Music of the Weak: David Bowie’s Discography in 12 Songs (Part One)

“Janine” (from Man of Words/Man of Music or Space Oddity, 1969)

“Space Oddity” is the common, obvious starting place for David Bowie’s career as we know it. It’s his earliest, best-known song—the one that shows up at the beginning of his collections, and has been released as a single no less than 3 times. But “Space Oddity” is also a little bit doofy—if you ever needed an excuse to stay away from Bowie’s body of work, it would give you plenty of them. Basically “A Day in the Life” rewritten as a novelty song about an astronaut, “Space Oddity” is draped in pretense, with Bowie over-annunciating and over-acting his words in order to emphasize that he’s making a Big Statement. Of course, it’s also awesome—at turns gorgeous and rockin’, assured in its drama. Yet, for every grand gesture in “Space Oddity,” there’s something off-puttingly geeky—the countdown to take-off, the laser-light show space noises, Bowie playing both sides of the dialogue between Major Tom and ground control (“Tell my wife I love her very much,” “She knows.”) Yes, it’s a fitting introduction to David Bowie’s career, all right.

“Janine,” from the same album, Man of Words/Man of Music (later mercifully retitled after “Space Oddity”), is a different kind of touchstone for early David Bowie. It could be a song by the Faces or the Rolling Stones—a blues-influenced rock song featuring Bowie playing cool, rather than allowing himself to be as overtly geeky as in “Space Oddity,” except for when he pronounces the title character’s name with a French “zh” sound. Where “Space Oddity” captures an eager, over-zealous Bowie, in love with the drama he’s creating, “Janine” captures the Bowie who doesn’t quite know who he is, but can write a hell of a song, even if he is mimicking someone else. Those two sides of Bowie’s personality—the part that knows he’s kind of a nerd, and the part that knows how to play cool—influence just about every piece of music in his catalogue.

“The Width of a Circle” (from The Man Who Sold the World, 1970)

“The Width of a Circle,” the long opener from The Man Who Sold the World, features Mick Ronson going buck wild on the electric guitar (a big change from the acoustics that flavored most of Man of Words/Man of Music) and Bowie turning in a vocal performance not far removed from Ozzy Osbourne. The interplay between the two makes the song, as Ronson’s heavy playing gives Bowie’s composition a hard edge not heard anywhere else in his catalogue, and allows the singer to earn his elegant vocal flights, rather than indulge in them.

“Life on Mars?” (from Hunky Dory, 1971)

It’s a little misleading to call Hunky Dory a turning point in David Bowie’s career, because his career is made-up entirely of turning points. And it’s a little misleading to say that, in 1971, he was beginning to find his voice as an artist, because his work nearly always thrives on his search for a voice—that wouldn’t end once he locked in the band that would eventually become The Spiders from Mars, it would continue for the rest of his career. Hunky Dory does, however, find Bowie more confident in his lack of an actual artistic voice than any of his prior albums, and “Life on Mars?” demonstrates that fragility of character better than any other song on the album. That’s why the title ends in a question mark.

“Suffragette City” (from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1972)

“Suffragette City”—like most of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars—is an impersonation of rock & roll attitude so good that it manages to be more rock & roll than the glam rock icons David Bowie was impersonating. It’s hard to imagine now, 35-some-odd years out, but it’s as if Adam Lambert put out a song and an album that tried to convince everyone how cool he is, even though he was on American Idol, and, somehow, it worked. This is some Justin Timberlake level shit. It’s Raymond Chandler, creating a whole new era of toughness, simply by exercising his vocabulary. There are few lines in rock better than “Don’t lean on me man, ‘cause you can’t afford the ticket back from Suffragette City.”

“Panic in Detroit” (from Aladdin Sane, 1973)

Aladdin Sane plays a bit like a collection of B-sides from Ziggy Stardust. Bowie probably could have built an entire career out of the ideas that came up on these two albums. “Panic in Detroit,” for example, snakes the rhythm section from Bo Diddley’s “Bo Diddley” (the Bo Diddley beat, yo), channels it through the Stooges’ proto-punk rawness, hits new levels of pretense by name-checking Che Guevara in the first line, and rounds it out by bringing in a couple of back-up singers who would fit right in on a Rolling Stones record.

“Rebel Rebel (U.S. Single Version)” (from Rebel Rebel 7”, 1974)

Many of David Bowie’s best songs seem like they should be faster than they are. “Young Americans,” “Diamond Dogs,” “Golden Years,” “Heroes,” and “Rebel Rebel” all sound like they want to rev up to full tilt, but Bowie restrains them—which is not really a problem; the leisurely pace give Bowie a set of walls to throw himself against. Still, the U.S. single version of “Rebel Rebel” improves on the album version with a shorter running time and a slightly more aggressive attack. Bowie wastes no time before chewing on the opening, “Hot tramp, I love you so,” and his verses and choruses are punctuated with vocal riffs and echoes. “Rebel Rebel” was originally written to be part of a Ziggy Stardust musical. When the project was scrapped, it became the characters’ swan song.

Next Week: Some Brian Eno shit, some plastic soul, and one of the most bizarre collaborations imaginable.

--Martin Brown, 2009

Comments

[Chris Jones]

I hope "Beauty And The Beast" from Heroes shows up on this list. I've always seen it as kind of the ultimate dance/swagger song.

[Sean Witzke]

I love that the argument could be made that "Rebel Rebel" is the only love song that Bowie ever wrote that was successful - and it's about Iggy Pop.

[John Pontoon]

Nice article. I would choose different songs (except for Panic In Detroit,) which goes to prove that I'm not you.

I hope to hell that "Little Drummer Boy" isn't that bizarre collaboration you're talking about, because it REALLY doesn't hold up as a listenable song.

I don't think Bowie working with Queen is a bizarre stretch at all if that's where you're going.