David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

In this confusing age of iTunes and iPods, the art of the album seems to be lost. Who has times for full albums anymore? Burn that mix you’ve been talking about for me.

Well, we here at RetroLowFi actually like full albums. We like mixes as much as the next person, but if you’re gonna mess around with perfection, don’t take the songs out of context, rearrange them! That’s why we’re starting a new feature called “Records on Random.” Let’s explore what could have been and enjoy an album together in a way that it’s rarely enjoyed… on shuffle.

First up, David Bowie’s landmark 1972 masterpiece, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Here’s how it came out:

01. Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide. Of course, the last song becomes the first. Ah, but what a great last/first song it is! The story and concept, if it was linear in the first place, is lost in the randomization, so speaking on strictly musical terms, this is an amazing way to open a record.

02. Suffragette City. Bowie wants a dance party and he wants it now. Originally the second to last song, maybe Winamp’s on to something here. This album is already blowing my mind. And, yes, I’m still using Winamp. I don’t like iTunes. Classic skin forever!

03. Lady Stardust. I’m glad we get a chance to relax a bit here, because Bowie had at least one thing right with the original track listing. He knew, after “Suffragette City,” we were gonna need a break. Our legs are tired.

04. Ziggy Stardust. We’re right back up into the groove now, but it does seem like the shuffle feature has at least a working knowledge of the album’s intended story. Putting “Ziggy” close to the front (but not too close) makes perfect sense, especially after “Lady Stardust.”

05. Hang Onto Yourself. Side One goes out with a bang, flowing perfectly out of the mid-tempo “Ziggy.” And after that damned catchy guitar solo fades out, what fades in?

06. Five Years. Oh, shit. This works on both vinyl and CD. You either have the silence on both ends of the record flip, or you get fade in / fade out of continuous play. Man. I always figured “Five Years” couldn’t work anywhere else but right at the start, but boy was I wrong. It actually makes the song a little more subtle and effective, overall. Very nice.

07. Soul Love. Okay, so we’ve basically started this album over, “Soul Love” being the original track two, after “Five Years.” We know this works already, so no problems here.

08. Moonage Daydream. Well, three for three now. And as familiar as this is, this trio probably shouldn’t be broken up anyhow and is just as strong in the latter half of the album.

09. Star. All right, “Star” was always one of my least favorite tracks on Ziggy Stardust, but boy oh boy does it work well after “Moonage Daydream.” Besides, if you know your Ziggy, you know this is the last real rock song we’re gonna get. And, I gotta say, in virtual place of “Suffragette City,” this might work even better. And the last 45 seconds, slow to half speed, nicely setting the stage for the last two tracks.

10. Starman. Well, apparently Ziggy made it after all. The catchiest song on the record, in my opinion, so it’s really awesome to have it second to last. The fade out works extremely well, into…

11. It Ain’t Easy. On the surface, it looks like we’ve crashed at the finish line. Is “It Ain’t Easy” really that great of a closer? Did it even belong on the original album in the first place? The answer, at least to the first question, is yes. You get both the full chorus singing “it ain’t easy!” and the nice little guitar harmony wind down. Those last notes ring and it’s all over. Ziggy’s had a hard life, but, you know, he’s doing okay now.

I proclaim this first experiment a rousing success. Now, I can’t promise that subsequent forays into the world of randomization will work, but at least it’ll always make for an interesting listen.

If you have any suggestions for albums to be shuffled, email them our way. Cheers.



- Chris

Tori Amos - Under The Pink

In “honor” of the release of Tori Amos’ box set at the end of September, we at RetroLowFi felt that it was fitting to do a Tori Amos Records on Random.

The box set, titled A Piano: The Collection, is a five-disc set of classics, remixes, rarities, demos, B-sides, unreleased songs, and five new tracks.

Oh, and to include all this stuff, this box set revises the tracklists for every one of her records, even combining them in some cases. WHAT?!

To prove to Tori that she shouldn’t be screwing with the early albums, you know, that ones that that work, we present to you perhaps Tori’s best album, Under the Pink, on random. Straddle it!

01. God. Damn. That’s certainly a way to begin a record. A song about how you can’t even trust God and how just maybe he needs to get laid. DAMN. Weird guitar noise and bizarre arrangements to boot, nice start.

02. Past The Mission. I’m glad this next song is a little calmer. You need that after being barraged with “God.” On this song, Tori duets with Trent Reznor in the chorus, and frankly, it’s probably the best work he’s done since his second record. At any rate, this song about being stripped of one’s individuality and culture via conquistadors and their missions serves as a nice juxtaposition in subject next to “God.”

03. Cloud On My Tongue. Dear god, this song is gorgeous. And not a bad move from nearly the end of side two to the beginning of side one. A song about cycles and doing the same things over and over again even though you know the outcome will be painful. The song starts quietly, then builds amid strings until the “circles and circles and circles again (got to stop spinning)” ending, then returns to being peaceful.

04. Icicle. Nice transition. This song is so ridiculously pretty, and the music combines with the lyrics so well. The song is mostly bare, just a trickling piano, which symbolizes either dripping water or wandering fingertips. And using masturbation as a method of discovering that religion may be not all it’s cracked up to be is a pretty damn good metaphor.

05. The Waitress. YES! Why can’t she write songs like this anymore! And how striking after “Icicle.” Utilizing the dynamic of quiet-loud-quiet, the song expresses rage and reservationy expertly. The song details how women deal with people they aren’t crazy about how still have to deal with all the time. Man, this song could very well have been my theme song for the past year and a half or so.

06. Baker Baker. Good job, randomizer. After a song like “The Waitress,” we certainly need a little quiet and subtlety. Baker Baker is a gorgeous song, and perhaps one of my favorites of hers. It’s about regeneration and healing. This song will absolutely cocoon a person in the right mindset.

07. Space Dog. And a weird ‘80s-ish bass to bizarrely kick off side two. Many people say that this song is a tribute to Patti Smith, which explains the strangeness of this song. Truthfully, I’ve never known what to make of this one. Lyrics like “racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning” still puzzle me. The dynamics in this song are pretty remarkable, though.

08. The Wrong Band. I guess this song had to go somewhere, but what weird placement. This used to close side one on the cassette I wore to useless pieces of plastic and tape. A song about not being sure if you’re in the right place in life, it’s a neat little one, but not one of the better ones.

09. Pretty Good Year. Man, I’d forgotten how much she did the quiet-loud-quiet thing. This song is great, though, gorgeous. Again, I wish she’d use more of this in her later career. This used to open the record, but it’s placement here is decidedly okay.

10. Cornflake Girl. And we’re back to violence. This song, which Tori has said was inspired by Alice Walker and African women forced into circumcision, is about how much anger and aggression women have toward each other. It’s easily one of the best songs on the album. After a mostly quiet few songs, it’s nice to pick things back up.

11. Bells For Her. What a lovely and haunting song to follow “Cornflake Girl.” The song, which features a piano ripped apart and reassembled to sound like a toy piano, is said to have been an improvisational song. Her producer just hit record and this is the result. That this song is about the fact that death is always a second closer and is played on essentially a child’s toy is terrifying.

12. Yes, Anastasia. Interesting how this random mix ends with the same song the album originally did. There’s absolutely no other place this song could have been placed. This nine-and-a-half-minute absolute epic is based on Anastasia Romanov, the Russian girl who escaped execution. It’s a pretty song, if not a little exhausting.

The result: not bad. While it’s not nearly as good as the album’s normal flow, this new order showcases songs that weren’t previously at the forefront. And that’s nice, but those of us who grew up with this record love it for what it is. Sure, these songs are so solid that it’s not hard for them to stand on their own, but the original order works and highlights all the right areas. That said, Tori, please stop tampering with the albums we loved, especially the classics. It’s fine that you want to release extra songs from this period, but as you can see, there’s nothing wrong with this record.



- Nicole

i dunno what i think about this. it's kinda taking the album out of context, isn't it? i guess it makes for an interesting exercise in abstracting an album to the quality of the squeaks and squonks it makes, but most of the whole appeal of an album to me is figuring out what, if anything, the artist is trying to say with their work. scrambling up an album seems to be veering away from that process, no?

I guess it wasn't that cool afterall.

GangstaFam said:

you should try it! i mean hell, i listen to all my music on shuffle play 90 percent of the time as it is!

I don't think I understand the concept

This is bizarre!

Moonbeam said:

I know. The strange orders must make your brain bleed!

Would you ever try something like this?

Perhaps, but I don't think I could do it for an album in my top 20- those are too sacred!

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Just put an album on shuffle or random and see what the results are. Then review it.

I love this concept. It's so dope.

I tried it with Boys For Pele and...it was great. Marianne led into Little Amsterdam which led to the Doughnut Song...awesome.

OK Wait, you pick on album and put it on shuffle or you pick from a multitude of songs to make up an album worth of material?