David Bowie

David Bowie scrapped a planned musical based on 1984 and came up with this degenerate mix of sleazy rock and totalitarian disdain. The title track plays like a lost Stones classic, "1984" sounds like a theme song to a whitesploitation movie and (best of all, by far) "Rebel Rebel" became the defining single of the glam rock era. This edition comes remastered and houses a bonus disc that includes "Growin' Up" (a fantastic Springsteen cover) and a version of "Rebel Rebel" that somehow manages to best the "it can't get any better" LP version.

When this came out in 1974, it was roundly dismissed as Ziggy Stardust's last strangled gasp.
In hindsight, Diamond Dogs is marginally more worthwhile; its resigned nihilism inspired
interesting gloom and doom from later goth and industrial acts such as Bauhaus and Nine
Inch Nails. But even if you buy into the revisionism, this dressed-up two-disc reissue is as
cynical as Dogs' decadent fantasy. The overblown dramas "Rock 'n' Roll With Me"... More >

In which a man who has always turned his genuine if unendearing talent for image manipulation to the service of his dubious literary and theatrical gifts evolves from harmless kitsch into pernicious sensationalism. Despite two good songs and some thoughtful (if unhummable) rock sonorities, this is doomsday purveyed from a pleasure dome. Message: eat, snort, and be pervy, for tomorrow we shall be peoploids--but tonight how about buying this piece of plastic? Say nay. (Grade: C+)