What's the best track on "Diamond Dogs"?

About time we did this one too. I know a lot of ILM'ers have this as a favourite. Not me, but it's still a great album. Voted for the title track, which is among his best ever rock numbers.

I think that "Rebel Rebel" is the best track on the album by a long way. Everything else gets bogged down by Bowie's "oh, this is all happening in a decaying city" concept, while "Rebel Rebel" is simply a great song. Even if he is pretending to be Mick Jagger or whoever.
Diamond Dogs was my favourite Bowie album when I was in my late teens - wore out my cassette copy - but now I'm not too keen on his "pretending to be William Burroughs after you've only read half of Nova Express" thing.

Sweet Thing/Candidate/Reprise is really one song and would get my vote.

I kind of go along with Snoball - the dystopian stuff caught my imagination as a teenager but now I'm not so sure... I can think of several Bowie albums I prefer, but quite apart from the half-arsed "concept", I think the songs individually are still pretty strong. I have to say I think the title track is the poorest on the album, it's a but plodding and goes on too long.

Sweet Thing by god.

I'm with Geir on this one--"Diamond Dogs" rules! "Rebel Rebel" is a great catchy song, sure, but also a grossly overplayed one.

OO OO
shudder shudder

I didn't care for "1984" until I heard Tina Turner's cover.

Not my favorite Bowie album by a long shot, but the mix has some weird, cool ideas floating around. Voted for "Sweet Thing" for Bowie's great, terrible guitar solo and the way it shifts tempos fast enough to keep us from getting bored.

Title track!

"Sweet Thing" shurely

it's a sweet thing

Rebel Rebel

"Rebel Rebel" has never been one of my fave Bowie tunes, yet I can't put my finger on why. It sounds - overly stiff, maybe?

yeah it's probably my least favorite song on this album, it's not that bad though

"Rebel Rebel"=Rolling Stones

... but I love the Stones

"Rebel Rebel", overplayed because it's great

I will grant "Rebel Rebel" this: the 3-minute single mix with the phase-shifted guitar is very awesome.

Come on people, who will stand up for "Skeletal Family"? YOU KNOW YOU WANT TO

BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRAV-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRAV-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA--BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA-BRA

The Wedding Present did a nice cover of it.

I'm going with the disco paranoia of "1984"

"We Are The Dead" is the next best thing here...

Sweet Thing (and yes, that really should include Candidate & the Reprise). I also really love the demo of Candidate (with its lovely little piano stabs) that was added on the Rykodisc reissue.
IIRC that panning single mix of Rebel Rebel was recorded at the Wisseloord studios in Hilversum, the Netherlands. Classic Toppop appearance.

We Are The Dead is one of the loveliest songs he wrote & best here. Rebel Rebel is good like It's Raining Men is good, but please let me never listen to them again. Love Sweet Thing when I listen to it but afterwards the only bit I can actually remember is the marvellous churning guitar section.

yep, good call Alex in NYC, i voted for "...Skeletal Family" for the Weddoes cover. love both versions.

"We Are The Dead"

When i was about 19 was obsessed with this.

love this verse:

But now
We're today's scrambled creatures, locked in tomorrow's double feature
Heaven's on the pillow, its silence competes with hell
It's a twenty-four hour service, guaranteed to make you tell
And the streets are full of press men
Bent on getting hung and buried
And the legendary curtains are drawn 'round Baby Bankrupt
Who sucks you while you're sleeping
It's the theater of financiers
Count them, fifteen 'round a table
White and dressed to kill

His voice sounds so great here. Immediate and desperate. or something.

Consider my vote for "Sweet Thing" a vote for "Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)". It's the best thing he ever did.

..and another vote for "...Skeletal Families..."

Has anyone here seen the Cracked Actor BBC documentary from 74? Oh my god it's so priceless from start to finish. Who wants to ride through the mean streets of Tinseltown in the back of a limo with a coked-out, paranoid Bowie? Or through the southwest cranking Aretha chugging milk straight from the carton with your babelicious personal assistant, musing on the fly drowning in all that liquid American goodness?

POLICE SIRENS "I hope we're not stopped. Is there anything behind us?" GIANT SNIFF

The whole doc is on the Tube, natch

Actually in a later interview with Alan Yentob, Bowie said that his diet back then consisted of "white powder and milk, and green and red peppers".

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

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

Bunch the Sweet Thing/Candidate/Reprise and you get a solid #2...