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

I agree--Fill Your Heart, Kooks, Warhol, and Dylan are stinkers!

No! Warhol is great!

It's DELIBERATELY ANNOYING!

Kooks is just a nice place to be

'Andy Warhol' is clearly where Metallica stole one of the riffs in 'Master Of Puppets' from.

"Andy sleeping/ Andy tired/ Andy take a little snooze"

Don't know why, but i find it hilarious.

I used to think it was funny, but I've heard it too many times for the childish humour *or* the natty guitar to overcome the oh-god-so-annoying vocals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCf3xa5tYKM

I should 'fess that HD, as well as being an old favourite in its own right, is one of my writing-to albums, which means I might have overplayed it, just a touch. Same goes for Aladdin Sane, Ziggy and Diamond Dogs. You sure notice which songs work for you when you've got them on rotation for 6 weeks straight.

xpost

and for some reason Kooks rubs me up the wrong way lately too.

It's a song written for an audience of one: Zowie (two if you count Angie). In a way it annoys me in the same way Phil Collins' 'relationship' songs annoy me - I'm not the intended audience and I don't even want to eavesdrop on the situation, I feel awkward about it even.

Hunky Dory vs. Aladdin Sane

Both albums have some annoying tracks but Aladdin Sane has Mike Garson, so I give it the edge. I love them both, including all the annoying tracks.

which reminds me of this, from way up thread:

"what are the most avant-garde/outside solos on pop singles?"

Great thread idea!

^ otm

thread idea inspired by Steely Dan's "Do It Again" btw, even though it wouldn't win the "most avant-garde solo" prize

https://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lyf0o6YS9t1qfkgyio1_500.jpg

God, I love "Kooks." It's the song that more than any other made me reconsider my long-standing antipathy to Bowie. (Big fan of Changesone in high school, completely uninterested through my 20s and 30s, again a big fan of the dozen songs I voted for.)

'Andy Warhol' is clearly where Metallica stole one of the riffs in 'Master Of Puppets' from.

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican)

Yep, and they stole the phrase 'Leper Messiah' from 'Ziggy Stardust'. Obviously Jaymz is a closet Bowie fan.

Holy shit, the vicar in that Young Ones scene is Terry Jones? It's been yonks since I watched the Young Ones I never noticed that before.

my dumbass all-hits ballot, classic rockist 2 the core and (unsurprisingly) non-ILX-canonical in that i gave v short shrift to station to station & the "berlin trilogy":

1) Suffragette City
2) Ashes To Ashes
3) Rebel Rebel (perhaps i overrate due to imagined spiritual kinship w bikini kill's "rebel girl")
4) The Man Who Sold The World
5) Space Oddity (not so much for now, but then)
6) Cat People (long moroder version ftw*)
7) Heroes
8) All The Young Dudes
9) Quicksand
10) Starman (have no idea how this drek got on here, should have been "fame", smdh)
11) Andy Warhol
12) Is There Life On Mars?
13) John, I'm Only Dancing
14) Fashion
15) Diamond Dogs
16) Moonage Daydream
17) Under Pressure
18) Young Americans
19) Let's Dance
20) Modern Love

* there's supposedly a nine minute version of the bowie/moroder "cat people (putting out fire)" on an australian 12-inch. is this a myth? anyone have it/heard it?

I always liked Fill Your Heart anyway, but liked it even more when I heard the various ways that Bowie improved on the original. It's not like he made huge changes, but every one is perfect...

I like every song on Hunky Dory TBH.

3 of my favorites that didn't make it:

Let Me Sleep Beside you
Memory Of A Free Festival
Unwashed And Somewhat Slightly Dazed

1.Life On Mars?
2.Time
3.Cat People (Soundtrack)
4.Modern Love
5.Breaking Glass
6.Drive In Saturday
7.Oh! You Pretty Things
8. Warszawa
9.Time Will Crawl
10.Suffragette City
11.Ashes To Ashes
12.Young Americans
13.Panic In Detroit
14. Art Decade
15.Watch That Man
16."Heroes"
17.Ziggy Stardust
18.Fame '90 (was not tied to this particular version)
19.Space Oddity
20.Cracked Actor

nine minute cat people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvrXkOeu-ss

eek sorry for the embed

so so worth it though!

o shit! couldn't find it the last time i looked (which was apparently quite some time ago). ^-_-^

just needs this as an intro:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPP1i2YrrfA

i think his singing got better with aladdin sane. i don't like some of the more nasally vocals on the earlier stuff.

i think life on mars won cuz it's a fucking amazing song

music crit gold ^^

So, I was still coming up with 80 ballots, but only 78 first-place votes. Obviously I'd miscounted the #1s when I transcribed (by hand, don't ask) from my big messy spreadsheet to the nice neat googledoc. So I opened Big Messy in Google and there they were.

Revisions: "Hang on to Yourself" changed from 0 first-place votes to 1, and "Life on Mars" changed from 4 first-place votes to 5. Point totals were correct, no changes. Total number of ballots: a nice even 80.

I love that clash of the Tony Newley cockney scamp voice with the New York arts scene references that makes Hunky Dory so original and fresh.

80's a terrific effort, well done all. It makes the results so much more fun too.

And 41 different songs got first-place votes.

Wow, 80. You win!

Is 80 all-ILM record? Well done, people--and WmC, again, great job....so FUN!!

I think so, but I don't keep up with rap or metal polls.

Mark -- I wasn't competing for anything! ILM wins.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B4Km5OKZlp0

It's not the side-effects of the cocaine
I'm thinking that all you people who voted for Low haven't listened to any other Bowie albums

― an elk hunt (Ówen P.), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 4:32 PM (4 days ago)

You may recall that in 1978, LP cutout bins (at least in Scranton) were full of firmly unwanted copies of Low.

they loved it in wilkes-barre tho

^^^^

maybe so, I don't recall seeing Low cutouts at Joe Nardone's Gallery of Sound!

Low was rating #1 of the Top 100 1970's albums on Pitchfork, btw. None of his other albums ranked in the top 50.

http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5932-top-100-albums-of-the-1970s/10/

fwiw while i did not vote in this poll and contributed no more than the occasional joek to its unveiling, i totally appreciate its existence and have indeed listened to trax 1-12 today.

so thanks y'all

It's not the side-effects of the cocaine
I'm thinking that all you people who voted for Low haven't listened to any other Bowie albums
― an elk hunt (Ówen P.), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 4:32 PM (4 days ago)

Nah it's his best album

Well, hey. Let's talk.
When you consider so many other Bowie albums to be an treasure trove, pleeeeease tell me
Why Bowie's #1 album (selon ILM) contains so many one-offs, oddities; essentially a b-sides collection
(excepting "Breaking glass" and "Sound + vision") come at me, it's a shit-haul.

Close your eyes to the backstory and you'll hear at least ten other superior albums by same artist

I'm not that invested in Bowie the songwriter, the lyricist, the personality etc. I just really love how Low sounds, from the bottom of my heart! I don't really care about "backstories" and it's really presumptuous and rather arrogant for you to suggest that that's the reason people love the album (whether they're conscious of it or not).

i mean, i'm not into most of hunky dory at all, but i don't have to come up with some strawman conspiracy theory to validate my dislike. also, i know i'm wrong.

I'll bet there's some relationship between average age of voter and preference for Low. I realize after this poll that I don't particularly have a favorite Bowie album at this point. When I listen to the top 60 playlist on Spotify, I seem to be gravitating towards the Scary Monsters tracks, which is interesting because it's not one of my first choices for "best album."

starman conspiracy

Let's just accept that "favorite album" can change week to week if not day to day.