NEUPÖLLN - ILM Artist Poll #14 - David Bowie (POLLS ARE CLOSED)

Outside rules.

From the last twenty years for your consideration:

Sunday
Jump They Say
Slip Away
Strangers When We Meet
Thru These Architects' Eyes

Garson's playing on the title track reminded me of a thread idea I've been playing with -- what pop singles have the most 'outside'/avant garde solos?

Ian Dury & the Blockheads, "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick". Take it to another thread!

Shit - I forgot Strangers!

My ballot actually has two tracks from Heathen (2002) and one from Outside (1995), but I think that's it as far as "recent" things go.

And here was I thinking "The Lodger" for most recent!

i was on the fence about doing this since i'm not that huge of a bowie fan but coincidentally i've been going thru a bit of a revival the last few weeks so i had a solid 12 to work from then just used spotify to remind me of some of the old stuff i had half forgotten.

won't be voting for Heroes. too many shit cover versions and too much overplay have ruined it a bit for me.

I didn't vote for many after about 83, but I was delighted with the quality of the later albums. It's kind of extraordinary, for a career that long.

(guessing Under Pressure was the one you were thinking of btw, Owen)

Don't forget to vote for "Stay" from Station to Station, guys.

this is gonna be really hard!

excited about going in a bowie hole

started w/hunky dory

homosapiens have outgrown their use

i'm purposefully not gonna check out any of that laughing gnome type shit theres way too much regular proper bowie that i love it will be hard to do a ballot as is with the studio records

i will probably listen to that santa monica 72 thing tho cuz i always meant to and i heard that smokes

I'm probably going to discount from consideration Side 2 of Low and the instrumental sequence on Side 2 of "Heroes". Love both, but it feels daft to pick out one element and declare it "16th best Bowie track EVER".

@ Ismael "Under pressure" and "Rebel rebel" are my #1 and #2 least favourite Bowie 'hits'.

The song I voted for that I'm probably alone in voting for is "No Control" from Outside but I am such a sucker for Bowie's Scott Walker impression.

you rate Dancing In The Street comparatively highly then

"Cat People".

Twenty years after discovering him, I have to make a lot of allowances for his voice; I know a lot more about good singing now.

― Exile in lolville (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, February 27, 2012 2:56 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't think I want to know what constitutes good singing if Bowie's doesn't count as such.

I've sent confirmation emails to everyone who emailed me. To the two lurkers who sent ballots via ILXmail -- thank you, OWS and CD, ballots received!

guys "life on mars" is so good, fyi wow

I don't think I want to know what constitutes good singing if Bowie's doesn't count as such.

Bowie has lots of terrible early vocals, and even on YA – when he started to learn how to use his lower register – there's horrors like "Across the Universe." "Wild is the Wind" is ghastly too. Most of what he does in the late eighties may count as making noises with his larynx but it's not singing.

boo!

Have you got my ballot WmC? I don't have a confirmation email yet.

For some reason I'd never listened to The Man Who Sold The World before today. Loving the heavier sound on stuff like Black Country Rock.

Chap -- got it! Your ballot arrived about a minute after I sent a batch of responses.

Listening to "hours..." now -- almost all Bowie post-Tin Machine is totally new to me, including this. It's pretty good! But a little Reeves Gabrels goes a long way.

imo this poll is really lacking a 'worst songs' ballot like the led zep poll had

A huge surprise for me was hearing You've Been Around, from Black Tie White Noise, and realising what it was the source for. I think Bjork nails it better, but I was impressed.

"You've Been Around" is a good 'un and – challops, I guess – I prefer Bowie's "Nite Flights" to Walker's.

Will anyone else vote for Kooks?

i think i probably will

I thought about a "worst songs" category but I thought the huge discography would make it hard for a consensus pick to emerge. Even with Zep's big turnout, there weren't a huge number of worst song ballots. But anyone who wants to include "worst songs" in their voting is welcome to go for it, and if there are, say, 20 such ballots, I'll roll out those results too.

Let's say the "worsts songs" ballot should be five spots. Addenda to already-sent ballots are okay by me.

So many great non-singles tracks on Hunky Dory - Queen Bitch, Andy Warhol, Kooks, Oh You Pretty Things...

My brain hurts a lot.

Oh shit I forgot about Oh! You Pretty Things

Oh! You Silly Chap.

Twenty years after discovering him, I have to make a lot of allowances for his voice; I know a lot more about good singing now.

Yeah, I don't really get this either. I can only think of a few songs—notably, "Teenage Wildlife" and "Kingdom Come" (both from Scary Monsters oddly enough)—where Bowie's singing might qualify as unlistenable.

"Across the Universe" is atrocious -- but the vocal is really only one part of the reason why.

woah i never realized Saccharine Trust got their name from a lyric in the "The Bewlay Brothers"

Don't forget to vote for "Stay" from Station to Station, guys.

The more I listen to previously-unheard stuff, the harder this gets. "I Dig Everything" (1966 single) is great!

this is kind of impossible. honestly my JB ballot was way easier

"You've Got a Habit of Leaving" is definitely going on my ballot. It out-Whos his Who covers on Pin-Ups.

Rather than worst Bowie song, I'd rather vote for worst cover version of a Bowie song. So many to choose from!

Now that I've thought about it, I can't think of many good Bowie covers. Maybe these qualify:
Space Oddity - The Langley Schools Music Project
Oh! You Pretty Things - Au Revoir Simone
Letter to Hermione - Robert Glasper Experiment ft. Bilal
The Secret Life Of Arabia - BEF ft. Billy Mackenzie
Life on Mars? - Seu Jorge

I quite like the two that Lulu did as well. But after that...?

Don't forget to vote for "Stay" from Station to Station, guys.

i wish i could vote for "sweet thing"/"candidate"/"sweet thing reprise" as all one track...

Don't forget to vote for "Move On."

yes, Move On is a gem. Station To Station and Lodger will dominate my ballot. Bowie in cocaine mode!

Oh my TVC 15! Oh-oh.

Don't forget to vote for "Stay" from Station to Station, guys.

Epic guitar on that track. And "You can never really tell/when somebody wants something you want too" is possibly one of the best lines Bowie ever wrote.

Encouraging everyone to vote for Lower Third songs (I've got two):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgBe8NL1818