Favourite song- Life on Mars (followed very closely by Space Oddity, Heroes, Modern Love, Weeping Wall, Ashes to Ashes, Fame, Station to Station, Absolute Beginers, The Man who Sold the World, Starman, Sound and Vision, Young Americans, Cracked Actor and Always Crashing in the Same Car)
that's one of the coolest things about him. he was secure enough with himself to totally reinvent, and for better or for worse he never made the same album twice
Life on Mars was the first Bowie song I've ever heard and it's still my favourite one. It has everything: poetic cryptic lyrics that are begging to be analysed, a beautiful vocal performance by Bowie, the haunting piano courtesy of Rick Wakeman. Time may change me, but it's yet to change my preference for it
I generally prefer the deep cuts that are more obscure of artists in general and Bowie is no exception. My favorite hit songs are Young Americans and Ashes To Ashes. I found the lesser-known songs from Side 1 of Heroes to be more commercial sounding and less interesting than the title track
From a 64 year old man. Thank you for reawakening my love for the albums that were so much part of the soundtrack of my early life. And thank you for reminding me that revisiting amazing artists like David Bowie, was exactly what I needed, right now. Truly enjoying your enthusiasm...keep rolling them out. I'll be watching and more importantly, listening.
this is my favourite bowie album and perhaps it’s his first great album (tho man who sold the world is quite a good record). ‘changes,’ ‘oh! you pretty things,’ ‘life on mars?,’ ‘queen bitch,’ and ‘the bewlay brothers’ are my standout songs
Bowie has had as many accolades as any performer can have. He had the respect of fans and contemporaries alike. The only negative is how he treated his band mates that helped him gain his Rock N' Roll stature. His Ego transcended his heart and soul. It's a heartless business.
Bowies bravery inspired me to seek out the path less travelled. He was always a welcome glow in my life. Sadly gone too soon. ON the topic of Warhol I met Bowie's ex-boyfriend in 81 through his brother whom I was friendly with. I was invited to his new hairdressing salon. Over the stations were four "Marilyn's". I commented on what good prints they were and was told, "Oh no, they're Originals". I always wondered if these came from Bowie as I knew he was a collector.
Lol, this album is only eight months younger than I am. One of my favorites! I’m glad you’re digging the soundtrack I grew up with … which is to say, not the music I chose to listen to in my early through late adolescence, which I guess is what a lot of people mean by “the music they grew up with” - I mean, rather, the music which was literally in the air the whole of my childhood: what was on the radio while I played with blocks, what played from passing cars as we walked down the street, what was on t.v. music shows as i flipped through channels, what my much older cousins all listened to and talked about … I seldom knew any artists or song titles, but as I reached eleven and twelve, I’d play someone’s decade-old album and realize “Oh, hey, it’s that song I remember from that party my parents took me to, huh, who knew it was Bowie?” and it turns out all this stuff is part of my molecular being. Anyhow. It’s fun to see you grooving over this music, it was the everyday tapestry of my life.
My family ran a vending company ( aimed at the bar and tavern trade ) here in Southern Calif. and Bowie's music always played well on our jukes across all types of locations and musical taste. Shine on David Bowie, shine on. Great take on a transformational LP, like Morrison, Bowie was an changeling as well. Dig your style, aloha
I'm amazed Bowie's earliest albums weren't selling - they were so great (well, still are...) it was good that Ziggy Stardust was a breakthrough, like Tommy and The Dark Side of the Moon.
In the UK, it wasn't until the success of the "Ziggy Stardust" album in late 1972, which re-activated David`s earlier albums (Which had done little sales wise on initial release) to belatedly enter the UK album charts in early 1963.
Favourite Bowie song... Heroes. It completely knocked me out when I was 10 years old (when it came out). I knew it expressed emotions that were more important than anything but which I couldn't understand. I guess that's true for every song that freaking alien ever wrote.
Dear Abby, Mention of 'Janine' fills my heart with joy and reverent adoration! I'm helpless for your smile as well. All the brilliance to come is prefigured on that track, including best ever use of the word ''collocate' in popular music! I've never been able to listen to 'Janine' only once, it always gets a second spin or more, and I seek excuses to post it hither and yon on general principle. ('Cygnet Committee,' another deserving deep track deserves mention here as well, with most of the DB '69 album... especially as all have a 'Hunky Dory' feel as well.) Viva 'Janine!'
2 of my best friends from college introduced me to janine on a drive to a pizza joint. we got it takeout, sat on the roof of the car in the parking lot, and ate it. lots of long/colored hair in that group, plus me in all vintage - we must have looked like a bunch of kooks!
@@abigaildevoe Sounds like a "Drive-In Saturday' Abby! Someone shouts in the background during the intro to 'Janine," about ten seconds in, just after the first guitar line, and it always sounded like "I love this song" to me. So I figured it was Bowie shouting and thought, "Cool, Bowie loves this song too..."
I value this album about as much and in as many ways as anything else in life and could go on endlessly ---but in a nutshell: there's something distinctly and indelibly sublime about walking down a quiet and empty Chicago side street on a summer afternoon and hearing the familiar strains of "Eight Line Poem" wafting thru an open screen door to someone's second floor balcony, and that was a third of a century ago...
"Life on Mars?" Has to be my favourite Bowie song and "Hunky Dory" has to be my favourite Bowie album! Double win for me if you ask. Could we except a Ronettes "Presenting the fabulous ronettes" in the new year 👀👀
My favorite Bowie era is '69-'73. The album originally just titled David Bowie, rereleased as Space Oddity to Aladdin Sane. Great music after, of course, but that earlier era was great. I like to say that the 70s is the greatest decade in music and Heroes is the best song of the decade.
About Ronson - He absolutely DESTROYS on the "Live in Santa Monica 72". On Moonage Daydream the pipe whistle solo is replaced by Ronson's guitar and it elevates the song.
Loved hunky dory since I discovered it 2yrs after release. But it was only later in my life when I realized how amazing a song Life On Mars is. It and Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset, and Beatles Across The Universe.
BOWPROMO (Gemm LP) In August 1971, David Bowie's manager, Tony Defries had 500 promo LPs pressed to secure Bowie and fellow Mainman artist Dana Gillespie a record deal. This promo album, featuring seven Bowie songs on one Side A and five by Gillespie on the flip is often referred to as the BOWPROMO white label album. It came in generic white outer and inner sleeves, and had no printed labels so its matrix number (BOWPROMO 1A-1/1B-1) is the only way to safely identify it. This Record Store Day release faithfully replicates the original promo, with Bowie's seven tracks on one side, and adds five exclusive Bowie prints.
David Bowie woke me up to singing and composing my own songs again round 2013, and this album was one of them along with all the rest eventually. I lost the track of being up front in a band round turn of century to work on other skills in retrospect. As a fellow Capricorn with Libra rising, some charts say he had Sagittarius rising, but to me Neptune in first house Libra with Sun conjunct Mars in 4th house Capricorn and Moon in between Saturn and Pluto in the 11th house Leo seems the correct chart to me, his influence was just what I needed to kick my singing and songwriting awake once more. I covered Life On Mars for some years, guitar and voice arrangement. Learning a few Bowie songs gave me the practice required to translate the electronic notes I took trying to write songs with computer home studio and really only getting a bunch of great ambient music along the lines of Another Green World, Brian Eno with the fully composed songs only available in the recorded version as I had lost the skill to play a song live in my obsession with the computer studio. Bowie appeared to me in a dream in 2011, but I didn't realize it was him and blew him off in a frustrated huff. I revisited the dream later on and realized he was offering me his songs to help me get back to full power as a musician after I gave a set of his singles I had on my ipod a good listen and hearing things I never expected having first encountered him in the 80's and having no idea what was before. I now understand another aspect of Bowie's gift to my musicianship as around the time he appeared in my dreams I was in the first year of playing with a jam band that still rocks together during the warm weather months. A recent Daryl's House episode with Robert Fripp revealed the incredible value in that training to me in that Fripp claims that he only knows two people who can just drop every plan and jam, and enjoy it other than Daryl Hall and that's David Bowie and Brian Eno. I can improvise like that now, where I was too tense to do so in my original life as a musician ignorant of Bowie and only just getting to know Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's output. When he appeared to me in dream I was just trying to put together my first songs again in live coherence and not quite getting it. The missing element was to first learn some cover songs to retrain my ability to sing and play guitar at the same time. That's what Bowie's music gave me after I correctly understood the dream version of his offer in 2011.
I used to sing Life on Mars as a vocal warm up before a gig. One day i was walking up and down my apartment singing and my roommate burst out of her room. I thought she wasn't in the apartment, but she was sleeping. She was pissed but instantly smiled when she realized it was me singing, not blasting a record.
I love Janine. Our local social club in NE London has a Bowie night on the weekend closest to his birthday so that was this Saturday just gone. We went of course & as she lives in our home town Maggie Ronson, Mick's sister came along to this one too. Her band has performed there as well but l missed that. She used to take Mick down the local high street so he could get some very nice sausages from the local specialist supplier which he was a fan of. During his Moonage Daydream solo l commented to her that it was his finest hour & she nodded knowingly. A good night & my second 'second degree' from Bowie as l also met Woody at a Holy Holy gig. I saw Bowie in '78, '83 & '87 though l didn’t enjoy the Glass Spider much & drifted off to pastures new, Zappa, Crimson, Daevid Allen & Gong, Tull.....etc. Started listening to Bowie again some years back though the albums between Let's Dance & The Next Day remain largely out of my ken.
My copy of "Hunky Dory" is an extended one, and it has, among other alternate takes, the demo for "Quicksand". Don't remember why, I got to know the demo first - and it knocked me out. Such a pearl of delicassy, simplicity and moving feelings it is! I got mesmerized by this demo. But when I first heard the official... I don't want to be less than honest, and I won't: it frustrated me. He spoiled his own composition by his complex approach of it in the official. I like prog but, you know, but official "Quicksand" sounds, for its complexity, almost as a prog - a cheesy one. If you don't know the demo of "Quicksand", Abby, go after it - right now!
It's good to hear someone from a newer world be both encouragingly enthusiastic and capable of very good research present something from a different era. Gives life to it and bridges worlds. Well done. Perfectly accurate? - no, but it doesn't matter as you achieved your aim.
I'm friends with Carlos Alomar. He teaches guitar at the University that I work at. He's on David Bowie's later more R & B like stuff. He played guitar on songs like Fame and Golden Years. The album Station To Station among others..
Has always been his greatest album to me and it continues to grow with every listen. Much as I love every song; the Bewlay Brothers with its memories of childhood, always soars with compassion and empathy for a brother lost to mental illness. The enigmatic lyrics are the echoes of a disjointed and cracked world of fragmentary reality, while the music conjures the cowboy imagination and innocence of young boys 'riding the range' together. Their final parting is in the coda at the end, in the beautiful image of the shoes and an unlocked door. Bowie never bettered this.
🌟 Excellent choice! I change my custom license plate every year (always music related) ... and this year it reads KOOKS. You will approve of next year's, I know for sure. MC5... just got to think of just the right thing for it to read (up to 7 characters including spaces) ...Fantastic episode as always, Luv... Cheers! 🍸
Life on Mars references a girl with the mousey hair called Hermione Farthingale. She was Bowie's girlfriend at the time. The superb song Letter to Hermione which appeared on the Space Oddity album adds some background to their relationship.
Ziggy was my entry into Bowie but Hunky Dory is the Bowie record I listen to most now (and Ziggy is now 3rd most listened to after Station to Station). Life on Mars, Quicksand, and Queen Btch are my favorites on this album.
Hi Abbi sounds like I owe this one another listen I have a cd copy of it and only played it once or twice. The Bowie albums I am very familiar with are Diamond Dogs love it. Ziggy Stardust love it. Lets Dance like it a little don't love it.
Happy Christmas Abby from across th pond. Thank you for Vinyl Monday. I haven't found music fandom this exciting since listening to the late John Peel. Thank you
life on mars? is probably bowie's greatest song but i have to think "i can't give everything away" off of "lazarus" is my favorite. thanks for the tip on the clash's "midnight to stevens". i think i heard it before you were born and asked "why didn't they release that?" and forgot about it until you reminded me the other day. i knew "london calling" before you were born (talked to people (aka: a person) about joy division in high school after ian was gone) and am thrilled to watch you weekly.
I just found out about "A Divine Symmetry" a 4-CD box set of the making of Hunky Dory - meanwhile, there's a 1-LP vinyl edition which is basically "Hunky Dory" with alternate takes. Can't wait to hear it tonight. I picked it up during lunch hour.
Great video I remember buying this album after Bowie passed away I remember it costed my 70 dollars ouch but great video life on Mars and queen b***h are my favorite tracks on this album keep it up Abby ❤❤❤
i'm kinda glad i wasn't collecting vinyl back then, i can only imagine the price gauging on bowie albums after he passed. queen and elton john were bad enough after their movies were released - i haven't seen any queen for under $25 since bohemian rhapsody!
@@abigaildevoe oh god I remember the days of bohemian Rhapsody it took my forever to get my queen collection complete and for Elton I have most of his back catalogue already lol
@@abigaildevoe most of my queen LPs are original pressings and some are reissus I had to get some of them when they reprinted them or discogs for a decent price because for some odd reason the miracle, hot space, made in heaven and the works were not reissued after the movie came out I'll might upload a new video showing my queen collection in the future
Androgyny was cooly received (shocker), along with glam. Years later, unisex hair salons cut into barbershop trade, and guys wore cut-offs best suited to boys who hadn't yet "dropped."
As a decades long Bowie fan, who finds most Bowie stuff on UA-cam slightly underwhelming as I know too much, I really enjoyed this. Well done for touching an old cynics heart. Thanks
mellotrons are my weakness but the acoustic keyboard playing on HD is one of its loveliest features. quite often strings aren't doing much on an album, just blocking in, whereas on these songs they have something to 'say'. I think the embracing of ambiguity in your response to life on mars is positive. art can't always be pinned down, artist's aren't always in total control.great video. i say that a lot. thanks for the Christmas shopping reminder A!
I just wish you had a vinyl copy with a textured paper cover (without the black border). The album cover for Young Americans was a throwback to the Hunky Dory cover, with a similarly stylized watercolor look and printed on the same textured paper sleeve. Try to track down a copy, or one of the recent 180gram vinyl reissues that faithfully replicate it. In the 1970s more than any other decade, the design and the materials used in album cover production was, I believe, integral to the total artistic statement. But great job on your video!
Hunky Dory is my favorite Bowie album from the first time I heard it. It has a feel to it that I have identified with since I was 12 when I first heard it. Quicksand and the Bewlay Brother's are both in my top favorite Bowie songs. Thanks for posting it.
I'm glad Abigail mentioned the fun Biff Rose/Paul Williams cover tune "Fill Your Heart" which is a quirky, Nilsson typed song amidst the heavy, powerful "Life on Mars", "Changes", "Song to Bob Dylan & the "Bewlay Brothers."
Anthony Newly, major influence on David. My mom was assistant to Leslie Bricusse for 47 years. Leslie and Anthony were partners for years. David openly credits Anthony for his early style and yes, Harry's influence is huge in r'n'roll. John and Harry got drunk together for a year in MY town? The nerve. Pussycats!
Janine, Janine, you’re like to know me well!! The best! I love Drive In Saturday. I was given Space Oddity plus the same time pin ups came out. Shortly there would be Aladdin Sane, I’d get to know Hunky, and Ziggy! Then the Diamond Dogs/David Live/ Young Americans run! Whew! He has consistently been my favorite artist since. Keep up the kool show.
After Ziggy Stardust and Low, this is my third favourite Bowie album. It has that rare balance between accessible melodies combined with cryptic lyrics, which can be interpreted so many different ways. For example, did Bowie predict his future collaboration with an ex-Beatle with the lines, "now the workers have struck for FAME, 'cos LENNON'S on sale again." ? A masterpiece of an album. Thanks for your insights Abby.
I always thought of that line as a double entendre of Lenin/Lennon since it refers to workers (Lenin) and the irony of on sale again (Lennon). Falls into the cryptic category.
Off the back of my hand I would be tempted to put The Man Who Sold the World as my third after Ziggy and Low, BUT, yeah, I agree, Imma put Hunky Dory at three because it is just much more consistent track to track.
This entire album and especially The Bewlay Brothers is my most fav by DB. It's about his half-brother who was older and was looked up to. They lived on Bewlay St hence the song title.
Thanks Abby Hunky Dory is one of my favourite Bowie albums My current favourite Bowie song (and this changed regularly)is Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise) which is indexed as one song on my Bowie iSelect CD.
Yeah, huge Bowie Fan fer sure. Love your comments, insights, lore, etc., comme d'habitude😘. But I can't help but notice the cover of Freak Out! staring out from your shelf. I've been a major Zappaphile most of my musical life, and look forward to your F.O. discussion. Aaand: I have a suggestion for that, if it's possible. Just as you pointed out the intersections between Bowie & Lou Reed's careers, Zappa had an important relationship with his high-school pal and occasional collaborator, Don (Van) Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart. Their respective debut albums came out about a year apart, and, I believe, are worth comparing side by side. (As in two consecutive videos, say.) Dunno if you have Beefheart's Safe As Milk. You can at least hear it on UA-cam - or does that violate the premise or protocol of your channel? Anyway, FO's 1st two sides are variations on a variety of pop styles, as only Zappa could imagine & arrange them. (Sides 3&4 are much more experimental/challenging.) Similarly, SAM also consists in ingenious reimaginings of various pop styles, but of a different (often bluesy) sort, with Van Vliet's budding genius sensibility in place of Zappa's. If you don't have the LP, I can get it online for you (probably new & remastered; 50+ yr-old vinyl is muchos dineros). I'd send you my own copy, but I'm still alive and therefore not ready to let it go. (Unless you'd be willing to take it as a loan ... ?) Anyway, please let me know if you'd like a copy. Thanks for your attention. And your continuing "reviews". ❤
The truth is, my favorite Bowie albums are the everything up till and including Station to Station. Those Berlin albums don’t do it for me. Now everyone is going to yell at me.
I recall once reading how Herman's version of "Oh! You Pretty Things" is the quintessential example of someone not understanding the material they're singing about 🤐 Dana Gillespie had a transient (ahem) 'liaison' with Dylan in England. I seem to remember that she makes a very brief unnamed appearance in "Don't Look Back" - sitting in a row of seats in an auditorium somewhere (presumably watching His Bobness rehearse).
I love this album, more than "The Man Who Sold the World" but about the same as his 1st one. All his '70s albums are most-own for me. This does seem more like a transition album between "Space Oddity" and "The Man Who Sold the World" though, more of the late hippy than the darker material on that one. I'm surprised 'Queen Bitch' wasn't among your favorites on this album.
David actually scored a UK No 1 in February 1973 on both the `New Musical Express` and `Melody Maker` charts (Same week) - displacing "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool" by Little Jimmy Osmond!
I heard the phone ringing at the end of Life On Mars? Was unintentionally picked up during recording like a cellphone going off today when one needs silence. For some reason the phone ring works like a sound clip you would get in a Pink Floyd song. It works but I don’t know why
To be honest, before I checked out this record, I wasn't too keen on Bowie's earlier albums, I will forever gush over the Berlin Trilogy and Station to Station (One of the greatest album runs ever), but I have a soft spot for this album in particular. This album sounds whimsical, playful & charismatic, but it doesn't do it to the point where it feels like a parody, unlike his first two albums. Ziggy Stardust's great, but people don't give enough credit to its predecessor, which in my opinion, is equally good, perhaps even slightly better.
I love Hunky Dory. The bewlay brothers is my personal favorite. Not related to Bowie, but I whole heartedly agree that Death on two legs is the best Queen song.
Bowie one of my favs f for sure i think this album is so underated it was almost like anything pre ziggy was so overlooked changes and life on mars are my favs how his career would change was so interesting to me
Another point is that you can't underestimate the positive influence of John Peel and the Radio One session between 1969 - 1980 on British music. He championed punk and many progressive bank long before they were famous etc
Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Heroes, Alladin, in that order. Love you, Abby! Waiting with worms on my tongue for your one-day deep listen into K C's 'Lizard' and 'Discipline' albums! Oh, and have you ever heard the band "IF"? Love their 'Waterfalls' album. Oh, and please please PLEASE cover my genious hero Brian Eno's catalog someday!!!!!??? His first three albums HAVE to belong in your collection! Blessings - 'Enoboye'
what’s your favorite bowie song? any era is up for grabs - comment below!
Impossible to say but Panic in Detroit is a contender
Favorite Bowie song? Many to choose from but I'm gonna' go with "Heroes"
Either station to station or the man who sold the world
Recently 'quicksand'
Favourite song- Life on Mars (followed very closely by Space Oddity, Heroes, Modern Love, Weeping Wall, Ashes to Ashes, Fame, Station to Station, Absolute Beginers, The Man who Sold the World, Starman, Sound and Vision, Young Americans, Cracked Actor and Always Crashing in the Same Car)
"Quicksand" is truly the secret masterpiece of Hunky Dory.
My God, IS IT EVER! What a song. I thought Bowie had me at Life on Mars - THEN I heard Quicksand.
"The Bewlay Brothers", man... What a song.
I love all Bowie albums because they're so completely different from one another.
Bowie? Absolute Genius!
that's one of the coolest things about him. he was secure enough with himself to totally reinvent, and for better or for worse he never made the same album twice
@@abigaildevoe For better It would be for me Station To Station. For worse... Ugh... Never Let Me Down. I still have nightmares about that snare
Heroes made me get into Bowie, Hunky Dory made me a full blown Bowie fan
My favourite Bowie album, for the same reasons why Rubber Soul is my favourite Beatles, raw talent, finding its feet
Life on Mars was the first Bowie song I've ever heard and it's still my favourite one. It has everything: poetic cryptic lyrics that are begging to be analysed, a beautiful vocal performance by Bowie, the haunting piano courtesy of Rick Wakeman. Time may change me, but it's yet to change my preference for it
I generally prefer the deep cuts that are more obscure of artists in general and Bowie is no exception. My favorite hit songs are Young Americans and Ashes To Ashes. I found the lesser-known songs from Side 1 of Heroes to be more commercial sounding and less interesting than the title track
From a 64 year old man. Thank you for reawakening my love for the albums that were so much part of the soundtrack of my early life. And thank you for reminding me that revisiting amazing artists like David Bowie, was exactly what I needed, right now. Truly enjoying your enthusiasm...keep rolling them out. I'll be watching and more importantly, listening.
thank you so much. i'm glad the videos have inspired you to revisit this stuff, it's been so much fun discovering it for myself!
I'm also a fan of Abbi and her album reviews 🎸🥁 Keep ROCKIN'! Happy Holidays everyone ☃️🎄🎁
"Death on two legs" - you're so right!
this is my favourite bowie album and perhaps it’s his first great album (tho man who sold the world is quite a good record). ‘changes,’ ‘oh! you pretty things,’ ‘life on mars?,’ ‘queen bitch,’ and ‘the bewlay brothers’ are my standout songs
Life on Mars appearing in Licorice Pizza renewed my interest in this album. Always felt his pre-Ziggy work has been largely overlooked.
Rick Wakeman went home after the Life On Mars session and mumbled to his girlfriend, "I think I've just done the best song I've ever played on".
"The best song I've ever played on ... so far!" (Sincerely, a total Yes-head. 😄)
This is the only way I know it’s Monday 😂❤
me too honestly
Bowie has had as many accolades as any performer can have. He had the respect of fans and contemporaries alike. The only negative is how he treated his band mates that helped him gain his Rock N' Roll stature. His Ego transcended his heart and soul. It's a heartless business.
Bowies bravery inspired me to seek out the path less travelled. He was always a welcome glow in my life. Sadly gone too soon. ON the topic of Warhol I met Bowie's ex-boyfriend in 81 through his brother whom I was friendly with. I was invited to his new hairdressing salon. Over the stations were four "Marilyn's". I commented on what good prints they were and was told, "Oh no, they're Originals". I always wondered if these came from Bowie as I knew he was a collector.
also love the janine appreciation, space oddity has to be one of my favorite bowie lps
That...was....great. Thanks, from Sydney. ✌ Sound & Vision.
Lol, this album is only eight months younger than I am. One of my favorites! I’m glad you’re digging the soundtrack I grew up with … which is to say, not the music I chose to listen to in my early through late adolescence, which I guess is what a lot of people mean by “the music they grew up with” - I mean, rather, the music which was literally in the air the whole of my childhood: what was on the radio while I played with blocks, what played from passing cars as we walked down the street, what was on t.v. music shows as i flipped through channels, what my much older cousins all listened to and talked about … I seldom knew any artists or song titles, but as I reached eleven and twelve, I’d play someone’s decade-old album and realize “Oh, hey, it’s that song I remember from that party my parents took me to, huh, who knew it was Bowie?” and it turns out all this stuff is part of my molecular being. Anyhow. It’s fun to see you grooving over this music, it was the everyday tapestry of my life.
My family ran a vending company ( aimed at the bar and tavern trade ) here in Southern Calif. and Bowie's music always played well on our jukes across all types of locations and musical taste. Shine on David Bowie, shine on. Great take on a transformational LP, like Morrison, Bowie was an changeling as well. Dig your style, aloha
This was great. I really enjoy your commentary. And the "sailors fighting in the dance hall..." bit had me laughing 😃 😊
I'm amazed Bowie's earliest albums weren't selling - they were so great (well, still are...) it was good that Ziggy Stardust was a breakthrough, like Tommy and The Dark Side of the Moon.
In the UK, it wasn't until the success of the "Ziggy Stardust" album in late 1972, which re-activated David`s earlier albums (Which had done little sales wise on initial release) to belatedly enter the UK album charts in early 1963.
Favourite Bowie song... Heroes. It completely knocked me out when I was 10 years old (when it came out). I knew it expressed emotions that were more important than anything but which I couldn't understand. I guess that's true for every song that freaking alien ever wrote.
Dear Abby, Mention of 'Janine' fills my heart with joy and reverent adoration! I'm helpless for your smile as well. All the brilliance to come is prefigured on that track, including best ever use of the word ''collocate' in popular music! I've never been able to listen to 'Janine' only once, it always gets a second spin or more, and I seek excuses to post it hither and yon on general principle. ('Cygnet Committee,' another deserving deep track deserves mention here as well, with most of the DB '69 album... especially as all have a 'Hunky Dory' feel as well.) Viva 'Janine!'
2 of my best friends from college introduced me to janine on a drive to a pizza joint. we got it takeout, sat on the roof of the car in the parking lot, and ate it. lots of long/colored hair in that group, plus me in all vintage - we must have looked like a bunch of kooks!
@@abigaildevoe Sounds like a "Drive-In Saturday' Abby! Someone shouts in the background during the intro to 'Janine," about ten seconds in, just after the first guitar line, and it always sounded like "I love this song" to me. So I figured it was Bowie shouting and thought, "Cool, Bowie loves this song too..."
I value this album about as much and in as many ways as anything else in life and could go on endlessly ---but in a nutshell: there's something distinctly and indelibly sublime about walking down a quiet and empty Chicago side street on a summer afternoon and hearing the familiar strains of "Eight Line Poem" wafting thru an open screen door to someone's second floor balcony, and that was a third of a century ago...
Yes yes yes yes yes… and yes! Your powers of description are spot on! More power to yer elbow 🌟
My favorite Bowie album.
Love it. Andy Wharhol is one of my favorite songs to sing/play.
"Life on Mars?" Has to be my favourite Bowie song and "Hunky Dory" has to be my favourite Bowie album! Double win for me if you ask.
Could we except a Ronettes "Presenting the fabulous ronettes" in the new year 👀👀
My favorite Bowie era is '69-'73. The album originally just titled David Bowie, rereleased as Space Oddity to Aladdin Sane.
Great music after, of course, but that earlier era was great.
I like to say that the 70s is the greatest decade in music and Heroes is the best song of the decade.
About Ronson - He absolutely DESTROYS on the "Live in Santa Monica 72". On Moonage Daydream the pipe whistle solo is replaced by Ronson's guitar and it elevates the song.
Loved hunky dory since I discovered it 2yrs after release.
But it was only later in my life when I realized how amazing a song Life On Mars is. It and Kinks’ Waterloo Sunset, and Beatles Across The Universe.
BOWPROMO (Gemm LP) In August 1971, David Bowie's manager, Tony Defries had 500 promo LPs pressed to secure Bowie and fellow Mainman artist Dana Gillespie a record deal. This promo album, featuring seven Bowie songs on one Side A and five by Gillespie on the flip is often referred to as the BOWPROMO white label album. It came in generic white outer and inner sleeves, and had no printed labels so its matrix number (BOWPROMO 1A-1/1B-1) is the only way to safely identify it. This Record Store Day release faithfully replicates the original promo, with Bowie's seven tracks on one side, and adds five exclusive Bowie prints.
My personal fav is Warszawa. Such a moving song
Perhaps it's not as grandiose as a Ziggy Stardust, but I find this to be the most concise and masterfully written album of Bowie's.
Hunky dory is one of his best albums and his first masterpiece imo
Thank you for your extra efforts in december getting double album reviews and regular vinyl monday reviews out for us all🎅♐️
David Bowie woke me up to singing and composing my own songs again round 2013, and this album was one of them along with all the rest eventually. I lost the track of being up front in a band round turn of century to work on other skills in retrospect. As a fellow Capricorn with Libra rising, some charts say he had Sagittarius rising, but to me Neptune in first house Libra with Sun conjunct Mars in 4th house Capricorn and Moon in between Saturn and Pluto in the 11th house Leo seems the correct chart to me, his influence was just what I needed to kick my singing and songwriting awake once more.
I covered Life On Mars for some years, guitar and voice arrangement. Learning a few Bowie songs gave me the practice required to translate the electronic notes I took trying to write songs with computer home studio and really only getting a bunch of great ambient music along the lines of Another Green World, Brian Eno with the fully composed songs only available in the recorded version as I had lost the skill to play a song live in my obsession with the computer studio.
Bowie appeared to me in a dream in 2011, but I didn't realize it was him and blew him off in a frustrated huff. I revisited the dream later on and realized he was offering me his songs to help me get back to full power as a musician after I gave a set of his singles I had on my ipod a good listen and hearing things I never expected having first encountered him in the 80's and having no idea what was before.
I now understand another aspect of Bowie's gift to my musicianship as around the time he appeared in my dreams I was in the first year of playing with a jam band that still rocks together during the warm weather months. A recent Daryl's House episode with Robert Fripp revealed the incredible value in that training to me in that Fripp claims that he only knows two people who can just drop every plan and jam, and enjoy it other than Daryl Hall and that's David Bowie and Brian Eno.
I can improvise like that now, where I was too tense to do so in my original life as a musician ignorant of Bowie and only just getting to know Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's output. When he appeared to me in dream I was just trying to put together my first songs again in live coherence and not quite getting it. The missing element was to first learn some cover songs to retrain my ability to sing and play guitar at the same time. That's what Bowie's music gave me after I correctly understood the dream version of his offer in 2011.
I appreciate someone who displays the Gypsy double. Thought back then I was the lone listener! Somewhere there is a film about them.
I used to sing Life on Mars as a vocal warm up before a gig. One day i was walking up and down my apartment singing and my roommate burst out of her room. I thought she wasn't in the apartment, but she was sleeping. She was pissed but instantly smiled when she realized it was me singing, not blasting a record.
I love Janine.
Our local social club in NE London has a Bowie night on the weekend closest to his birthday so that was this Saturday just gone. We went of course & as she lives in our home town Maggie Ronson, Mick's sister came along to this one too. Her band has performed there as well but l missed that. She used to take Mick down the local high street so he could get some very nice sausages from the local specialist supplier which he was a fan of. During his Moonage Daydream solo l commented to her that it was his finest hour & she nodded knowingly. A good night & my second 'second degree' from Bowie as l also met Woody at a Holy Holy gig.
I saw Bowie in '78, '83 & '87 though l didn’t enjoy the Glass Spider much & drifted off to pastures new, Zappa, Crimson, Daevid Allen & Gong, Tull.....etc. Started listening to Bowie again some years back though the albums between Let's Dance & The Next Day remain largely out of my ken.
My copy of "Hunky Dory" is an extended one, and it has, among other alternate takes, the demo for "Quicksand". Don't remember why, I got to know the demo first - and it knocked me out. Such a pearl of delicassy, simplicity and moving feelings it is! I got mesmerized by this demo. But when I first heard the official... I don't want to be less than honest, and I won't: it frustrated me. He spoiled his own composition by his complex approach of it in the official. I like prog but, you know, but official "Quicksand" sounds, for its complexity, almost as a prog - a cheesy one. If you don't know the demo of "Quicksand", Abby, go after it - right now!
This would be the Ryko Records reissue from the early 90s. It also had the track Bombers on it.
@@bobby666666 I ca't check this, cause I sold it a long time ago. I'll remember of checking when I am with the actual owner of it.
@@reginaldobittencourt878 I gave my copy to a friend as I have the CD.
Amazing research and details. Your insights an opinions are thoughtful and appreciated. Great work!
It's good to hear someone from a newer world be both encouragingly enthusiastic and capable of very good research present something from a different era. Gives life to it and bridges worlds. Well done.
Perfectly accurate? - no, but it doesn't matter as you achieved your aim.
I'm friends with Carlos Alomar. He teaches guitar at the University that I work at. He's on David Bowie's later more R & B like stuff. He played guitar on songs like Fame and Golden Years. The album Station To Station among others..
The last time I ever saw Bowie was at the LA Forum with NIN on the Outside tour. Great show.
Has always been his greatest album to me and it continues to grow with every listen. Much as I love every song; the Bewlay Brothers with its memories of childhood, always soars with compassion and empathy for a brother lost to mental illness. The enigmatic lyrics are the echoes of a disjointed and cracked world of fragmentary reality, while the music conjures the cowboy imagination and innocence of young boys 'riding the range' together. Their final parting is in the coda at the end, in the beautiful image of the shoes and an unlocked door. Bowie never bettered this.
🌟 Excellent choice! I change my custom license plate every year (always music related) ... and this year it reads KOOKS. You will approve of next year's, I know for sure. MC5... just got to think of just the right thing for it to read (up to 7 characters including spaces) ...Fantastic episode as always, Luv... Cheers! 🍸
Life on Mars references a girl with the mousey hair called Hermione Farthingale. She was Bowie's girlfriend at the time. The superb song Letter to Hermione which appeared on the Space Oddity album adds some background to their relationship.
I LOVE JANINE TOO AHHHHHHHHH I AM WITH YOU
Ziggy was my entry into Bowie but Hunky Dory is the Bowie record I listen to most now (and Ziggy is now 3rd most listened to after Station to Station). Life on Mars, Quicksand, and Queen Btch are my favorites on this album.
off Topic for a sec. I just noticed that Elton put out 11 studio LP's in 7 years 😲😲
Hi Abbi sounds like I owe this one another listen I have a cd copy of it and only played it once or twice. The Bowie albums I am very familiar with are Diamond Dogs love it. Ziggy Stardust love it. Lets Dance like it a little don't love it.
Happy Christmas Abby from across th pond. Thank you for Vinyl Monday. I haven't found music fandom this exciting since listening to the late John Peel. Thank you
life on mars? is probably bowie's greatest song but i have to think "i can't give everything away" off of "lazarus" is my favorite. thanks for the tip on the clash's "midnight to stevens". i think i heard it before you were born and asked "why didn't they release that?" and forgot about it until you reminded me the other day. i knew "london calling" before you were born (talked to people (aka: a person) about joy division in high school after ian was gone) and am thrilled to watch you weekly.
bowie's last album was called "blackstar"....screwing up his album titles is anything but "hunky dory"!
the john peel performance is one of the best of his career! i have part 2 of the bootleg and i just recently missed out on a bid of the 1971 "ziggy 1"
I just found out about "A Divine Symmetry" a 4-CD box set of the making of Hunky Dory - meanwhile, there's a 1-LP vinyl edition which is basically "Hunky Dory" with alternate takes. Can't wait to hear it tonight. I picked it up during lunch hour.
Great video I remember buying this album after Bowie passed away I remember it costed my 70 dollars ouch but great video life on Mars and queen b***h are my favorite tracks on this album keep it up Abby ❤❤❤
i'm kinda glad i wasn't collecting vinyl back then, i can only imagine the price gauging on bowie albums after he passed. queen and elton john were bad enough after their movies were released - i haven't seen any queen for under $25 since bohemian rhapsody!
@@abigaildevoe oh god I remember the days of bohemian Rhapsody it took my forever to get my queen collection complete and for Elton I have most of his back catalogue already lol
@@MacgyverMike1 i STILL don’t have a complete queen collection and it’s been like 4 years since that movie!
@@abigaildevoe most of my queen LPs are original pressings and some are reissus I had to get some of them when they reprinted them or discogs for a decent price because for some odd reason the miracle, hot space, made in heaven and the works were not reissued after the movie came out I'll might upload a new video showing my queen collection in the future
Androgyny was cooly received (shocker), along with glam. Years later, unisex hair salons cut into barbershop trade, and guys wore cut-offs best suited to boys who hadn't yet "dropped."
As a decades long Bowie fan, who finds most Bowie stuff on UA-cam slightly underwhelming as I know too much, I really enjoyed this. Well done for touching an old cynics heart. Thanks
mellotrons are my weakness but the acoustic keyboard playing on HD is one of its loveliest features. quite often strings aren't doing much on an album, just blocking in, whereas on these songs they have something to 'say'. I think the embracing of ambiguity in your response to life on mars is positive. art can't always be pinned down, artist's aren't always in total control.great video. i say that a lot.
thanks for the Christmas shopping reminder A!
I just wish you had a vinyl copy with a textured paper cover (without the black border). The album cover for Young Americans was a throwback to the Hunky Dory cover, with a similarly stylized watercolor look and printed on the same textured paper sleeve. Try to track down a copy, or one of the recent 180gram vinyl reissues that faithfully replicate it. In the 1970s more than any other decade, the design and the materials used in album cover production was, I believe, integral to the total artistic statement. But great job on your video!
Awesome 👌 Piano 🎹 by Rick Wakeman on this album. Yes was on his horizon. As for David , he joined Lou Reed & Elvis Presley as an RCA recording artist.
Hunky Dory is my favorite Bowie album from the first time I heard it. It has a feel to it that I have identified with since I was 12 when I first heard it. Quicksand and the Bewlay Brother's are both in my top favorite Bowie songs. Thanks for posting it.
Love it. Might be my favourite Bowie…it changes though.
Green River did an awesome cover of Queen Bitch.
Spot on Abi! Thx for your hard work 🎉
I'm glad Abigail mentioned the fun Biff Rose/Paul Williams cover tune "Fill Your Heart" which is a quirky, Nilsson typed song amidst the heavy, powerful "Life on Mars", "Changes", "Song to Bob Dylan & the "Bewlay Brothers."
I saw David Bowie in a 3000-seat venue, there were only 900 or so people there, this was in 1972. That's all, other than to say, lovely video, Abby.
Outstanding review!
Anthony Newly, major influence on David. My mom was assistant to Leslie Bricusse for 47 years. Leslie and Anthony were partners for years. David openly credits Anthony for his early style and yes, Harry's influence is huge in r'n'roll. John and Harry got drunk together for a year in MY town? The nerve. Pussycats!
Can't wait for you to talk about his Station to station and Diamond dogs albums!
I love this episode Abby. Top shelf stuff here.
thank you!
Janine, Janine, you’re like to know me well!! The best!
I love Drive In Saturday.
I was given Space Oddity plus the same time pin ups came out. Shortly there would be Aladdin Sane, I’d get to know Hunky, and Ziggy! Then the Diamond Dogs/David Live/ Young Americans run! Whew!
He has consistently been my favorite artist since.
Keep up the kool show.
you have good taste
(audience, included)
- This is the right album for the world, rn -
cuz, fer real - it looks a scream, sans any changes
it's really my audience with the good taste, they made this happen, but thank you!
Good for you and your take on this record!
After Ziggy Stardust and Low, this is my third favourite Bowie album. It has that rare balance between accessible melodies combined with cryptic lyrics, which can be interpreted so many different ways. For example, did Bowie predict his future collaboration with an ex-Beatle with the lines, "now the workers have struck for FAME, 'cos LENNON'S on sale again." ?
A masterpiece of an album. Thanks for your insights Abby.
I always thought of that line as a double entendre of Lenin/Lennon since it refers to workers (Lenin) and the irony of on sale again (Lennon). Falls into the cryptic category.
Off the back of my hand I would be tempted to put The Man Who Sold the World as my third after Ziggy and Low, BUT, yeah, I agree, Imma put Hunky Dory at three because it is just much more consistent track to track.
@@sugadelicsavagesoul8623 Def. double meaning.
This entire album and especially The Bewlay Brothers is my most fav by DB. It's about his half-brother who was older and was looked up to. They lived on Bewlay St hence the song title.
Thanks Abby
Hunky Dory is one of my favourite Bowie albums
My current favourite Bowie song (and this changed regularly)is Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (reprise) which is indexed as one song on my Bowie iSelect CD.
Yeah, huge Bowie Fan fer sure. Love your comments, insights, lore, etc., comme d'habitude😘. But I can't help but notice the cover of Freak Out! staring out from your shelf. I've been a major Zappaphile most of my musical life, and look forward to your F.O. discussion. Aaand: I have a suggestion for that, if it's possible. Just as you pointed out the intersections between Bowie & Lou Reed's careers, Zappa had an important relationship with his high-school pal and occasional collaborator, Don (Van) Vliet, better known as Captain Beefheart. Their respective debut albums came out about a year apart, and, I believe, are worth comparing side by side. (As in two consecutive videos, say.) Dunno if you have Beefheart's Safe As Milk. You can at least hear it on UA-cam - or does that violate the premise or protocol of your channel? Anyway, FO's 1st two sides are variations on a variety of pop styles, as only Zappa could imagine & arrange them. (Sides 3&4 are much more experimental/challenging.) Similarly, SAM also consists in ingenious reimaginings of various pop styles, but of a different (often bluesy) sort, with Van Vliet's budding genius sensibility in place of Zappa's.
If you don't have the LP, I can get it online for you (probably new & remastered; 50+ yr-old vinyl is muchos dineros). I'd send you my own copy, but I'm still alive and therefore not ready to let it go. (Unless you'd be willing to take it as a loan ... ?) Anyway, please let me know if you'd like a copy. Thanks for your attention. And your continuing "reviews".
❤
Though I purchased Ziggy 1st, Hunky Dory was my 1st true gateway into the Bowie world.
Life on Mars was used well in Licorice Pizza
Excellent Film 🎥 ! - Used to shop at the record store on Sunset Strip across the street from The Whiskey !
And don't forget American Horror Story!
If I had to choose, the entire Man Who Sold The World album would be my favorite.
The truth is, my favorite Bowie albums are the everything up till and including Station to Station. Those Berlin albums don’t do it for me. Now everyone is going to yell at me.
I forgot, but I really liked those Tin Machine albums as well.
I love I'm deranged from Outside!
I recall once reading how Herman's version of "Oh! You Pretty Things" is the quintessential example of someone not understanding the material they're singing about 🤐
Dana Gillespie had a transient (ahem) 'liaison' with Dylan in England. I seem to remember that she makes a very brief unnamed appearance in "Don't Look Back" - sitting in a row of seats in an auditorium somewhere (presumably watching His Bobness rehearse).
Packed with research and understanding.
Liked the Angie tribute.
PS: and ohh--thanks for deciding you've finally decided to like David Bowie! I'm sure he'd have been thrilled to know it!
I love this album, more than "The Man Who Sold the World" but about the same as his 1st one. All his '70s albums are most-own for me. This does seem more like a transition album between "Space Oddity" and "The Man Who Sold the World" though, more of the late hippy than the darker material on that one. I'm surprised 'Queen Bitch' wasn't among your favorites on this album.
One thing that is amazing is that bowie and lou actually played queen bitch together and this perfomance is in good quality here on yt!
"Life on Mars" inclusion on the Licorice Pizza soundtrack is to the great credit of both Bowie and PTA.
I agree with the Emitt Walsh comparison!
Cha-cha-cha CHANGES!
David actually scored a UK No 1 in February 1973 on both the `New Musical Express` and `Melody Maker` charts (Same week) - displacing "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool" by Little Jimmy Osmond!
I heard the phone ringing at the end of Life On Mars? Was unintentionally picked up during recording like a cellphone going off today when one needs silence. For some reason the phone ring works like a sound clip you would get in a Pink Floyd song. It works but I don’t know why
The Peter Noone performance is not from Top of the Pops but from a programme called "Whittaker's World of Music".
Next Vinyl Monday:
AQUALUNG - JETHRO TULL
To be honest, before I checked out this record, I wasn't too keen on Bowie's earlier albums, I will forever gush over the Berlin Trilogy and Station to Station (One of the greatest album runs ever), but I have a soft spot for this album in particular. This album sounds whimsical, playful & charismatic, but it doesn't do it to the point where it feels like a parody, unlike his first two albums. Ziggy Stardust's great, but people don't give enough credit to its predecessor, which in my opinion, is equally good, perhaps even slightly better.
I love Hunky Dory. The bewlay brothers is my personal favorite. Not related to Bowie, but I whole heartedly agree that Death on two legs is the best Queen song.
Bowie one of my favs f for sure i think this album is so underated it was almost like anything pre ziggy was so overlooked changes and life on mars are my favs how his career would change was so interesting to me
Another point is that you can't underestimate the positive influence of John Peel and the Radio One session between 1969 - 1980 on British music. He championed punk and many progressive bank long before they were famous etc
Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Heroes, Alladin, in that order.
Love you, Abby! Waiting with worms on my tongue for your one-day deep listen into K C's 'Lizard' and 'Discipline' albums!
Oh, and have you ever heard the band "IF"? Love their 'Waterfalls' album.
Oh, and please please PLEASE cover my genious hero Brian Eno's catalog someday!!!!!???
His first three albums HAVE to belong in your collection!
Blessings - 'Enoboye'