Lodger vs. Scary Monsters

but the vocal on Teenage Wildlife is EVERYTHING

I've grown to admire how Bowie uses his voice as a lead guitar on Scary Monsters.

^^^literally the only good thing about that album

Oh yeah and Ashes to Ashes

and "Up The Hill Backwards"

I like Lodger as a whole more but it never reaches Scary Monsters' heights

― flappy bird,

agree with this take

ashes to ashes is certainly a high point in bowie's oeuvre. it was the first bowie song i ever fell in love with.

"time and again i tell myself / i'll stay clean tonight"

i have no idea how i am going to vote

lodger is maybe the bowie album which has the most obvious eno influence. a lot of the instrumental parts sound like precursors to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. and speaking of Byrne, it's very easy to imagine "Repetition" as a More Songs... era Talking Heads track. even the drums sound like Tina Weymouth's boyfriend.

there is something more indie sounding about it. i don't know if that makes sense. but with low, heroes and lodger i envision bowie, eno and visconti together in the city, vibing on ideas with no real idea from the outset of what the finished project will be. how much of this is myth and how much is due to actual qualities in the music, i don't know.

can't you even cook

um, really bad form to insult me in my own poll when i'm talking about my favorite music

i have no idea how i am going to vote
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, November 21, 2018 11:55 AM (nine minutes ago)

Me either.

Gonna listen to `em back to back when I get home today.

I love the singing on Teenage Wildlife, might push it above Heroes for me, but I tend to like "ugly" vocals

voted lodger.
but …
currently listening to SM (ryko edition) on headphones and already regretting my choice.
these two albums are way too close to make a definitive choice.
I love them both more than the rest of bowies catalogue.
and yes, the singing on TW is the whole point of the song.

Scary Monsters is all-time classic

Both are magnificent but if I have to choose it's Lodger for me.

it’s lodger

Lodger because Bowie comes across as being sympathetic whereas on Scary Monsters he's being (or at least pretending to be) a dick.

(at least half of the time)

I might go out today and buy a shiny new remastered CD edition of Lodger to complement my bashed up old second hand vinyl copy

I should really listen to Scary Monsters again, people here seem to rate it.

I'm not going to go as far as saying that side 2 is shit, but it's definitely a front loaded album. Also the knowledge that 'Teenage Wildlife' is at least partly Bowie ripping on Gary Numan does spoil proceedings.

I mean if you really want to hear a song that's 'established artist A ripping on up and coming artist B' then listen to Lou Reed's 'NY Stars', which is far superior.

didn't know that about Teenage Wildlife, that's a pity. I never loved Lodger as much as ILM seems to, I think Fantastic Voyage is a top 5 Bowie track easy but I'm not wild about the album as a whole. Scary Monsters OTOH is terrific. Sure it's front-loaded - so is everything except Hunky Dory though. Lodger has always felt kind too in thrall to the Eno project, and pretty unfocused, except in its "most of these will be a bit weird" -- to me it's the letdown of the trilogy, but that's just me I know.

"Monsters" is indeed a mean and angry album but a more effective record for me.

i have much less peter gabriel listening experience so this take might be complete bullshit, but i feel like his early albums make interesting counterpoints to Scary Monsters. they both use similar sound palettes, same broad category of "art rock"

Also, Robert Fripp plays on Scary Monsters as well as the first three Gabriel albums. Roy Bittan, who plays on Scary Monsters is on the second PG. I don't think it's bullshit at all.

it would seem elementary that what PG and DB were up to from 1976 to surely 1980 —and possibly 1983— are very very similar. PG had to look up to DB initially, but he left DB in the dust in the mid 80s.

To me, the song that no one ever talks about from this period that is MEAN as fuck is "SKUH-REEEM LAHK UH BAYY-BUHH"…

yessss i love that song.

Only one of these albums includes "Look Back In Anger," so that obviously tips the scales. Lodger is always underrated.

Scary Monsters has always left me kinda cold. Great singles, though.

Lodger was Bowie’s best record since Scary Monsters.

or at least Some Girls

Teenage Wildlife has that irresistible chug like Heroes, but is warmer, less anthemic and I prefer its twin guitar brilliance over the former's Frippery

"It's No Game (pt. 1)" is one of my favourite Bowie songs and the best "unhinged" vocal performance I can call to mind

I remember having a conversation with a Bowie fan who was old enough to experience every album as they were released, and he described the disappointment felt in the Bowie fan community with the arrival of "Let's Dance" as being seismic, and that the subsequent revisionism of that album as being "good" was frustrating. I never really got it until "Modern Love" came on in the coffee shop yesterday morning when I was feeling annoyed and I listened and thought "he's right this is really disappointing"

"there's no sign of life, it's just the power to charm" indeed.

i love the song "modern love" but i have no great affection for the rest of that album.

The video is soulless and plastic, particularly the bit where hundreds of crescent moon balloons come out of the giant crescent moon.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HivQqTtiHVw
(from the 1996 ALan Yentob interview)

I remember having a conversation with a Bowie fan who was old enough to experience every album as they were released, and he described the disappointment felt in the Bowie fan community with the arrival of "Let's Dance" as being seismic, and that the subsequent revisionism of that album as being "good" was frustrating.

Huh. I've had similar conversations with the same generation, and they felt no ill will toward Bowie: they thought Let's Dance was a move as unpredicted as Young Americans and, remembering their experience with that album, held their fire. And everyone loved "Modern Love."

It was Tonight that made these people say, "Thanks, mate, for the memories."

I’ve heard both sides, almost word for word: that Let’s Dance was a shocking betrayal; and that it was OK but really only good for the singles

i have a vague memory of reading (trigger warning) Momus describe Scary Monsters as seeming "anti-modernist" at the time

Huh. I've had similar conversations with the same generation, and they felt no ill will toward Bowie: they thought Let's Dance was a move as unpredicted as Young Americans and, remembering their experience with that album, held their fire. And everyone loved "Modern Love."

It was Tonight that made these people say, "Thanks, mate, for the memories."

― I like queer. You like queer, senator? (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, November 25, 2018 6:41 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, this sounds about right to me.

I don't know, the blonde hair, the pastel suits, I think quite a few long time Bowie fans were cringing at all that. Plus substandard music.

As a great man once said though, time flexes like a whore, falls wanking to the floor, and you can’t expect any artist to keep up the same level forever.

Nothing substandard at all about the title track, 'Modern Love', 'China Girl' etc. His image on that album was very much of its time. You can understand - in hindsight - why he did it... he was trying to wrong-foot everyone who he felt had pinched his act.

I feel that album represents a drop though. It’s not as interesting as its predecessors.

Few songs sounded like "Modern Love" in 1983 even in this year of peak New Wave MTV crossover

Perhaps not a dip in quality but a huge change in thesis. It feels (songwriting-wise) like cynical pop pastiche-- the "cynicism" being the overly trite lyrical approach rather than, say, the intentional cynicism of genre-precedent-to-"Let's Dance" songs like "Fame" and "Young Americans"

His image on that album was very much of its time

Exactly.

Plus his version of "China Girl" blows.

Fgti otm. The album is a return to the kind of warholoan “pastiche” that he had left behind starting with Low.

Apparently Mercury and Bowie argued like mad while mixing that track.

I keep saying this every time the video for 'Dancing...' gets posted, but it's glorious, Bowie and Jagger trying to out-do each other in every frame.

I wonder what Keef thought of it (not a lot, I'd be willing to bet)

I imagine he thought quite a bit of it, actually. `Course it was all negative. But, y'know, no good deed, etc. etc. . . .

Well, yeah... that's pretty much what I was saying!

I know there was some tension in the Stones camp regarding Jagger getting a solo deal to begin with (Keef says as much in his book), but I can just picture Keef watching the 'Dancing in the Street' video all like "christ, look at this pair of twats" ...

Wasn’t Let’s Dance his first album for EMI? Didn’t the label do that extravagant “Let’s rent a mansion and invite the media over for a decadent press conference” thing? I decidedly feel like part of that record’s aesthetic was forged in “I need to justify this giant wad I just banked.”

I still find it funny that albums like Station to Station and Low (indeed all of his classic albums, for that matter) were issued on RCA, which never struck me as being a particularly "cool" record label. Although this might have something to do with the fact I first saw those orange labels on older relatives Paul Anka/Jim Reeves LP's etc.

Yes they were a pretty square label, they had Nilsson, Mike Nesmith, er... Lou Reed!

Oh yeah, Metal Machine Music was on RCA too! Feels like the kind of thing that would have been more at home on Virgin Records or something.

Well Lou claimed he wanted Red Seal, RCA's classic division to put it out and I hope the story is true cuz the idea of the insectoid drug-bug era Lou playing a rough of "MMM" for some suited square trying to convince him it was "modern composition" is too good

Lodger is the correct answer.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Teenage Wildlife wot swung it

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

gah, the mythos of the “Berlin” trilogy

and the reality that side 2 of Scary Monsters kinda sucks

I’ll allow it

i expected it to be closer.

me too

I had a feeling that Lodger would take this, to be honest. Those that like the album seem to really like it, and there's quite a lot of people on here that have passionately praised it. Scary Monsters is highly praised too, but not to the same degree on here.

Scary Monsters

Happy 75th DB!