Neapolitan

• Golden Years It begins with a R&B guitar riff, finger snaps, and three note which have harmonica-like sound. He sings Golden years and in the background there is a Whop whop whop. He sings "Angel" with falsetto and slips back to a crooner Elvis-like voice. So from the very beginning Bowie is covering 20 years of Rock n Roll. As a side not the song was offered to Elvis sing, but was declined. Then Bowie moves on tot he present. There is a *snap* *clap* *stomp* before "Come get up my baby" which is such a great hook, the hand clap became prevalent sound effect in Disco and New Wave. There is a soupy drum beat which would be very common in Disco. When he sings "Stick with you baby for a thousand years..."there are muted acoustic guitars back with a Disco beat, which is very effective. The Phasey rhythm guitar backing Whop, whop, whop brings back the idea of a music collage of mix old with new.
  
• Word on a Wing ABBA meets Roxy Music.
  
• Stay The slap bass in this song foreshadows 80s music and bands like Duran Duran.
  
• Wild Is the Wind This song exemplifies Bowie idea the Thin White Duke singing love songs, but in a dispassionate manner.
  

Thoughts about the album:

Station to Station is basically a concept album, with the Thin White Duke, a character within his title track, persona he adopts for onstage performance and offstage interveiws. As with subjects and ideas he explores, it seems to borrow from real life, as if he is a method actor who lives the part before he performs it. He lives in the US first in NYC then in LA, and then decides to move back to Europe which is alluded to in the line "the return of the Thin White Duke."

Certainly Station to Station was not the last stop for Rock concept albums. The album stands at the precipice of Disco era, and was one of the more accessible ones considering the direction Prog took. The music that caught the public's attention in the beginning of the decade gave way to Disco, Punk, New Wave, Pomp Rock and Metal at the end. It contains some of the same elements that was incorporated into Disco i.e. Funk, Soul, but all in all it's a Rock album incorporating same elements. It also contains musical ideas from Europe especially from German, where Bowie would latter record his next three albums.

P.S.
If i had things I could wish for it would be I could write more extensively about the album, and posted it early last week. And the other would be for Trollheart to write a review of it. He piqued my curiosity what he would say about the album, since he mentioned he wish he had the opportunity to pick the album, when Bowie albums were first up for grabs for Bowie Week.

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