Suffragette City is a ****in' rocker.

This one is kind of difficult for me, since I'm not really into Bowie. I mean, I like some of his songs, but I've just never really gotten into the albums as such. My experience with Bowie so far has been that I prefer somewhat newer material, than what's on this album, as I think he matured into a more interesting artist later - kind of also a better singer.

There are some pretty well known tunes on this album and it's hard shake the feeling that the rock establishment puts some mental pressure on for me to bow down and kneel before this album but... This strikes me as a fairly innocent pop-rock album with a bunch of hooks and some personality, which is fine, but I'm not convinced that I would have identified this album as a classic if I didn't already know that it was supposed to be one.

I voted 6, which doesn't mean I think it sucks by any means.

Harsh.

The ubiquitous nature of this album gave me pause when I was figuring out my rating. It's been so present of my life in its own right and by way of influence that makes it difficult to gauge whether or not I genuinely feel that it's mediocre or if it's genuinely mediocre because maybe it built that standard that I've become tired of. Or maybe Bowie is actually overrated.

I feel let down by the majority of "classics", mostly because to a point, it's impossible for something to live up to that kind of hype. If people talk about something like it's mind-blowing and my mind is not blown, then I tend to rate it more poorly than if I had 0 expectation going in.

Lol. Fixed.


I really do think some of his songs are brilliant, but the dude put out a LOT of albums. Is almost all of it important and genius, or did he also make a lot of music that was merely servicable? It's very hard to judge the music on it's own merits when you know the whole cultural context around it. I feel like my gut reaction is that I'm not all that into this album, so... that's one thing. I don't think I have any way of making a credible argument for how Bowie's legacy might be orverrated, or not.

I have your address. I'm mailing you my gun. Once it arrives, stick it in your mouth and then pull the trigger.

I think that might be a factor for me as well, at least sometimes. Some of those immortal classics that everyone goes on and on about - they aren't necessarily all that obvious with why they're great (if they are at all), so I think it's very easy to come away unimpressed. I mean, it took me I don't know how many years before I realized that Joni Mitchell wasn't actually boring, but just very subtle and actually quite brilliant (to me, at least). But I'm not going to give every supposed classic hours and hours of time... so I don't think there's anyway to be sure that I'm not dismissing something I could have loved.

Didn't know you worked for Rollingstone?

Some other factors that result in disappointment with classics: Cultural context. Sometimes something is brilliant for what it dared to do in a particular timeframe, but that doesn't age with the album and becomes lost in time. Also, people seem to have a hard-on for artist who invented a thing, but are less impressed with artists that combined or refined a thing. For me, I don't really care that Blah Blah invented the time signature or whatever--I'm more interested in what can be done WITH that invention than the mere invention OF it. So again, a lot of classic albums or great artists are lost on me.

Hell ja! Once I stick your unloaded rifle into my mouth (I'm assuming rifle since it's illegal to mail a handgun) and pull the trigger I can sell it and I have another 3 years of Trump for gun prices to rise.

Thank you so much, Chula. I'm trying to save up right now and could really use a boost.