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| David Bowie / Hunky Dory | ||
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MUSTHEAR REVIEW: |
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| Eleven finely crafted songs from Bowie's short-lived long-haired days. This album, with its breakthrough hit "Changes," represents the closest thing that this musical chameleon ever came to fitting somewhere within the singer-songwriter tradition. It features clear and deliberate nods in the direction of Neil Young and Bob Dylan, as is obvious on "Song for Bob Dylan." Still, this album was by no means derivative or one dimensional in sound and vision. "Andy Warhol" is a classic example of the arty-weirdness that Bowie would further explore in his groundbreaking collaborations with Brian Eno later in the decade. "Eight Line Poem" and "Quicksand" are crammed full of impossible to grasp lyrics of unmistakable genius. Glam is given a pre-punk make-over in "Queen Bitch," a hard-edged epic vaguely about a femme-fatale transvestite, while homosexuality itself is practically paraded out of the closet in "Oh! You Pretty Things." This was a time of peace, love, and happiness for Bowie. He celebrates the arrival of his newborn son Zowie with the quirky "Kooks" as he shamelessly indulges in hippy-dippy silliness with the romantically upbeat "Fill Your Heart." Yet despite all his cheery optimism, this is still Bowie's brave new world, and the apocalypse is never far from the fun. He closes the album with the dark vision of "The Bewlay Brothers," the sinister "Kings of Oblivion" who confess to "how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust." Beautifully conceived, performed, recorded, and remastered, this is definitely the best Bowie album for the uninitiated. --John Ballon (email)
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