Bowie single 1975-1979

Sorry, wrong board - can a mod move it please.

The John I'm Only Dancing (Again) recording was a re-recording/new version though, unlike the '76 Suffragette City single. Not that it would stand a chance in the poll or anything...

What a fantastic collection of songs. My pick will be one of the Stay-Sound and Vision-Be My Wife sequence

Oi where's 'Young Americans'?

Struggling to choose between 'Be My Wife', 'Stay' and 'Look Back In Anger'.

Oi where's 'Young Americans'?

― gonna send him to outer space, to hug another face (NickB),

Oops.

Tough tough choice between Golden Years and Look Back in Anger

"Beauty and the Beast" is perfect and the best introduction to a Bowie neophyte. In a friend's car in spring 2001, minutes after he'd bought it, stoned out of our minds, the YEERREE of Fripp's guitar and the clang of Bowie's piano sounded to me – who'd heard the song hundreds of time – foreign and dangerously sexy.

I decided to go for Yassassin as it deserves at least one vote.

what an embarrassment of riches. this is certainly his best period

xp lol Yassassin. He's not a moody guy!!

Heroes, because it's his best ever vocal performance.

Dunno why Bowie's performance of "Heroes" at Live Aid isn't cited more often as one of the event's few great moments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGOx0ZpMrrU

Went with Look Back in Anger over TVC15. Sound and Vision also tempting.
http://lparchive.org/Earthbound/Update%207/1-capture_12022008_083417.png

blue blue electric blue
that's the colour of my 'do

"We could eat gyros!"

TVC15. Is there a better song out there about a hologram television?

I am amazed how every writer of a recent Bowie bio dismisses it as an annoying trifle.

Went with "Sound And Vision" because I don't like the single mixes of the Station To Station tracks. I'd put the album versions of "Stay" and "TVC 15" ahead of "Sound And Vision".

So many songs I love, literally cannot choose at the moment. This list is like the polar opposite of the 83-87 list.

Be My Wife is my favourite Bowie song. Look Back In Anger would be a close second.

I can't pick a "least favourite" from this list, either; maybe "Fame" or "DJ" but both songs are great

voted 'golden years' but holy fuck that list

stay / sound and vision / look back in anger

this is really fucking impossible

golden years/sound and vision/& of course "Heroes" but I think that one is for me an exhibit in the case against licensing your song - it was really special to me in high school, might have stayed that way forever, but hearing the chorus amputated from its context, the narrative arc of the song gone, waaaaay too many times has had an effect on how I hear the song. It'd take a pretty intense discipline for me to be able to hear it again the way it sounded before you'd heard WE CAN BE HEROES!!! everywhere for about a decade

this is really fucking impossible

srsly

"Sound and Vision" but with pangs of guilt for not being able to vote for five.

Be My Wife, though it's probably a tie with DJ.

Stay would never get the vote as the single version doesn't work at all.

Golden Years I guess, but my head is still hurting from having to think all this through a couple of months back in the big Bowie poll.

How is the single Stay different?

Yeah, I love "Stay" to death, but it's an album cut, not a single, to me. Not sure how the single differs.

First thing is roughly 3 minutes are cut.

was "Yassassin" a b-side?

Apparently it was an A-side in the Netherlands.

Have to go with "Heroes," which to my ears is one of the greatest recordings as artifact ever put down, just for the crazy gated vocal thing.

It's not the one I want to hear right now, but I can't really see not voting "Heroes."

Will be interesting to compare the results with the write-in Bowie poll run on this board recently.

I'd say "Heroes" is gonna run away with it.

Voted "Boys keep swinging"

There is no song on this list that will receive zero votes

it's always going to be a little depressing to me that during this whole run he was too high to have any idea what was going on

S&V

not really, aero: after Low he was sober except for the occasional binge.

if this had been on the list, I would have been unable to keep myself from voting for the cheese

http://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-John-Im-Only-Dancing-Again-1975-John-Im-Only-Dancing-1972/release/548341

Huh, just noticed Station to Station got released as a single too. Part of me loves that you can hear most of that album on 45.

Be my wife. Amazing video, too. He looks completely broken, and although I usually assume he's acting to an extent, in this case it seems utterly real. It's almost hard to watch.

Is there a different mix / edit to TVC15 / S2S then? I'm not sure I remember hearing them. The Station album is his masterpiece as far as I'm concerned so I'd be interested to be reminded where those versions are.

Apart from that Be My Wife really fucking stands out here as a single. And it planked in the charts. Ho hum.

Station To Station was planned as a single and a mix was done but it wasn't released, thankfully. The edits are hideous.

TVC15 is about 2 minutes shorter on the single mix. All the S2S singles were truncated, even Golden Years.

Be my wife. Amazing video, too. He looks completely broken, and although I usually assume he's acting to an extent, in this case it seems utterly real. It's almost hard to watch.

What fascinates me about the video is by exaggerating the pathos with outsized gestures he's almost parodying brokenness; he's playing a man playing brokenness.

My favorite moment: the slight lip smack as he moves his fingers towards the frets and the expression of sour indifference ("Oh well I must as well play this thing..."), playing a solo that we know he doesn't play on record and he knows we know.

forced myself to kneejerk vote for TVC15 but I'm already regretting not picking Boys Keep Swinging and then there's Golden Years...

Oh god. I'm going to have to listen to all of these AGAIN, aren't I?

The last main Bowie poll nearly drove me mad.

In a lovely, lovely way. Adore this guy's music. The best.

I guess that is why we are here though, eh?

What fascinates me about the video is by exaggerating the pathos with outsized gestures he's almost parodying brokenness; he's playing a man playing brokenness.

Oh, totally. But deep in his eyes, he actually looks broken (to me). So it's like he's a a broken man playing a broken man. Occasionally I've witnessed a really drunk friend get called out for being obnoxious, and their reaction is to parody a really drunk person.

Station To Station was planned as a single and a mix was done but it wasn't released, thankfully. The edits are hideous.

― EZ Snappin, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 9:58 PM

Yeah I can't imagine how it sounds shaved down to three and a half minutes, that's insane. I was going off this discogs link but it didn't say promo. Looks like copies sold on ebay for hundreds of dollars, further madness.

I will always have a special place in my heart for Fame after drunkenly vocalising the guitar and bass parts with a random Jersey hippie-bro outside a bar where I was playing.

kinda how "Fame" itself was written and recorded

TVC15, just for the incredible SNL version with Klaus Nomi.

Fame!

This song scared me when I was a kid and came on classic radio.

Fame embodies that incredible stressed coked-up wound-up funk he had going on through that era, like gang of four (minus the coke).

Golden Years over Sound and Vision and Boys Keep Swinging.

Eventually went with 'Be My Life'.

WIFE, even. Fuxsake.

its between Be My Wife and Heroes, and I really can't decide dammit

I always sing "act fine" from "Golden Years" in Herman Munster's voice.

ahhhh i should have gone with Boys Keep Swinging

I always sing "act fine" from "Golden Years" in Herman Munster's voice.

haha!
I sang Golden Years with a friend at karaoke once and she got mad because I wouldn't stop singing it how I sing it at home: "Nothing's gonna save you from these golden years."

BBC 4 UK *right now* and until the wee small hours:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/programmes/schedules/2012/06/22

21:00 – 22:00
David Bowie and the Story of Ziggy Stardust

How David Bowie arrived at one of the most iconic creations in pop history.

22:00 – 23:00
The Genius of David Bowie

A selection of some of David Bowie's best performances from the BBC archives.

23:00 – 00:30
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

David Bowie's last public appearance as his androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. (R)

00:30 – 01:30
David Bowie in concert at the BBC Radio Theatre.

Songs include Ashes to Ashes, Absolute Beginners, The Man Who Sold the World and Fame.

this one is rough, but went with Beauty and the Beast

jesus "Heroes" sucks

nawwwww

jesus your mom sucks

Controversial.

Voted "Heroes" but was torn. S&V pushed it very close. So many awesome songs.

Voted "Boys". Could have been any of them though. Except "DJ".

Agree with poster upstream who said "Heroes" was ruined by licensing. Voted Boys Keep Swinging.

voted "Sound and Vision", by miles. soberly, i just find "Heroes" tediously anthemic in a way i do not want from Bowie

Will be interesting to compare the results with the write-in Bowie poll run on this board recently.

― Jeff W, Wednesday, June 20, 2012 3:04 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark

one man's redundant is another man's interesting, i suppose

The Man Who Polled the World, aka DAVID BOWIE POLL RESULTS

3. Sound and Vision
5. "Heroes"
6. Golden Years
7. Young Americans
14. Be My Wife
19. Look Back in Anger
21. TVC15
22. Stay
33. Fame
36. Boys Keep Swinging
38. Breaking Glass
57. Beauty and the Beast

oops scratch "Young Americans" being in there

Easily between the top 3 on the list for me. Surprised myself by voting "Golden Years," though listening to them back-to-back might change my mind. (Never been a huge "Heroes," fan, btw, but I like it okay.)

Poll OTM, "Station to station" placed v high in that poll, too, not a single but the best imo

Much is made of the VCS and the Fripp guitar on "Heroes" and I guess (?) it must've sounded amazing in '77 or whatever but it's always sounded proto-"Belfast Child" stadium rock to me

I was briefly obsessed with Bowie's blue-eyed soul phase--the whole proto-postpunk, art schoolers messing about with soul and funk aspect of it--not enough to buy Young Americans or even listen to it, but enough to listen to the singles on Youtube a few times. I always considered "Golden Years" part of that phase, even though it was om S2S; it was always my favorite of his 'big' singles, and I voted it #1 in my ballot.

But during the poll, digging deep into his albums thx to Spotify, my biggest 'holy shit!' moment was def Lodger. It's the one I went out and bought afterward. It's the one that had four songs on my ballot. And the two songs I come back to the most--"Red Sails" and "Look Back in Anger", which I voted for--have p much become two of my all-time favorite songs ever.

You'd have loved this compilation: http://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-Golden-Years/release/2839592. As I did when I was young - my parents bought this tape at a gas station during our 1983 holiday trip. I'd fallen hard for the Let's Dance singles and these were the first of his songs outside of this album that I heard. "Red Sails" and "Look Back In Anger" were immediate favorites.

Probably not the thread for it but I'm frustrated and amazed that most books consistently take the "it's not as good as its two predecessors and Bowie-Eno-Visconti were running out of steam" approach. The record sounds so alive! so filled with weird hooks and unexpected instrumental filigrees. Adrian Belew said it best: it's an avant-garde pop record.

It's my favourite Berlin record, at least partly because I don't have much patience for the instrumentals on the other two.

i thought ilx had now reached the point where not preferring lodger was the contrarian viewpoint now

"Red Sails" is obv a Neu! homage but "Look Back in Anger" has a huge Krautrock feel to it, almost if like Can was covering "Immigrant Song" or something, and that guitar/drum interplay after the first chorus--those fucking drums!--ensure I never have to listen to U2 again. That rapid-fire chunkiness.

unfortunately, we all have to listen to U2 again. we don't get to choose when or where, but it'll happen somewhere. it is a collective burden

No, no, no. You may hear U2 again but you don't have to listen,

Voted "Be My Wife" - that chorus is undeniable.

♪♫ some-tiiiimes y'get so lone-lyyyyy ♪♫

I may have said it before but I hear a lot of Blur in that song. "For Tomorrow" maybe. Not a big fan of that band, but even so...

"Red Sails" is obv a Neu! homage

More accurately it's a complete rip off of "Monza" by Harmonia... which itself was a Neu! homage by one half of Neu!

Wow cool!

Lodger is excellent...and yet Heroes & Low are still probably better. There is absolutely nothing Bowie did 1975-1979 that is bad except his cover of Across The Universe. Oh and Just A Gigolo.

In fact, Bowie 1975-1979 is simply one of the finest moments of postwar popular (and at times not especially popular) culture.

That is the saddest thing I've ever heard

Owen your corrective Bowie animus will mystify me till I die

Speaking of Lodger, isn't "African Night Flight" awesome? So many potentially annoying things going on in that song, but somehow it all melds together wonderfully

^otm

I thought Owen was a huge Bowie fan...? I seem to remember him ranking Lodger up there with Outside.

"Be My Wife" - love its ABBAness.

Not corrective, just investigative. And I'm a huge Bowie fan, yeah, but to read the opinion that four odd albums I love are "the greatest contribution to post-war culture" in the face of uhh I dunno John Cage? Foucault? Nabokov? It's like I say "yeah I love David Bowie" and somebody saying "me too check out this lock of his hair"

Also it was early and I was tired and misread "the finest contribution" as "the greatest contribution"

Argh "one of the finest" etc., see y'all tomorrow

forget it, owen, it's fangirlingtown

I did say popular culture not culture in general so I wasn't putting up four Bowie albums against John Cage, Foucault and Nabokov. I stand by my claim!

Although if I'm going to be totally honest, even though I love John Cage, forced at gunpoint I'd still probably choose Station To Station over any John Cage.

Who wouldn't?

Well.

Although I'd probably rather listen to my audiobook of Les Mots et Les Choses over either!

Yeah, some good party tunes on that one.

Yeah I apologize, Zelda, a bad mood post

aww

Although if I'm going to be totally honest, even though I love John Cage, forced at gunpoint I'd still probably choose Station To Station over any John Cage.

Same here. And not to be the guy who reads something like that and reacts with "Poll!", but...

Poll!

it's early yet but if there's an application form for finest contribution to 21st century popular culture can somebody point me toward it, feel like my pissing on your belt c/d thread has a decent shot

I may have said it before but I hear a lot of Blur in that song. "For Tomorrow" maybe. Not a big fan of that band, but even so...

― kraudive, Saturday, 23 June 2012 18:00 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you check out the credits of Blur's "Middle of the Road", you will find Bowie and Almodovar listed.

Apparently, someone decided it was too much like "Boys Keep Swinging" for comfort.

Almodovar?

OK, one syllable too many.

Blimey, you get caned for being too accurate, then get caned for being not acurate enuff.

iirc Alomar played drums on 'Boys Keep Swingin'...?

OK, I mixed up himself and Brian eno.

Speaking of Lodger, isn't "African Night Flight" awesome? So many potentially annoying things going on in that song, but somehow it all melds together wonderfully

― buh, Sunday, June 24, 2012 5:03 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And it's so short and compact, too! It's a trait that I love about the Lodger album in general, actually. The fact that there's so many ideas on that record, yet it's so short. I suppose one could say the whole album is like a more 'direct'/'song based' version of Side One of Low in that sense. It seems strange for me to praise Lodger for this, especially since my favourite Bowie album is Station To Station!

If you check out the credits of Blur's "Middle of the Road", you will find Bowie and Almodovar listed.

Apparently, someone decided it was too much like "Boys Keep Swinging" for comfort.

― Mark G, Monday, June 25, 2012 8:26 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They wouldn't have had to listen very hard to reach that decision, in all fairness!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BkbmQnau7Y

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Kudos, ILM.

ILM underrating "Fame" always bums me out, that song is tremendous

It did quite respectably.

The only song that ranked above it I wouldn't include in my top ten is "Look Back in Anger"

sigh

I voted for "Fame." That and "Young Americans" were the only Top 40 Bowie singles in the US. "Fame" sounded so alien compared to the John Denver and Glen Campbell hits of the same time period. (Alien and yet funky; it predated my James Brown love by several years.)

This other song recorded for Blur I'm guessing was left off for further Bowie-related recriminations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tt5wLujYQg

Also, the one non-spoken line in 'Essex Dogs' sounds a bit like one from 'Quicksand'

"Golden Years" hit #10, says wiki.

Argh, meant to type "Golden Years" instead of "Young Americans," because I was only looking at the ones in the poll.

YA = #28, but those were the only 3 if I'm reading this right.

Yep. Interesting to me that "Fame" was #1 US and only #17 UK.

you mean his only Top 40 hits during this period, right?

He scored quite a few more between 1983 and 1987.

right

Yes, def. discounting the "Let's Dance" comeback era. Just looking at this poll. Weird, "Boys Keep Swinging" was huger than "Fame" in the UK, went nowhere here.

Did "Fame" get any TV exposure over there? It got nowt here. And I wasn't even aware of John Lennon's involvement at the time.

Sooooooouuuullll Train!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FW9x7OkwpxA

and we got:

(30) DAVID BOWIE – Fame (danced to by Pan’s People) (wiped)