What's the best track on "Scary Monsters"?

Sort of feel like voting for "Ashes To Ashes", but then everyone else will do so I'll go for "Screamin Like a Baby" instead, which is just as great.

'Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)' is one of my favourite Bowie songs ever.

One of the "It's No Game"s or "Because You're Young". Have to think about it.

"Teenage Wildlife" EASILY. One of my fave DB songs..

Sort of feel like voting for "Ashes To Ashes", but then everyone else will

Geir Hongro, Tastemaker?

"Fashion" cause it blew me away live a few years ago.

Seeing that album cover again reminds me of how beautiful it is.

Another vote for the title track, for the outro yelling.

Torn between "It's No Game," "Fashion" and "Scary Monsters" -- went w/ the former. Love the Japanese and the Frippery.

Ashes to Ahes is so great for so many reasons, but whenever I'm playing Apples to Apples of course I have to sing its name to that melody.

I'm gonna vote for Scary Monsters but GOD I wanna go with Kingdom Come.

fuck it, I'm going with Kingdom Come. Scary Monsters is "better" but if you had to ask me which one I'd be least willing to go without ever hearing again for the rest of my life, it'd be Kingdom Come.

This album is a bit of a freak-out in general. I luv it.

"It's No Game" #1

[Frippian psychoness]
SHUT UP!!
[Frippian psychoness continues]
SHUT AWWWRrrrrrrpppppppppppppppppppppp

I picked this up recently and I'm loving most of it, but "Ashes to Ashes" stands out because it sounds like 5 different ideas for choruses, any one of which would be the best part of nearly every other artist's songs, lined up, one after another, in a never cycle.

Sure, the ending of "It's No Game" is one of the best endings ever. :)

"Teenage Wildlife."

Boring as I am, voted for "Ashes to Ashes" BECAUSE IT IS FUCKING BRILLIANT. There are so many other fantastic songs I felt kind of bad about shortchanging them, the title track, "Up the Hill Backwards" and "Fashion" among them. One of my three or so favorite Bowie albums (and my first, picked out when I was a kid on account of the title track and awesome cover).

"Kingdom Come" is an abomination--possibly Bowie's worst ever vocal performance (except for much of David Live, I suppose)! (Btw, have you heard Tom Verlaine's original, Anthony?)

"Ashes to Ashes" for me.

can't not go with "Ashes to Ashes" but man do I dig "It's No Game"

"Kingdom Come" is an abomination--possibly Bowie's worst ever vocal performance (except for much of David Live, I suppose)! (Btw, have you heard Tom Verlaine's original, Anthony?)

Yeah, but it's so bad that it turns good (as Rob Sheffield once brilliantly remarked), and you can't write this about Verlaine's perfectly respectable performance.

"It's No Game" for the Frippery and the ending.

Bowie's singing on "Teenage Wildlife" is more...troubling.

(xpost)

Well, truth be told, I haven't heard the album in the past 25 years or so, Alfred. But I can still recall my horror upon first hearing Bowie's version of the song. Also, I've never actually known of anyone who preferred David's version to Tom's. Until now, I guess. (What was it that Xgau wrote about Bowie--something about how truly awful vocals sometimes being all the concept you need?)

When I first heard his version years ago I thought I'd never heard him so badly; I assumed the histrionics were deliberate. Now I accept them as such, and they underline that lyric about the voice of doom shouting in his room.

(Btw, have you heard Tom Verlaine's original, Anthony?)

TS: Tom Verlaine's Kingdom Come vs. David Bowie's Kingdom Come

haha--ya got me, pardner!

Kingdom Come

"Teenage Wildlife" BY FAR! (although this is Bowie's best album - a forest of tall trees for sure)

I remember listening to "TW" on my last day of being a teenger (which, coincidentally, was 7 years ago today) and having an emotional reaction to it greater than I had with song up to that point in my life. Especially when the screaming throng asks "David what shall I do?"

Toss up between "It's No Game (Pt.1)" and "Teenage Wildlife".

Even though I like lots of moments on several individual tracks, my vote goes to the title track. Such a propulsive stomper, I love the way those massive drums keep pushing the track forward (and the way they support the hoo-hoo-ing towards the end with the guitarsolo screeching on top).

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

ashes or teenage....but 'because you're young' is awesome too. i can't believe that's pete townshend on guitar

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

Unoriginal but very great winner here.

heard the title track today for the first time in ages, wanted to start a poll. i wish fripp did more hired gun stuff in this period

how much more do you want him to do? he did loads

well after about 82 or so he stopped becuz of kc i guess. point was so much of it is amazing, wish there was some more

Just the other day I heard Superchunk's take on Scary Monsters which really illustrates what a great song it is, even when being covered very badly.

They also do Adam Ant's Beat My Guest a little more convincingly...

"It's No Game" Part 2 tying for last place is kinda bullshit.

bowie's vocals are so all over the place on this record and often "bad" but this is pretty much the only bowie joint i have a strong connection with. i like how out of control his voice sounds. like the artifice of everything he usually does is a bit more open or something via his straining vocals

all of these decades, i've wondered what all of those weird noises at the beginning of "it's no game (part 1)" were. that noise that sounds like someone crumbling paper just before the music starts up is one of these. and it's Tony Visconti punching a tape into a machine & punching the on button even before that -- which for some reason i thought sounded like some form of water torture or something.

lol. i always thought it was something to do with a tape. i don't like that track because it uses japanese voices as a lazy signifier of "internationalism" much like lost in translation does. curiously, i still like lost in translation despite this reservation.

this poll was too easy, i mean, come on. "time and again i tell myself/ i'll stay clean tonight" gives me chills every time and i think i played that song over 100 times on my former macbook according to itunes.

I always thought it was some kind of coffee vending machine.

Some speculation by Momus on the origins of the title track: http://imomus.com/index032010a.html (just over midway down the page)

Now here's producer Tony Visconti talking about recording the song and playing a rare early version in which Bowie sings some alternative lines about too many people with too many teeth. "We told Manhattan-based funk musicians to play like a British punk group," says Visconti.

The "British punk group" in question was almost certainly Joy Division, a Bowie favourite at the time. Scary Monsters has many points in common with She's Lost Control, released the year before

Whereas Ian Curtis is singing about his female character's epilepsy, Bowie sings about a woman consumed by anxiety and claustrophobia, running amok, pursued by demons, monsters, creeps. Dennis Davis, Bowie's drummer, is playing suspiciously Stephen Morris-like snare fills, as though someone has just played him the first Joy Division album right there at The Power Station. It's the electronic syndrum-cowbell that punctuates both songs that really gives the game away, though.

Although Visconti is quick to claim credit for running a cowbell through a guitar distortion pedal -- "we just can't leave things as they are, not David and myself" -- some of the kudos should go to Martin Hannett, who produced She's Lost Control and paid meticulous attention to the drum sounds. The Scary Monsters cowbell does such a similar tonal four-bar curve to Joy Division's electronic snare that it's hard not to think it must've been deliberate. But it was a completely legitimate payback; Joy Division had themselves drawn liberal inspiration from Bowie's work with Iggy Pop.

The "rare early version" linked to from Momus' page sounds, um, like Joy Division

all of these decades, i've wondered what all of those weird noises at the beginning of "it's no game (part 1)" were. that noise that sounds like someone crumbling paper just before the music starts up is one of these. and it's Tony Visconti punching a tape into a machine & punching the on button even before that -- which for some reason i thought sounded like some form of water torture or something.

― عليك ارتداء ماكياج من مهرج مثلي الجنس المتداول مائة عميق في سيارة مصغر (Eisbaer), Saturday, May 11, 2013 7:39 PM (four years ago)

Visconti on Scary Monsters

When we began ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ David and I jokingly said, “Let’s make this our ‘Sgt. Pepper’s’.” With every album we made together since then, we aired that silly phrase again. On reflection, when I listen to ‘Scary Monsters’ it feels more like we made our ‘Revolver’. Maybe it’s because the opening of ‘It’s No Game (No. 1)’ is a tip of the hat to the opening of ‘Taxman’. We were pushing the boundaries further than we ever had with this album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQOGPjg7Tu0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWTQ3vshLNY

its no gaAAAaaaaAAAaaaAAme

If I had to choose just one, right now it would be 'Fashion'