Trollheart

Um, what? I gave Ronson full credit...?

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Pet_Sounds

A Floyd fan who's never heard "See Emily Play"???

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Everybody's dying just to get the disease

Trollheart

Like I say, the first two/three albums don't go down that well with me. I've heard them, but I think only once, for my soon-to-be-returning History of Progressive Rock. But I'm definitely more a "from Dark Side on" kind of a fan.

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Trollheart

Album title: Diamond Dogs
Artiste: David Bowie
Genre: Glam Rock
Year: 1974
Label: RCA
Producer: David Bowie
Chronological position: Eighth album
Notes: The first of Bowie's albums since The Man Who Sold the World not to feature his band, The Spiders from Mars. Also his last real glam rock album. This was Bowie's first time to work with Tony Visconti since 1970.
Album chart position: 1 (UK) 5 (USA)
Singles: “Rebel rebel”, “Diamond dogs” and “1984”
Lineup:
David Bowie: Vocals, guitar, sax, mellotron, Moog
Mike Garson: Keyboards
Herbie Flowers: Bass
Aynsley Dunbar/Tony Newman: Drums

Review begins

Ah, finally! An album I know well. This was the last real glam rock album from Bowie, just before he launched into his “new soul” era, ditching the world of makeup and high heels just as it was beginning to become derivative, and once again reinventing himself as the rock and roll chameleon. Having parted company with Mick Ronson and longtime bassist Trevor Bolder, Bowie undertook all the guitar parts himself (bar “Rock'n'roll with me”, on which the guitar was played by Earl Slick) and this tends to make the album sound rawer, almost amateurish in parts, but also imparts a freshness to it, and betrays a nod towards the looming storm of punk, waiting on the horizon.

Based loosely around George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, it references much of Nineteen Eighty-Four in some of the song titles, and though he had been refused permission by Orwell's estate to create a rock musical based on the book, he used much of the music he had created for that project in anticipation of being given the go-ahead. Of course, Bowie had been looking into dark futures since the days of Hunky Dory, and it was probably no stretch for him to fill in the gaps and write his own story of a bleak future where kids ride around on roller-skates and have their own Mad Max style of tribal gang warfare. Again, in this vision of the future he was almost prophesying the rise of punk, which is pretty incredible given that this was 1974, with at least three to four more years before that particular phenomenon descended upon us.

With what sounds like a blood-curdling cry, the howl of a wolf or some semi-human being, which I think is made on the guitar, Bowie narrates the dark post-apocalyptic intro to the album, setting the scene as the strong prey on the weak and only the fittest survive, while discordant sax plays in the background and guitar feedback lays down an uncertain and somewhat disturbing soundtrack to this tale of final days, which Bowie declares “The year of the Diamond Dog” adding with feeling as we pile into the first proper track, the title one in fact, “This ain't rock'n'roll! This is genocide!”

Driven then on a very Stonesish chugging guitar, with sprightly piano almost out of place in this recounting of the crumbling of civilisation and the rise of the freaks who patrol the wasteland and spare no-one, “Diamond Dogs” rocks along at a great pace, and I have to say I really don't hear the absence of Ronson here. The guitar is simpler, yes, but when I heard this album originally back in the early eighties I had no idea he was not present. The chorus is instantly catchy as Bowie warns “Young girl, they call them the diamond dogs!” The song introduces Halloween Jack, Bowie's latest creation, again a version of Ziggy, who just refused to die, and the master of this bleak landscape, the survivor of survivors, king of the asphalt jungle, toughest of the tough, lord of all he surveys. The sax breaks coming in give the song a somewhat jazzy, soul aspect, and the almost-stop in the middle adds a lot to it.

Even without his longtime bandmates, it seems Bowie could do no wrong at this point. He had already taken an album of cover songs to the top, and now his adoring fans gleefully elevated him back to that position, and even across in the States he achieved his highest chart placing, getting for the first time to number five. Bowie's star was certainly on the rise now: the starman was no longer waiting in the sky; the man had fallen to Earth and found himself worshipped and adored. All hail the new king, the thin white duke, the diamond alpha dog! “Sweet thing” opens very sort of psychedelicish, then advances on a slow piano and sax line, Bowie's voice dropping in register before coming back up for the chorus, running the whole gamut of his range. This song also, it must be said, presages his next move into the territory occupied mostly by persons not of his colour, as we will see soon when his soul period began.

Lovely piano work from Mike Garson again, and it's the album's first ballad, a three-part suite (the first, I think, he had attempted) which runs into “Candidate” on a sweet (sorry) guitar solo and pounding, almost classical piano, slow, military drumming now accompanying Bowie's sax breaks and guitar. The main melody remains but things begin to pick up in tempo as the passion increases with kind of a nod towards new wave, which had not yet even become a thing yet. Such an innovator. It builds to a fine crescendo and then descends into “Sweet thing (reprise)” as the suite comes to its end on a twittering sax solo, everything slowing down again, the piece this time taking on gospel overtones and seeming to build to something. Which it sure as hell does.

Another of Bowie's bigger singles and one he's well known for, “Rebel rebel” takes the album by the scruff and just fires it into an alley, laughing and diving on top of it with wild abandon. The grinding guitar riff that runs all through it is its signature, and worthy of Ronson at his best. The somewhat androgynous lines “Got your momma in a whirl/ She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl” definitely point towards his own feelings of sexuality at the time, well documented at that period. “Rebel rebel” is a simple song, but so much the better for it, and I defy anyone not to tap their foot or even shake their head to its infectious rhythm. It does owe quite a lot of its iconic riff to “Satisfaction”, yes, but I love it and I especially love the way the chorus is almost the same as the verse. A precursor to punk? You 'd have to ask those better acquainted with that musical style, but I'd be inclined to think that a lot of young snotnoses coming up would have listened to this and thought “Fuck yeah! Let's do that!”

Garson's again almost gospel piano takes in “Rock'n'roll with me” as Bowie takes it down a notch, slowing everything down with sleazy sax and we have the second ballad, with incredible power and passion driven into the vocal, and a wonderful display on the guitar from Earl Slick in his guest role, almost sounds Claptonesque to me. One of my favourite tracks then is “We are the dead”, with a sort of dark carnival piano and organ driving the unsettling melody, a soft vocal from Bowie tht builds and builds to a powerful climax, while “1984” floats in on sprinkly piano and almost disco rhythms, Visconti's strings playing a star turn here, really upping the tension and passion. Bowie's guitar is funky as all hell, and there's a lamenting moaned vocal that attends the chorus. It's possible that Bowie is cocking a satirical eyebrow at Orwell's estate's refusal to grant him permission for his musical when he warns “Beware the savage roar of 1984!”

“Big Brother” then comes in on trumpeting keyboards and brass with a dark choral vocal, a thick bass which sounds like it came from discarded edits for “Starman” and there's more soul allied to even Mariachi trumpets here. Great chorus with a fantastic hook, wonderful sax work and a real sense of desperate yearning takes us into the closer, the oddly titled “Chant of the ever circling skeletal family”, a kind of a mix of a tribal ritual and danse macabre, with odd vocalise within which the word “brother” can be discerned. Driven on a powerful, insistent guitar and sort of calypso style percussion it goes, basically around in a circle, until the last minute or so is just one half-word (I've seen it said that it sounds like “riot” but I think it's “brother”, or more correctly, “broth-”) which repeats sharply until it fades out.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

(I've never done this before but...)

Future legend
Diamond dogs
Sweet thing
Candidate
Sweet thing (reprise)
Rebel rebel
Rock'n'roll with me
We are the dead
1984
Big Brother
Chant of the ever circling skeletal family


Afterword: I remember how impressed I was the first time I heard this album. I remember now, because up to now I haven't really listened to it since, and now I regret that. As a swansong to his Ziggy personality in total, the end of his glam rock phase, and a thank you to his fans for sticking with him, you couldn't get better. Having attained all his goals, broken the UK and the USA, with his name now a household one and his meteoric rise to fame almost overnight (from unknown to star in what, two years?) most artistes would have been happy to have sat back and let the money roll in.

But as we know, Bowie never was most people. And having seen the heights he had scaled, it was like he looked across to a bigger, harder mountain, clapped his hands together and said “Right, that's that done. What's next?”

What was next was a complete change of direction, and a move that could have spelled doom for a lesser artist. But Bowie was never ... you get the idea.

Rating:

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TechnicLePanther

Whoops, wrong thread.

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Many have tried to destroy it... but... true evil never dies. It is only... REBORN

SUGGEST ME AN ALBUM - I'm probably not going to listen to it but I will if you bother me enough.

Trollheart

This would seem to be a good point to take a break in the Bowie discography, as he moves away from one style and music and breaks new ground totally in his music career. I have concentrated on his discog exclusively for the last week, for obvious reasons, and I will continue it soon, but for now I'd like to make sure some of the other discographies in my long list get some airtime as it were.

So for now, we're putting the Bowie albums to one side as we check out some other artistes, beginning with


Producing such enduring talents as Eddie Jobson, Phil Manzanera, Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry, Roxy music were one of the early bands to take the progressive rock attitude into the pop arena. With an art-rock sensibility coupled to a driving rock/pop format, they would go on to have many hits and during their short ten-year history provide a springboard to a solo career for many of their members, notably Ferry and Eno. It's odd to think that this band only released eight albums over this period and yet nearly everyone knows a Roxy Music tune, be it “The same old scene”, “Love is the drug” or “Avalon”. They've certainly made their mark on musical history.

Album title: Roxy Music
Artiste: Roxy Music
Genre: Art-rock, Glam rock, pop
Year: 1972
Label: Island
Producer: Peter Sinfield
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes: You look at that album art and just wonder if it inspired The Cars' Candi-O?
Album chart position: 10 (UK)
Singles: “Virginia Plain”
Lineup:
Bryan Ferry: Vocals, piano, mellotron
Brian Eno: Synthesiser, tape effects, backing vocals
Phil Manzanera: Guitars
Andy Mackay: Oboe, saxophone, backing vocals
Paul Thompson: Drums
Graham Simpson: Bass

Review begins

Sounds like the band tuning up, with some voices in the background before piano ushers in Bryan Ferry's distinctive voice on sharp guitar and we open on “Remake/remodel”, a boppy piece that certainly showcases the vocals and also the guitar talent of Phil Manzanera. Extended instrumental sections would become part of Roxy Music's set, and for a while have them lumped in with progressive rock bands, mostly due to the more avant-garde sounds created by in particular Eno, but I would never consider them prog rock, not even slightly. A lot of stop-start points here, where instruments such as sax, piano and guitar all fill in the spaces. A kind of a staggered ending, with hammering drums from Paul Thompson and we're into “Ladytron”, with right away those weird Eno sounds that would go on to become as endemic to him as Frippertronics are to King Crimson's leading light. Drifting slowly in on a lonely oboe, it's almost, but not quite, a classical sound, then Ferry comes in over low organ and the song takes off.

It moves at much more sedate pace than the opener, and reminds me in places of “Do the strand” from their next album, but much slower of course. A warbly keyboard run then speeds it up before it drops back to the original pace, picking up again for that extended instrumental run on guitar and sax, with piano joining in and taking it to the final minute. Sort of am almost Country feel to it in the last few moments as it fades out, then “If there is something” is VERY Country, with twanging guitars and what sounds like pedal steel, but is I think just slide guitar. Sort of a manic vocal from Ferry, with some great guitar histrionics from Manzanera. The song really develops nicely, stepping well outside its overt Country start, and it's followed by a song which would go on to be their first hit, their first single from the album (their only single, in fact), the bouncy “Virginia Plain”. Riding on a great piano line from Ferry, paired with a fine guitar riff from Phil, and some Mexican/Spanish sounding effects from I don't know what, maybe that synth Eno was playing, it gives a real sense of fun, kind of really for the first time. The album up to now has felt, to me, quite serious whereas now the guys are just kicking back and having a blast. No surprise that it got to number four in the UK, but it is surprising that when the album was originally released it wasn't even on it! It was only after the success of the album that the track was added to later releases, and put out as a single. It ends with a dead stop as Ferry speaks the final line “What's her name? Virgina Plain”, and the dreamy “2HB” comes in.

A lovely electric piano melody runs this, with some fine sax breaks from Andy Mackay as well as a beautiful solo in the middle. I wouldn't quite call it a ballad, but it is fairly laidback. Again, there's a long instrumental passage and again there's that piano Supertramp were experimenting with and would perfect on their third album and make something of a signature sound of their music. Nice fadeout on the electric piano runs into “The bob”, where we get buzzing sounds, ambient effects, then a crash of drums and Ferry comes in with his tribute to the Few with a very dramatic melody, a harsh punch before it settles down on a lovely oboe line and soft acoustic guitar (could be harp) then a muted roar before the piano comes back in with sax and the unmistakable sounds now of explosions and machinegun fire as Roxy Music recreate the feel of the Battle of Britain. Then a bright, uptempo guitar and piano line breaks out as Ferry comes back in and there's a very bluesy guitar solo from Manzanera.

I have to say, it is subtitled “Medley”, but it's more a mess to me really. None of this seems to hang together, and I don't really get the idea of that battle over the skies of Britain in 1940 from much of it. Some really nice performances, particularly from Ferry on the piano and Mackay on the sax, but it just warps and changes so much that I can't follow it. It ends then on the droning sound of an aircraft engine with piano and hard guitar ushering it out. For me, that was very much a failed experiment and did not convey what it was supposed to. A soft piano brings in “Chance meeting”, which is much better. A soft bittersweet ballad which again betrays Ferry's penchant for old cinema. The sound of a train, perhaps, made on Eno's synth, recalls the classic Brief Encounter, and Ferry's voice is very restrained and quiet here. Strange kind of feedback guitar paired with a bouncy piano kind of changes the whole feel of the song for me, but it's fading out already.

“Would you believe” is very Beatles-influenced in its dreamy vocal and piano line, sort of sounds a little like “Maybe I'm amazed” in ways, with a healthy shot of early Bowie too. Then it kicks up into a much faster, uptempo number driven on sax and piano, a kind of bluesy rock-and-roll effort. Again, it's a little confusing the way Roxy Music start one way and then change totally in the blink of an eye. I guess that's one of the things that earned them the title of “avant-garde”. Starting on a soft, ambient flow, “Sea breezes” runs for seven minutes, making it the longest track on the album, and is brought in on soft organ and piano, but again it seems to change into something totally different halfway through. This, I must admit, is bugging me. The ending is just terrible.

We close then on what sounds like a tango as “Bitters end” takes us out. It's well titled, because after listening to the way the songs here warp and change without warning, I'm pretty bitter about this debut album. I know some slack has to be allowed as it was their first effort (and obviously it went down well as it broke the top ten) but I certainly hope their next one was more cohesive.

TRACKLISTING AND RATINGS

Re-make/Re-model
Ladytron
If there is something
Virginia Plain
2 HB
The bob
Chance meeting
Would you believe
Sea breezes
Bitters end

I know of Roxy Music only through their singles, and I have their greatest hits collection, but if this had been my first introduction to them I think I would have passed. It's too jarring, the way the songs change and shift and become something else, and although obviously the album scored well, getting them a top ten place, it doesn't do it for me. I feel they were in some ways not taking themselves seriously enough at times, what I said earlier in the review notwithstanding, and I just do not feel comfortable listening to much of this, which is, unfortunately, going to reflect in its getting a lower rating than perhaps it deserves.

Rating:

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Pet_Sounds

You're right, it's certainly a quirky album, but that's what I love about it. Looking forward to the rest!

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grindy

It's their best album by far. Of course TH isn't that into it.

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Trollheart

Frownland? Did you hack grindy's account? The game is up man: I know it's you!

As it goes, I had hoped to really like that album and I did try, but as I say, the idea of changing styles so abruptly, often within the same song, jarred with me. And "The bob" just killed any hope there was that I would have had a better opinion of the album. Maybe the next one. I do know some of their material, so hoping for better as we go along.

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grindy

He's been lazy lately, so I had to jump in.
Their first two albums, as well as Viva! are my favourites. The rest is a little too smooth for my tastes. I know you don't do live albums here, but if you find yourself longing for more Roxy Music after doing the studio discography, give Viva! a spin some time. It rocks.

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