Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

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

I'm convinced that Bowie's glam period (Hunky Dory through Diamond Dogs?) is overrated. I just don't think it has aged well. There are many moments on Ziggy that make me cringe. I truly prefer the postdisco period: Young Americans through Scary Monsters, and I really believe that Lodger is the most coherent, sustained, catchy, and innovative of all those records. I love it. I'm listening to it right now!

that song rules, wtf

lads, lads, it's David Baddiel

baddiel is wrong abt everything ever and also the lodger is david bowie's best record

so I pack a bag
and move on

Not sure how you'd even determine the consensus view.

It's true, ILM hasn't polled the album yet apparently.

!!!

get in here, goons

Best track on David Bowie's LODGER album

Jake Shears on Lodger in his (great) Baker's Dozen on the Quietus.

David Bowie - Lodger
My three favourite Bowie albums are Lodger, Scary Monsters and Let’s Dance, and they came out in that succession. I got Lodger on cassette when I was eight and just became completely obsessed with it and listened to over and over again - it’s a record that I never get sick of. You can find some weird writing about Lodger where people can be dismissive of it - I don’t understand that at all. It opens with ‘Fantastic Voyage’ which is probably in my top three favourite David Bowie songs, ‘African Night Flight’ is so hectic and strange, and ‘DJ’ was the big single from this and ‘Look Back In Anger’ too, and ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ was the first – other than hearing Frankie Goes To Hollywood in the back of my mom’s car radio – thing that felt queer to me. ‘Relax’ had a queer energy but ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ felt almost more explicit to me, with that line “other boys check you out” and “you’ll get your share when you’re a boy’”

jake shears otm

It's not my favorite Bowie album, but the people whose favorite Bowie album it is are my favorite people

'Fantastic Voyage' and 'Boys Keep Swinging' famously have the same chord sequences... and perhaps inevitably, someone has put the vocals of one to the backing track of the other and vice versa:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-7skUaqnu0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdGic7nE6Kc

Didn't expect much of these, and the first one just sounds like a plodding version of Boys - nothing unexpected really happens as a result of the switch - but the second one is great, principally because of the way the bassline rubs up against the lyrics.

Actually I kind of love them both. Interesting!

The laid back feel given to the vocals for 'Boys Keep Swinging' makes the lies of the lyrics more obvious - Bowie as laconic con-man selling you a heteronormative male fantasy. Kind of like Vendice Partners in a booth at the back of a cocktail bar. Maybe nearby there's Neil Tennant's character from 'Opportunities'?
The sped up vocals for 'Fantastic Voyage' are interesting, lending a more urgent feel to the lyrics. Doesn't mesh quite as well with the backing track though. It almost sounds like a punk song.

Blur's "M.O.R." uses the same chord progression (and had to give credit to Bowie and Eno), would be interesting to hear those vocals over these backing tracks.

ok now where's one with both vocal tracks at the same time

Just play the original backing track song simultaneously with the remix!

Duh