it confirmed my feeling that i'm not missing much with his catalogue. now, i'm not sure if there's an ALBUM of the same name, but i heard the song. HORR.I.BLE. it was 3 mins. of ambient noise before the song even came on and when it did, it was nothing memorable about it (vocally, lyrically, musically; well there WAS an abrupt tempo change that made it seem all the weirder). 10 mins of Yuktaskticness!

i'll stick with the three i know and like, China Girl, Fame, Modern Love, Let's Dance (well 4; the last one being kinda overplayed at this point)
[Edited 5/7/10 13:18pm]

give Golden Years a listen.

Listen to:

Life on Mars?
Major Tom
Fashion
Young Americans
Ashes to Ashes
Heroes
Rebel Rebel
Ziggy Stardust
Changes

And then go listen to Station to Station, you gotta keep opening your ears to this cat.
[Edited 5/7/10 18:33pm]

Oh You Pretty Things, Time, Starman, Sweet Thing (3 song medley Sweet Thing\Candidate\Sweet Thing (Reprise) and maybe even John, I'm Only Dancing. To me those songs are Bowie's 'weirdness' but are also great pop songs too. I also reckon Dead Man Walking maybe his best pop song from the 90's - very 'techno'sounding... I've only listened to Station to Station once and I was pretty underwhelmed. Even Golden Years; I thought he'd done better with a similar style.

I think you're all alone in that opinion. I think "Station to Station" is absolutely amazing. It's like "Crystal Ball"- composed of sprawling suites, different tempos and moods.

The song is one that has to be heard closely to appreciate its genius. I actually prefer this more than his more mainstream (China Girl, Lets Dance, etc)songs people usually recommend.

Station to Station is a fantastic song (although granted, it could do without the first minute and a half of train noises).

The album is excellent also. Whoever said that you should give Golden Years a listen is spot on. It's probably my favourite Bowie song.

Jesus.

If somebody told me "look, I've heard Bowie's albums of the 70s plus Scary Monsters, and hey, sorry, but I just can't appreciate his music", then I'd respect that person...it would be weird anyway

but this line "i'll stick with the three (not three but four, by the way) i know and like, China Girl, Fame, Modern Love, Let's Dance" confirms () that you're one of those mainstream pop lovers who need sticky choruses and clear melodies: a pop tart...

on top of that, you have heard only five songs of the man and you already shit on him? how lame is that? It's like sayin', "yeah I love Cream, Diamonds and Pearls, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and Alphabet St, but Prince sucks because Crystal Ball is so long and experimental..."
Station to Station (the song) is weird and experimental, that's for sure, but that doesn't mean it's mediocre or uneven. I guess you're one of those twats that some years from now will discover the sheer brilliance of Ziggy Stardust, Hunky Dory, Aladdin Sane or Low

Give the man's music a shot. Not everyone is going to have the same tastes and that's cool, but to dismiss an entire body of work because you didn't care for Station to Station doesn't make much sense.

Bowie's less mainstream work isn't always the easiest to get into, but once you do it's a thing of beauty.

JoeTyler said:

JoeTyler said:

Oh man! Station to Station is one of the greatest songs of all time. I feel sorry for you.

Dat, I don't know WHAT you think about it but I dig it.

And I agree one of David's best.

I regard it as one of Bowie's many career highlights. I can see why the downbeat lurch of the first 5 minutes might not be appreciated, but the joyous turnaround is genius and it's the blending of the two sides of the song that make it such a success . At the beginning I like that after the eerie train noises the jarring riff that comes in is so reminiscent of things railway related.

you are, quite simply, out of your fucking mind.

datdude said:

That first 3 minutes is also part of the song, it's not just stuff that plays before the song.

I don't find this song hard to get into at all. It's not even that experimental or out there. It's just amazing, that's all. The performances on the later concerts of the Reality tour were great.

Phishanga said:

Yeah it really isn't. First listen I was hooked.

I heard Lodger for the first time a few weeks ago, now there's some shit I don't get, and it's said to be one of his "underrated" albums from the 70s. Prepared to give it another spin but it seemed directionless.

elmer said:

even as big a fan as I am, I don't particularly care for Lodger as an album. I like most of the songs individually, but it feels slapped together, to me, compared to his other work.

I read Brian Eno wasn't too pleased with it.

I was unable to find one song that grabbed me.

Lodger is brilliant; it is a necessary bridge between Low/Heroes and Scary Monsters, and for me it doesn't sound directionless: it's Bowie playin' new wave/electronic pop; in other words, by 1979 he wasn't interested in songs like Warszawa or Moss Garden anymore: he wanted to write accessible pop songs with electronic production/tricks (Boys Keep Swinging , DJ or Red Sails); even when he is at his most experimental (Look Back in Anger, Yassassin, African Night Flight) he makes sure that the choruses are catchy and the production somewhat accessible; and Fantastic Voyage is his most underrated ballad ever! but I do agree that a couple of tracks sound like (good) B-Sides (Move On, Repetition, Red Money, etc.) On top of that, by 1979 you could still hear "true" passion in his voice, something he lost over the course of the 80s...

Lodger and Numan's The Pleasure Principle were the best electronic pop albums of 1979

elmer said:

I don't know about the "direction" of Lodger, but it's got three of my favorite Bowie songs back-to-back: "DJ", "Look Back In Anger", and "Boys Keep Swinging".

JoeTyler said:

I can acknowledge all of this about Lodger. Cerebrally, it is important and necessary. But I think Scary Monsters is a re-tread of it and the rare instance where the re-tread is the better one.

and yes, Fantastic Voyage is incredible. it cuts me off at the knees every time I hear it.

errant said:

As much as I love Scary Monsters, I think it was "just" a re-tread of the Berlin era (or at least of Lodger); I mean, by 1980 he wanted to write rock and roll songs again, but since electronics and new wave were (then) the future, and because he's so fuckin' smart, he knew that he couldn't just drop the electronic/avant-garde production completely,... and then you have Scary Monsters as the result: a mix of Aladdin Sane and Heroes with 5 stars songs...

JoeTyler said:

there's something about the electronics and the performances (musically and vocally) about Lodger that grates on me for some reason, and has kept me from getting into it. and the songs themselves, aside from a few, don't really resonate with me like Station To Station/Low/Heroes/Scary Monsters. probably has something to do with the way it was recorded, I guess, which I only found out recently by reading the excellent "Bowie In Berlin" book. it was kind of a hodgepodge of leftovers and half-started stuff that he assembled later in NY. I think mostly, it really wants to be a Talking Heads album.
[Edited 5/8/10 20:25pm]

Why are you cherry picking songs from different albums?

Go throw on a fuckin' 70s Bowie album man

JoeTyler said:

These are great records, but I'd put both behind Replicas and Eat to the Beat.

Moonbeam said:

Replicas is a classic too, but somehow I prefer the Pleasure (if only because it has Cars, my favourite song of all time ); Eat to the Beat has two of my fav Blondie tracks ever (Atomic, and Dreaming) but I'm not mad about the rest of the album...

and let's not forget one underrated electro-pop classic of 1980: Robert Palmer's Clues , waaay better than Lodger