ILX 70s album poll - results

as an album, straight through...PINK FLAG. It's just perfect.
-- Gage-o (gcb...), January 8th, 2002.

The typical line is that Pink Flag is the punk rawk record, and that from there on out they get increasingly "difficult." I think though that PF is probably *more* difficult in a sense than CM or (esp.) 154. Perhaps I haven't given it enough time or attention, but half the time when it's on I don't even notice it's there, or the songs just fly by (it having songs < 1 min doesn't help I'm sure). It feels like more of an exercise--"let's make the absolute most minimalist punk imaginable"--than say 154, which to my ears is far more texturally interesting, musically varied, and in a sense beautiful.
-- Clarke B. (clarkeb...), January 11th, 2002.

Actually I was never terribly impressed with "Pink Flag" - for me, it grew increasingly tedious after a dozen listenings. But Wire certainly deserve praise for inspiring Minutemen and (presumably) Minor Threat.

what's the insane one on Tago Mago? with the ridiculous drum machine passages and the shrieking? I like that one best.
-- gaz (gary.lo...), February 25th, 2003.

The funkiest is also the noodliest (Tago Mago)
-- sexyDancer (jjjjjjjjjj...), May 21st, 2004.

tago mago = higher peaks, wider valleys than ege bamyasi.
-- el sabor de gene (yn...), May 22nd, 2004.

Speed of life is the intro; it sets the mood.

Breaking Glass is the first vocal track and it starts the theme of alienation and romantic disconnection. Rather than using an ice cream parlor for milkshakes cold and long, or the dream car twenty feet long, he makes the first use of the bedroom as a symbol for isolation. The lyrics are so abstract but you know exactly the feeling he is trying to convey. Rather than using elaborate lyrics to express an idea, situations become less defined and the sound is what communicates the emotion. This definitely ties into Eno's theory that lyrics in rock music are nothing but decoration, and that the real message is timbral.

What In The World is track three and this time the mood switches from agitation to extreme euphoria. The euphoria is not a healthy, genuine happiness, but more like the upward pendulum swing of bipolar disorder. The paranoia and claustrophobia of Breaking Glass is still lurking in the background, but it is submerged in the lyrics, not the delivery. The desire is there, but somehow the connection cannot be created.

This theme would make sense because Bowie's marriage to Angela was breaking up, and he went to Berlin to kick the cocaine addiction he had picked up in LA during the Thin White Duke period of his career.
Bowie has said that at the time he was confused and internally divided, so Berlin in 1976, a divided city, was the most logical place to live.

Sound And Vision is track four and it takes the upward mood swing to its highest point. It is the closest thing this album has to a super pop hit, and even at that it fails. Again, it uses the symbol of bedroom as symbol of isolation, but it makes you wonder if this is a set of chemicals talking, or perhaps really a come down? Has this person just accepted his place? Is he coming to terms with the situation? Perhaps the character is simply found solace in art, for a brief time at least. Although the mood is relatively up, it is still very emotionally ambiguous.

Always Crashing The Same Car is the lowest point on Low. The image of tearing though a parking structure is a metaphor for reckless, perhaps even suicidal behavior. It also echoes the central image of enclosed, stifling spaces. The track title refers to repeated failures in life, in the context of the album, repeated failures at real emotional connection. The emotional pendulum has swung the other way to nearly suicidal depression. The vibe is stark and brooding, it is recognition.

Be My Wife is number six. Most people think that this is a love song, but this song has absolutely nothing to do with a healthy emotional relationship. This is the sound of desperation, of clutching at straws. This is like love as an emotional high, a means of escape. The music is up, but the lyrics and vocal delivery are that of a desperate man. No matter what the long-term consequences of his actions are, he needs deliverance at this very moment. Anything to escape.

New Career in a New Town is the final track on side one. The music suggests hopeful optimism and movement. I always think of the pistons of a train when I listen to the bassline of this song. It has no lyrics, and it introduces the next side as the second part of this person’s life. It is more ambiguous but no less emotional.

The ambient half of the album follows a more linear trajectory. It starts out with the sublime quarter note octave pulsation of Warszawa, and the mood declines from there. Although Warszawa is the more obvious cut, Art Decade is the better track. It is subtler and a bit darker. Whatever relief the protagonist found in travel and the anonymity of a new life, the magic is starting to fade. The mood continues to decline into madness by the end of Subterraneans.

Was Bowie dragging in his fears of potential madness into the end of the album? Did he use the abstract nature of the lyrics and synthetic timbres on the second half as a vehicle to express the disassociated and incommunicable nature of mental illness? Was he expressing his personal fears of being schizophrenic like the older brother who introduced him to music in the first place?

I don't know, but it does give this album an interesting perspective. This is one of the few records I can say that I have truly lived in. I am not exactly sure what that says about me, or the frame of mind I was in during the later years of my teens.

-- Disco Nihilist (current31...), October 16th, 2003.

Rank David Bowie

Here is my ranking:
1. Low

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), November 4th, 2003.

I'd have to say that my favorite Bowie album would be Low because it has such classics as "Always Crashing in the Same Car", "Speed of Life", and "Warszawa

-- Innocent Dreamer (deethe_downspamdown_lurke...), June 26th, 2003.

Lodger is brilliant and almost Bowie's best although ultimately I think Low pips it to the post

-- pj proby (pjprob...), February 1st, 2005.

I never listen to it as a whole, despite playing it on cd. It's either one or the other. I'd dip into selected tracks on a lot of albums - but this one is different, because I'd only ever be intersted in hearing one particular set of tracks or the other.
I think I prefer side 1. On side 2, Warszawa dwarfs the other ambient tracks in terms of beauty. But the first half has a handful of short, sharp shocks which i thoroughly enjoy. After hearing those, i don't have the patience for the slower tracks. but if i'm in the mood for something less kinetic, they'll more than suffice.

this is the only bowie album i'd listen to, tbh.

-- kilian Murphy (kilian.murphy2...), October 15th, 2003.

One of two records which actually did change my life. I need say no more.
-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), October 15th, 2003.
One side is a pop record, the other a film soundtrack. Taking sides: chalk or cheese? Then again, I suppose you could say that Sides One of Low and Heroes, put together, would be the most fantastic Bowie pop record ever made, and that Sides Two of Low and Heroes would be... a fairly average prime period Eno ambient release.
-- Momus (nic...), October 15th, 2003.

Side 1 is one of Bowie's best ever, but I still choose side 2, which is one of the most beautiful pieces of instrumental music ever recorded.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), October 15th, 2003.

Sides two of "Low" and "Heroes" put together would have been the best electronic album ever, dwarfing all of Eno's other work, including the rather decent "Another Green World"

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), October 15th, 2003.

Pink Flag Tago Mago and Low should've been 1, 2 and 3!