Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

Having raved about Shearwater's song-by-song cover of this album upthread, I just wanted to give a heads up that they are playing the whole Berlin trilogy live over three nights in NYC next month, with special guest Carlos Alomar!

lol i misread that as bongwater for a moment

No but “African Night Flight” is the best track of the Berlin Trilogy.

I still very much see this period of Bowie music as a five album run (Station to Station to Scary Monsters) rather than as a trilogy.

and I'd rank 'em Station to Station = Low > Lodger > "Heroes" > Scary Monsters, but they're all excellent really.

I think Lodger was about the first current Bowie I was aware of came out when i was 11 or 12 and I know I got the Fantastic Voyage single sometime roughly around it being current, came from a newsagent 7" rack so not sure how much of a lag there was.

& my elder brother was getting heavily into Bowie sometime around then. So I was probably hearing his back catalogue from my brother's room around the time.
Do like a lot of it.

Though I think my getting more into Bowie was much longer delayed. & the first records I was buying were the mod era stuff and Images both a couple of years later.

I remember the video for Boys Keep Swinging being on TOTP which I assume must have been current to the lp. Don't remember seeing Heroes video current to it being out.
& while I can remember the Sweet being played at the time they were around in the early 70s not sure about Bowie. & i think I was watching TOTP throughout the 70s

Excellent piece on Boys Keep Swinging and the genesis of the Ryko bonus track, I Pray, Olé:

An interesting read on Boys Keep Swinging and the mystery of I Pray Olehttps://t.co/tL7dhUqWKV

— Crayon to Crayon (@CrayonToCrayon) August 16, 2019

And since my post was a lame retread of the tweet, I will add that there is some good stuff w Visconti (and Gabrels pissing on Visconti) in there.

"I Pray Ole" is a wee thing, not terrible. Its interesting how Bowie gets credit for playing all guitars.

I love that literally nobody seems to have any idea where it came from.

Another interesting factoid in that article: Bowie recorded his vocal for Some Are, from the Ryko issue of Low, in 1991. That one sounds pretty consistent with the rest of Bowie’s vocals from 1976.

Has Abdulmajid’s vintage ever been confirmed? To my ears, it’s never really sounded like any of the tracks from the Berlin period.

Apropos of nothing, I kind of like the Look Back in Anger Bowie did with Gabrels.

Was listening to the ‘stalking time for the moonboys’ podcast and David Baddiel tore into ‘African Night Flight’ saying how bad he thought it was but it’s possibly my fave thing on it...is it held in such low esteem?

not by me

The handful of my friends and I that own the album would rate it quite highly. Not sure how you'd even determine the consensus view.

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