Journey Through The Past 17 : Paranoia and Alienation - Building the Bowie Collection Space Oddity to Alladin Sane

In 1974 most of the lps I bought were by David Bowie. In addition to the two released that year (David Live and Diamond Dogs) I had a lot of back tracking to do.  I therefore  used my hard earned baby sitting and pocket money to buy Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Alladin Sane.  Back then new releases cost $5.75 and the standard rate for baby sitting was $5 ($10 for an over- nighter). So I tended to count each night of babysitting as a new lp.



I can no longer remember the order I bought these in (although I am pretty sure I bought Alladin Sane first.  I still play three of these albums pretty regularly generally giving Space Oddity a bit of a miss with only the title track and Conversation Piece really holding any interest for me now.  Conversation Piece was a bonus bonus track on the Ryko Reissue in the 90s. If you have not heard it and like Bowie do recommend you check it out - Bowie himself revisited it in 2002 as part of the aborted Toy recordings.  In some respects it is not too different in tone and style to Where Are We Now?  from his latest album.




All the remaining albums in this post; The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Alladin Sane are all excellent albums and I believe do stand up artistically 40 years later. The musicianship and production are consistent as Bowie developed his sound.  While he would miss Mick Ronson on later albums - the piano work of Mike Garson became a consistent feature from 1973 until today.



The Man Who Sold The World and Aladdin Sane both share the sense of paranoia and alienation that permeates much of Bowie's more interesting and dare I say it better work.  While most commentators focus on Bowie's Chameleon like approach to his image, they overlook the consistency of the themes to his music whether produced acoustic as on Hunky Dory, almost Heavy Metal as on The Man Who Sold the World, with the Glam Flash of Ziggy, Alladin Sane and Diamond Dogs, the plastic soul of Young Americans, the funk of Station to Station, the electronica/post punk of Low, Heroes and Lodger, the Snarl of Scary Monsters, the dance of Let's Dance and Tonight, the weirdness of Outside 1, The beats of Earthling and the later day return of Heathens, Reality and The Next Day - the two things you can count on with Bowie are PARANOIA and ALIENATION.

That itself could be a topic for a blog - but if you have not noticed it before check out songs like;



All the Madmen,
After All,
Watch That Man,
Time,
Panic in Detroit,
Drive in Saturday,
Let's Dance
Candidate,
I'm Afraid of Americans,
Station to Station,
Loving the Alien,
Blackout,
Heroes,
Look Back in Anger
Quicksand,
We are the dead,
Seven years in Tibet and of course
Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashes.