Lodger vs. Scary Monsters

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.

To be clear, I'm not defending the album besides "Modern Love," "Criminal World," and listening to Chic shimmy in "Without You."

I will also step up for "Cat People"

LD came out my senior year of high school and was considered at least OK even among the fanatics I knew, as Alfred notes Tonight was the dealbreaker in my scene for sure

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"

this was me and my friends except Let's Dance was the FIRST Bowie album to come out since we'd all become fanatics. We were incredibly excited, and utterly disappointed. All but two of us skipped the tour - who wants to hear that stuff? We liked "Modern Love" OK but it was a giant, giant letdown.

The Hunger was released the same year as Let's Dance, right? Like, that movie has got (soon to be defunct) Bowie fanatics Bauhaus playing 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' at the very beginning... also, didn't he do 'Under Pressure' with Queen in between Scary Monsters and Let's Dance? The lyric to that was apparently written almost completely by Bowie.

the classic karaoke conundrum: what to do during the intro:

Mmm num ba de
Dum bum ba be
Doo buh dum ba beh beh

then you think you're in the clear. then twenty seconds pass, and fucking

Um ba ba be
Um ba ba be
De day da
Ee day da- that's okay

on the other hand, one time i saw someone NAIL all of those little lyrical burps and it was transcendent

that's why I always pick the Bowie part. Friends go for the flamboyant Mercury part while I hang back and go "oooh ooh oooh ooooooh"

If you glue the two LPs together so that you have side two of Lodger followed by side one of Scary Monsters you get Bowie's second-best album. In my opinion. Don't do this with actual records.

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!