Why do people who love Young Americans tend to hate on Let's Dance?

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I mean, they're basically the same album, aren't they? ie white Englishman tries his hand at commercial black American music. Personally, I don't believe either represents any kind of high-point in Bowie's career.

― Iris Q., Friday, 4 February 2005 12:44 (twenty-one years ago)

"Englishman tries his hand at commercial black American music."

cf every English pop album ever.

― Miles Finch, Friday, 4 February 2005 12:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Let's Dance is not exactly bad. Its reputation might not be so bad if it had been a one-off rather than the template for everything else Bowie did in the 80s. It's a bit leaden and predictable though, and you can feel the inspiration being stretched. The songwriting is a million times better on Young Americans. The flow of lyrics on the title track are great and are not really imitative of anything in particular, he was bringing his own dimension to the philly sound. I've never liked the Lennon tracks on the album though, it would have been a much better album had it come out as it had been originally produced by Visconti.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:17 (twenty-one years ago)

I LOVE M. Ward's cover of Let's Dance - it made me realise what a great song it is. check it out if you haven;t heard it.

― jed_ (jed), Friday, 4 February 2005 13:19 (twenty-one years ago)

And Bowie misses the mark so badly on Young Americans—I mean, find me any Philly Soul album that sounds anything like that record—that it becomes its own thing.

― Naive Teen Idol (Naive Teen Idol), Friday, 4 February 2005 14:51 (twenty-one years ago)

Naive Teen Idol OTM. I don't even really associate Young Americans in my mind with Philly Soul, because it's so patently the work of someone coming out of that whole English art-school scene.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 4 February 2005 15:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Because Young Americans is really so much better.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 4 February 2005 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The lyrics to Young Americans are as good as Mark E says I.

― Snappy (sexyDancer), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Young Americans is a far more subtle album. The overly-literal Chinese-style intro of China Girl is symptomatic of Let's Dance.

― Owen T., Friday, 4 February 2005 16:11 (twenty-one years ago)

From a production standpoint, both records are pretty much of their time. YA's dry mix sounds lie any number of "Philly soul" albums released in the mid '70s; LD has that ham-fisted, muscular, brawny Nile Rodgers production gloss that Rodgers would milk for t

Both records are pretty uneven apart from their singles (I'm a fan of "Fascination" on YA and "Criminal World" on LD). I don't see why any Bowie fan should get too hot and bothered about either one of them. Diamond Dogs and Tonight have always seemed more offensively bad.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:33 (twenty-one years ago)

I LOVE M. Ward's cover of Let's Dance - it made me realise what a great song it is. check it out if you haven;t heard it.

Same here. But I never really like David Bowie's albums - I prefer him as a *singles artist*.

― stevie nixed (stevie nixed), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't especially prefer either record from what I can remember of them, but I think I like the Let's Dance singles better, which is a very tough call.

― billstevejim, Friday, 4 February 2005 16:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i tend to hate on young americans and love let's dance.

― hstencil (hstencil), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:42 (twenty-one years ago)

"Diamond Dogs and Tonight have always seemed more offensively bad."

I can see how one might not care for Diamond Dogs, but "offensively bad"! The only arguably bad song on it is the title track. Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing Reprise is surely one of his great moments.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 4 February 2005 16:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Diamond Dogs is "offensively bad" because Bowie's take on Orwell, Burroughs, etc is exactly the kind of one-dimensional, fashionable morbidity you'd expect from a star with no time to read and think about his sources, much less write catchy tunes.

The instrumentals on Low and Heroes do everything that the DD tracks are supposed to.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:00 (twenty-one years ago)

The instrumentals on Low and Heroes do everything that the DD tracks are supposed to.

Lowist!

― Adam Bruneau (oliver8bit), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:31 (twenty-one years ago)

i like let's dance quite a bit more and think Nile Rodgers' worked really well for this batch of songs. It's hardly his dropping off point (that was Tonight) for the 80's, and all of the songs on it are very strong and don't strike me as miles away from the songwriting on Scary Monsters. Just think what Ricochet would have sounded like on that album!

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:35 (twenty-one years ago)

If you mean Low the album, not Low the band, then damn straight!

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I agree, Kyle: just compare "Tonight" to "Let's Dance." Nile Rodgers deserves quite a bit of the credit for LD's success.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

who produced tonight?

― kyle (akmonday), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:38 (twenty-one years ago)

Hugh Padgham

I like both albums, but I think the songs on Young Americans are much stronger than on Let's Dance.

― Leon the Fatboy (Ex Leon), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost to Alfred

"Future Legend" without the vocals would be quite Low-ish.

I like all that mixing up of Burroughs and Orwell into something that's neither fish nor fowl, that looks like it's a concept album except that it doesn't really conceptually adhere and is really just a collage of images, some Orwellian/apocalytpic, some Burroughsian/decadent. Bits of it make me cringe, but on the whole it works. The Chant of the Everlasting Whatever is such a great ending too.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 4 February 2005 17:44 (twenty-one years ago)

1970s production values vs. 1980s production values

(Altho to be fair, neither LP ever really meant much to me.)

― Myonga Von Bontee (Myonga Von Bontee), Friday, 4 February 2005 18:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Let's Dance is uber uber great. I love that production with all the synths and head in a car door drums. Bowie's vocals seem to play games with our idea of Bowie like the way his Brechtian shtick goes somewhere beyond parody on Criminal World. The whole this is a big budget event blockbuster; see the guitar cameos, so showy and wahey look it's that stevie ray vaughn! (though arguably scary monsters does something similar with the fripptronics but is drinking the blood of the less fun post punk of its era so less inviting) The videos are amazing confusing expensive glossy foolish wonders. Bowie saw the eighties coming and met them head on and said all that he needed for about ten years. It's like a big vomiting up of all the Eno suppression and repression. It make me wanna dance and that bit in Lets Dance (the song) when the chorus lurches back into the riff is just perfection.

Oh Young Americans is good if somewhat tasteful in comparison.

― elwisty (elwisty), Friday, 4 February 2005 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

'cause hey babe there's nothing catchy on that album.

― briania (briania), Friday, 4 February 2005 20:36 (twenty-one years ago)

"'cause hey babe there's nothing catchy on that album."

"Rebel Rebel' is the exception, and it interrupts the album's sequencing; it doesn't fit Bowie's doomy posturing.

As a sidenote, for years I was thrilled that he actually played that great riff; now it turns out he didn't and took the credit. I read it in that Bowie book that reviews every song pre 1980.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 4 February 2005 20:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Wow, I didn't know that either. We're at odds on this one, because I think Diamond Dogs has several great tunes and an interesting sound. Literary explication and lyrical conceits are not exactly what I was into Bowie for in the 70s (or ever, really). Fashionable morbidity is more like it.

― briania (briania), Friday, 4 February 2005 20:57 (twenty-one years ago)

We were all fashionably morbid in our teens and early twenties.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 5 February 2005 02:27 (twenty-one years ago)

I really like the song "Diamond Dogs." It makes me sad when people hate on it. I mean, I have no idea what the hell he's talking about, but the general sound is one of my favorites.

As far as Young Americans vs. Let's Dance, it seems like YA is Bowie's sludgiest and druggiest sounding album, whereas LD is the crispest and cleanest. YA was kind of loosey-goosily tossed off while on tour, while LD was a well-planned campaign for world domination.

Since I think they're pretty far apart sylistically, I can see how someone could love one and not the other.

― Heidy- Ho, Saturday, 5 February 2005 02:49 (twenty-one years ago)

Diamond Dogs shits on both albums from a great, brown, splattery height.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 5 February 2005 02:52 (twenty-one years ago)

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