The Man Who Polled the World, aka DAVID BOWIE POLL RESULTS

50 votes

well i mean you guys voted "beauty and the beast" all the way down at number 57 or something, when it clearly should have been higher. this is what happens with polls.

One of the top two I don't get the love for btw. I hope the other wins.

^ seconded but I feel like we probably each like the opposite

I think probably so

sound and vision is like going to a spa or something, feels like a fancy song

i don't want to give anything away, but there may be a planet involved

Re: S&V, I actually prefer the 1990 remix (unlike "Fame", "Look back in anger")

One of the top two I don't get the love for btw. I hope the other wins.
^this, although I dunno if we mean the same 'other'. In my case, the other was my #1.

xposts

my #6. Has a kind of calmness, clarity and balance that's not really in much else by him. Loved it as a single on compilations, and later loved how it sits in Low - frenzy, depression, fragments all around it, but there's this one precise, perfect thought sitting there.

'Heroes' is Bowie's 'Purple Rain'...never particularly liked either...kinda bummed at some of these placings but hey whaddayaiknow

I'm really nervous

i don't understand what you mean unless you just mean they're both "big songs." they don't seem similar in other ways.

xp

Hah, it is a fancy song. Wonder just what that blue room would look like.

my #6. Has a kind of calmness, clarity and balance that's not really in much else by him. Loved it as a single on compilations, and later loved how it sits in Low - frenzy, depression, fragments all around it, but there's this one precise, perfect thought sitting there.

― woof, Thursday, March 8, 2012 1:03 PM (6 seconds ago)

I agree with this strenuously.

i don't want to give anything away, but there may be a planet involved

'Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy'?

Let's see if everybody's guesses are right.

2. "Ashes to Ashes" (from Scary Monsters) - 1367 points/51 votes/2 first-place votes

Album: http://youtu.be/j-IkC3isMoc
Live at the Beeb, 2000: http://youtu.be/6Q3r6fkZTpk
Live by Request: http://youtu.be/unuo-fdhbXs

'Sound & Vision' is Bowie's 'Coffee and TV'

They are kinda of both there big bombastic songs and there both a bit dirge like and the 2 songs that always get trotted out...

xp

Awwwwwwww crapola.

I was 8 years old when Ahses to Ashes would have been getting radio play. Definitely more than enough mystical freakish weirdness in the music, lyrics, and video for a kid that age. I think it's part of my subconscious now. Was my #3, could've been my #1. Should've been my #2 at least, instead of S&V.

Asses to Asses.

Gah, wrong one!

i was really blown away to find out that ashes to ashes was a hit single, it's one of the weirdest, least cohesive pop songs ever written

it's so good

life on mars is number one then for sure huh?

British time-time-travelling cop show 1-2?

Ashes to Ashes was my #1. It's perfect.

"Ashes to ashes" got bumped from my ballot at the last second but I would've put it #1 in a heartbeat if I'd known anybody cared about a crappy Sinatra ripoff

Yeah, I was 7 when this was on the radio, and it fucking mystified me for sure. I would totally stop what I was doing when it came on the radio. My #4, great great song.

I love the clever little hocket at the end. A three-bar chord progression with a four-bar lyric

it is a good song, but i am kind of surprised it placed so high! maybe i'm missing something

My #16!

i was really blown away to find out that ashes to ashes was a hit single, it's one of the weirdest, least cohesive pop songs ever written

it's so good

The bowiesongs entry is OTM about how weird the arrangement is... I didn't vote for it but it's an amazing song.

Funny thing is I always thought I hated Ashes To Ashes, but walking around with it on headphones recently I couldn't deny it. It's brilliant.

the synthpads at the end are so unsettling

iirc "Ashes to ashes" and "Heroes" were routinely #1 and #2 on Bowie Usenet polls in the 90s

I cut Ashes to Ashes because I knew it would be ok without me. Was right!

Also horseshoe -- if you did not vote, you should have :-/

As a kid that "I've never done good things, I've only done bad things" line really got me. As well as the "You better not mess with Major Tom" bit at the end, which of course didn't make any sense to me, but made it all the more creepy.

like everything about the song is askew...the verse is in a different key than the funky intro bit and comes in halfway through a bar, the bridge is completely different in the first and second verses, etc

i totally should have voted.

i have memories of ashes to ashes as a little kid but i was confused so much because there was that other "major tom" song and i obviously didn't even know "space oddity" so i thought major tom was some real person or something who i didn't know

it was all mysterious

tbh the idea of ranking bowie songs vis-a-vis each other seemed impossible

Think I first heard "Ashes to Ashes" as a teenager around 1997. What's weird is how out-of-time it sounds - if you'd never heard song or artist before there's no way your brain would say "early 80s" based on the production. It sounds a lot more like what was on the radio in 1997 than in 1980.

The bit in the video where he's sitting in an ejection seat in the middle of a suburban kitchen was just o_O to me as a kid.

If Ashes To Ashes loses by one point...

...to The Laughing Gnome?

fingers crossed

Ashes to Ashes has some mutant Al Green falsetto stuff in it.

that would be ideal