David Bowie's 70s albums: Diamond Dogs and Young Americans

Diamond Dogs (6/10)

Although Diamond Dogs is pretty uninspired glam rock the first half really surprised me: the songs hold themselves and kept a consistency that i wasn't expecting after reading a few reviews. The production is not as exciting as Aladdin Sane - let alone Ziggy and Dory - and the Spiders from Mars are missed throughout the record. A part of me believed that the reason this album was placed onto the upper reaches of AM's 1000-2000 range was the simple fact that it contained "Rebel Rebel", but side A proved to be worthy, even if not as worthy as the track. Later half is a train-wreck. After "Rebel" things go from merely great ("Rock N Roll With Me") to messy, all over the place, nonsense stuff (everything that follows). It's like Aladdin Sane's "Time" on repeat and Ziggy Stardust gone wrong conceptually. There's simply no cohesion whatsoever. The latter tracks are more attached to the original "1984" concept based on the book - whose rights were denied to Bowie. They are utterly affected by this small fact and the songwriting just gets confused and out of place. The melodies are not as strong as previous tracks - let alone previous albums - and they sinks Diamond Dogs down. We could argue that Bowie sounds tired through the album, but i guess is more a matter of frustration for not being able of recording the album he intended to and that also frustrates the listening. There's potential here, but it's not the material that classic records are made of.


Young Americans (4/10)

Young Americans is Bowie's first (and only) adventure into plastic soul. It kicks off amazingly well with the classic title-track and David is almost unrecognizable compared to everything that came before. It's a step out of glam rock and the Diamond Dogs album, but unfortunately it is not a leap forward neither. The album has a key classic track like it predecessor's "Rebel, Rebel", but the others that can't keep up the moment. Young Americans is as messy as Diamond Dogs, tough cohesive production-wise. We could forgive Bowie for that since he was experimenting a new genre, but with tracks as bad as "Can You Hear Me?" and the horrific cover of The Beatles's "Across the Universe" it gets hard. The production of the record is clean and accessible and helps many of the song to go above average status, but the lyrics are cringe-worthy sometimes, the sexiness is not as exciting as it could be and the major problem of the songs themselves are the simple fact that they just drag too long for they own sake - even an awesome riff like Fame's is damaged by this. Only the title-track is overall safe from all of this. Soul didn't fit David as well as the high AM ranking might suggest. The genre is wearing David Bowie, not the other way around. The album doesn't have a personality, not a single reminder of what the singer was thus far or a new identity - like Station to Station would form and rescue in parts afterwards. That's a fatal weakness in this case. Maybe It would have been largely dismissed originally if it wasn't a Bowie classic-era record or maybe i don't get it and other people truly enjoyed it enough to be a top 800 album. I found it to be pretty much overrated. This is not even a hit-or-miss kind of album, it's a needle in the hay game in the form of music and he weakest 70s album by far.

Mark Lanegan - The Winding Sheet (1990) 4-4.5/5

Bubbling Under

The man has one of my favorite singing voices, and he's a good songwriter to boot. Every time I listen to one of his solo albums I'm thinking it has to be the best album he's ever put out, then I put one another one of his and think that album is the best one he ever did. It's a big continuous circle. The Winding Sheet is mostly acoustic, unlike a lot of Screaming Trees stuff he was doing at the time. Kurt Cobain lays down guest vocals on Down in the Dark, and a cover of Leadbelly's Where Did You Sleep Last Night? shows up towards the end.

* R.E.M. - Reckoning (9/10)
* The Replacements - Let It Be (10/10)
* My Bloody Valentine - Isn't Anything (9/10)
* My Bloody Valentine - Loveless (10/10)

My Bloody Valentine were back in the day - and still are these days - peerless and unmatchable in shoegaze. People throw the term "unique" around too much these days. Loveless is a pure sheer of genius and uniqueness.