taking sides: Station To Station vs Low

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Low always gets grouped with the other Eno collaboration albums, but I think STS and Low have a lot in common - both have got a mental illness vibe (STS deranged black magic histrionics, Low autistic emotional withdrawal), both mix up R&B with rock and various sound effects, both seem to have risen to the top of critical appreciation. Although I note that Pitchfork put Low as the number 1 album in their list of the greatest albums of the seventies, and yet failed to mention STS at all. Strange. For what it's worth I think STS has held up much better than Low. Low's novelty tricks have mostly been subsumed into some sort of pop mainstream - the jagged, fragmented feel of side 1 became something of a post-punk trope, while years of chill-out music in the nineties lessened the impact of the side 2 'ambient' pieces. STS didn't really give birth to anything, though. It was a sort of an interesting cul-de-sac. And that makes it sound fresher and more unusual to my ears than Low does today. Its weird vibe remains weird, whereas I don't think that's necessarily the case with Low.

― Patrick RW, Thursday, 31 March 2005 09:12 (twenty years ago)

I like "Station To Station" as well. Not that it is quite up there with "Low", but an excellent album it is, and it certainly bears elements of what was to become his Berlin style.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 31 March 2005 09:15 (twenty years ago)

I don't think the tracks on side 2 of Low can really be described as ambient or much to do with chill-out music. They're all very recognisably structured as songs I'd say, and have an emotional force that is the opposite of what ambient is all about.

It's impossible to choose between Station To Station and Low. One was the last album of the seventies, the other the first album of the eighties.

― derek_, Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:05 (twenty years ago)

Station To Station, for the reasons Patrick gave. Several of Low's instrumental tracks are not quite as engaging enough as 'instrumental music'. They do feel like songs, and some of them sound like they're still waiting for the vocal track.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

The only problem I have with Station To Station is that the opener is so great that the rest of the album doesn't quite match it. Golden Years and Word On A Wing almost match it, but there's a definite tail-off on the second side. The title track is kind of experimental, the others aren't really, there's a bit of a mismatch. Still a great album of course.

― derek_, Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:16 (twenty years ago)

B-b-but "Wild Is the Wind" is one of the greatest songs of the century, and I'm warming more to Bowie's rendition with every listen. Plus "TVC15" sounds like a really good proto-Low moment to me. To each one's own of course...

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Thursday, 31 March 2005 11:28 (twenty years ago)

this is like asking me to take sides between, i dunno, eating and breathing. i'm gonna go with low, simply because it has become hard-wired into my brain. but god, station to station ... i mean, it's unimpeachable.

low, then. but TS low v everything else in the world and low's going to be in with a good chance of winning.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:06 (twenty years ago)

i'd go w. STS every time. side 2 of 'low' is of stictly historical interest.

― N_RQ, Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:10 (twenty years ago)

dear oh dear

nb: yes, i know i've done this joke before.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:11 (twenty years ago)

I don't think the tracks on side 2 of Low can really be described as ambient or much to do with chill-out music. They're all very recognisably structured as songs I'd say

Agreed. Some of the material on "Heroes" is quite close though.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 31 March 2005 12:24 (twenty years ago)

If the instrumentals on "Low" are supposed to be chill-out ambient music, then it's the most disruptive, atonal, grating chill-out music ever recorded. Eno Bowie's instrumentals are very different; compare "Becalmed" or "In Dark Trees" to "Warsawva" or "Subterraneans. Bowie adapts Eno's techniques rather than imitating them.

I'll agree that STS sounds like nothing else in the Bowie catalogue, or indeed nothing else in music at the time: it's Teutonic funk. "Golden Years" and "Stay" funk out more convincingly than anything in Kraftwerk's catalogue. Full credit goes to Bowie's incredible backing band (Alomar, Dennis Davis, etc).

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:07 (twenty years ago)

One big difference between the experimentalism of STS and that of Low is that on STS the different elements are better integrated, while on Low it's all the elements fighting against each other.

I don't agree that the experimentalism on STS is just on the title track. Golden Years is a funk track but not one any funk guy at the time would have made - it's definitely got a Teutonic or perhaps minimalist feel to its beat which is sort of robotic, as is the riff, which is far too locked in to infinite repetition to really be funk as it was known then. The whole album is a funk/rock hybrid really, rather than straight out funk.

― frédéric, Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:24 (twenty years ago)

It's the side effects of the cocaine,
I'm thinking that it must be Low
It's too late for his voice
It's too late for Ziggy
It's too late for plastic soul
The time to clean up is here.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:30 (twenty years ago)

You evil wonderful man.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

OTM frederic. "Speed of Life" and "Be My Wife" are artier variations on STS' Kraut-funk hybrid.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:31 (twenty years ago)

The only problem I have with Station To Station is that the opener is so great that the rest of the album doesn't quite match it.

"TVC15" does!

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:42 (twenty years ago)

Never overly liked TVC-15. However, it's another track that links STS to Low - TVC-15 and Be My Wife have got the same piano thing going on.

― frédéric, Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)

Same piano thing going on, and also both changing drastically from that opening piano thing later on.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 31 March 2005 13:47 (twenty years ago)

I heard 'Warszawa' from 'Low' on community radio early one moring while driving to work during a snowstorm, and it was the absolute perfect soundtrack. I favor 'Low' by just a smidgen, but I adore them both. Grimly OTM about the choice between eating and breathing. Hey, my first OTM!

― Daniel Peterson (polkaholic), Thursday, 31 March 2005 14:18 (twenty years ago)

Low wasn't Bowie's next album after Station To Station, though. In between, he did The Idiot, which he wrote most of the music for. Sonically it could be seen as the missing link between STS and the first sides of Low - it plays the same games of hybridising funk, rock and weirdo synth sound effects.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Thursday, 31 March 2005 14:37 (twenty years ago)

"stay" on station to station is the framework for a certain ratio's entire catalog.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 31 March 2005 14:39 (twenty years ago)

It's still a good song though.

― Schwip Schwap (schwip schwap), Thursday, 31 March 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

"stay" = korn "reclaim my place". structure, chords, vox/chorus vocal dynamics, everything!

― dave q (listerine), Thursday, 31 March 2005 16:50 (twenty years ago)

I know this is off the subject, but do you consider Station To Station an EP or an LP?

― Long & Wonky, Thursday, 31 March 2005 22:34 (twenty years ago)

It's still a good song though.

i love the song.

― cutty (mcutt), Thursday, 31 March 2005 22:36 (twenty years ago)

Station To Station is not an EP, the same way Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" is not a single.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, 31 March 2005 22:37 (twenty years ago)

uh, LP.

― Matos-Webster Dictionary (M Matos), Thursday, 31 March 2005 22:38 (twenty years ago)

I consider it an extended megamix.

― Alba (Alba), Thursday, 31 March 2005 22:45 (twenty years ago)

When you're booching up to the degree Bowie and cohorts were during the recording of STS, the tunes lengthen (the title track, the fantastic pair of solos concluding "Stay') and number of songs per album decrease. I wish more musicians snorted the same kind of blow.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Thursday, 31 March 2005 23:08 (twenty years ago)

Hmm. A toughie. Both are excellent, and certainly i my top 50 records, but it's hard.. because while Station to Station doesn't have any bad tracks per se, and Low has about two ("Art Decade" and "Weeping Wall"), but the best songs on Low are leaps and bounds above everything on STS bar the title track and "Wild is the Wind".. but it only has 6 songs... ARGH. Eenie. Meenie. Miney. Low.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Thursday, 31 March 2005 23:14 (twenty years ago)

Oh God I really wish she didn't give those songs away.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Thursday, 31 March 2005 23:15 (twenty years ago)

wish he*

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Thursday, 31 March 2005 23:17 (twenty years ago)

Well, he got Sister Midnight back.

― D. Bachyrycz, Friday, 1 April 2005 00:52 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, but Red Money isn't as good. And let us not speak of what he and Nile Rodgers did to "China Girl."

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Friday, 1 April 2005 00:53 (twenty years ago)

Ignoring stoopid questions about which LP is an LP, or Nordic Power manifestoes about which conforms more to official major Cord melodicism, and just lissening, they both Scanned inavian. Sorry I'm wrong. Geir, the jakes has wirm thim.

― Ferlin Husky (noodle vague), Friday, 1 April 2005 01:03 (twenty years ago)

Oh, this is nearly impossible because I think Station to Station is flawless, but Low has always been on rotation more often chez moi.. It was only recently that I really tuned in to how much of it is about just getting stuck - all the Berlin albums have this sense of repetition, going in circles, etc.

― daria g (daria g), Friday, 1 April 2005 04:42 (twenty years ago)

xpost to the brainwasher -

I think Bowie got as much out of Iggy as Iggy got out of Bowie. There's a marked change in lyrics from STS to Low - STS has all the baroque black magic stuff, but Low pares everything down to the bare bones. I'd say that's the influence of working with Iggy, who can be a great lyricist, keeping things simple without falling into cliché. The lyrics on The Idiot are great and are all Iggy's I think. Also the dirty guitar sound on Low (but even more so on Heroes) might be traced back to Iggy.

― Jonathan Z. (Joanthan Z.), Friday, 1 April 2005 07:47 (twenty years ago)

I'm with you on "China Girl" (of course), Brainwasher, but I actually prefer "Red Money" to "Sister Midnight." It's the fuller production, or more specifically, the particular sounds that fill out the production, that tips the scale for me. What do you prefer in "Sister Midnight"? Iggy's lyric/vocal? The sparser sound?

― D. Bachyrycz, Friday, 1 April 2005 15:59 (twenty years ago)

Doesn't Bowie play most of the instruments on "The Idiot"? If so, that's some great guitar work on "Dum Dum Boys."

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Friday, 1 April 2005 18:04 (twenty years ago)

I love love love all three. 'Low' and 'The Idiot' came out very close together (trivia: there was a U.S. promo single that coupled "Sound and Vision" and "Sister Midnight"), so it's hard to say that 'The Idiot' came in between Bowie albums.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 1 April 2005 18:14 (twenty years ago)

don't make me choose! ok, thanks, yay & all that!!

― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 2 April 2005 06:03 (twenty years ago)

What do you prefer in "Sister Midnight"? Iggy's lyric/vocal? The sparser sound?

Definitely the sparser sound. It does wonders with that jump bassline... and Iggy's sort of deadpan approach to the vocal, opposed to the Bowie histrionics.

― The Brainwasher (Twilight), Saturday, 2 April 2005 06:23 (twenty years ago)

seven months pass...

Hey, what's the 30th anniversary reissue schedule for those Bowie albums? Station To Station is due up next year and my 1999 remastered CD has been played to death.

Oh, and with regards to this thread, I go with Station To Station hands down. "Low" got me back into buying Bowie records after Nate Patrin talked me into picking it up, but STS is the only one I still own.

― James.Cobo (jamescobo), Sunday, 27 November 2005 01:30 (twenty years ago)

Has anyone read the Ian McDonald piece on Station To Station? i saw it in the anthology of his writing he seemed to argue, i only scan read mind, that STS is the last LP where Bowie is exploring beyond himself piloting off into the obscure ie kabbalah, nietzsche, facism, heavy drugs, ambisexuality etc i sort of agree everything after STS feels sort of like a long exorcism of what peaks with STS, i think it's bit like Gravity's Rainbow as a pop album...

― jive session (elwisty), Sunday, 27 November 2005 02:03 (twenty years ago)

five years pass...

holy shit, the clean copy of "stay" on my headphones sounds nothing like my recollection of it from shitty cassettes 25 yrs ago. *hits repeat*

― if you hipster on your fixie tonight, dont forget, wear black. amen. (Hunt3r), Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:26 (fourteen years ago)

station to station is def my fav bowie now

― om nom nom nnamdi asomugha (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:38 (fourteen years ago)

yeah me too, it's like the only Bowie I listen to now tbh

also LOL @ my posts in this thread. Can't believe I said this:

Eenie. Meenie. Miney. Low.

*facepalm*

― homophobic music by braindead primates (The Brainwasher), Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:40 (fourteen years ago)

Stay is off the hook
and so is this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXZKsKD1UsY

― tylerw, Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:41 (fourteen years ago)

Love Station to Station. and I love Low too. Hell, I love just about everything Bowie touched in the 70s.

I'll agree that STS sounds like nothing else in the Bowie catalogue, or indeed nothing else in music at the time: it's Teutonic funk.

this is intriguing! can anyone else think of anything that resembles STS that came out afterward?

― the guy who is too intense about the bean toss game (Z S), Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:49 (fourteen years ago)

not that a lot of it *sounds* like station to station but in general a lot of post-punk UK stuff definitely had a vibe of this sort of funk/r&b/disco but very "white" (no hongro) and european feeling

― om nom nom nnamdi asomugha (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, 11 August 2011 21:53 (fourteen years ago)

holy shit, the clean copy of "stay" on my headphones sounds nothing like my recollection of it from shitty cassettes 25 yrs ago. *hits repeat*

oh man i used to rewind/-play "stay" all the time on my walkman. the way that intro sets the stage and plunges into the song proper still gets my adrenaline going

Bowie's interviews/performances on 70's talk shows always deliver, but I love the ones he did on Dinah's

― willem, Friday, 12 August 2011 07:01 (fourteen years ago)

Virtually impossible. But thinking STS spawned the STS tour - which is undoubtedly the best performance of any human on any stage ever - maybe this.

And because of the all the droll black magik anecdotes about demons, red pepper and storing piss in the fridge, of course.

― the europan nikon is here (grauschleier), Friday, 12 August 2011 14:44 (fourteen years ago)

four years pass...

my bizarre alternative experience of Station To Station:

growing up in the 70's I'm no stranger to differing track sequences on cassettes and 8-tracks (hell, even LPs), but this one takes the cake. seems my first copy of (and the way I got to know the album) Station To Station was the U.S. cassette. which is the only(?) version to feature the following track sequence:

A1 Word On A Wing
A2 Stay
A3 Wild Is The Wind
- - -
B1 Station To Station
B2 Golden Years
B3 TVC 15

I guess when I got the LP later I didn't notice anything was up, until one day: WTF?

the sequence above works very well and is part of why I rated the album highly.
"Word On A Wing" makes for a lowkey and soulful start, its lyrics seeming to have a greater context (than as A3), for example "ready to shake the scheme of things" becomes a manifesto for the album itself.
"Stay" as track 2 is a blistering change of gears - that intro!
"Wild Is The Wind" becomes merely a mid-album torch song instead of an attempted ending grand statement (or fizzle).
then the title track is a BIG opener for side 2 and places the heart of the album in its depths.
hit song "Golden Years" keeps side 2 strong,
then "TVC15" closes out energetic and humorous.

http://cdn.discogs.com/0V_-j-gJJGafsrjCAZ2wZslFUvo=/fit-in/600x352/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-4517900-1367166366-6556.jpeg.jpg
http://www.discogs.com/David-Bowie-Station-To-Station/release/4517900

after that I can't get with the official dry-ass sequence - reprogram your tracklist and try the sequence above sometime!

― Paul, Monday, 25 January 2016 02:57 (ten years ago)

http://cdn.discogs.com/0V_-j-gJJGafsrjCAZ2wZslFUvo=/fit-in/600x352/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-4517900-1367166366-6556.jpeg.jpg

― Paul, Monday, 25 January 2016 03:00 (ten years ago)

another (European) cassette version flips the sides of the US tape, which produces a tracklist similar to the original album but with "Word On A Wing" and "TVC 15" swapping positions:
http://cdn.discogs.com/9nhq4vNO6DjK3kbuDmyjm_XDWrM=/fit-in/597x361/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(96)/discogs-images/R-608937-1417128976-6819.jpeg.jpg

― Paul, Monday, 25 January 2016 03:05 (ten years ago)

oh, and even with my preferred track sequence I still love Low better...

― Paul, Monday, 25 January 2016 03:10 (ten years ago)

BTW, Canadian cassette version of Low featuring original/working title:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B7TqbHdCEAEUouA.jpg

― Paul, Monday, 25 January 2016 03:39 (ten years ago)

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