Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

I love it to death, although I hear the rot of 'Tonight' and 'Never Let Me Down' setting in with the Iggy re-annexation strategy of 'Red Money', which is far inferior to 'Sister Midnight'.

'Scary Monsters' was a disappointment for me at the time (I now love Side 1) because it seemed calculatedly populist and somewhat anti-modernist. Then we got Chic and 'David Bowie Straight', and everything after that was a disappointment, so you got used to it. I've just read the lyrics to his new single, and it seems like more of the same thing, but I don't really expect much any more, sigh.

He is still the most beautiful, wise and charming man on the planet, muse or no muse.

lodger breaks the morbid depression of side-2-low and the depressed fucked-up mess that is heroes

lodger creeps up on the listener -- no concessions to kiddy rock'n'roll -- instead elimination of lyrical abiguity (finally) and instrumental arrangement to match these real songs -- an adult record

maybe even honest ? what with bowie squeezed behind a shop window on the cover -- i can do without the "i'm an international phenomena" thing, though i guess that is central

scary monsters seemss a stab in the same direction but more attempt to rock and more of the old "hey i'm weird" theatrics -- at least he tries a whole lot of different approaches with different musos, so i approach monsters on a song by song basis whereas lodger stands up as an album

the only decent "concept album" from a guy who supposedly is the concept album guy -- it's as if bowie grew up here -- pity the creative run was so brief -- both monsters and lodger he'd kind of learnt to work with eno and then with others without letting them dominate

yeah, pity about all the rest -- let's face it -- either bowie is a bygone '70s culture thing since the cracks were showing by the '80s, or these few late '70s records were the best a guy with resouces and advice to burn could come up with in his 35 years as rock star

Heh. "BABY BABY BABY I'll never let you go..."

I think "Outside" and "Earthling" are as good as "Lodger." His best album is "Station to Station."

I think I'm w/ mark s. The guitar lover in me will always love Man Who Sold the World, but in my heart of hearts I know Lodger is his best. Many good points made above, mark re DB's singing, dave re "Boys Keep Swinging" (Belew's studio debut! already sounding like Fripp), Momus re the travelogue quality. The imaginative syncretisms really make this one stand out. I like the way he slides in more classicist elements as well - like the way the piano softly, briefly switches to double time on the chorus to "Fantastic Voyage" (probably my favorite Bowie song), or the New Orleans bass line under the chorus of "Boys Keep Swinging".

Awesome record.

No really, I adore Lodger. 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", but Lodger has five of my favorite Bowie songs on it (namely "D.J.", "Look Back in Anger", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Yassassin", and "Repetition), plus that awesome cover with Bowie lying sprawled (with his bellybutton exposed!) in front of a background of white bathroom tiles. Mega swoonalicious. Anyway, I too am a huge fanatic of Bowie's Berlin period and think that was really his best period musically, appearance-wise, etc.

I love love love love Bowie. Even "Blue Jean" and "Absolute Beginners". My bias toward him is almost as strong as my bias toward Duran Duran.

Isn't the title really "Heroes", though?

You seem like a good guy and all but I strongly suggest you never say this again unless this is actually true for anything and everything in your life.

it's a bit of a mixed up mess to me, esp. those almost anti-popular songs on side one, but i remember as a kid seeeing it in the record stores on the shelf and thinking "what is that ?"

i was used to seeing all his other albums thumbing through the record bin (wasn't thumbing through records as the usual browsing method of the time in bins an interesting visual activity, even if it felt like you had to wash your digits afterwards), but the front/back of that album left me mystified -- and none of the songs off that album got played on the radio, so i wasn't able to place it (whereas so many bowie tracks got played on the radio from most of his other albums that his weirdo career trajectory to that point seemed straightforward) -- so this was the point where I got that "what's the guy up to & gonna do next ?"feeling, i suppose

looking back, it seems a very convincing demonstration of eno's oblique strategy thing -- the whole this way then that way non-flow of the album -- with weird jerks like 'repetition' or 'red money' or even 'fansatic voyage'(which really threw me as the first track of this strange looking record)

so to me it's a proper normal album as collection of songs, which is creepy, given how bowie is meant to produce 'concept' albums, and even if that just meant to me that his albums had this unifying cohesion (i suppose if evry album adopts this new style, then each album will seem relatively cohesive compared with other bowie albums), well this albums only cohesion was some thematic cohesion

like a series of short stories adding up to a book -- quite w.s. burroughs like (ie you put the pieces together, you make sense of this as one statement)

and it's haunted me more than most, this record, because it does cohere in this place slightly beneath consciousness, it all seems to fit, even if the music isn't pretty or majestic (in fact i think the settings and vocal-stretches make it very mock-majestc)

and then there's the sound of the record, kind of flat -- the songs don't bounce out, don't pull all the irregular rock'n'roll tricks i expect from albums involving eno -- it is like something to be read and thought about, rather than enjoyed as a series of songs

and if he hadn't been a superstar, would bowie have been able to produce this rather introspective personal, almost literary thing -- yeah, other posters have alluded by their lack of interest in this period and their opinion of it that it lacks the flash of other bowie, lacks the o.t.t. pomp and ceremony of rock and roll (that bowie returned to on the special effects and "i'm a weird guy" packaging on Scary Monsters)

maybe lacking the stylistic cohesion of similarly introspective stuff like Station to Station, it maintains the same stranger than fiction feel (as does Aladin Sane, i suppose -- funny how these albums get mentioned in 2003 so much more here than seemingly straight-forward rock, stuff like Ziggy Stardust which i presume like Let's Dance or Diamond Dogs everybody is well sick of)

did Ronson benefit from arranger royalties from these albums that he did have all that input on ?

just wondering, didn't Bowie "sack" the spiders from mars at some gig in the early '70s ? where does that leave guys like Ronson if he had been a major contributor ? anyone know the story here ?

should we have a Ronson thread ?
(what was said about Ronson having so many creative ideas, and contributing so much to albums etc.. not enough to be credited as writer for any stuff ? i don't have some of the really early albums, but didn't B. suck off R.s guitar all the time when B. was ziggy ?)

when I saw this thread title I thought "whoever wrote this is on drugs" and then I read, and behold, EVERYBODY's high! Even though I f'n hate "Rebel Rebel" (not through overplay - I just never liked it) I still say "Diamond Dogs" has 'em all beat for the following reasons:

1. better title
2. the Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family
3. "We Are the Dead" = "Fantastic Voyage" minus age + imagined age - ennui + dread = beauty, truth, truth beauty, y'all know the drill
4. the strings on 1984 are better than the strings on "Lodger"
5. "When You Rock and Roll With Me," a song title sure to chafe the balls of the ILX Massive, has one of Bowie's best vox EVAH
6. also, because I say so

Re: The Earthling, I think "Little Wonder" was my first exposure to drum and bass, and as a kid growing up in the American Midwest, away from the city, I had zero inkling of that world. Bowie's album wasn't even a hit here, I just checked it out because it was the new Bowie album and I had just started listening to his music.

Actually, no "the," it's just Earthling

The Earthling was the first Bowie album in years that The College Kids listened to, in my experience.

The Dead Man Walking from The Earthling The is a great tune!

There is always a the, bird

The Earthling had a lot of promo muscle behind it, including the 50th Birthday Pay-Per-View event, and I know for a fact a lot of fans first Bowie purchase was "I'm Afraid of Americans" single because of the Reznor remix.

Actually, The...hours also got a pretty big push too. Virgin really must have dropped some coin on his contract.

They all have their moments, but the first new Bowie album I enjoyed end-to-end in my lifetime was The The Next Day.

the the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the the spiders from mars

Always need to reveal myself whenever someone says the black tie white noise is underrated. it's my most listened to bowie album.

There isn't a post-tin machine bowie album I think is anything less than at least pretty great except ...hours, which i still like fine

i've been reivisiting this several times over the last few days. i think its brevity is a virtue -- a tight 34 minutes. i'm pretty obsessed with "D.J." and "Red Money." however, the album is a land of contrasts. i think "Yassassin" is probably one of the most annoying things he's ever done

sorry, that should be "The Yassassin"

Post Tin Machine album rankings? Sure, why not.

Blackstar
1. Outside
Heathen
Black Tie White Noise
Earthing
The Next Day
Buddha of Suburbia
Reality
Hours

Always need to reveal myself whenever someone says the black tie white noise is underrated. it's my most listened to bowie album.

"I really love the imposing titanium drum (sound)s on Heroes/Scary Monsters, but also how they flank the (especially startling in comparison) dry drum sound on Lodger where it was like he's rebelling against his "depressed gorilla" creation before it was even widespread."

The evolution of the drum sound on those records is fascinating. Low has a prototype of the 1980s big drum sound, made with a pitch-shifting delay and some natural reverb. And Heroes has a similar but more polished thing that appears to be just delay and reverb.

And then suddenly Lodger has the kind of flat, mixed-as-if-it-was-in-a-packed-dance-club drum sound I associate with the very early 1980s, e.g. Adam Ant, Queen, Talking Heads and so forth. I mentally associate with The Kenny Everett Video Show. And then Scary Monsters goes back to the big booming drum sound again.

If I didn't know it was part of the Berlin trilogy, or recorded in Paris, or wherever, I would geographically place Lodger as a New York No-Wave record. He tried that capture that kind of give-no-fucks sound with Tin Machine but it didn't work because it was too polished.

1. Outside

I hate the number at the beginning of this album title. It reminds me of bands that put out "Greatest Hits, Vol. 1" compilations, then immediately break up (or lose their record contract), ensuring that there will never be a Vol. 2. I recently Photoshopped "Volume One" off the cover of an album I was uploading to Bandcamp because there was no Volume Two, and I already know I'm gonna do it to another release in a couple of months.

Never cottoned to Outside, though I have tried. Its appeal always eludes me.

Sorry, The 1. Outside

We all will occasionally feel like The 1. Outside

There’s really good stuff on Outside, when it came out I was too hung up on the dopey story but if I put that out of my head It’s not bad.

1. Outside

I hate the number at the beginning of this album title.

You'll eat your words when Bowie releases The 2. Contamination