Is THE LODGER David Bowie's best record?

http://image.allmusic.com/00/amg/cov200/drc000/c004/ c00453h43v6.jpg

I WILL NOT DENIED HERE!! YOU MUST ARGUE YR DISSENT or RETIRE BY DEF'N BESTED!!

"Boys Keep Swinging" = freaking genius "D.J." = catchy danceable genius "Yassassin" = incredible total genius "Red Sails" = major genius "Look Back in Anger" = ASTONISHING GENIUS

Diamond Dogs is a comparative pittance. Ziggy is a joke. Low is half-finished. Station to Station is close but no cigar. Scary Monsters is a mis-step. Aladdin Sane . . . well, almost. But Lodger is just untouchable.

It is also unfairly overlooked billy dods, but I think the production/guitar sound on SM is v. extremely brittle and monochromatic and hard to get past. And the sleeve is INCREDIBLY UTTERLY TERRIBLE SURELY?

Hmm...the one I listen to most often remains "Heroes" -- "Sons of the Silent Age," there's yer brilliance right there, that chorus, that queasy sax! Genius. "Joooooooooooooe THE LION!" I could go on.

But Lodger for all the aforementioned reasons is right on up there. Those crazy rhythms, oh yes, the way the guitars whine and buzz through the "Look Back in Anger" arrangement and the way Bowie sings "The speaker was an angel..." How "Red Money" revamps Iggy not Ziggy, how "Red Sails" just seems to immediately call to mind a hyperactive Kate Bush video from four years in the future...I could also go on.

taking sides: george murray vs gail ann dorsey

(*this is not a joke.)

Ned, it's good to know Petey Gabriel is always lurking just below the level of your conscious mind.

I love it to death, although I hear the rot of 'Tonight' and 'Never Let Me Down' setting in with the Iggy re-annexation strategy of 'Red Money', which is far inferior to 'Sister Midnight'.

'Scary Monsters' was a disappointment for me at the time (I now love Side 1) because it seemed calculatedly populist and somewhat anti-modernist. Then we got Chic and 'David Bowie Straight', and everything after that was a disappointment, so you got used to it. I've just read the lyrics to his new single, and it seems like more of the same thing, but I don't really expect much any more, sigh.

He is still the most beautiful, wise and charming man on the planet, muse or no muse.

lodger breaks the morbid depression of side-2-low and the depressed fucked-up mess that is heroes

lodger creeps up on the listener -- no concessions to kiddy rock'n'roll -- instead elimination of lyrical abiguity (finally) and instrumental arrangement to match these real songs -- an adult record

maybe even honest ? what with bowie squeezed behind a shop window on the cover -- i can do without the "i'm an international phenomena" thing, though i guess that is central

scary monsters seemss a stab in the same direction but more attempt to rock and more of the old "hey i'm weird" theatrics -- at least he tries a whole lot of different approaches with different musos, so i approach monsters on a song by song basis whereas lodger stands up as an album

the only decent "concept album" from a guy who supposedly is the concept album guy -- it's as if bowie grew up here -- pity the creative run was so brief -- both monsters and lodger he'd kind of learnt to work with eno and then with others without letting them dominate

yeah, pity about all the rest -- let's face it -- either bowie is a bygone '70s culture thing since the cracks were showing by the '80s, or these few late '70s records were the best a guy with resouces and advice to burn could come up with in his 35 years as rock star

Heh. "BABY BABY BABY I'll never let you go..."

I think "Outside" and "Earthling" are as good as "Lodger." His best album is "Station to Station."

I think I'm w/ mark s. The guitar lover in me will always love Man Who Sold the World, but in my heart of hearts I know Lodger is his best. Many good points made above, mark re DB's singing, dave re "Boys Keep Swinging" (Belew's studio debut! already sounding like Fripp), Momus re the travelogue quality. The imaginative syncretisms really make this one stand out. I like the way he slides in more classicist elements as well - like the way the piano softly, briefly switches to double time on the chorus to "Fantastic Voyage" (probably my favorite Bowie song), or the New Orleans bass line under the chorus of "Boys Keep Swinging".

Awesome record.

No really, I adore Lodger. I'd have to say that my favorite Bowie album would be Low because it has such classics as "Always Crashing in the Same Car", "Speed of Life", and "Warszawa", but Lodger has five of my favorite Bowie songs on it (namely "D.J.", "Look Back in Anger", "Boys Keep Swinging", "Yassassin", and "Repetition), plus that awesome cover with Bowie lying sprawled (with his bellybutton exposed!) in front of a background of white bathroom tiles. Mega swoonalicious. Anyway, I too am a huge fanatic of Bowie's Berlin period and think that was really his best period musically, appearance-wise, etc.

I love love love love Bowie. Even "Blue Jean" and "Absolute Beginners". My bias toward him is almost as strong as my bias toward Duran Duran.

Isn't the title really "Heroes", though?

You seem like a good guy and all but I strongly suggest you never say this again unless this is actually true for anything and everything in your life.

it's a bit of a mixed up mess to me, esp. those almost anti-popular songs on side one, but i remember as a kid seeeing it in the record stores on the shelf and thinking "what is that ?"

i was used to seeing all his other albums thumbing through the record bin (wasn't thumbing through records as the usual browsing method of the time in bins an interesting visual activity, even if it felt like you had to wash your digits afterwards), but the front/back of that album left me mystified -- and none of the songs off that album got played on the radio, so i wasn't able to place it (whereas so many bowie tracks got played on the radio from most of his other albums that his weirdo career trajectory to that point seemed straightforward) -- so this was the point where I got that "what's the guy up to & gonna do next ?"feeling, i suppose

looking back, it seems a very convincing demonstration of eno's oblique strategy thing -- the whole this way then that way non-flow of the album -- with weird jerks like 'repetition' or 'red money' or even 'fansatic voyage'(which really threw me as the first track of this strange looking record)

so to me it's a proper normal album as collection of songs, which is creepy, given how bowie is meant to produce 'concept' albums, and even if that just meant to me that his albums had this unifying cohesion (i suppose if evry album adopts this new style, then each album will seem relatively cohesive compared with other bowie albums), well this albums only cohesion was some thematic cohesion

like a series of short stories adding up to a book -- quite w.s. burroughs like (ie you put the pieces together, you make sense of this as one statement)

and it's haunted me more than most, this record, because it does cohere in this place slightly beneath consciousness, it all seems to fit, even if the music isn't pretty or majestic (in fact i think the settings and vocal-stretches make it very mock-majestc)

and then there's the sound of the record, kind of flat -- the songs don't bounce out, don't pull all the irregular rock'n'roll tricks i expect from albums involving eno -- it is like something to be read and thought about, rather than enjoyed as a series of songs

and if he hadn't been a superstar, would bowie have been able to produce this rather introspective personal, almost literary thing -- yeah, other posters have alluded by their lack of interest in this period and their opinion of it that it lacks the flash of other bowie, lacks the o.t.t. pomp and ceremony of rock and roll (that bowie returned to on the special effects and "i'm a weird guy" packaging on Scary Monsters)

maybe lacking the stylistic cohesion of similarly introspective stuff like Station to Station, it maintains the same stranger than fiction feel (as does Aladin Sane, i suppose -- funny how these albums get mentioned in 2003 so much more here than seemingly straight-forward rock, stuff like Ziggy Stardust which i presume like Let's Dance or Diamond Dogs everybody is well sick of)

did Ronson benefit from arranger royalties from these albums that he did have all that input on ?

just wondering, didn't Bowie "sack" the spiders from mars at some gig in the early '70s ? where does that leave guys like Ronson if he had been a major contributor ? anyone know the story here ?

should we have a Ronson thread ?
(what was said about Ronson having so many creative ideas, and contributing so much to albums etc.. not enough to be credited as writer for any stuff ? i don't have some of the really early albums, but didn't B. suck off R.s guitar all the time when B. was ziggy ?)

when I saw this thread title I thought "whoever wrote this is on drugs" and then I read, and behold, EVERYBODY's high! Even though I f'n hate "Rebel Rebel" (not through overplay - I just never liked it) I still say "Diamond Dogs" has 'em all beat for the following reasons:

1. better title
2. the Chant of the Ever-Circling Skeletal Family
3. "We Are the Dead" = "Fantastic Voyage" minus age + imagined age - ennui + dread = beauty, truth, truth beauty, y'all know the drill
4. the strings on 1984 are better than the strings on "Lodger"
5. "When You Rock and Roll With Me," a song title sure to chafe the balls of the ILX Massive, has one of Bowie's best vox EVAH
6. also, because I say so

I'm convinced that Bowie's glam period (Hunky Dory through Diamond Dogs?) is overrated. I just don't think it has aged well. There are many moments on Ziggy that make me cringe. I truly prefer the postdisco period: Young Americans through Scary Monsters, and I really believe that Lodger is the most coherent, sustained, catchy, and innovative of all those records. I love it. I'm listening to it right now!

"Yas-ssa-sin!
I'm not! A MOOdy guy!"

i remember the house and the couple, and just two records carefully singled out for culling -- nick mason guesting on [otherwise weird carla bley fictitious sports] art rock prompts a "pink floyd had their moments" -- Blue Oyster Cult tyranny and mutation -- silence, and "out the door" price

eno made noise -- for roxy, cale, devo, and many more, and then bow-bow-booie, .. even has striking noise texture -- yet lodger is so straightforward in sound character as to count eno's contribution as his most truly ambient presence from those years

was bowie's attitude guided by eno's rand-y selection systems ? "all here, but no responsibilty" ? a work-to-rule project ? scary monsters and super creeps is the sound of genuine new paranoias unleashed yet with none of the finesse of the more vaguely self-conscious Aladin Sane .. as though bowie finally got away from the hitchcock-esque eno presence, something from which "uh-to" have not had the balls to do themselves .. they sure sound like he breaks their balls regularly

so the lyics are less narrative, more 'scene' i suppose, the textures and feel are very "rock band that's to be taken seriously heavily, pal" -- this relative safety zone in pub rock robs the duke of the quaint ambiguities and musical oddness that always distinguished for me the good bowie albums -- cocky quips /cut anthony newley fails, incompatible with each other and with cock rock

songs like "jean genie", "rebel, rebel" and "watch that man" are all testamount to how finely bowie felt he had to at least acknowledge blues-derived rockers, and so even prefering the stooges to the stones does not translate to easy testosterone, as the more-convincing stooges discovered

yet for me, bowie (qua a better bryan ferry) is great pop music response to frank sinatra and bing crosby, adding kubrick's 'alex' twiggy camp-- he's a first generation dandy warhol -- soul, r'n'b, songs calling for "mannered" emotions that are intense enough for esapism, for alien sex, for extremist-weirdo fashion -- rock'n'roll on the other hand is too human for bowie -- he's never sounded comfortable in it without fashion trappings, his burroughs knife badly plotted sci-fi alibis or the ambiguities of a mime as presented living and breathing and weird (like Marceau or Les Enfants du Paradis) -- holding the crowd like this curious hamlet /hitler)

"John, I'm Only Dancing" and "Suffragette City" are places he'd rather joke about than live -- Lodger is a high water mark for international playboy camp-outs, very much the Warhol m.o. -- he's running away to this and that exotic bunker, but he can't get away from himself -- Lodger is his finest seventies presentation of controlled poise, of something perhaps slightly close to real bowie emotions

i find i have to remind myself that Lodger was considered avant garde music since itso accurately preceeded and inspired both duran duran and the associates -- eighties music, the flash and glam re-channelled via important technical developements like the invention of the compact disc, the shrinking of the mass production enabled by certain synth technology suddenly feasible with new chips, suddenly less than a roomfull of equipment -- Lodger properly treats synths as just other instruments, not key experiments shaping and distinguishing features to run like 'non-continuity' as an actual mechanism of weirdness, as on Low or Scary Monsters

a very ordinary suburban adult rock record, and hey mark, it's virtually an eighties blueprint -- a radical move for mr. weirdo

(and of course man who sold .. is standard issue rock in the fashion of a decade earlier -- the pretense of this mars stuff and new-sex non-musical werido elements in this case)

Forgive me if this point has been mentioned in this 15 month-old thread already, but it's also Eno's least favorite of the Berlin Trilogy -- apparently, he thought it was a mess and the least disciplined of the three. Of course, with all due respect to His Royal Baldness, that's exactly why I love it.

Lodger (most mature without being too mature, hence also funniest & most paradoxically 'human')

or

Station to Station (most perfect)

or

Diamond Dogs (the falloutcharred feverdream floodplain at the absolute center of the Bowieverse, aka Dave's darkest finest hour).

also it has a lot of bowie's FUNNIEST writing: he's a fairly humourless sentimentalist usually

george's idea that it's an 80s blueprint is interesting: i don't specially hear that — i think it's a real anomaly record, across the board, not glossy, not BIG, not painterly, not conceptual, not quilt-poppy even — but if GG's right i'd still take that as a plus rather than a minus, since i don't at all buy george's general line on "pop" anyway, esp.80s pop

"adult"? i have no idea what this means in this context

specifics could convince me otherwise perhaps: vague sociological generalisations will (as usual) affirm my prejudices

... except it's savage lure, not savage jaw. (my favourite misheard lyrcs are from Lodger: "Don't say nothing's wrong, 'cause I've got a love of cheese, a beard"

I don't know if Lodger's my favourite Bowie album, probably not, but I do think it's brilliant and it's the last truly great Bowie album (Scary Monsters has some great songs but it's a mixed bag and marks the end of Bowie trying to do off-the-wall innovative things). There's something not quite right about Lodger, the song sequencing is off-kilter, the songs don't quite hang together, but this jarring effect makes it more not less interesting an album. It's the prototypical late seventies art album of modernist alienation; I like the fact that it's jokey and yet serious at the same time. I mean, the lyrics to Fantastic Voyage or Move On (Africa is sleepy people, Russia has its horsemen...), they're sort of ironically childlike, but in the end you find yourself moved anyway. I read somewhere that the cover was a take on a Picabia portrait, is this true?

http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picabia/picabia18.html
the Cyclope

"so the glass trilogy, the pyramid on the cover in the classical section we'll never see"?

what?

Of course, the good easily outweighs the bad on this album. I particularly love the mad violins on "Boys Keep Swinging".

HAHHAHHAHAAHAHA

(tho i think glass when he started might have tried something this quick)

THE HINTERLAND
THE HINTERLAND

I'M GONNA SAIL TO THE HINTERLAND

it's fa-fa fa-fa-fa
fa-fa-far away
it's a fa-fa fa-fa-fa fa-da da-da-da

que Awesome Guitar Solo

I was reading my comments from '05 above. I think maybe I've been a little wrong about Bowie, and perhaps what made me rethink was Seu Jorge doing early Bowie in Life Aquatic. I probably need a legion of leggy unpaid interns to really sort it out, but I have more of a jones these days for the Bowie just pre-Iggy and the Stardust Cowboy or whatever that one was. OK, I know it, and parts of that record are so great, actually, and it was the one that tipped him off into that dress-up phase he needed to really make it. Still think that record is sort of bad in the manner of those Kinks records from the same era, those rock operettas. Still like some of the riffs on the Kinks stuff and Bowie, though, so mixed feelings, because it's stupid to hate the '70s for its excesses. So these days really like Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory. I mean I'd never really listened to any of those all the way through, I was way more into Eno and Roxy because I deemed them less excessive. But I still love Lodger, whose overall tone seems unique.

God Yassassin is good.

One of these days, one of these days, gotta get a word through one of these days

Gotta get a word to Elizabeth's father.

Also amazing and very unique.

Hey ho wish me well

I always hated Seu Jorge with a passion btw.

Really? He seems like the epitome of inoffensive to me. Maybe that's why.

It was just irritating how anyone was paying attention to something so mediocre and unremarkable for an entire year.

I can't believe how much "African Night Flight" sounds like a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony song.

My stepfather looks just like David Bowie
But he hates David Bowie
I think Bowie's cool
I think Lodger rules
And my stepdad's a fool!

I think "Lodger" starts out much stronger than it ends. But yeah the first dozen or so tracks are unstoppable.

There's only ten songs!

The last two tracks aren't that great, but the rest is fantastic.

LOL heh you're right! only ten songs!

Sister Midnight is just soooo badass, it's hard to hear "Red Money" and not think of it....

This is an awesome beast of a record.

Whether it's the best of the trilogy, I'm not sure -- but for whatever reason, it's the one I've listened to the most. By far.

I can't believe how much "African Night Flight" sounds like a Bone Thugs-N-Harmony song.

― dreamsonvhs, Saturday, November 27, 2010 5:02 PM

this one has grown the most for me — side two of Low and Heroes tend to bore me now

Huh, I quoted Yassassin yesterday with the same wrong/right punctuation + capitalisation as one J0hn some seven years ago.
Lodger is my 2nd favourite Bowie album; favourite is Outside.
Bowie's singing in the 90s got really, really gorgeous

It is weird how I always perceived this as a dud relative to the other two. Then I actually heard it and wow what a record

I listened to hunky dory today for the first time in years. There being no bad songs on it makes it a sure contender for best Bowie, although 'Stay' from station to station is reason alone to put that album above it.

Hunky Dory is great, the only bad song is the cover
I do not understand the cult of Low

first side is awesome

side two of Low and Heroes tend to bore me now

― corey, Sunday, 13 March 2011 15:35 (Yesterday)

wau

Lately I've been taken with the '88 rerecording of "Look Back in Anger," featuring a drum machine, ominous sound effects, and the debut of Reeves Gabrels. To me it makes the Tin Machine albums redundant. This is what they should have sounded like: stolid, thick, noisy.

With La La La Human Steps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VEQPVY_uxM&feature=related

I always liked "Look Back in Anger" redux. It serves a similar purpose to those scattered late-period Police remakes, successfully recasting old songs in contemporary settings that, yes, date them worse than the originals but still at least have the courage of their convictions.

("Look Back In Anger," incidentally, one of only a handful of formal - that is, credited - Brian Eno co-writes with classic collaborators, joining the likes of "Heroes" and "Once in a Lifetime")

Though I like Bowie, I always thought Mark Prindle's take on him was really funny (and fairly accurate):

"He has a knack for playing a really generic melody, then changing it ever so slightly so that it sounds ugly, wrong and shitty. He has always struck me as an extremely normal person of average intelligence who has been told over and over again that he is a genius so he goes out of his way to dress like a clown and create pretentious "art" that hardly ever rises above generic rock, characterized by unexpected shifts into odd, unappealing chord sequences and topped by a nothing British bland voice of nothingness"

xp "Look back in anger" redux is the best of the reduxes, for sure

Mark Prindle's take on this subject is useless to me and not funny at all

Yes, this was a nice discovery (via Pushing Ahead of the Dame, of course). Love the texture & spaciousness of the remake. Shame it couldn't be reproduced in the studio (by choice or inability?). On (the first) record Bowie/TM tries to sound stolid, which is impossible.

(Trivia: I recognize(d) the blonde dancer from the video Alfred posted from the "Fame '90" video)

I like Christgau's take: "I used to think Bowie was middlebrow, but now I'd prefer to call him post-middlebrow--a habitue of prematurely abandoned modernist space."

Anyway his most rabid fans do him no favors, as I learned when I tousled with a few on the Bowie Blog a few months ago.

Some of his most rabid fans are also his most savage critics. Christgau's take is perfect

yep

Another one of those where their fans "know best"...

Thanks for the video, Alfred.

what the hell does "habitue of prematurely abandoned modernist space" mean?

is that another way of saying his ideas are half-finished?

it means he has a taste for cool furniture and interior design

lol, but really: he's saying that the guy has made a career of collaborating with last year's breakout art-star

Station To Station will always be Bowie's best album for me, but Lodger is definitely in my Top 3 favourites of his.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FODvjYoVEi8

'Look Back In Anger' just popped up on shuffle-play... man, this song never gets old. Fabulous drumming, too!

Another formal Eno co-write, too.

Red Sails to Repetition = one of the great album stretches of the 70s

It's definitely a great stretch of tracks, but I kinda feel that way about the whole album... even 'Red Money'! Definitely fair to say that this is one of my favourite Bowie LP's alongside Station To Station and Low.

never heard this one before this week, i'm astounded at what an amazing record could have been just sitting there in the world all this time when i could have loved it any number of years ago—like, any bowie discontent of my own aside, i would have been primed for it.

on another thread someone posted owen p saying bowie was a grating, irritating singer, which i definitely feel has merit for a lot of his records, not always but certainly in consistent parts of his technique that one just has to accept as part of his thing. so one thing i noticed right away about this record is that he's still doing *most* everything that he usually does as a vocalist, but in the context of the record the grating and irritating aspects seem to have been smoothed down or eliminated. which given that he often sounds like he's singing on an eno record or sometimes is straight up imitating david byrne, is itself interesting. maybe like he leaned slightly toward these models which were not all that far apart from his usual singing in the first place, but which grounded it somehow.

there are even parts where he just sounds like he's actually singing all out, mannerisms dropped.

this album is just called "lodger" not "the lodger"

The other's a Hitchock silent starring a famous Welsh actor, no?

You are welcome here, artcle police

yeah this record is awesome -- going through a complete discography play this week, and so far, it's pretty easily my favorite

"Look Back in Anger" may be his most rocking track, maybe my favorite deep cut. This album also has "Fantastic Voyage" and "Move On," two other favorite deep cuts. And then "DJ" and "Boys" are both awesome cuts, too, obviously. Lots of great stuff. I'd say the anarchy of this album is really appealing, but "Scary Monsters" is a tad sharper for all its superficial similarities.

Also "Yassassin' and 'African Night Flight'.

I like the first song a lot, though the MO of the latter seems way more Eno than Bowie (nothing wrong with that). Mentioned above, but Eno gets co-write credit on most of this disc,

Always wanted to start a thread about songs like 'African Night Flight' and Joni Mitchell's 'The Jungle Line' in which big rock artists go 'exotic'.

Brian Eno – synthesizers, ambient drone, prepared piano, cricket menace, guitar treatments, horse trumpet, eroica horn, piano, backing vocals

"African Night Flight" is the one featuring "cricket menace."

"Red Sails", you guys.

... it's "Monza" by Harmonia with Bowie on vocals, Adrian Belew on guitar. That'll do for me.

i really love this record and it is definitely my favourite when I am listening to it and shouting about THE HINTERLAND and THUNDER OCEAN.

FAFAFAFAFAFAFA

my favorite Bowie album

octave jump on "Move On" -- "somewhere someone's calling me / when the chips are downnnnnnnnn" = LOVE

this is my favorite of the 'berlin trilogy'

AYA
OOH
AYA
OOH

Cyprus is my island

in fan voyage love how he takes that trailing interrogative in "we'll never say anything nice again, will we?" - it should just hang loose at the end there, an afterthought - but he just fucking hits it & pushes it
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

yes

I've been playing all my Bowie songs on random this week and Move On practically lept from the speakers. That is a titanic song.

"All the Young Dudes" backwards!

Is that what the weird background vocals are? Another "how did he do that" riddle solved. Now if I can only figure out what musical instrument is producing that crazy sound during the verses of TVC15.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYgNomvJpMs

Well, I'll be damned.

Now if I can only figure out what musical instrument is producing that crazy sound during the verses of TVC15.

I assumed those were falsetto vocals, but now that I listen more closely, who the fuck knows. Sounds like something on a loop, almost.

sounds like fuzzy guitar to me, if we're listening to the same part.

belew is so great on lodger. one thing i love about the mix is how his solos sound like they were beamed in from a studio on another planet and just left as is.

This album rules. "Fantastic Voyage" may be one of my favorite all-time tunes. "Never say anything nice again will we?" definitely an incredible moment. The lyrics in this song are amazing. "We're learning to live with somebody's depression".

"Move On" is really nice. Sails....moving on.... voyages... there is a lot of travelling on this album. Maybe the Krautrock/motorik influence?

I like the queasy feeling on "Repetition". "Red Money" is a nice way to close out but I may have had it ruined by hearing Iggy's superior "Sister Midnight" first.

Space Oddity - hunky dory - ziggy stardust is my favorite run. Love those three albums. Actually not completely sold on the berlin trilogy.

think of it as dream pop

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3L58KyHC_M

I'll probably be the odd man out on this thread, but I've never understood the sequencing on this album. Opening with Look Back in Anger, Boys and DJ would have made more sense to me.

it's a fantastic voyage!

the wrong words make you listen

ha yeah it works conceptually I suppose. I'm just not crazy about side one of this album.

the side with "African Nighe Flight," "Move On," "Yassassin," and "Red Sails"?

that's the one! I don't know. Maybe I need to give it another listen...

You're the odd man out.

I usually am!

Reading Strange Facination by David Buckley (Alfred - I think you recommended this in another Bowie thread?) and he alludes to lots of material going unreleased that may see the light of day upon Bowie's passing.

My favourite on this record is 'Look Back In Anger', because drums.

woah i love side one. the sequencing on this album is perfect. i like "DJ" opening side 2.

side one is "Another Green World"-style dream-pop, side two is mutant disco

I like how 'Boys Keep Swinging' is exactly the same chords as 'Fantastic Voyage', but with everyone on the "wrong" instruments and a different topline.

Long time ago, I thought it was John Lennon doing the "waiting so long, I've been waiting so long" vocals on Don't Look Back.

xpost yes and they are pretty simple chords. it's all a lot of open A's and E's and D's and G's. nothing really fancy. these are his punk records, pretty much. just really simple straight-ahead songs that have been altered and skewed.

Scary Monsters always has seemed to get higher praise than Lodger, but I think Lodger is a far more consistent record. I always felt Scary Monsters dropped off a little on side 2.

Long time ago, I thought it was John Lennon doing the "waiting so long, I've been waiting so long" vocals on Don't Look Back.

― pplains

I've always thought they sound like George Harrison!

xpost Maybe, but that's because side one has Up the Hill, Fashion, Ashes to Ashes, Scary Monsters and It's No Game!

scary monsters is my total favorite bowie but even i admit side 2 has a bit of sag. But only a bit.

please keep discussion of inferior albums by The David Bowie off the "The Lodger" thread please

foiled by mark's interrogative thread title

David the Bowie

Scary Monsters always has seemed to get higher praise than Lodger, but I think Lodger is a far more consistent record. I always felt Scary Monsters dropped off a little on side 2.

― Turrican

the second side of SM is Bowie writing and singing to match Fripp's guitar and uh

I've always thought they sound like George Harrison!

– chap

Ha, probably a little more accurate. Maybe was thinking of John because of "Fame".

the "waiting so long" bit always reminded me of the "please don't be long" chorus in the Beatles' Blue Jay Way, so someone thinking it was Harrison makes sense to me.

I usually am!

Reading Strange Facination by David Buckley (Alfred - I think you recommended this in another Bowie thread?) and he alludes to lots of material going unreleased that may see the light of day upon Bowie's passing.

"I Pray, Ole" is on the Ryko reissue I have from those sessions which is a pretty solid cut.

Perhaps a re-annexation strategy like you say, but still, there's something about the way he sings "Project cancelled" and then the way he overdubs the "Re-e-e-e-e-d" part that thrills me. Mmm...think I'll have to listen to this tomorrow!

Every revive makes this album sound more and mire like the greatest album ever! :D

the ryko bonus tracks are all absolutely necessary. I Pray Ole is so good; forgot it wasn't even on the album proper.

I'm currently annoyed with the me of 15 years ago who bought this on vinyl and had a reaction roughly similar to the initial critical response ("Meh..."). I just had to grow into it, I guess.

African night flight is like dead on late 70s Pere Ubu right down to the heckling synth

I wasn't into Lodger when I first heard it in 1991. I adored everything up through Station To Station (except Diamond Dogs, which I need to revisit) (and Pin-Ups), but the songs on the Berlin trilogy left me cold, with a handful of exceptions.

I'm listening to Lodger right now for the fifth time this week, and the first time without headphones. There isn't anything here that I don't love, and I feel like there's still a lot more to dig into.

Here's Greil Marcus' review, whose introduction is intelligent and worth savoring. But the judgment is wrong.

Bowie's antinarrative lyrics, his antihero stance, his dependence on sounds and words that are suggestive rather than explicit, and his playing of banal surfaces against textures of real depth all speak for a future-in-the-present in which one must protect oneself from the world, from other people and from one's own visions, desires and fears — while at the same time giving all of those things form and weight. What is defined is the nature of the distance involved, its necessity and its risks. This is an aesthetic that, when it works, combines a retreat into art with an affirmation of the world one has retreated from; it's an aesthetic that holds life in reserve, and to hear it in action can be transporting. But on Lodger, save for "Move On," Bowie seems less than interested, neither a serious savior nor a serious aesthete. It's as if the role of savior now bores him, and thus — paradoxically, one would have thought years ago — leaves him without the energy to pursue his life as an aesthete with the intensity it demands. That's disturbing, because for David Bowie, life as an aesthete is not a role at all.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/lodger-19790809

It's as if the role of savior now bores him

Yeah, I don't get this impression at all, but I can almost understand how Marcus came to that conclusion at the time in the context of Bowie's work, given the giddiness with which Ziggy presented himself as a savior.

banal surfaces

This probably isn't what Marcus was aiming at, but the drum sound on Lodger is one of the worst/least effective in Bowie's catalog (which I now realize is probably why it took me 25 years to get into it).

^That assertion rings strange to me, since it was the drumming on Red Sails and Anger which originally converted me

It lacks a certain presence for me. The drumming itself is wonderful, but the recording defaults to the standard flumpfy studio techniques of the day, rather than exploring alternative techniques (like on Low, by far my favorite Bowie drum sound).

(and I learned yesterday that Dennis Davis studied with Max Roach and Elvin Jones, which is pretty amazing.)

"Fantastic Voyage" must be one of the best tracks ever.

This is one of the all-time great threads on ILM. However, it drives me crazy that this thread title incorrectly adds the definite article to the album title. It's just Lodger.

that THE is the worst microsecond's work i ever did on the borad, trufax

my original vinyl pressing had a massive CLICK during the quiet part of FY.
so, i took it back.
second version : same thing.
so i came to accept it.
fast forward many many years.
i get the cd remasters.
the absence of the CLICK felt weird.
i my head i still hear the CLICK.

I find the THE a great touch

Fantastic Voyage a hard act to follow imo

+1

I love the vocal on 'Fantastic Voyage'

i love lodger. i also love bts and shearwater now, the first because their song in the 90s loved lodger, and the latter because they are now fucking awesome and fucking awesome at loving lodger

(also makes me a little sad b/c i found the 1940 us census, which describes my then 10 y/o kentucky-born mom, living with friends of family, as "Lodger.") end of how lodger owns me.

Some days I listen to 'Look Back In Anger' and think to myself "shit, this really was the best rhythm section Bowie ever had."

it turns out that tony v has remixed lodger for release in a bit.

not sure how i feel about this as i genuinely think its a perfect album.

its supposedly a very subtle remix, but still ...

I'd need more details but I'm pretty sure that a remix isn't necessary.

According to the liner notes Bowie heard and emphatically approved at least three tracks, it doesn't actually say if he lived to hear the rest, they were working on Blackstar at roughly the same time.

Also it seems like it's not a completely radical remix but not exactly a subtle tweak either.

Actually thinking about it, Lodger is probably the Bowie album that's aged the best.

Actually thinking about it, Lodger is probably the Bowie album that's aged the best.

i have never had to think about it.
and yeah, its supposed to be a subtle touch up i.e. remove some of the clutter
but ... i like the clutter.
its the clutter that makes the album different and brilliant.

Otm

fantastic voyage is one of the best bowie songs ever

For some reason, I don't think this is really a good idea, although it's kinda well known that Visconti has always been dissatisfied with the way that Lodger turned out. Of course, I'm going to listen to it and A-B it as much as any Bowie fan will, but I don't think re-working it is necessary.

If there's any Bowie album I'd like to see re-mixed/re-worked, it's probably hours...

'Fantastic Voyage' has fucked me up every time I've heard it since November. Feels way too on-the-nose.

Yeah, it's definitely one that's had a lot of power recently... particularly over the last couple of years!

It was mentioned just upthread, but in case anyone missed it, Shearwater have done a great cover of the whole album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4Z7OhpXyw&list=PLbbmBIT_TF6njuC-2IbUiBxom8UxKJdLv

Sorry, that didn't seem to work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hk4Z7OhpXyw

Iirc The band said they had been planning to include a song by song cover of Lodger in their set during their last tour before Bowie died, which is crazy.

Yeah that's how it went.

Goddamn anagram, thanks for sharing that. Never heard any Shearwater - that performance is really really impressive
They're clearly having a blast doing it. Goosebumps.

New Visconti remix of Lodger on the A New Career In A New Town box is a revealing curio, as these things usually are - Eno backing vox on "African Night Flight" are particularly interesting...

But man, "Red Sails" done got ruined.

What’s the new box? Diamond dogs through lodger?

https://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-A-New-Career-In-A-New-Town-1977-1982/master/1244579

(Low through Scary Monsters)

Oh did they already do a box for DD-STS?

these shearwater covers are fantastic.

i enjoy the reversed vocal simulation in move on

No, it's a chaos.

ha I couldn't tell. I thought he might have doing it all himself.

*might have been

no chaos pad required in that scramble

can we change this thread title for the love of god?!?!?!?!!!1111

end the shame of the single word i shouldn't have typed on ilx

Change thread title to THE

Is Roomers Davewood MacBowie's Best Record?

'Roombas' by Fleetwood Vac.

thread title always reminds me of this... from the john peel quotes thread:

As Sonic Youth's "Silver Rocket" fades out..
"I love the way they come romping in with all that feedback in the middle - just like The Pink Floyd."

― everything, Tuesday, October 26, 2004 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Need a companion thread: Is LODGER Alfred Hitchcock's best film?

this thread title is legendary, never change imo

it says literally everyone is fallible, including the person i tend to think isn't

I Agree with Alex in New York: Sure, Lodger is cool and all, but Diamond Dogs is a much more interesting record...and a helluvalot more fun.

― Lord Custos, Saturday, May 11, 2002 8:00 PM

yeah no

this has been a great episode of the lodgers

Lodger is way better than diamond dogs..DD is one of my least favourites aside from 1984

Oh Shearwaters cover is alltime, what is the song where the mic stand collapses? One of my favorite performances for capturing the spirit of a performance. I think he said like "everyone was going so hard and right, I couldn't stop."

Now I'm listening to my rip, I think it's Red Sails.

Nope Look Back in Anger for sure. Sorry, I love the hell out of this and still forgot.

Fuck they rule imo, tho I'm a bit up and down on their discography.

this thread title is legendary, never change imo

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Friday, September 29, 2017 2:26 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's of a piece with are "tim machine" the best thing david bowie ?

Visconti's new mix is...interesting. Lots of little background things are now clearly audible and some things that used to fight for space with Bowie's vocals (i.e Belew's guitar) have been toned down. Sucks the bass/low end seems murky and way too boosted but Dennis Davis is nicely prominent on some of the tracks. What a beast of a drummer.

irl lol at are "tim machine" the best thing david bowie ?

suddenly he break into mouth singing
"time machine! time machine!".

Lodger is great but honestly Bowie has at least 5-6 albums that are wall to wall classic and all in different ways picking just one seem impossible

Kinda weird to see Scary Monsters tacked onto the Berlin trilogy.. Kinda puts a cap on the classic era i guess. I'd love a straight up Berlin trilogy box with studio detritus and stuff..

Well firstly, "Berlin trilogy" has always been a bit of a stupid name for those three albums, and secondly I don't see that period of Bowie's work as being confined to just those three albums. For me, Station to Station up to Scary Monsters is the run. Low and "Heroes" are often cited as being an influence on post-punk/new wave/new romantic, but Station to Station's paranoid funk was just as influential. I can particularly hear Station to Station as being an influence on the likes of Telekon and Empires and Dance.

Yeah I think of station to station through scary monsters as a group

Eno trilogy then.

wow totally disagree, what's "stupid" about it, though?

Those three albums are of a piece

The two that bookend them don't fit as well

Totally stupid

Turrican you need to get better weed, dude

Another vote for Station to Station through Scary Monsters as a group.

Scary Monsters artwork even references the 3 that proceed it. It's sort of the denouement, a summation in a more "mature" but accessible format hinting at the hits to come (for better or worse).

Station to Station is the transition.

wow totally disagree, what's "stupid" about it, though?

― brimstead, Saturday, September 30, 2017 6:47 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Those three albums are of a piece

The two that bookend them don't fit as well

Totally stupid

― brimstead, Saturday, September 30, 2017 6:48 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Turrican you need to get better weed, dude

― brimstead, Saturday, September 30, 2017 6:49 PM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Low was made in France and Los Angeles, and Lodger was made in Switzerland and New York, and yes the two either side do bookend them very well. If I'd included Let's Dance, you'd have a point.

Scary Monsters artwork even references the 3 that proceed it. It's sort of the denouement, a summation in a more "mature" but accessible format hinting at the hits to come (for better or worse).

Station to Station is the transition.

― dan selzer, Saturday, September 30, 2017 6:53 PM (eight minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, absolutely!

Feel mixed on the Berlin Triology title. I mean Bowie moved there in 1976 to escape drugs, so he was in a transitional period himself and it's a "state of mind". Going back to New York in 1980 lines up with the release of Scary Monsters...

It's weird how Lodger was underrated, for when I discovered rockcrit in the early '90s the Rolling Stone/Christgau claque preferred it to Low and "Heroes".

Smash Hits gave it a negative review at the time. This was before the magazine became more pop oriented post-Tennant (you'd think it would have been the other way around) ...

The Low and "The Heroes" you mean? (xp)

The correct.

It was around the time of Lodger (1979) that Bowie began framing his previous two albums as the beginning of a Berlin-centered trilogy concluding with Lodger, largely as a marketing technique to support the unusual new album.[33]

the station to the station

I've always thought the Iggy Pop album, "Idiot", is part of this sequence of albums.

Yeah, The Idiot could be considered part of the run as well, either that or a companion piece to "Heroes".

Why do I bother?

That's a very good question.

The The Idiot

I prefer Soul Mining.

i like how hard ppl are working here to make the thread title not the worst bit of the thread

certainly did my part

Bowie Berlin Trilogy vs. Fripp AOR Trilogy vs. ELP Trilogy vs. Donna Summer A Love Trilogy vs. Mahavishnu Orchestra "Trilogy" vs. Kool G Rap & DJ Polo "Trilogy of Terror" vs. Special Forces "Trilogy" vs. Trilogy "Love Me Forever or Love Me Not (The Dub of Doom Mix)" vs. Tarkus: FITE

Young Americans is the start, it's the bold change in direction that makes the later albums possible

See, I knew it wouldn't be long before someone said that and... I don't agree! While it does represent something of a clean break from what went before, and Station to Station retained one or two of its elements, stylistically I've always seen Young Americans as very much its own thing. It's much harder to make a case for Young Americans being an influence on post-punk/new wave/new romantic, and it doesn't have anywhere near the same feel as the five LP's that followed.

I hear its influence on those British soul boys of the eighties (Paul Young, Mick Hucknall).

even Orange Juice.

It is its own thing, though, I agree.

"the lodger" is a much better album title than "lodger," bowie should have thanked mark s

I don't trust Visconti's mixing/engineering ear in 2016/17 however the mix on Lodger always sounded p weird to me on vinyl anyway. admittedly none of us had decent stereos when we were staying up late listening to "red money" so I'm not sure, but...skeptical of this effort.

everyone should thank me, all the time

Lodger is a weird and somewhat frustrating sounding record (I downloaded all the hoffmann-y west German mastering etc trying to find one that sounded good to me) so I'm a bit curious about the remix but yeah mostly skeptical

Interesting point about the influence on Hucknall. He was a huge fan of Eno-era Talking Heads; best exemplified by the Great Curve rip-off on the first album which amounts to a cover (Belew histrionics and all) in all but name

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr9x0lTTUi8

The new box set is enough of a shambles that its spawned a 200+ page Steve Hoffman Forum thread. I read it all. In the end, I guess I like my shitty pirate FLACs taken from pristine original vinyl.

agreed, lol

I've almost never been interested in a remaster even when it's objectively "better" or "truer to the original intent" or even "fixed a clearly fucked up original release" of anything that I've grown up with.

Yeah, I'm pretty much the same, although there have been exceptions. Not that remixes/remasters can't be revelatory, but generally an album as originally released is "the original" for me.

There are remasters that I have thanked the stars above for and ones I've abhorred. With Bowie, I have to say I'm glad i dug around the Hoffman board on that subject because for the most part I like the original wave of cd masterings better than the ryko and WAY better than the emi remasters. Have not sufficiently listened to the recent box set series

I bought the ‘ANCIANT’ box, volume drop on “Horoes” aside i’ve not noticed anything that was problematic for me. Like the sound of the new master of ‘Low’ and the new mix of ‘Lodger’, but these are not albums I have long held relationships with/ impressions of, plus I’ve not been doing a/b comparisons on every note.

Hoffmann-y Post Of The Day: The German RCA versions of The Berlin Trilogy are beeeeeyooootiful. Nothing's boosted or lowered, sound clear and powerful when they need to.

is that vinyl or CD?

CD

Re: The Lodger, I do like it when '60s musicians call Cream "The Cream."

Xpost yes those are the ones I'm referring to. All you have to do is turn up the volume level and they blaze to life.

lodger is a much better title than "the lodger", the former is more mysterious.. more jamais vu

i have about zero interest in people going back and remixing old stuff, unless it was never released or properly mixed in the first place... even then it depends.

some of the best bowie back up vocals on this song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfvn-jzJiAA

very quick first impression on a very quick cursory listen comparing both the lodgers on apple music...some cases the newfound bass (allowance for bass) makes things seem muddier, but when it works it makes it sound fresh and powerful.

those poor, poor Ryko bonus tracks... nowhere to be found on this new box

absolutely brutal comments regarding sound quality here:

https://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-A-New-Career-In-A-New-Town-1977-1982/master/1244579

Haha holy shit I literally cannot believe this got soundchecked. There is no WAY someone checked the files and said "yes the first re-release of these albums in decades and this is how I want it to sound"

they cut ordinary 96/24 overcompressed files on vinyl and call it original master tapes, funny guys.

Yeah was reading about it here http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/parlophone-hold-its-hands-up-to-bowie-box-heroes-issue-and-takes-action/ Fair play to Parlophone for agreeing to replace the discs, but how nobody thought that the 'volume drop' was acceptable on Bowie's signature song on a prestige box set is astonishing.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5dodh7Bi4YhWxs9LxwjnYO about 2'48

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_jx5sVQ32s about 0'37

Record companies kinda need to stop using mastering engineers that have been listening to loud music in rooms since 1970

Having heard the new Lodger mix, I think I'll just stick woth the original - Visconti did a great job on Blackstar, but the original mix of Lodger suits the 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

Found out today that Philip Glass's Symphony No. 12 is based on Lodger, downloaded it, played it, it's not very good.

I heard his adaptations of Low and Heroes at the time, but not this one. The "Some Are" movement of the former is a really striking expansion of Bowie's sketchy original track, although I can imagine someone seeing it as him indulging himself in his usual tropes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fk8ZXGjBc6U

It's such an interesting idea, but I never thought was executed well

glass has been a hack since "Koyaanisqatsi", but I won't lie I like the "low" symphony

Found out today that Philip Glass's Symphony No. 12🕸 is based on Lodger, downloaded it, played it, it's not very good.

let the record show that Bill Hader, who is typically an exemplary music and movies nerd, refers to this record as THE LODGER in this What's In My Bag

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHPY8icXOnk

he's right and he should say it

Never thought to call it The Lodger before, so it's strange to see so many people adding that article. I know there's a great Hitchcock film called The Lodger...maybe the titles got mentally switched around?

I think I prefer The “Heroes”

we'll get by
I suppose

The The Berlin Trilogy

I prefer Low and "Heroes" - hard to pick between the two, I love them both - but I do love Lodger. I didn't at first, only the singles, and I could see what Eno meant by diminishing returns, but the whole album has grown on me.

I've always rated The Lodger highly but I may have been in the wrong

It’s not as good as low and heroes but it’s still good.

whatever its called its better than both (its his best record QED)

It's almost his best album and don't get the complaints except about the sound.

...and I don't care whether an album sounds shitty (NB: Lodger sounds different from its two predecessors and its successor but does not sound shitty).

Heroes has always been my fave of the 3 but Lodger rises further in comparison with each passing year. A hell of a record by any standard. And the funky sonics are a feature, not a bug.

Was listening to a podcast with a loose Bowie theme and they were hating on 'African Night Flight' couldn't believe my ears...shurely one of his best songs...malariatriffic

yeah that song rules

hey ho
he wish me well

I prefer low, lodger and even scary monsters to heroes. I don’t know what my issue with heroes is. I don’t dislike it. I love all these records. Maybe just a function of when I got into them and how much time I’ve spent. Lodger was one of my first fave Bowie albums.

I actively dislike Heroes! “Beauty And The Beast” is amazing, title track is overplayed, the rest is a big null to me; “The Secret Life” is perhaps my least-favourite 70s track aside from some of the duff covers

I actively dislike Heroes! “Beauty And The Beast” is amazing, title track is overplayed, the rest is a big null to me; “The Secret Life” is perhaps my least-favourite 70s track aside from some of the duff covers

that’s so silly. there’s “blackout”

that’s so silly. there’s “blackout”

kind of love how coke-fueled “secret life” is

Joe the Lion!

WENT TO THE BAR
YEAH
YEAH

I also love "Sons Of The Silent Age" and "V2 Schneider"

Insanity, “Secret Life of Arabia” is one of the high points of late 70s Bowie for me.

xxxxpost
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7RXTbTNP74

The Scary Monsters

Secret secret
Never bean
Secret secret
*garbled*

I’m paining just thinking about listening to The “Heroes” again but I will because sometimes I am wrong

“The Secret Life” is perhaps my least-favourite 70s track aside from some of the duff covers

Puzzled by this tbh.

Team The Lodger.

where do those of us who like both "secret life" and "african night flight" go to get our "best bowie fan" badges?

i like "yassassin" more than both!

I like Low and Lodger throughout, but Heroes feels like it's trying more often than succeeding. Even my favourite of the instrumentals, "Sense of Doubt" and "Moss Garden", are more like intriguing suggestions than the fully-realized pieces on Low. Many of the songs have Fripp blaring over them to no particular purpose, and even the title track has worn me out by the end - unlike the long songs on Station to Station, which have a similar structure but I find transcendent instead of wearying.

Teenage Wildlife is a better song than most of Heroes.

I've been hiding in the bathroom for 25 years every time he opens his mouth to sing "Teenage Wildlife"

The Scary Monsters is definite step down from The Lodger

The Lodger might be the most consistent of the Berlin trilogy + Scary Monsters, but doesn't match any of the highest highs of those other three albums.

The "'Heroes'" is his worst song, a wanky dirge of a worse than stadium rock journeyman pile of shit

I've always thought that if you took the B-side of Lodger, lopped off "Red Money" - because it's "Sister Midnight" but not as good - and grafted it to the A-side of Scary Monsters and stuck "Teenage Wildlife" on there somewhere the result would be a really good album. I would call it Scary Lodger.

Otherwise if Lodger was a James Bond film it would be Quantum of Solace. It's weird to think that for over a year it was "a thing". It was the most recent David Bowie album. It was David Bowie's most recent album. Now it's a kind of postscript.

I've always thought that if you took the B-side of Lodger, lopped off "Red Money" - because it's "Sister Midnight" but not as good - and grafted it to the A-side of Scary Monsters and stuck "Teenage Wildlife" on there somewhere the result would be a really good album

project canceled

I really love the imposing titanium drum (sound)s on Heroes/Scary Monsters, but also how they flank the (especially startling in comparison) dry drum sound on Lodger where it was like he's rebelling against his "depressed gorilla" creation before it was even widespread.

Really I have a lot of love for all these albums. That said if ever there's an album with a perfect side one and a side two that doesn't quite match its standard then its Scary Monsters.

ahem, sound(s)

I love Bowie. I've been listening to him my entire life. He's the most important artist for me. I even like most of his crap stuff, although I draw the line at Tonight. Blackstar is the most beautiful farewell album anyone's ever done, even if Les Marquises comes close. I am listening to The Lodger right now, and can confirm it is David Bowie's best record. Somewhere, someone's calling me, when the chips are down.

Sorry, when you say Blackstar don't you mean The Blackstar?

Indeed, I do. Sorry Tom (and David).

The David Bowie Albums

everyone's laughing at my "mistake" 23 years later but it's the reason we all keep (a) returning to the question, and (b) answering it more and more correctly (correct ans = yes)

My idea of removing the definite article from the album title - as in The Iggy Pop's "Idiot" - never took off though.

Mark, I also see you gave The Earthling some love. I’ve always felt that and The Black Tie/The White Noise are way underrated.

Earthling irritates me, probably because of Reeves who was a terrible fit and a bad artistic influence on Bowie.

Black Tie/White Noise is way underrated. It, Buddha of Suburbia and Outside are a very good set of albums surrounded by dreck.

I'm the opposite, I like The Earthling quite a bit, but not so sure about The Black Tie, other than Jump They Say.

I've never heard the Tin Machine albums. At some point they'll put out a box set of it all and I'll make myself suffer through it. I've heard some of the singles and it's very much not my thing.

Excuse me, its THE Tin Machine, The Oy Vey Baby

The TIM Machine: are "tim machine" the best thing david bowie ?

i think The Earthling is a bloody brilliant,
but not as good as The Lodger, which was my first proper Bowie album i bought and subsequently fell hard for,
even with the resident scratch during the opening track that was on the multiple vinyl copies i tried out.
thus kickstarting my hatred of the format.
of course i now have various cd editions of The Lodger, but i still hear the scratch.

i still hear the scratch

Is there a thread for this? There are songs where I still anticipate hearing a scratch or pop from the taped version I had and last listened to decades ago.

Alternate entry point for The Earthling--this acoustic performance of "Dead Man Walking"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26WEz91PP2U

My favourite post-70s Bowie album is the 'athen

Re: The Earthling, I think "Little Wonder" was my first exposure to drum and bass, and as a kid growing up in the American Midwest, away from the city, I had zero inkling of that world. Bowie's album wasn't even a hit here, I just checked it out because it was the new Bowie album and I had just started listening to his music.

Actually, no "the," it's just Earthling

The Earthling was the first Bowie album in years that The College Kids listened to, in my experience.

The Dead Man Walking from The Earthling The is a great tune!

There is always a the, bird

The Earthling had a lot of promo muscle behind it, including the 50th Birthday Pay-Per-View event, and I know for a fact a lot of fans first Bowie purchase was "I'm Afraid of Americans" single because of the Reznor remix.

Actually, The...hours also got a pretty big push too. Virgin really must have dropped some coin on his contract.

They all have their moments, but the first new Bowie album I enjoyed end-to-end in my lifetime was The The Next Day.

the the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the the spiders from mars

Always need to reveal myself whenever someone says the black tie white noise is underrated. it's my most listened to bowie album.

There isn't a post-tin machine bowie album I think is anything less than at least pretty great except ...hours, which i still like fine

i've been reivisiting this several times over the last few days. i think its brevity is a virtue -- a tight 34 minutes. i'm pretty obsessed with "D.J." and "Red Money." however, the album is a land of contrasts. i think "Yassassin" is probably one of the most annoying things he's ever done

sorry, that should be "The Yassassin"

Post Tin Machine album rankings? Sure, why not.

Blackstar
1. Outside
Heathen
Black Tie White Noise
Earthing
The Next Day
Buddha of Suburbia
Reality
Hours

Always need to reveal myself whenever someone says the black tie white noise is underrated. it's my most listened to bowie album.

"I really love the imposing titanium drum (sound)s on Heroes/Scary Monsters, but also how they flank the (especially startling in comparison) dry drum sound on Lodger where it was like he's rebelling against his "depressed gorilla" creation before it was even widespread."

The evolution of the drum sound on those records is fascinating. Low has a prototype of the 1980s big drum sound, made with a pitch-shifting delay and some natural reverb. And Heroes has a similar but more polished thing that appears to be just delay and reverb.

And then suddenly Lodger has the kind of flat, mixed-as-if-it-was-in-a-packed-dance-club drum sound I associate with the very early 1980s, e.g. Adam Ant, Queen, Talking Heads and so forth. I mentally associate with The Kenny Everett Video Show. And then Scary Monsters goes back to the big booming drum sound again.

If I didn't know it was part of the Berlin trilogy, or recorded in Paris, or wherever, I would geographically place Lodger as a New York No-Wave record. He tried that capture that kind of give-no-fucks sound with Tin Machine but it didn't work because it was too polished.

1. Outside

I hate the number at the beginning of this album title. It reminds me of bands that put out "Greatest Hits, Vol. 1" compilations, then immediately break up (or lose their record contract), ensuring that there will never be a Vol. 2. I recently Photoshopped "Volume One" off the cover of an album I was uploading to Bandcamp because there was no Volume Two, and I already know I'm gonna do it to another release in a couple of months.

Never cottoned to Outside, though I have tried. Its appeal always eludes me.

Sorry, The 1. Outside

We all will occasionally feel like The 1. Outside

There’s really good stuff on Outside, when it came out I was too hung up on the dopey story but if I put that out of my head It’s not bad.

1. Outside

I hate the number at the beginning of this album title.

You'll eat your words when Bowie releases The 2. Contamination