Gabrels is so amazing, I always always rate him highest
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:35 (six years ago) link
This thread title and 'Oh, Monseur [sic] le Fopp, you are really spoiling us…' are the most irritating on ILM.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:38 (six years ago) link
I actually have never listened to Tin Machine 1, because Tin Machine 2 was more readily available, and so I got it first. I was APPALLED.
"Baby Universal" was clearly, clearly such a Black Francis parody and had two of my least favourite Bowie lyrics ("No, baby, no, baby, no baby no!" and "...I'm the baby now"-- like........ if I were to describe what he's doing here as a lyricist it'd vaguely be "he has put together two words, "baby" and "universe", and is now strip-mining all lyrical possibilities and scenarios that these words could possibly be used for")
And then there's the ".. you're my roommate from Hell" moment on "A Big Hurt" which theoretically made me throw my Discman at the wall
And finally when he actually lets one (or both?) of the Sales brothers sing something and it's "Stateside" and "I'm Sorry" and I am SHAKEN with these decisions and would still write a letter to Coco asking her how and why these decisions were made
And I actually hate-watched a live video of Tin Machine playing "Stateside" just to look at Bowie's face when whichever Sales bro wrote that song takes his turn at the mic to try and understand why these decisions were made
Anyway I can't hate the Sales bros too much they played so good on Lust For Life I guess, but it's amazing to me that somebody like Bowie who always seemed so in control would let These Songs grace product that was His except perhaps in a deliberately self-sabotaging way
But yeah wow Bowie really really really liked The Pixies
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:43 (six years ago) link
And I really really really like Reeves Gabrels guitar playing and as I mentioned already I will always rate him higher than Alomar as Bowie's best guitarist
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:44 (six years ago) link
"baby universal" is so good idk. every other song you identified is bad though
i find "you can't talk" a charming difference-splitting between lodger and never let me down. "amlapura" is gorgeous
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:46 (six years ago) link
I remember hating "Baby Universal" but then when the album ended thinking it was the best song on there :(
It's weird... it's like what's wrong with Tin Machine is not any one component but the larger sour taste that is created by seeing Bowie resign his creative authority so utterly. It was never weird when Gail sang "O Superman". Why is it weird with this band? I don't fully get it. But I generally don't think Bowie wrote many worthwhile lyrics after "Let's Dance"... I can feel too acutely the people he's stealing from
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:52 (six years ago) link
It's weird... it's like what's wrong with Tin Machine is not any one component but the larger sour taste that is created by seeing Bowie resign his creative authority so utterly. It was never weird when Gail sang "O Superman". Why is it weird with this band? I don't fully get it.
The laddishness of his collaborators.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 January 2018 16:53 (six years ago) link
Yeah that's probably it... there is something SO jarring about that dude singing "I'm going stateside"-- I think at that moment I really realized how non-masc Bowie had always been. With Tin Machine he's out buying three different kinds of hot sauce, wearing striped pants, watching football and saying "poon" non-ironically or something
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:19 (six years ago) link
gabrels' overdubs on "you belong in rock n' roll" are gorgeous
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:42 (six years ago) link
That was Hunt. Yeah that the fact that two bad-bar blooooze songs are on this album are...not good. I saw them do "Stateside" as part of the promo show I talk about here, and it was the lowlight:
https://nedraggett.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/not-just-the-ticket-a-ticketless-show-of-note-tin-machine-late-august-1991/
Here's the footage from said show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-Kf4fOC4J4
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:49 (six years ago) link
despite the two regrettable hunt sales songs i think i prefer tm 2 to tm 1. the songs actually benefit from being overarranged by gabrels; there's more textural variation over the course of it than tm 1, which, despite containing songs i enjoy, is in many ways an undifferentiated slog. also "goodbye mr. ed" is quickly becoming, like, one of my favorite bowie songs of all time
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:51 (six years ago) link
hunt's sudden transition to half time in the first minute of "mr. ed" just kills me
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 January 2018 17:54 (six years ago) link
I'm listening to it now for the first time since I was maybe 20
90s Bowie's voice is my favourite Bowie voice
But wow he is the worst lyricist sometimes, even the title "Goodbye Mr Ed"? in 1992? "Fare Thee Well, Herbie The Love Bug!" "See You Anon, Sammie Tong!"
― flamboyant goon tie included, Saturday, 13 January 2018 19:03 (six years ago) link
i like the lyric about andy warhol's skull
― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Saturday, 13 January 2018 19:10 (six years ago) link
http://wp.production.patheos.com/blogs/mysticpost/files/2016/05/mr.-ed.jpg
can't help it
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 13 January 2018 19:11 (six years ago) link
are "tim machine" the best thing david bowie ?
― brimstead, Monday, 15 January 2018 16:14 (six years ago) link
if this had been called a David Bowie album instead of Tin Machine it would have been perceived as a return to form like New York by Lou Reed
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:14 (two years ago) link
Like New York, it has one good song: "Prisoner of Love". Like all of Bowie's records from 1983 to 2002, it was an important step to take to get back some of the artistic power he had lost.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:22 (two years ago) link
I've always maintained part of the press's dim view of Tin Machine was that they were forced to talk to Hunt Sales, which is a fair point
― chr1sb3singer, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:27 (two years ago) link
Tin Machine II is the only Bowie record I haven't heard yet. I saw him in his green suit destroy Roxy's "If There Is Something" on TV and said, no way. If it were in print now, I'd listen.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:30 (two years ago) link
I like II, "Sorry" Hunt's ballad is maybe the worst song ever recorded, other than that it's fine
― chr1sb3singer, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:47 (two years ago) link
Tin Machine should get their own box set in the ongoing series. The albums could probably do with a remix/remastering job, and they seem to have recorded a ton of live stuff.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 15:54 (two years ago) link
TMII = a VERY Bowie record.way more than TMIthere was a limited TM Live album released i seem to recall.
― mark e, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:11 (two years ago) link
I liked the first one at the time, as mach as if not more than most Bowie albums of the era, tbh. "Prisoner of Love" is a great song, but I seem to recall other good ones on there, too. Granted, I haven't listened to it in eons, but I'd reach for it before, say, "Hours."
I do remember Tin Machine performing on the weird-ass rock awards, alongside the Replacements, Living Colour (doing "Johnny B. Goode") and ... Keith Richards solo?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:21 (two years ago) link
Yep, The International Rock Awards. The Replacements were on it, too.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:23 (two years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebzeb56SEaU
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:23 (two years ago) link
...which you mentioned.xp
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:24 (two years ago) link
I also think I saw TM on SNL, where Hunt had iirc almost comically oversized cymbals and/or drums. Just huge.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 16:24 (two years ago) link
I remember that SNL appearance, too. I think had a massive bass drum? Definitely not standard sizes. I loved their performance of “If There Is Something,” which took me by surprise (I didn’t know they’d recorded it; when I later heard the studio version, it was pretty much ruined by the awful production and sloggy tempo).
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Wednesday, 23 June 2021 17:01 (two years ago) link
I was really happy when I realized Bowie's Twin Peaks character was probably turned into a machine in The Return because he told Lynch he was about to go on tour with Tin Machine during filming of Fire Walk with Me. From this interview:
Why did Phillip Jeffries take the form of a tea kettle?I sculpted that part of the machine that has that tea kettle spout thing, but I wish I’d just made it straight, because everybody thinks it’s a tea kettle. It’s just a machine.
I sculpted that part of the machine that has that tea kettle spout thing, but I wish I’d just made it straight, because everybody thinks it’s a tea kettle. It’s just a machine.
― Chris L, Wednesday, 23 June 2021 17:41 (two years ago) link
ive listened to these 2 albums for the first time ever just now and there's maybe 3 decent tracks out of 20 odd.
― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 24 June 2021 17:19 (two years ago) link
At the time of the first record there was a Scottish middle-distance runner called Tom McKean doing pretty well in European athletics championships, myself and my stupid mates would sing in our best crap Bowie voice 'Tom Mckean, Tom Mckean, take me anywhere...'
― Maresn3st, Thursday, 24 June 2021 17:37 (two years ago) link
haha
― 《Myst1kOblivi0n》 (jim in vancouver), Thursday, 24 June 2021 17:39 (two years ago) link
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown)
uh it was in certain magazines!
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 June 2021 17:56 (two years ago) link
My friend used to sing "Bank Machine, Bank Machine" while looking for an ATM.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 24 June 2021 18:44 (two years ago) link
A friend and I wrote a fake Tin Machine song called "Gun to Our Heads."
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 24 June 2021 18:48 (two years ago) link
Which you're going to share a link to
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 24 June 2021 18:56 (two years ago) link
I still have and love the entirety of the first album.
Never got around to listen to the second one, but I loved the promo video to "You Belong in Rock'n'Roll" when it came out, and the song belongs in my favourite Bowie tunes. I would certainly have made space on that 3-cd anthology for it and "I Can't Read" at least (another absolute Bowie peak irregardless of the performer name credit - so much so it rightfully featured on Outside-era live setlists).
― Max Florian, Friday, 25 June 2021 13:05 (two years ago) link
I found Bowie's choice of delivery in "I Can't Read" unbearable.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2021 13:11 (two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, June 24, 2021
....written about 25 years ago after we discovered the first album on tape in the Nice Price bin. We found it ghastly but actually took pen to paper to write a song in that style. I have that paper somewhere.
― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 25 June 2021 13:12 (two years ago) link