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

my #6

also 1984 was a bit of a surprise too

when i was 20 i was studying abroad in Paris and i became infatuated with a 27 year old French girl who lived in my building. we became pretty good friends, though it quickly became apparent that she had quite a poised, arms-length way of stemming any kind of advance from a young Australian guy like myself. she was elegant, insightful and beautiful. and she absolutely adored Bowie. of course i was very familiar with him prior to this point, but it was probably sometime around then that i realised he really was all that.

anway, my top 20:

1. always crashing in the same car
2. word on a wing
3. oh! you pretty things
4. panic in detroit
5. station to station
6. what in the world
7. moonage daydream
8. life on mars
9. rebel rebel
10. be my wife
11. TVC15
12. cracked actor
13. ashes to ashes
14. sons of the silent age
15. modern love
16. sound and vision
17. fame
18. five years
19. the width of a circle
20. heroes

Mine, songs:
01 Young Americans
02 Moonage Daydream
03 Sound and Vision
04 Quicksand
05 Drive In Saturday
06 Time
07 The Man Who Sold the World
08 Ashes to Ashes
09 Velvet Goldmine
10 TVC-15
11 Be My Wife
12 Modern Love
13 Fantastic Voyage
14 Queen Bitch
15 Space Oddity '69
16 Sweet Thing
17 Kooks
18 Under Pressure
19 Oh! You Pretty Things
20 Rebel Rebel

albums:
01 Hunky Dory
02 Diamond Dogs
03 Low
04 Ziggy Stardust
05 Alladin Sane

MOKA -- That is why I posted it!!! It is Hermione.

well in that case I love you.

Wonder where or if "Absolute Beginners" will place. Those of you around at the time: was it regarded as a Brief Return To Form, as it is now?

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, March 8, 2012 3:24 AM (Yesterday)

I loved that it was this six-something-minute epic pop song.

No "Blue Jean" on anyone's ballot! No "This Is Not America"!

Sincerely,
1986

Did you vote, Eazy?
If not, cram it.

Aw, Lech!

I voted for Blue Jean.

Only sad that "the Prettiest Star" didn't make it into the top 50, and thought maybe the alternate version of Candidate might place higher, even if I only had it at #5 on my poll. Also, if you combine the votes for Sweet Thing, Candidate and Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing it jumps up from #35 to #24, just edging out "Under Pressure."

Thank you so much WmC, this was a hugely enjoyable poll and I appreciate your outstanding effort!

Regret: I should have voted for Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing instead of Under Pressure, because it's bonkers-amazing and because in my heart I know that Under Pressure is really a Queen song after all.

Surprises: Life On Mars? If ILM says so. Also, I thought for sure 'Heroes' would win. Mainly, I was pretty shocked at the deafening ILM silence for Bowie in the 80s, 90s, and 00s.

Regrettable but Irrefutable Conclusion: David Bowie is a radio, and cocaine is by far the greatest station.

My ballot

ALBUMS:

1.Diamond Dogs (8)
2.Aladdin Sane (7)
3.Lodger (6)
4.Low (1)
5.Hunky Dory (3)


SONGS:

1.Young Americans (7)
2.The Man Who Sold The World (12)
3.We Are The Dead
4.Joe The Lion (51)
5. Golden Years (6)
6. It's No Game (Part 1) (40)
7.Scary Monsters (49)
8.Station To Station (4)
9.Under Pressure (23)
10.Drive In Saturday (27)
11.Aladdin Sane (35)
12.Loving The Alien
13.All The Madmen 

14.Ashes To Ashes 
(2)
15.Beauty and The Beast (57)
16.This Is Not America


17.Sons of The Silent Age
 (50)
18.Diamond Dogs 
(48)
19.The Jean Genie (42)
20.The Bewlay Brothers (46)

To be honest, I love Bowie... but own nothing by him past Let's Dance, and haven't even listened to anything he's done after 1990.

i had DJ on my ballot kinda shocked it didn't place

― buzza, Thursday, March 8, 2012 8:50 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

Getting a ballot down to 20 was a struggle. DJ and Lady Grinning Soul were two I hated to cut ... also all the instrumentals. Sort of surprised Life on Mars was #1, but it's all good.

I put on Stage a little while ago and damned if a lot of the vocals aren't better than the studio versions.

Shit! I forgot the most important thing! Thank you to everyone who voted and everyone who kept the thread rolling with quality commentary and discussion while I farted around looking up youtubes and typing up results!

Thank you! It's getting me back into Bowie, who I haven't really listened to in a while...

Yeah this thread is the kick in the ass I needed to finally give the late 70s stuff a well-deserved long-overdue listen

Oops--missed the end of this. 1300+ posts will be hard to beat for one of these polls.

1. "All the Young Dudes," Mott the Hoople (40)
2. “Kooks” (36)
3. “Rebel Rebel” (33)
4. “Hang on to Yourself” (30)
5. “Queen Bitch” (28)
6. “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving” (David Bowie & the Lower Third) (26)
7. “Panic in Detroit” (25)
8. “Diamond Dogs” (24)
9. “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” (David Bowie & the Lower Third) (23)
10. “Suffragette City” (22)
11. “Watch That Man” (21)

Another "Hang Onto Yourself" voter! Huzzah!

It's time I gave his post-Let's Dance materiel a semi-well-deserved not-so-long-overdue listen.

Loving the Alien
Don't look Down
Absolute Beginners
This is not America
Time Will Crawl
Never Let Me Down
Night Flights
Strangers When We Meet
I'm Deranged
Sunday
Heathen

Really surprised (not really) nothing made the poll.

lady grinning soul voters otm. sounds like the end of a movie.

the lyrics kinda kill that song for me.

Full list?

It's on the Google Spreadsheet

@ sarahell, he sounds, all over that record, as if he was trying to push his lyrics and delivery to the most campy, twisted place; it's a parody of "Ziggy". Works great on "Drive-in Saturday".

that's my favorite Bowie album, it's just the parts about the "musky odor" and "fullness of her breast" that are kinda gross

Huh! The first time I heard that album as a teenager I was all 'i don't get it' and my opinion hasn't really changed. "Cracked actor", "Watch that man", "Panic in Detroit" and "The Jean Genie" are just too sloppy and fucked up for my taste, the same reason I guess people like it. "Time" just sounds like he's aping Brel, "The prettiest star" is too cuet. Love "Drive-in Saturday" and the title track though

My ballot, and what positions they took in the end.

Notably non-canonical, without trying to be?

1 Loving The Alien (97)
2 Wild Is The Wind (42)
3 Jean Genie (43)
4 Beauty and The Beast (58)
5 "Heroes" (6)
6 Underground (103)
7 Sound and Vision (4)
8 Can't Help Thinking About Me (109)
9 Drive In Saturday (28)
10 Rebel Rebel (11)
11 Baal's Hymn (107)
12 John, I'm Only Dancing (21)
13 Scary Monsters (50)
14 Starman (19)
15 Under Pressure (24)
16 All The Young Dudes (38)
17 DJ (66)
18 Fame (34)
19 What's Really Happening (169)
20 That's Motivation (174)

11 Baal's Hymn (107)

Good man.

ta.

My ballot, bold didn't place.

1 It's No Game (Part 1)
2 Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)
3 Golden Years
4 "Heroes"
5 Starman
6 Life On Mars
7 Under Pressure
8 Fashion
9 Boys Keep Swinging
10 Changes
11 Aladdin Sane
12 Move On
13 Sound and Vision
14 Rebel Rebel
15 Hang On To Yourself
16 Jump They Say
17 Up The Hill Backwards
18 China Girl
19 Strangers When We Meet
20 Memories of a Free Festival

Albums

1 Scary Monsters
2 Ziggy Stardust
3 Hunky Dory
4 Lodger
5 Earthling

'Jump they say' missing out seems like the most egregious omission to me. After the fallow period of the mid 80s this was something I could say with some confidence that he wasn't just a heritage act but someone still capable of new, exciting work.

"Life on Mars" and "Drive in Saturday", are they not pretty much the same song, subjectmatterwise?

• The post-1983 shutout in the top 60 is regrettable

I've been having a think about this. I try to make a point of listening to everything I can when I contribute to one of these polls, and the thing that consistently comes out is that artists go on releasing good work a lot longer than you think. Nevertheless I mostly keep voting for the 'peak era' stuff.

I can think of two reasons for this:
- there's a kind of urgency in earlier work that dissipates as the artist mellows, doesn't take life so seriously, and tends to explore subtleties more than going for massive hooks and dramatic arrangements.
- there's always a cultural cachet to the more popular stuff; everyone knows it, so we spend more time talking about it and attaching meanings to it. It's natural to love it more.

And more practically, it'd be slightly bloody-minded to fill your ballot with Heathen deep cuts when you know that everyone else is going to be voting for side one of Low.

I'll be interested to see how the Paul Simon one pans out, where his peak era is possibly less pronounced than someone like Bowie.

It's not that I don't like anything post-1983, it's just that there's such an embarrassment of riches up to that point that I'd only include a later song if I was trying to make a point - it would feel dutiful rather than sincere. Maybe if the ballots were 40 places instead of 20, but then WmC would have had a nervous breakdown and Jump They Say isn't worth that.

Just me and Owen P voting for I'm Deranged then. Only five of us propped for Jump They Say...

"What's Really Happening"

Yes, I'm glad you asked me about that. I voted for it anyway..

Basically, this was a competition by DBowie on Bowienet. He put up an instrumental with him going la la la, and what you had to do was write the song's verses. Himself sang the chorus.

Then you 'uploaded' your verses.

The next part of the process involved clicking a link, and getting ten (or was it five?) sets of verses by other people, and you got to vote them out of five. Tell you what though, all the ones I saw were absolutely terrible! So, i thought I might be in with a good chance.

Anyways, the prize went to one Alex Grant (very close alphabetically, I noticed), and his verses were fine. Fair play, if someone said his were better, I would not argue.

I never got round to 'recording' my version. Might save it for the next ILX compilation.

"Life on Mars" and "Drive in Saturday", are they not pretty much the same song, subjectmatterwise?

I've always been a bit unclear about the what's-going-on of Life on Mars?, esp the second verse, but Drive In Saturday seems to me post-human sci-fi looking back wistfully at us (& 70s looking at 60s, 50s), & I can't get that to match quite.

it's about a girl who has a miserable family life who likes going to the movies

I think "Drive in Saturday" is responsible for my favourite DLTism, after he played it:

"And speaking of "Crash course for the Ravers, let's over to the traffic news"

(hey, it shows he was listening!)

Since all the images in LoM are more or less American, I interpret it as being about a girl (Bowie substitute) looking at America as though it's a not a real place, as though it's an entirely fictious entity that only exists in movies. Since for an English person, practically everything we think of as the real America comes from movies/TV/media pop culture generally.

are they though? sailors fighting in the dancehall could totally be British

i think the thing is that the descriptions of these movies all code as "old" b-movies, that she lives somewhere crappy where there is one movie theater that plays these old b-movies because it is crappy and can't afford doesn't give a fuck about showing contemporary fare. it's probably during the day, i'm guessing

I think it ties into the faltering pre-Ziggy state of Bowie's career: Space Oddity was a false start, he hadn't quite made the leap into stardom, he's still a struggling songwriter (failing to write the English lyrics for the song that would become My Way) - just like the girl in the song has failed in her plans to run away from home, and the whole ludicrous Hollywood spectacle doesn't console her, just mocks her dreams of escape.

She wants the escapism, but the films are rubbish and cliché driven.

so that second verse is… Bowie/girl poetic digression about rotten state of England, uk pop culture consumer thralldom?

It's just "I am the Walrus" type bol.

The post-1983 shutout in the top 60 is regrettable

David Bowie continued to make records after 1983? Far out. (Sorry--being a wiseguy.) More regrettable to me is that nothing from the Lower Third snuck in.

Only 3 other ppl voting for "Absolute Beginners" is just shocking. (I hadn't expected much support for "Looking for Water".)

It just occurred to me (seeing the date, d'oh) - that mugshot Moka posted was taken two days after the Nassau show in '76 that's included in the Station to Station reissue from last year.