David Bowie

Bowie brought twisted futurism, the English music hall and the Velvet Underground to the touchy-feely Singer-Songwriter genre on his first truly great album. Ignored on it's initial 1972 release, "Changes" became a hit single years later, while "Life on Mars," "Queen Bitch," "Pretty Things" and others deserved the same fate.

David Bowie, the swinging/mod Garbo, male femme fatale, confidante to and darling of the
avant garde on both sides of the Atlantic, and shameless outrage, is back, and with a bang,
although bearing little resemblance to the dangerous loony of The Man Who Sold The
World from earlier this year. For the most part, Dave is back, after an affair with heavy!
highenergy killer techniques, back into his 1966-ish, Tony Newley/poprock than... More >

After two overwrought excursions for Mercury this ambitious, brainy, imaginative singer-composer has created an album that rewards the concentration it demands instead of making you wish you'd gone on with the vacuuming. Not that he combines the passion and compassion of Dylan (subject of one song) with the full-witted vision of Warhol (subject of a better one) just yet. But he has a nice feeling for weirdos, himself included. (Grade - A-)