young things" whirling through lavish parties in outlandish costumes, dancing, gossiping and sipping champagne.
"The book dealt with London in the period just before a massive, imaginary war." David would later confide, touching one finger, with its green-painted nail, lightly to his chin. "People were frivolous, decadent and silly. And suddenly they were plunged into this horrendous holocaust. They were totally out of place, still thinking about champagne and parties and dressing up. Somehow it seemed to me that they were like people today." But who was the frivolous, romantic young man Aladdin Sane? At first David merely cupped his hands in a fragile cage and said "I don't really think he's me." Several days later, Bowie realised who - or rather what - the song, and in fact the entire album, were about. "It's my interpretation of what America means to me. It's like a summation of my first American tour."
[...]
Then suddenly David was overwhelmed by the feeling that the gaudy, giggling American caricatures who had partied in his room the night before were unwittingly acting out the symptoms of a collapsing civilization. "Yea! I was shakin like a leaf," he wrote with a feeling of grim foreboding. "For I couldn't understand the conversation / Yea! I ran to the street, looking for information." Without realizing it, David Bowie had given birth to the theme that would obsess him throughout his tour of the States, the theme of Aladdin Sane: that the Americans he had met were poised unknowingly on the lip of a cataclysm that would rock the world.
[...]
And when he left LA, his notebook bore a song that stripped away the charm to look at the inner workings of the successful men who had seemed preoccupied with sex, heroin and money: "Crack, baby, crack show me you are real / Smack (heroin), baby smack, is all that you feel / Suck, baby, suck, give me your head (let's have some oral sex) / Before you start professing that you're knocking me dead." Once again an American city had left Bowie with the bitter taste of a civilization dried out and ready for the redemptive fires of destruction.
[...]
A few days before he was scheduled to sail for London, David sat before a crowd of reporters in a futuristic looking RCA studio and admitted "I feel the American is the loneliest person in the world. I get an awful feeling of insecurity and .. a need for warmth in people here. It's very, very sad. So many people in America are unaware that they are living."
It is little wonder then, that when David sat in his stateroom aboard the ship Ellinis and began to read in Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies about 20 year olds caught up in a "mad and illogical whirl of extravagant parties and other pointlessly important social affairs," he saw an image that summed up everything he had seen in North America.. and everything he had written into his songs. It was the image of Aladdin Sane, the "passionate bright young thing" who would learn to really live only when the cataclysm of war forced him into it. And paradoxically, it was the image that would give an album life.
America, A Lad Insane...
A very different album, but still an excellent one
Aladdin Sane (1973.) David Bowie's sixth album.
After numerous attempts to find a musical sound that suited him well, David Bowie finally found it on his 1972 Ziggy Stardust album. Although the stylings of that album were nothing short of excellent, Bowie was never the kind of person to stay in one place for too long. No matter how good (or how bad) one of his albums was, he was always ready to try new things. If any other musical artist had released an album as popular and successful as Ziggy Stardust was, he would have released a carbon copy immediately thereafter - but not Bowie! His next album was the wildly different Aladdin Sane, released in 1973. Read on for my review.
To put it simply, this is an excellent album, but it is NOT Ziggy Stardust Part Two. This, believe it or not, isn't really much of a rock and roll album - it's more of an alternative music album. These songs are very different from what Bowie had done thusfar, but they prove to be excellent nonetheless. Most of the song featured on the album aren't the sort of pop-rockers that you'd known and loved Bowie for before this album. Nonetheless, there ARE a few tracks like that on here, and rightfully so. Watch That Man, The Prettiest Star, The Jean Genie, and Cracked Actor are all excellent classic rockers that help to add to the overall quality of the album. Combine this with the newer alternative stylings introduced on this album, and you have one hell of an LP.
This album has been released a ton of times over the years. But the three main versions of the album available (as of June 16, 2004) are the standard domestic version, the two-disc deluxe edition, and the foreign Rykodisc reissue. Dont bother with the Rykodisc reissue, it only has a couple of bonus tracks, and it isn't worth the inflated import price. If you're just getting into Bowie, the standard, single-disc edition of the album will do just fine. But if you're a big-time Bowie fan, and you want to experience some lost treasures, shell out the extra cash and get the deluxe version.
Aladdin Sane is an excellent David Bowie LP, however, it is NOT a good place to start if you're new to Bowie's music (new fans should start with a hits compilation or the Ziggy Stardust album.) On the other hand, if you're a tried and true Bowie fan, there's really no way that you wouldn't like this album. It's doubtful any Bowie fan will be disappointed by this LP.
My favorite Bowie album
This was Bowie's fifth album. It is still my favorite of his. It has 3 smash hits, which he still plays in concert. (note: I saw him in 1990 on his final hits tour, where he swore that was the last time he would play his hits. But, I just saw him last month, and he still brings out many of these old hits).
Most of the songs are innovative, energetic and interesting. There are a few tracks that are not so great, but Bowie was never consistant. Some of his music could be bland or tedious.
There is a 30th anniversary version of this album that comes with an exra disc of outtakes. I haven't heard the second album, so I don't know if it is worth buying.
The second most important moment in Bowie's glam period, Aladdin Sane is full of smart, cutting-edge songs that hold up decades later as classic moments in rock. Standout tracks include "Panic in Detroit," with Mick Ronson's screaming guitars and Mick Woodmansey's urgent drumming; "Watch that Man," a piano-driven, rollicking number perfect for the Bowie strut; the lascivious and sweaty "Cracked Actor"; the punky "Jean Genie"; and a perfectly raucous cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together." "Time" hearkens back to the theatrics of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, while "Drive in Saturday," "The Prettiest Star," and "Lady Grinning Soul" serve as precursors to Bowie's "plastic soul" sounds that came later in the '70s. Aladdin Sane is even more impressive when considering that the same year this album was made, Bowie was also working with artists like Iggy Pop and Lou Reed, producing some of their most heralded works (the Stooges' Raw Power and Reed's Transformer). --Lorry Fleming
