Best Bowie Music - Scary Monsters (1980)

David Bowie - "Teenage Wildlife"

Much like the Beatles, I had always thought that David Bowie was a great artist without a perfect album (or at least a perfect album in the traditional sense). He was capable of writing a side of perfect, futuristic pop songs, while backing them with classical synth compositions (not necessarily imperfect, but hard to categorize, and certainly difficult to call a perfect pop album).  Or make an excellent soul/funk record, and then include an unforgivable cover of "Across The Universe," an awful song no matter who's singing. I've guess I've always had a hard time really connecting to David Bowie albums in general. Sure, there's always plenty to appreciate, but his best albums are still pretty cold and distant. He seems to specialize in highly stylized groove-based jams, and rarely hits on the kind of emotional transcendence of a song like "Heroes." But in the last few weeks I've made a breakthrough and discovered that I do have a favorite Bowie album and it is perfect. And that album is Scary Monsters.
My favorite era of Bowie's personal life is circa 1975, when he moved into Deep Purple bassist Glenn Hughes' mansion in the Hollywood Hills and got way into black magic. He stayed in seclusion for long stretches of time and did mountains of cocaine. According to Marc Spitz's biography, he weighed 85 lbs and lived on a diet of red and green peppers, milk, and blow. He drew pentagrams on everything in the house to protect himself from spirits. He was going through something called "cocaine psychosis" and was completely paranoid and isolated from the outside world. Considering how uniquely insane this seems, logic would dictate that Station To Station should be my favorite Bowie album. And for a while I thought it might have been. But in reality, it's Scary Monsters, an album that came out five years later, that seems to exhibit the qualities that a cocaine psycho might exude.
It opens with "It's No Game (Part 1)" which has only ever reminded me of ODB. His voice is absolutely shredding through the coolly strutting verses, and for no apparent reason. It's a completely original trick, and the perfect one to set a wholly upsetting, paranoid tone for the album (this is to say nothing of the Japanese lady's dialogue in the intro). It's followed by my original favorite song from the album, "Up The Hill Backwards" with its' jittery 7/4 intro section and super smooth transition to the verse featuring gang vocals. Recently, I've appreciated "Ashes To Ashes" more than ever. It's the album's most famous song, and the one I've always been most familiar with. I had always thought that there was something off about it; something holding it back from perfection. Now, I couldn't tell you what the something was. The jerky bass and disco drums, the variety of synth tones, the euphoric chorus...all of it seems brilliant. But the song that elevates Scary Monsters from just another excellent Bowie album to something else altogether is "Teenage Wildlife." It's the album's beating heart, the moment of vulnerability where all the baggage and gimmicks and fashion are put aside while Bowie cries out for something raw and real. It's as epic and far-reaching as "Heroes" and slightly more complex. The back end of the album is loaded with a few gems as well. "Scream Like A Baby" has minor chords on top of minor chords, with a razor-sharp one-note riff, reinforcing the album's, uh, creepiness. Bowie's cover of Tom Verlaine's "Kingdom Come" manages to fit the theme of the album, in spite of the feel-good power-pop guitar lines.
The best thing about Scary Monsters is how it manages to balance all of the best parts of his previous five albums, something that the designer of the artwork must have noticed as well. It's a cliche to mention how innovative he was in the 70s, but jeez...he was really innovative. And prolific! He was cranking out an album a year (which I guess is pretty easy when you only sleep twice a week). Anyways, Scary Monsters is an incredible summation of one of the most creative periods of any rock and roll artist ever.

"Ashes To Ashes"


A few more:
On Soul Train
Dick Cavett Interview Pt. 1/Pt. 2
At the Grammys, getting his feelings hurt


Wikipedia
allmusic

Best Old Music - Jonathan Richman - I, Jonathan (1992)

 

Jonathan Richman - "You Can't Talk To The Dude"

Great albums are fairly common, but fun great albums seem nearly impossible to make. Stuff like "The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich" is fun and great, and maybe some early Weezer is too, but I can't think of anything great that manages to be this casually, enthusiastically fun. I, Jonathan combines Richman's love of 60s pop songs with the innocence and naivete he came to be known for later in his career. It's mostly guitar based, and sounds like it was recorded with a 4 track in his basement. There are no overdubs, just a dude, his guitar, and some friends.
Despite the fact that I'm generally pretty anti-tradition, one of the things I love most about the album is the fact that every song seems to be some kind of homage to early rock and roll. He introduces himself by saying, "Hi everybody! I am from the 60s." on "Parties In The U.S.A." and goes on to sing about "Louie, Louie," "Little Latin Lupe Lu," and "Hang On Sloopy." He follows it up with "Tandem Jump," which is like a hornless "Tequila." It's moments like this where he borders on novelty (also on "I Was Dancing In A Lesbian Bar," and the "Sister Ray" section of "Velvet Underground") but somehow brilliantly manages to reign things back in and keep it legit. They're great songs that are funny enough to make you laugh out loud, and I'm not sure I know how to react to something like that. It's a pretty nice curveball. I don't know...maybe they are novelty songs, but they're still really terrific. (Also possibly related: an instrumental called "GRUNION RUN.")
The ballads ("That Summer Feeling" and "Twilight In Boston") are on par with any of the pop songs the album offers. They don't require the emotional investment that a lot of ballads do, but close attention really does pay off. In fact, "That Summer Feeling" is one of the more moving songs I've heard in the last few years (on par with "Suburban Dogs" in an era where I don't have much use for ballads). It might be the best song on the album. However, Richman more frequently shows off his ability to write pop hooks that have inspired Jens Lekman to rip him off in many of his best songs. This is especially the case on "Higher Power," a perfect 3 minute upbeat pop/love song. I guess I've read that Richman was on influence on Jens, but having only ever heard the first Modern Lovers record, I was always pretty skeptical. After hearing this, it's far more clear than Stephen Merritt's influence.
So if you like fun, the 60s, the beach, lo-fi records, Jens Lekman, music, and/or are a living, breathing person, find this, or at least skim the sound clips on allmusic. It's pretty perfect.

allmusic

(This video's not really a good example of what the album is like, but it is a pretty good representation of what a terrific brave weirdo he is.)

Best Old Music: Wire - It's Beginning To And Back Again (1989)

Note: Because coming across so many top notch older albums has been more common than usual this year, I'm attempting to start a series where I can write about these albums as I'm inducting them into my own personal Pantheon/Valhalla. It would be a fascinating and incredible waste of time to one day organize this Honoured Hall...perhaps I'll get around to it.

Wire - "German Shepherds"

I've always assumed this would be a really ugly period to make music for a band like Wire. Even with the progress they made from Pink Flag to 154 (or perhaps because of that progress), they seemed vulnerable to making missteps in the late 80s. How could the distinct, now-dated production style of the era fit well on a band with such gritty, difficult tendencies?
It turns out that they are capable of sounding a lot more like a mainstream 80s pop band than I thought (albeit, still a fairly difficult one). It's Beginning To And Back Again sounds like the album Echo & The Bunnymen should've made after their self-titled one in '87. The vocal style here is that of a less skilled Ian McCulloch, and the rhythmic sounds range from "Maybe a drum machine?" to "Definitely a drum machine." The songs themselves are a great mix of classic pop and experimental kraut. The album opens with an updated version of "Finest Drops" from their previous album (IBTABA features 5 songs they reworked from 1988's A Bell Is A Cup Until It Is Struck), and follows with two more excellent pop songs in "Eardrum Buzz" and "German Shepherds." Then things start to get weird. "Public Place," "Boiling Boy," "Illuminated," and "Over Theirs" are all at least six minutes, but mostly upbeat. It's an easy section to get lost in, with so much time to lock into the awkward grooves. However, if you don't have the stomach for stuff where sampled voices repeat phrases like "What do you like? What do you love?" over fake beats with no apparent structure for almost seven minutes, this might not be your favorite album. It would be a shame not to make it to the end of the album though, because the payoff is huge. It closes with three more pop songs on the same excellent level of the first three. And after experiencing the album's middle and having a better understanding of the feel they were trying to achieve, these closing songs feel more significant. Colin Newman's vocal delivery on "The Offer" is reminiscent of the graceful elegance of Disintegration opener "Plainsong," while "In Vivo" wouldn't sound out of place in a John Hughes movie. The other is a remixed 12" version of "Eardrum Buzz" with brighter synths and a cleaner overall sound.
I haven't found a ton of information about this album, and most things I've read express some degree of confusion. A Bell Is A Cup...is supposedly the "better" album (allmusic called it "a work of modern rock genius"), but I'm finding this combination of great hooks and impressive weirdness to be irresistible.

allmusic