Okay, so which one is the *worst* Bowie Record?

It's "Tonight" for two big reasons:

1. It wasted two classic '80s Bowie tracks ("Loving The Alien" and "Blue Jean") that could have been so much more.

2. Bowie "interprets" "God Only Knows" the same way Chuck Heston tore through the famous tag line from Soylent Green..."God only knows...it's people!"

'ziggy stardust and the lord custoses from mars'

Wouldn't it have to be "Never Let Me Down?" I've never heard it, but, er..."Zeroes?" That cover?

What's the problem with the Ryko cassette of Station to Station in particular? Fidelity?

god only knows. a cover version from hell. what the frag was that all about. that one song was the dawning of realisation that i was not to buy another bowie lp. that is until tin machine.
but thats another story.
onwards. m.e/ireallylovemusic

Never Let Me Down by a mile, along with Tonight the only ones I will not have in my collection. What's weird is, remember the critical lauding NLMD got when it came out? The triumphant hoo haw it got from the likes of Rolling Stone (admittedly by then slipping into irrelevancy)? It was the big return of Bowie the art-rocker? Of course they've said this about every subsequent album he's put out which makes me think he has very good PR people. Problem being that, even though these praises are generally OTM (at least beginning with Outside), I don't think a lot of peoplbe believe them because of NLMD. It probably did more damage to his career than Dancing in the Streets.

although it its defence it has "time will crawl" on it which is better than anything on Tonight.

'Heathen' is pretty bad

In order of der stinkiness:

1. Never Let Me Down (although the tour enabled Peter Frampton to afford a new refrigerator box to live in).

2. "Tonight" (the bad experience of listening to this was exceeded for me only by watching his short "concept" film that he did around the same time).

3. "Tin Machine 2" (wherein the bottom of the barrel that was Tin Machine 1 was scraped up to reveal a hitherto unknown layer of tuneless sludge).

I saw the Glass Spider tour. It's NLMD, hands down. Of the canonical greats, I'd say Young Americans is the weakest.

The saddest thing about postcanon dud Tonight, other than the aforementioned two good songs and the maybe-could've-been-good-if-someone'd-finished-them "Neighborhood Threat" and "Big Boys," is the way its bland adult contemporary crappiness obscured the last truly excellent permutation of the whole Bowie myth, the long-form video for "Blue Jean."

It's fucking amazing. Encapsulates so much, so nicely. Down to the prophetic articulation of post-Let's Dance doom. The last lines, nerd-Bowie to director Temple as the camera pulls off into the sky: "Are you calling me clever-clever?"

What's weird is, remember the critical lauding NLMD got when it came out?
Thats odd...I remember RS giving it a brutal bitchslapping. Which is almost but not quite deserved. It was a weak record -- especially the B-side -- but it wasn't as bad as Tonight. In fact, I'm tempted to spread the heretical notion that the A-side of NLMD is almost as good as Let's Dance.

Album art definitely gayer, though.

Come on -- is any record of his more desperate sounding than Earthling? To boot, it apparently signaled the end of his doing anything you really, really had to have...

all the best '70s work is bowie trying to throw off the shackles and albatross-like rock'n'roll values as defined for so many other people by ziggy stardust -- his bravery in seemingly moving against a successful formula and his creativity, (and this i suppose equates in listeners' minds as 'sincerity' ?) he could turn pretty fast on a dime back then

and the more interesting of the recent albums are probably the result of bowie trying to escape from the tin machine blueprint -- '80s material like let's dance, tonight and the tin machine albums damned expectations of him and confounded fans of the good '70s stuff

yet the late '90s comeback albums, while often briefly hailed under the influence of superficial familiarity as comparable in quality to one of the good '70s albums, they still just seem like he's trying too hard to run back to those same '70s albums and/or run away from the '82 -> '90 dross

so his best first period ('73->'80) was the sound of someone desperately differentiating himself, the diversity that fans found appealing was bowie's constant manic hunt for new directions, bowie running away -- yet the recent 'comeback' stuff is bowie desperately trying to hang on to something he might hope he can still do well -- more desperate now then ever -- where to run to now ?

I'm really surprised there hasn't been any hate here for Black Tie White Noise. Maybe I'm the only person who thought it was completely worthless trash?

I don't care for it. Or Earthling. Or Heathen. But I was so not drawn in in each case I don't have much to say--I couldn't, for example, really say which of the three I like least.

Yeah but "Black Tie White Noise" the song has a special delirious charm for me. Maybe it's just that groove going around and around (and, of course, the vocal stylings of the immortal Al B. Sure)...

And really: "Nite Flights" isn't all that bad. Certainly, it's no "God Only Knows," fer chrissakes...

Never Let Me Down, no doubt about it. Up to that point I'd bought every single record he released from when I first got into him, even to the extent of buying both 7" and 12" versions of singles when there was no difference between them, that sort of thing. Jesus, I even bought the Labyrinth soundtrack.

But I wouldn't have Never Let Me Down in the house. It really stinks.