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

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.

A day later, at Madison Square Garden, still classy.
http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Appearances/Concerts/1976/0326/JD02.jpg

1. Life on Mars?
2. Ashes to Ashes
3. Five Years
4. Station to Station
5. Rock n Roll Suicide
6. The Bewlay Brothers
7. Sweet Thing
8. Lady Grinning Soul
9. Fantastic Voyage
10. Sound and Vision
11. Yassassin
12. Quicksand
13. Look Back in Anger
14. Sons of the Silent Age
15. It's No Game (Part 2)
16. The Secret Life of Arabia
17. Changes
18. Absolute Beginners
19. African Night Flight
20. Golden Years

1. Starman
2. Life On Mars?
3. Oh! You Pretty Things
4. Ziggy Stardust
5. Lady Stardust
6. Cracked Actor
7. Heroes
8. Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)
9. Bewlay Brothers
10. Quicksand
11. Lady Grinning Soul
12. Prettiest Star
13. Young Americans
14. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide
15. Stay
16. Time
17. TVC 15
18. John, I'm Only Dancing
19. Watch That Man
20. Five Years

Changes accidentally ommitted. Painfullest cuts, iirc:

Hallo Spaceboy
Panic In Detroit
Modern Love
Jean Genie
Moonage Daydream
Ashes to Ashes
Station to Station

I'd have put Stay higher id I'd listened to it before I submitted, but I'm still happy with Starman at #1. It makes me smile all over my body.

regarding what "Life on Mars?" is about: http://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2010/03/23/life-on-mars/

I honested figured ILX's love for Berlin-era Bowie would place Station to Station and Heroes above Life on Mars, but I always believed it would be in the top three... my local Bowie universe has always regarded Hunky Dory as his finest work (I remember late night diner arguments over Hunky Dory vs. Aladdin Sane, me arguing the latter) and Life on Mars is the shorthand for that record.

honestly. honestly!

I like Aladdin Sane heaps better than Hunky Dory. It hangs together better and doesn't have any songs on it that make my teeth hurt. Some of HD is just horrible. However there is a certain softness (warm and upbeat like in Starman or wistful and strange like in Bewlay Brothers) that you don't really hear again. When it's good, it's really good?

What part of HD is horrible? "Fill Your Heart"?

I like Fill Your Heart!

I don't like Fill Your Heart.

Also I am no fan of Andy Warhol or Song for Bob Dylan, cute & clever once but very grating after 30 years, and for some reason Kooks rubs me up the wrong way lately too.

B-b-b-but that dead-on guitar playing on Andy Warhol!

Our criteria at the time was admittedly... very high school. Although since the Ryko reissues were just released, we actually had access to his entire catalog! Space Oddity was rejected out of hand for reeking of hippy and the sixties, Ziggy Stardust was "too popular" although what that meant in real terms I don't know since there were about six Bowie fans in our entire high school, most of them teachers. So the battle lines were something like Man Who Sold the World/Hunky Dory vs. Aladdin Sane/Low. Eventually somebody got a copy of Station to Station and attempts at narrative were abandoned.

I agree--Fill Your Heart, Kooks, Warhol, and Dylan are stinkers!

No! Warhol is great!

It's DELIBERATELY ANNOYING!

Kooks is just a nice place to be

'Andy Warhol' is clearly where Metallica stole one of the riffs in 'Master Of Puppets' from.

"Andy sleeping/ Andy tired/ Andy take a little snooze"

Don't know why, but i find it hilarious.

I used to think it was funny, but I've heard it too many times for the childish humour *or* the natty guitar to overcome the oh-god-so-annoying vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCf3xa5tYKM

I should 'fess that HD, as well as being an old favourite in its own right, is one of my writing-to albums, which means I might have overplayed it, just a touch. Same goes for Aladdin Sane, Ziggy and Diamond Dogs. You sure notice which songs work for you when you've got them on rotation for 6 weeks straight.

xpost

and for some reason Kooks rubs me up the wrong way lately too.

It's a song written for an audience of one: Zowie (two if you count Angie). In a way it annoys me in the same way Phil Collins' 'relationship' songs annoy me - I'm not the intended audience and I don't even want to eavesdrop on the situation, I feel awkward about it even.

Hunky Dory vs. Aladdin Sane

Both albums have some annoying tracks but Aladdin Sane has Mike Garson, so I give it the edge. I love them both, including all the annoying tracks.

which reminds me of this, from way up thread:

"what are the most avant-garde/outside solos on pop singles?"

Great thread idea!

^ otm

thread idea inspired by Steely Dan's "Do It Again" btw, even though it wouldn't win the "most avant-garde solo" prize

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyf0o6YS9t1qfkgyio1_500.jpg

God, I love "Kooks." It's the song that more than any other made me reconsider my long-standing antipathy to Bowie. (Big fan of Changesone in high school, completely uninterested through my 20s and 30s, again a big fan of the dozen songs I voted for.)

'Andy Warhol' is clearly where Metallica stole one of the riffs in 'Master Of Puppets' from.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican)

Yep, and they stole the phrase 'Leper Messiah' from 'Ziggy Stardust'. Obviously Jaymz is a closet Bowie fan.

Holy shit, the vicar in that Young Ones scene is Terry Jones? It's been yonks since I watched the Young Ones I never noticed that before.

my dumbass all-hits ballot, classic rockist 2 the core and (unsurprisingly) non-ILX-canonical in that i gave v short shrift to station to station & the "berlin trilogy":

1) Suffragette City
2) Ashes To Ashes
3) Rebel Rebel (perhaps i overrate due to imagined spiritual kinship w bikini kill's "rebel girl")
4) The Man Who Sold The World
5) Space Oddity (not so much for now, but then)
6) Cat People (long moroder version ftw*)
7) Heroes
8) All The Young Dudes
9) Quicksand
10) Starman (have no idea how this drek got on here, should have been "fame", smdh)
11) Andy Warhol
12) Is There Life On Mars?
13) John, I'm Only Dancing
14) Fashion
15) Diamond Dogs
16) Moonage Daydream
17) Under Pressure
18) Young Americans
19) Let's Dance
20) Modern Love

* there's supposedly a nine minute version of the bowie/moroder "cat people (putting out fire)" on an australian 12-inch. is this a myth? anyone have it/heard it?

I always liked Fill Your Heart anyway, but liked it even more when I heard the various ways that Bowie improved on the original. It's not like he made huge changes, but every one is perfect...

I like every song on Hunky Dory TBH.

3 of my favorites that didn't make it:

Let Me Sleep Beside you
Memory Of A Free Festival
Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed

1.Life On Mars?
2.Time
3.Cat People (Soundtrack)
4.Modern Love
5.Breaking Glass
6.Drive In Saturday
7.Oh! You Pretty Things
8. Warszawa
9.Time Will Crawl
10.Suffragette City
11.Ashes To Ashes
12.Young Americans
13.Panic In Detroit
14. Art Decade
15.Watch That Man
16."Heroes"
17.Ziggy Stardust
18.Fame '90 (was not tied to this particular version)
19.Space Oddity
20.Cracked Actor

nine minute cat people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrXkOeu-ss

eek sorry for the embed