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

I loathe biographical criticism.

NO I'M NOT talking about like "oooh this gated snare represents his mom", I'm talking about 'talking points'. I could ask you ten questions about the making of this record right now and you'd get them all right.

Low is just placed on such a pedestal of intellectual/avant-garde/genius these days. For some reason it reminds me of people that say Smile was the greatest piece of music ever written and would have changed the world.

There's probably 2x the amount of bio written about the making of 'Low' than any other Bowie album. It's simply the intellectual's album and that's that.

but what if you've never read any bio and you still love Low are you an intellectual y/n?

what if you've loved Low since your mid-teens were you a teenage intellectual?

i did have glasses tbf

It just means you brilliant taste over all the simpletons that like Hunky Dory.

Dumb joke, i realize i'm about to get shat on for.

Hunky Dory used to be my fave i think but this shdn't be a "either/or" proposition, whatever you wanna think about the meaning of liking Low it's pretty obvious that its outness has been diminished by time and influence. like i guess i first heard it in the early to mid 80s and already in the context of what pop music sounded like there was nothing really odd to me at that age. tho i guess i had no handle on what "ambient" was back then.

i guess i do think that Hunky Dory is the "straighter" record - nb just remembered i played "Bewlay Bros" on the jukebox in the pub last night but that only makes it a more honest choice if you really singer-songwriter types and hate whatever kind of thing Low is

really love singer-songwriter types i meant

Who hates Low?

There've been outright "I hate Aladdin Sane" "I hate Young Americans" and it's like, "uh huh, some people do".

I love "Outside" but it's a fringe thing; obv you can't appreciate "Outside" without being acquainting with every character, which songs they sing and whether they own a goat-scrotum purse or a lamb-penis necklace

Nobody hates Low. Of all the Bowie album reviews I've read, pretty much all of them about Low have just fawned over how brilliant it is. Maybe I don't read enough album reviews?

Compared this to say, any of his other albums. They all have tracks that get on people's nerves, weak points, etc. Low just sort of seems untouchable.

Personally I love "Low", I even covered a few of those songs in bands over the years. But it does seem a bit idealized by the current generation.

is it a surprise if some 30-odd year old albums speak more to the current generation than others?

altho again that discounts a lot of the people who've loved it between 1977 and now

maybe Hunky Dory was big with the antifolk kids or whatever, assuming they really existed

Compared this to say, any of his other albums. They all have tracks that get on people's nerves, weak points, etc. Low just sort of seems untouchable.

"Be My Wife" gets on my nerves tbh. There are a couple other songs on that album that I like when I hear, but don't really stick with me, unlike "Aladdin Sane" which is one memorable awesome song after another.

You and me both Sarahell--for some reason I can't stand Be My Wife and TVC15, they make my skin crawl!

THanks to EZ here for pursuading me to listen to Stage again

(persuade)

Oh, the antifolk kids once existed, but now they've morphed into the crusties.

Sort of sounds like a Bowie lyric.

Low is just placed on such a pedestal of intellectual/avant-garde/genius these days.

This was the case 20+ years ago when I got into Bowie. As an impressionable 18-year-old I was keen to follow the party line but over time I lost interest in it. I don't think there's anything weak or annoying about it, I just find it kinda meh and am surprised at how highly people rate it.

I vaguely remember a quote from Robert Smith saying how he lost interest in Bowie when Low came out. At the time I thought he was nuts.

You're welcome Ówen! Hope you have the reissue; the correct ordering and extra songs push it over the top.

I have the Ryko, is that the one you mean? Also, kudos on voting for Outside songs although we voted for the opposite ones

I was gonna vote "Voyeur of utter destruction (as beauty)" cause I love that song but felt embarrassed by the title.

This is where I say it's a CRIME that (damn good) filler like "A New Career In a New Town" places but Outside gets shut out. On my ballot that was too late, I had "Thru' These Architect's Eyes" in my top ten. Tons of cuts on it were worthy, tho -- "I'm Deranged," "The Motel," "A Small Plot of Land" to name a few. People focus way too much on the (negligible) NIN influences and concept (actually quite wry) and not nearly enough on the quality of songwriting (Bowie's best since the mid-70s), production (nervy and maximalist) and singing (arguably Bowie's best). Easily in my top 5 Bowie records and, at times, my very favorite.

Outside has tons of good cuts, so it was nice to see 3/4 of the record represented (if poorly).

The EMI reissue of Stage in 2005 added "Stay" and "Be My Wife", removed the between song fades and corrected the running order to reflect the concerts. Bowie makes me rebuy albums far too often.

"A New Career in a New Town" isn't filler ffs

the number of reissues and repackagings are crazy

The 1990 Low reissue got a savage review in one of the UK monthlies... (ha, it might actually have been Jon Savage) 3/10 or something. "Responsible for Gary Numan and all that crap" was the gist. I recall Steve Sutherland giving Scott Walker's Boychild comp on Fontana a kicking around the same time. Wrong wrong wrongy wrong.

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"A New Career in a New Town" isn't filler ffs

You may be right -- but as much as I like it, it's not one of Bowie's 60 best songs either. That says more about his catalog than it does ANCiaNT, tho.

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Bowie b&w by Tommytinkroom, on Flickr

Ok just sussed out how to upload some pics,this should have been my first post.
http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7176/6973345197_a0d07775d0_b.jpg
Bowie b&w by Tommytinkroom, on Flickr
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Bowie b&w by Tommytinkroom, on Flickr
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Bowie topaz denoise by Tommytinkroom, on Flickr

buffandmaxsmom?

Sorry forgot this one.
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Bowie Gold by Tommytinkroom, on Flickr

I love "Outside" but it's a fringe thing; obv you can't appreciate "Outside" without being acquainting with every character, which songs they sing and whether they own a goat-scrotum purse or a lamb-penis necklace

Bowie's libretto might represent a new low (see what I did there) for unreadable musician prose. I love Outside though. "Thru These Architects' Eyes" and "Strangers When We Meet" made my top twenty. The latter is his best love song.

Also this doesn't get enough play, AFAIC:

Eno may or may not have written "Warszawa".

The oft told story about Eno writing the music while Bowie was away has never rung true to me.* ** *** The music not only sounds completely different than anything Eno was writing at the time -- it's completely different than anything he's written since. Also, so much of it is on Chamberlain, which was hardly his instrument of choice.

*I'm not thinking of "Art Decade" am I?
** No I'm not. Per Eno in a 1978 interview with Glenn O’Brien:

Then there were two days when David had to go to Paris because he was being sued by someone, so rather than wasting the studio time I decided to start a piece on my own, with the understanding that if he didn’t like it I’d use it myself or something. I just couldn’t face wasting the studio time. So I started working on that piece and in fact all the instrumentation was finished when David got back, and he put the vocals on top. That was “Warszawa.” It was a very clear division of labor.

Bowie's libretto might represent a new low (see what I did there) for unreadable musician prose.

See, this is what kills me. The guy spends 25 years burying characters he writes about in Burroughs cut-up techniques, stories that have no resolution and references that are intentionally oblique -- and when he adds intentionally tongue-in-cheek monologues to the brew, suddenly it's a bridge too far far, far far far, far far far away.

To add to the "Bowie on classic rock radio" discussion way upthread, here's how he placed in the 1987 WNEW-FM New York Top 1027 Songs of All Time Listener's Poll:

-- #62 - SUFFRAGETTE CITY
-- #132 - REBEL REBEL
-- #165 - YOUNG AMERICANS
-- #179 - MODERN LOVE
-- #251 - SPACE ODDITY
-- #259 - HEROES
-- #322 - PANIC IN DETROIT
-- #467 - CHANGES
-- #477 - LET'S DANCE
-- #499 - GOLDEN YEARS
-- #550 - FAME
-- #602 - ZIGGY STARDUST
-- #834 - UNDER PRESSURE
-- #842 - LET'S SPEND THE NIGHT TOGETHER
-- #860 - FASHION
-- #982 - ASHES TO ASHES

xpost
Warsawa is the only Low track for which Eno gets a songwriting credit, so I'm inclined to believe his story on that one.

As for New Career, it's anything but filler, in fact it's the track that gets to the heart of what Bowie was doing in Low.

I think Low's reputation as "best bowie album" has something to do with the fact that it's a sort of ur-text for the post-punk/art rock continuum. It may not have "invented the eighties" as the cliche goes but it certainly invented the bits that have been most revived in the past decade and a half or so. Personally I think Station To Station is now the stranger and therefore fresher-sounding album these days, partly because it didn't have the same level of influence.

The consensus will change as the generations change.

Indeed.

Of course, a decade ago, StS was the consensus pick...

Was it though? The late nineties/early noughties marked the beginning of the Low ascendancy I'd have thought. Bowie was performing it live in its entirety, Radiohead had taken a Low-like turn towards electronica, Pitchfork placed Low no. 1 in its list of top 100 albums in the 70s...

^This

and prior to that, ziggy stardust and hunky dory duked it out for supremacy. tbh, i think that ziggy still takes the crown among casual fans of all ages and predilections.

xxp in 1985 the NME Top 100 albums of all time listed Low at #15, Young Americans (!) at #36, Heroes at #64 and Station at #66.