BOWIE VS STEELY

aja sounds like it was made with fucking pro tools, in a bad way

slick =/= emotionless

actually in terms of sound quality it is very slick, but totally and analog album, not thin or grating sounding like bad pro tools stuff.

Bowie "pushed the boundaries"?

funny, they both look worse compared to the other, to me. against steely dan, bowie's working class intellectual theatre bs looks sort of grasping and desperate. against bowie, steely dan's perfectionism looks really paranoid and fearful. they're both... thin skinned? in a way.

tom i think the production technology SD used in the studio was just a small mountain of cocaine

i love steely dan to death. i unreservedly love every album they made in their original go-round. and i think "the rise and fall of ziggy..." and "low," to name just two, completely blow away anything they ever did. so. bowie.

It's a close tie these days. At their best Bowie and SD are absolute triumphs of persona, sound, and vision (har har). For me both Low and Gaucho delineate a kind of urban malaise; the latter just happens to be the West Coast kind.

David Bowie has never made an album I could listen to all the way through. On the other hand, there are times when spending my whole life listening to Gaucho on a loop seems very appealing indeed.

this is easy because Bowie made plenty of genuinely shitty records, which SD never did

Bowie "pushed the boundaries"?

It may seem laughable today, but yes. Yes, he did.

bowie made a video referencing la jetee

bowie has portrayed both nikola tesla and pontius pilate in films

I can also hear Bowie singing "Third World Man."

I want this to exist. If only to pick it apart and decide it's nowhere near as goos as Dan.

Bowie "pushed the boundaries"?

It may seem laughable today, but yes. Yes, he did.

Low still sounds fresh, and inventive, today. (I like Steely Dan fine, though).

The Dan never had an album cover as unfortunate as "Diamond Dogs."

Steely Dan by a couple of lightyears. I never really got the appeal of Bowie except "Rebel Rebel" which is divine.

muso-imago-grammatically speaking: singular plural vs plural singular.
which, honestly speaking, in this particular case i don't give much of a toss at the moment. cannot recall when was the last time i listened to either of them with any eagerness.

the older I get, the less I give a whoop-de-doo about bowie, and the more I understand Steely Dan on a frightening, soul-sick level. :(

(esp. Gaucho.)

b-b-but did vote for bowie tho. for i remember liking some of his stuff a lot once a-ponzatime. never been much of a dan admirer, really.

Steely Dan never performed on "Soul Train".

but they so could have!

the older I get, the less I give a whoop-de-doo about bowie, and the more I understand Steely Dan on a frightening, soul-sick level. :(

It's called dementia.

Did Bowie ever have fans like these?

xpost Yes, it is.

The Dan never had an album cover as unfortunate as "Diamond Dogs."

The hell they didn't.

http://img.crocmusic.com/l/albums/50/steely_dan_countdown_to_ecstasy.jpg

As I get older, I find it difficult to appreciate pushing-the-boundaries for its own sake. Low is a great record without worrying about how fresh it sounds. Judging acts by innovative they are is self-defeating.

i like bowie and steely dan both very much.

i think gff is right they hit me as being more alike in a weird way than most of the ppl on this thread would admit

Steely Dan = always boring
David Bowie = only sometimes boring

Is Fake Tuomas branching out into crustier realms of RONGness?

-- David R., Tuesday, May 6, 2008 6:47 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Steely Dan have always been awful, wine-bar, patches-on-the-elbows-of-your-corduroy-blazer CRAP. Bowie's had his rough moments, but he's capable of a brilliance that "the Dan" could never hope to attain in a thousand years.

-- Alex in NYC, Tuesday, May 6, 2008 7:09 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Link

Is Fake bizarro-world burt stanton branching out into crustier realms of RONGness?

That could possibly sum up this thread in a nutshell

David Bowie is one of the most worthless pop stars EVER.

but seriously, i have been tempted to listen to steely dan several times in the past few weeks, but have been unable to consumate. i suspect this is largely b/c my copies of aja and gaucho are in storage at the moment, and i am not feeling the earlier stuff just at this moment.

in any case, based on comments upthread, i have to say that i appreciate the way that gershy's mind works.

Let's put it this way: Steely Dan did the smart thing by sitting out the eighties.

haha

i like 'low' and a couple of those early '70s albums but i don't really enjoy david bowie's music. i think i like his acting more.

enjoy his music aside from those exceptions

His music IS acting, which is a large part of its interest.

the thing is, the tin machine apologists are somehow gonna tip this thread over; wait and see. i would expect nothing less from the fabled ILX HIVE MIND blah blah blah

i find his stylistic changes more interesting aesthetically and visually than aurally.

when it comes to visual aesthetics*, i can't write today

If you ask me directly, yeah, sure, Bowie, sure of course, he's great, Low is excellent, I can sing along with the rest of the car, of course. But do I pull the records out much?...

His music IS acting, which is a large part of its interest.

I'd say his *best* acting is music:)

(X-pst!)

xpost

yeah, that's why this thread is truly tombot's attempt to implode habitual posters' minds. we should pretty much hang our heads in defeat or else be prostrating towards oranges and apples into perpetuity.

i owned this double disc comp of bowie stuff and it was good but i could never get through it without getting a little bored. but i could sit down and listen to the first 7 SD albums + the nightfly one after the other without stopping.

um...i totally don't hate the first tin machine record.

it's no nightfly or 12 tracks of whack though

I am using this question on all of my friends.

For me, the remark above about consummation and the tired, muttered zing about dildos pretty much sum up my feelings about "The Dan"—it's like jerking off without the orgasm. Occasionally fun but rarely rewarding.

Jerking off without the orgasm doesn't count as jerking off, though. It's just moisturizing.

thin white lube.

Nobody did Steely Dan better than Steely Dan, but everyone who did Bowie did Bowie better, for pretty much every stage of his career - I'd much rather listen to the Associates, or glam Eno, or etc etc etc.

i think gff is right they hit me as being more alike in a weird way than most of the ppl on this thread would admit

yeah which is why this poll is not a troll

I would like to hear steely dan produce iggy pop

Hey, chaki's right! I never knew that before.

you guys, people can vote once a day.

Ah, that would explain why The Dan got as many votes.

There's no one who can hold a candle to the Dan. Pretzel Logic - what a masterpiece.

Wasn't there a "holding a candle to the Dan" scene in Naked Lunch? Come to think of it, wouldn't Burroughs be the pivot man in this whole circle jerk?

you guys, people can vote once a day.

-- chaki, Monday, May 12, 2008 7:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

I haven't been able to do this lately. Not that I ever did in a serious poll such as this. I figured maybe they fixed then glitch

fuck!
"the glitch"

then is the new teh

Let's put it this way: Steely Dan did the smart thing by sitting out the eighties.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Tuesday, May 6, 2008 9:27 PM (1 year ago)

That quote is beyond priceless.