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Which is the best Bowie album to get?

All Acting Regiment

11:35 / 15.05.04

I haven't got any David Bowie records. I've heard many snatches of songs down the years, and there's one i like called "Heroes". I think. Is it part of an album? Is said album worth getting?

Are you sniggering at me? What? Stop laughing at me just because I know fuck all about Bowie.

Mike Modular

12:52 / 15.05.04

"Heroes" is from the album "Heroes" and is definitely worth getting. As is Low. Both are from the 'Berlin' period with Brian Eno and I think they're the bee's knees. You need these albums in your life.....

NotBlue

16:20 / 15.05.04

Best of Bowie - gives you a good overview of his long career with a few songs from most albums, so you can listen to it as a "sampler" and choose one of his many and varied periods to kick off with. It's got "Heroes" too.

Alex's Grandma

13:34 / 16.05.04

Hunky Dory is the best thing he ever did, I think. I've tried with the Berlin period, lord knows I've tried, but apart from the singles, am I alone in thinking this stuff basically sucks ass ?

Regrettable Juvenilia

16:08 / 16.05.04

Either Diamond Dogs or Ziggy Stardust.

Spatula Clarke

20:24 / 16.05.04

Station to Station's my favourite. The way the title track shifts melody and time signature is fantastic - three songs in one, really. There aren't any duffers on it, which I think a lot of his albums have a problem with. Ok, so there are only six tracks, which probably expains it. It's also got a nice spread of stuff on it.

Just six songs I love, really. Dunno if I want to pull it apart any more than that.

Mike Modular

22:49 / 16.05.04

Aw, hell, they're all good! Well, OK, so tread carefully after Scary Monsters... but even the most ultra-80s stuff may yield something of interest. But then, I love The Laughing Gnome and Lodger, so what do I know...?

+#'s, - names

03:40 / 20.05.04

I would say you know alot, Lodger is fantastic, and Laughing Gnome makes me laugh in this cold hard world.

lonely as a cloud...

08:37 / 20.05.04

I'm a big fan of Diamond Dogs and Aladdin Sane myself. Heathen and Reality are very fine albums, too.

40%

09:19 / 20.05.04

I asked my mate, who's more up on Bowie than I am, and his response was:

"I think Low is best, but it's very electronic. Best rocky one is scary monsters, super creeps."

Rawk'n'Roll

10:00 / 21.05.04

Changes Bowie is a great compilation album, the more recent Best Of's are... passable.

Individual albums to get would be (in themes):
70's Rock:
Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane, total peak of his career stuff. You really need this grounding to enjoy some of the later albums.
Conceptual/plastic soul:
Diamond Dogs/Golden Years, you can hear him mutating his sound through every track, also try Live in Philly where Diamond Dogs turned into Golden Years as he toured the states.
Tonal poems/post rock:
Station to Station/Low/Heroes
My favourite threesum. Takes Bowie's music to a totally new level.

Changes Bowie covers the singles from all the main eras but for some of the "hidden" gems you should get the original albums.
I'd work through it in chronological order, there are a lot to go through though.

Rawk'n'Roll

10:04 / 21.05.04

Argh!
Totally forgot Hunky Dory.

Thats your starting place... Has Changes, Andy Warhol and Life On Mars, is very Barbelith-friendly with magik, Allistair Crowley and pop culture references.

Definitely the one to begin with.

(slaps self for forgetting)

at the scarwash

19:32 / 21.05.04

I'm a big fan of The Man Who Sold the World, Aladdin Sane, and Station to Station. The first has some of the greatest rock jams of all time, with the title track and "The Supermen" being two of my favorites. Aladdin Sane takes the Ziggy concept and drives it off of a cliff into a ravine of coked-out soul music with Mike Garson's jagged free-jazzy piano slicing through the amped-up haze. Station to Station is a refinement of the latter, with Bowie in his Thin White Duke persona crooning on about the Kabbala and futurism over intensely polished production.

Haus of Mystery

18:21 / 22.05.04

The Labyrinth soundtrack of course.

Spatula Clarke

21:08 / 22.05.04

Oh yeah, Low. Totally necessary. Right next to Station to Station in my opinion, but for completely different reasons. The first half of Low is pure alien rock, the second a group of haunted soundscapes. First Bowie album I bought - I've still never heard anything else quite like it.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:33 / 23.05.04

My personal faves are Ziggy and Diamond Dogs...

next up is the "Berlin" trilogy... Heroes, Low and Lodger.

Although I also love Outside... (Eno again, y'see?)... horribly under-rated, but truly awesome.

I'd mostly avoid the eighties wherever possible.

Bowie's kind of funny... he's capable of some wondrous stuff, but he has no personal quality control. What he needs is an Eno or a Visconti to tell him whether he's actually being any good or not.

Oh, and The Man Who Sold The World contains one of my favourite Bowie songs EVER... All The Madmen.

"I will cry
I will scream
I will break my arm... I will do me harm
Here I stand
Foot in hand
Talking to the wall... I'm not quite right at all"

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