Anxiety said:

Aw, yes. Forever trapped in a "Mulholland Dr." nightmare.

That's not such a bad thing in my opinion. Much better than being trapped in Hollywood.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Ziggy, Station To Station, Hunky Dory

errant said:

I listened to the Best of 69-74 all the way through on Saturday and realized that some of my issue with that early stuff is how theatrical it sounds but I guess that was the point right?

I found myself quite comfortable with the listen in anticipation of finally getting to know Bowie

TRON said:

on that little shopping jag I also bought:

Joan Osborne - Little Wild One
Joan Osborne - Pretty Little Stranger
Alison Moyet - The Turn
Alison Moyet - Hometime
Tori Amos - Little Earthquakes (Don't ask )
Tori Amos - Scarlet's Walk RECEIVED!
Tori Amos - Under the Pink (Don't Ask )

Can't wait for them to start rolling in
[Edited 12/16/08 10:32am]

OK.....

I have begun digesting the albums I bought:

• Scary Monsters - Absolutely fantastic to hear Fashion in its natural habitat! I totally forgot about that song so when it came on I was totally thrown for a loop. I just love this album. This feels to me like his first break against the past. Am I right? Not having the bulk of his albums I'm just taking a guess at that.
  
• Heroes - Not sure why but I was taken aback at how this album starts out. Knowing Heroes I didn't expect that kind of energy. The other thing that totally surprised me about this album is how it kind of goes into that reflective instrumental wormhole Wonderful ending with Arabia. Love this album too.
  
• Low - I know how regarded this album is but so far it's the most challenging to me. It's going to be one of those things that will take time to unfold. I find it very interesting and extremely fascinating but don't have a hold on it quite yet.

I'll be digging through more of the Bowie archives and reporting back. Knowing the "hits" so well, I'm very pleased to find that I'm not as alienated to the full experience as I thought I would be.

I haven'y read any of this thread but has anyone mentioned the intro to Diamond Dogs (Future Legend), it's one of my fave Bowie moments but always seems to get overlooked
[Edited 1/8/09 16:02pm]

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

Very cool that you're taking the plunge!

Once you know his work as a whole, you'll start to see the evolution more clearly. There are some dramatic breaks from the past and some companion albums that build or transition from what came before. Scary Monsters isn't so much a break from the past, but it does make sense as his first 80's album. If anything, it's an encapsulization of everything that came before, a bookend to mark his place at the end of a fabulous run of albums. You can kinda look at it like Graffiti Bridge, the start of a new decade with a few concessions to trends, but mostly a great overview of everything that they achieved in the previous decade.

Now Young Americans, Low, Let's Dance, Tin Machine and Outside - those are albums that I don't think anyone saw coming and have very little to do with what he had done up to the point of their release. You'll start to see Low as perhaps the most radical shift in his career - he went from being theatrical, lyrically wordy and a quite bombastic singer to insular, minimalist, ambient and in places wordless. His vocals sound world weary and tired, his lyrics are fractured and damaged and the overall tone is as far removed from the glam and soul of his recent past as could be imagined. "Heroes" is certainly the sister album and even today, there's absolutely nothing like those records.