Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

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hmm, try this

willem (willem), Wednesday, 19 November 2003 14:21 (twenty years ago) link

seven months pass...
i don't think phil glass will be able to re-orchestrate this part of the modern day Ring, presumably (for me) because it's a definite movement forward for Bowie -- too fast for glass, so the glass trilogy, the pyramid on the cover in the classical section we'll never see

george gosset (gegoss), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 15:49 (nineteen years ago) link

what?

kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 15:52 (nineteen years ago) link

is Lodger too punk for glass ?
(did glass orchestrate "breaking glass" for the "low symphony")
is it more william burroughs ?

george gosset (gegoss), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 16:05 (nineteen years ago) link

"this part of the modern day Ring"?

"so the glass trilogy, the pyramid on the cover in the classical section we'll never see"?

what?

peter smith (plsmith), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 16:11 (nineteen years ago) link

i miss mark s

Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 16:12 (nineteen years ago) link

i was just thinking out loud re: the marketing of the "Berlin Glass" (implict) trilogy, the failed or 2/3 or low/heroes trilogy, and/or the punk floyd-ish glassy novelty cd covers

george gosset (gegoss), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 16:16 (nineteen years ago) link

isn't it just lodger? the lodger *is* a great hitchcock film, though.

amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 16:53 (nineteen years ago) link

To fast for Glass? There's parts of Einstein on the Beach that are possibly the fastest music ever played by man OR machine!

Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 17:00 (nineteen years ago) link

(for future reference, what are those parts of it called ? i'm not sure my library has it and i don't know anyone with it. i've just read about it and seen/heard Glass live about 20 years ago and then occasionally. it seemed technically fast but i wasn't sure how fast ideas moved non-technically.)

george gosset (gegoss), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link

when i think of philip glass i always think of the part in "wayne's world" where wayne and garth signal a flashback by waving their hands in front of their faces and going "do do do do do, do do do do do."

amateur!st (amateurist), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 19:18 (nineteen years ago) link

george: try 'spaceship'. wait till the chorus kicks in. the re-recording is even faster than the original.

(Jon L), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 19:43 (nineteen years ago) link

Ok, I'm really not much of a Phil Phan, but let me put this out there: "Look Back In Anger" done Glass-y would be incredible.

Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Tuesday, 29 June 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link

seven months pass...
Lodger is brilliant and almost Bowie's best although ultimately I think Low pips it to the post. The things that let Lodger down:
1. Red Money - in itself a pretty great track, but it came after Sister Midnight and therefore has to be compared to it, and frankly, Sister Midnight is way better.
2. Repetition: I like it musically but the lyrics are sort of too obvious and a bit of a cliché. Everywhere else on this album the lyrics are so good ("He used to be my boss and now he is a puppet dancer" - how great is that!)
3. "Look Back In Anger" - his singing is too histrionic, even for a histrionic singer like Bowie.

Of course, the good easily outweighs the bad on this album. I particularly love the mad violins on "Boys Keep Swinging".

pj proby, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 11:11 (nineteen years ago) link

I think only Rob Sheffield has convincingly defended this album. I love it, even though it's let down by a "crunchy," unpleasant, muddy mix (listen to the guitars on "Boys Keep Swinging") that's quite uncharacteristic of Eno and Tony Visconti. That said, it's a great record, Bowie's approximation of a pop album, complete with big themes (wife beating) and concepts (the first four songs, about escape) he does much better than Orwellian dread.

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:32 (nineteen years ago) link

"Earthling, is indeed underrated and his take on drum n'bass actually sounds amazingly fresh, while more authentic stuff from the same period (hello Roni Size, 4 Hero) sounds quite dull. I think he realised it works best as 'rock n'roll', rather than as an adjunct to jazz funk."

HAHHAHHAHAAHAHA

ppp, Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:34 (nineteen years ago) link

Too histrionic? TOO HISTRIONIC?! NEVAAAAAAAH! Maybe not Bowie's best, but certainly my subjective favorite.

briania (briania), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 14:40 (nineteen years ago) link

speaking as a casual Bowie fan--to me he's just another good pop act, nothing more or less--I have always liked "Lodger" the best of any of his albums. It's the most kind of offhand, the least concerned with all that "persona" bullshit that makes him less-than-godly for me. It's exactly the kind of record an intelligent yet less-than-brilliant guy like Bowie makes after he's made it, dressed up, went throught some maze of his own making, and ended up kinda like the rest of us, mildly adrift and comfortable just making a mildly confused album all about how he's as confused as the rest of us, concerned about how fantastic voyages turn to erosion and so forth. I do like "Station to Station" and "Low" and "Heroes" just fine. To me, "Lodger" has the same relationship to the earlier Bowie as does "Before and After Science" does to the earlier Eno stuff. Good, you relaxed a little bit!

es hurt (ddduncan), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 16:35 (nineteen years ago) link

Es hurt - That was a fine analysis. I mostly agree.

Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Tuesday, 1 February 2005 17:14 (nineteen years ago) link

one month passes...
gosset on point re glass!!

(tho i think glass when he started might have tried something this quick)

mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 20:30 (nineteen years ago) link

amateur!st otm re: glass!

sleep (sleep), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 21:17 (nineteen years ago) link

two years pass...

THE HINTERLAND
THE HINTERLAND

I'M GONNA SAIL TO THE HINTERLAND

Noodle Vague, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 10:31 (sixteen years ago) link

it's fa-fa fa-fa-fa
fa-fa-far away
it's a fa-fa fa-fa-fa fa-da da-da-da

que Awesome Guitar Solo

willem, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 11:21 (sixteen years ago) link

I was reading my comments from '05 above. I think maybe I've been a little wrong about Bowie, and perhaps what made me rethink was Seu Jorge doing early Bowie in Life Aquatic. I probably need a legion of leggy unpaid interns to really sort it out, but I have more of a jones these days for the Bowie just pre-Iggy and the Stardust Cowboy or whatever that one was. OK, I know it, and parts of that record are so great, actually, and it was the one that tipped him off into that dress-up phase he needed to really make it. Still think that record is sort of bad in the manner of those Kinks records from the same era, those rock operettas. Still like some of the riffs on the Kinks stuff and Bowie, though, so mixed feelings, because it's stupid to hate the '70s for its excesses. So these days really like Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory. I mean I'd never really listened to any of those all the way through, I was way more into Eno and Roxy because I deemed them less excessive. But I still love Lodger, whose overall tone seems unique.

whisperineddhurt, Wednesday, 4 July 2007 17:15 (sixteen years ago) link

three years pass...

God Yassassin is good.

rhythm fixated member (chap), Saturday, 21 August 2010 16:17 (thirteen years ago) link

One of these days, one of these days, gotta get a word through one of these days

Count Scrofula (corey), Saturday, 21 August 2010 16:21 (thirteen years ago) link

Gotta get a word to Elizabeth's father.

rhythm fixated member (chap), Saturday, 21 August 2010 16:29 (thirteen years ago) link

Also amazing and very unique.

rhythm fixated member (chap), Saturday, 21 August 2010 16:43 (thirteen years ago) link

Hey ho wish me well

Gucci Mane hermeneuticist (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 21 August 2010 16:45 (thirteen years ago) link

I always hated Seu Jorge with a passion btw.

Count Scrofula (corey), Saturday, 21 August 2010 17:11 (thirteen years ago) link

Really? He seems like the epitome of inoffensive to me. Maybe that's why.

rhythm fixated member (chap), Saturday, 21 August 2010 17:12 (thirteen years ago) link

It was just irritating how anyone was paying attention to something so mediocre and unremarkable for an entire year.

Count Scrofula (corey), Saturday, 21 August 2010 18:24 (thirteen years ago) link

three months pass...

I can't believe how much "African Night Flight" sounds like a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony song.

dreamsonvhs, Saturday, 27 November 2010 22:02 (thirteen years ago) link

My stepfather looks just like David Bowie
But he hates David Bowie
I think Bowie's cool
I think Lodger rules
And my stepdad's a fool!

Avatar: The Last SBanner (kkvgz), Saturday, 27 November 2010 22:05 (thirteen years ago) link

I think "Lodger" starts out much stronger than it ends. But yeah the first dozen or so tracks are unstoppable.

Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 27 November 2010 22:50 (thirteen years ago) link

There's only ten songs!

look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 27 November 2010 22:51 (thirteen years ago) link

The last two tracks aren't that great, but the rest is fantastic.

Les centimètres énigmatiques (snoball), Saturday, 27 November 2010 22:55 (thirteen years ago) link

LOL heh you're right! only ten songs!

Sister Midnight is just soooo badass, it's hard to hear "Red Money" and not think of it....

Telephoneface (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 27 November 2010 23:15 (thirteen years ago) link

three months pass...

This is an awesome beast of a record.

lol sickmouthy (Scik Mouthy), Saturday, 12 March 2011 19:42 (thirteen years ago) link

Whether it's the best of the trilogy, I'm not sure -- but for whatever reason, it's the one I've listened to the most. By far.

Naive Teen Idol, Sunday, 13 March 2011 14:50 (thirteen years ago) link

I can't believe how much "African Night Flight" sounds like a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony song.

― dreamsonvhs, Saturday, November 27, 2010 5:02 PM

Rich Lolwry (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 13 March 2011 14:57 (thirteen years ago) link

this one has grown the most for me — side two of Low and Heroes tend to bore me now

corey, Sunday, 13 March 2011 15:35 (thirteen years ago) link

Huh, I quoted Yassassin yesterday with the same wrong/right punctuation + capitalisation as one J0hn some seven years ago.
Lodger is my 2nd favourite Bowie album; favourite is Outside.
Bowie's singing in the 90s got really, really gorgeous

Odult Ariented Rock (Ówen P.), Sunday, 13 March 2011 22:57 (thirteen years ago) link

It is weird how I always perceived this as a dud relative to the other two. Then I actually heard it and wow what a record

gr8080 sings the blues (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Sunday, 13 March 2011 23:21 (thirteen years ago) link

I listened to hunky dory today for the first time in years. There being no bad songs on it makes it a sure contender for best Bowie, although 'Stay' from station to station is reason alone to put that album above it.

farieling thosder chout a bagh an i ballme crantuman (dog latin), Monday, 14 March 2011 02:43 (thirteen years ago) link

Hunky Dory is great, the only bad song is the cover
I do not understand the cult of Low

Odult Ariented Rock (Ówen P.), Monday, 14 March 2011 05:42 (thirteen years ago) link

first side is awesome

corey, Monday, 14 March 2011 05:45 (thirteen years ago) link

side two of Low and Heroes tend to bore me now

― corey, Sunday, 13 March 2011 15:35 (Yesterday)

wau

Considered by experts as the youngest philosopher in the world (nakhchivan), Monday, 14 March 2011 05:46 (thirteen years ago) link

one year passes...

Lately I've been taken with the '88 rerecording of "Look Back in Anger," featuring a drum machine, ominous sound effects, and the debut of Reeves Gabrels. To me it makes the Tin Machine albums redundant. This is what they should have sounded like: stolid, thick, noisy.

With La La La Human Steps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VEQPVY_uxM&feature=related

go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 30 May 2012 13:57 (eleven years ago) link

I always liked "Look Back in Anger" redux. It serves a similar purpose to those scattered late-period Police remakes, successfully recasting old songs in contemporary settings that, yes, date them worse than the originals but still at least have the courage of their convictions.

("Look Back In Anger," incidentally, one of only a handful of formal - that is, credited - Brian Eno co-writes with classic collaborators, joining the likes of "Heroes" and "Once in a Lifetime")

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 30 May 2012 14:06 (eleven years ago) link


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