Demonoid

I'm no bowie expert, but anyways, I'll just go ahead and vote -

Top 5:

1. Life on Mars?(Hunky Dory): Kinda an obvious choice, but this was the first bowie song I heard and fell in love with.

2. Station to Station(Station to Station): Epic! No other description is needed.

3. Warszawa(Low): I guess a weird choice but there's just something i love about this.

4. "Heroes"(Heroes): A great song...Love Fripp's guitar work.

5. Starman(Ziggy Stardust): la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

Album: Hmm tough one, but rite now, I'd say Station to Station, followed by Low.(It keeps changing between the two)

Similar Artist:
Brian Eno

Station to Station, Low & Heroes are my favorite bowie albums...Not much of a fan of his earlier stuff, other than a song or two here and there.

Brad Stengel

Five Tracks:

1. Heroes
EPIC JAM

2. Starman
Another great epic jam. of Montreal cover this really well.

3. Ziggy Stardust
This song actually made me go out and buy a Bowie album.

4. Rebel Rebel
I dont care if its on the radio alot, its one of the best riffs of all time.

5. Space Oddity
Spooky noochies.


ALBUM:
Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars


SIMILAR ARTISTS:
T. Rex
Lou Reed

BRIEF PARAGRAPH:

David Bowe is the sort of artist that lets me know its okay to try on womens underwar, and have a pre-occupation with Nazi fashion. Without David Bowie, there would be no glitter in rock n' roll. Next to David Bowie's epic jams, the Arcade Fire sound like a wet blanket. Who was your favorite rock band in 10th grade? David Bowie most likely had sex with them. Unless it was Heart. This is what makes David Bowie great.

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Minstrel

Tracks:

1. Life On Mars? : A virtually perfect song, on the candidate list for greatest song ever. It shows off his weird lyricism, epic flair and pop aesthetic.

2. Five Years : A wonderful ballad that has a compelling urgency and soaring melody.

3. An Occasional Dream : Another great, early ballad that has a dreamy (appropriate!) melody and a chiming sound.

4. Space Oddity : One of his most famous songs, it hinted at the dramatic nature that would become his trademark, while also capturing a contemplative mood about the space race.

5. Lady Grinning Soul : Exotic and gorgeous. This is the very definition of lush pop melody, yet it has a surreal, swirling element. Just very compelling.


Album:

Space Oddity

While one of the triumverate of Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust tends to be selected for best Bowie album, I think Space Oddity has become overlooked and under-appreciated. I've lately been listening to it more, and it's packed with brilliance.


Similar Artists:
Jobriath
T-Rex


Thoughts
I like Bowie a great deal because he combined a fusion of different rock and pop sounds with tremendous theatrics and showmanship. His albums are potpourri of epic productions, dirty blues and even McCartney-esque Vaudeville ditties. He's a lot of fun to listen to, he's rarely boring.

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"Blow your tuneless trumpet, the choice is yours / We don't want the glamour, the pomp and the drums / The Dublin messiah scattering crumbs"

sweet_nothing

Tracks:
1) Cracked Actor
2) Hang Onto Yourself
3) Rebel Rebel
4) Black Country Rock
5) Life On Mars?


Album:
Aladin Sane

Similar Artists:
Lou Reed
Iggy Pop

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Zombeels

Not one person put Mott The Hoople for similar artists. All of you...hang your heads in shame.

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What It Is

Molecules

lmao

i'm 'working' on my entry now

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Seltzer

Tracks (not in order):

1. Always Crashing in the Same Car (Low 1977)
Low is my favourite album and this is a choice cut. It always leaves me with a dulcet melancholic kind of feeling (especially the solo).

2. Life on Mars (Hunky Dory 1971)
This is an expected response, but it really can't be beaten. Wakeman's piano is mellifluous and the song overall is majestic, dramatic and theatrical.

3. Station to Station (Station to Station 1976)
Station to Station is quite a proggy song so naturally I'm inclined towards it. I love how it builds up with a slow plodding rhythm and suddenly transforms into a cheery foot-tapping extravaganza.

4. Pablo Picasso (Reality 2003)
I was a bit disappointed to find out that this is a cover, but I had to include it anyway, even if I haven't heard the original. Funny song and the outro is breathtaking.

5. Teenage Wildlife (Scary Monsters 1980)
Teenage Wildlife is happy sounding and anthemic with its backup vocals. Fripp's leads are very nice too.

6. Tonight (Iggy Pop, Lust for Life 1977)
Since #4 was a cover, I get to include another one.

Obviously this trumps that sappy reggae re-release. Tonight is a beautiful romantic pop song with some suave guitar riffs.

And I agree with Minstrel in saying that Lady Grinning Soul is great.

Album:
Low all the way.

Similar Artists:
Talking Heads and obviously Eno. And maybe some will hate me for saying that Peter Gabriel reminds me of Bowie sometimes.

Thoughts:
Experimentation is a good thing! Seriously though, Bowie is a wonderful musician with a great voice and he chooses his collaborators wisely. I can't be the only one who feels their sexual orientation being slightly challenged by Bowie. And that is all.

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Molecules

riiiight. i can't really be bothered to do this but BOWIE MUST GO IN.

The songs:

1. Width of a Circle from 'The Man Who Sold The World' (1970)
All the tracks I'm choosing are based on the stuff I was obsessed with at 16. This is Bowie and the band (Spider's guitarist Mick Ronson practically directed this album, apparently) trying their hand at power-trio hard-rock a la Sabbath with lyrics about mental illness and mortality and basically everything COOL. The performances on this epic epitomise the album - an oddity (no pun intended) in the Bowie back catalogue - Visconti's bass it tight as ****, Ronson is tight as ****, it's just brilliant. Any Bowie fan would be as loopy as the psychotic war vet from 'Running Gun Blues' not to put this song in their five.

2. Diamond Dogs from 'Diamond Dogs' (1974)
Oh god. Take me now David!!! The pomp n' swagger of glam-era Bowie in all it's glory. This song opens the album, and I really wanted to choose 'Rebel Rebel' (with THE riff) but this song just sets the scene for the post-apocalyptic rock-opera to come; it's quite a spacious album anyway but with the crowd noises it just sounds big and full of vigour, with those classic compressed saxophones that would just not go AWAY on the 'Young Americans' album. But it's all good here. Balls out Stooges sci-fi rock.

'As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent
You asked for the latest party
With your silicone hump and your ten inch stump
Dressed like a priest you was
Tod Browning's freak you was'...

Vote for this song you bastards *jk*

3. Golden Years from 'Station to Station' (1976)
Only FIVE songs?? Are you trying to upset us?
Okay, I could've/should've gone for 'Station to Station', but this is 'Golden Years'; and it's a funky-disco jam, just perfect, but strangely melancholic aswell - like those annoying Abba tear-jerkers that remind you of the innocence of childhood and your first crush. Or something.
'G.Y' sounds like everything he learned from his mercifully brief 'blue-eyed soul' era filtered through a haze of coked-up mysticism. This song has even more resonance though, as Bowie fades out on a whistle and the song blurs into nostalgic reverb, when you remember that this album was recorded at a time when Bowie was a dangerously underweight, drug-addled recluse storing his piss in large glass jars (refrigerated ofcourse). It seems all the more ironic that his paranoiac deterioration and fascination with conspiracy theories to steal his wee occurred in the surreal surroundings of his Hollywood residence. You can hear all that in THIS SONG. Well I can anyway...

4. Sound and Vision from 'Low' (1977)
You bastards... five songs ****sake
Okay. I thought 'What in the World' but I wanna go with the flow this time. If we're only gonna have 10 people voting for David Bowie we need some consistency; and fortunately even the most casual Bowie listener would agree on this song - inventing industrial music and all yer favourite post-punk/indie icons in one stroke, for years to come.

You've heard it all before; this was a coming together of two great creative minds, leaders in their respective areas of music (a third in Iggy was tagging along, you can't help but feel he added energy to the proceedings); feeding off each others' creativity to produce career-defining, buzzing, whirring, introverted and clever pop music. This song, indeed the whole album, is perfect 'comedown' music - possibly because it was made in Berlin in a period of sober, post-addiction catharsis for Bowie and his chum Iggy.
I think Brian Eno probably saved David Bowie's career.

5. DJ from 'Lodger' (1979)
I was going to pick 'Let's Dance' or 'Blue Jean' or some definitive, overproduced, 'fun', song; but as you can see 'DJ' is clearly more worthy. It's a great pop song, and frankly I could choose any song from the album ('Lodger' being the final of the 'Berlin trilogy' with Eno). Of course the final note of each chorus ends on a broken squawk, because 'Lodger' is a bit of a difficult record at heart. It also has the best promotional video ever made, which for me symbolises D.B's enduring cultural cool - he always knew how to dress (and look). Song FIVE. Please forgive me for ignoring the ensuing two decades of (erm, mostly) cracking music, this has been difficult....

The album: ''Heroes'' (1977)
By turns terrifying, beautiful, challenging and catchy; this is the pinnacle IMO. Back from the brink, reinvigorated and riding high on the most productive period of his career - Bowie, Eno and the Gardiner brothers under-produced (as such it still sounds fresh and bold today) and rocked pretty damn hard for five songs to make the first half. The second half, more than anything, heaves the ambient experimentation of 10 years of Cold War Europe and West German music (Neu!, Can, Kraftwerk) into the limelight. What you have is a truly contrary masterpiece. You have ''Heroes''.

Similar artists: Lou Reed and Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees

I feel like I've adequately illustrated my rampant Bowie-ism above (and it is a philosophy, make no mistake) - it's amazing how you can understand a large part of somebody you never met once you know they're a Bowie fanatic. I may not have given him the time of day recently, but like the Beatles, B's an irrefutable part of my (and millions besides) genetic make-up. If you live and breathe music (as many on MB do), Bowie is just in the air. 30 years of Bowie's oxygen in popular AND underground culture wraps up this horrible analogy.
Conclusively he continues to be regarded by women and men (from teenhood up) as a sort of bi-fantasy/father-figure/pin-up idol (don't deny it). In a way, there's a bit of David Bowie in all of us. eewww

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Demonoid

Some of his experimental/world music stuff really does remind me of bowie as well. Cmon, his music ain't all that bad

Brad Stengel

I feel shame.


Although I think Mott the Hoople sounds more like the Beatles. I still feel shame though.

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