David Bowie - Did He Ever Top ZIGGY?

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm referring, of course, to Bowie's 1972 album ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. So, obviously this thread is aimed mostly at old farts like myself, or at least those with a knowledge of and appreciation for stuff that was released before CDs even existed.

Every now and then I completely immerse myself in a classic album, or sometimes in a set of albums by the same performer/band. Occasionally this leaves me hating the music in question - awhile back I listened to a variety of Billy Joel stuff for the first time in years, and found it so mediocre-to-awful that I felt somewhat embarrassed at having bought several Billy Joel albums way back when I was a teen - but most of the time this leads to me having an even deeper appreciation of the work in question.

The album I've been immersing myself in lately is Bowie's ZIGGY. Sure, many of the songs only loosely connect to this concept album's core concept, and sure, it's one of Bowie's most pop albums and thus prone to horrendous amounts of overplay on classic rock radio, but all that aside, it is still a frickin' incredible album. It starts fairly slow, setting the mood, then throws one really great cut after another at the listener (including some that include some of Bowie's very best lyrical imagery), completely and utterly kicking ass through the second half of the album before finishing out in a manner that, while fairly obvious, is nonetheless completely satisfying and in keeping with the album's theme. Bowie's band is amazingly tight, and - unlike a fair bit of later Bowie - musicianship doesn't come in second to production this time around.

Anyhow, after several listenings and a lot of consideration, I'm pretty convinced that while Bowie released some other very good albums and several great individual songs, ZIGGY still stands as Bowie's greatest single album, and by a fairly wide margin.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think about that conclusion? If you differ, what would you say is his best album, and why?

And yeah, I realize that it's sort of odd to be trying to sum up the career of a guy that's still around and likely to keep putting out albums, but let's be realistic - great though he once was, it's been a long, long time since Bowie has released anything that was more than just okay, and many of his later efforts have been pretty damn weak. I won't even go into his work with Tin Machine, except to say that summarizing it as Shit Machine is an act of greater kindness than that dreck deserves. Given his output since that time, I don't think I'm doing Bowie a disservice by suggesting that he's probably already done the best stuff he's ever gonna do.

[rick]

I'm referring, of course, to Bowie's 1972 album ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. So, obviously this thread is aimed mostly at old farts like myself, or at least those with a knowledge of and appreciation for stuff that was released before CDs even existed.

Every now and then I completely immerse myself in a classic album, or sometimes in a set of albums by the same performer/band. Occasionally this leaves me hating the music in question - awhile back I listened to a variety of Billy Joel stuff for the first time in years, and found it so mediocre-to-awful that I felt somewhat embarrassed at having bought several Billy Joel albums way back when I was a teen - but most of the time this leads to me having an even deeper appreciation of the work in question.

The album I've been immersing myself in lately is Bowie's ZIGGY. Sure, many of the songs only loosely connect to this concept album's core concept, and sure, it's one of Bowie's most pop albums and thus prone to horrendous amounts of overplay on classic rock radio, but all that aside, it is still a frickin' incredible album. It starts fairly slow, setting the mood, then throws one really great cut after another at the listener (including some that include some of Bowie's very best lyrical imagery), completely and utterly kicking ass through the second half of the album before finishing out in a manner that, while fairly obvious, is nonetheless completely satisfying and in keeping with the album's theme. Bowie's band is amazingly tight, and - unlike a fair bit of later Bowie - musicianship doesn't come in second to production this time around.

Anyhow, after several listenings and a lot of consideration, I'm pretty convinced that while Bowie released some other very good albums and several great individual songs, ZIGGY still stands as Bowie's greatest single album, and by a fairly wide margin.

Agree? Disagree? What do you think about that conclusion? If you differ, what would you say is his best album, and why?

And yeah, I realize that it's sort of odd to be trying to sum up the career of a guy that's still around and likely to keep putting out albums, but let's be realistic - great though he once was, it's been a long, long time since Bowie has released anything that was more than just okay, and many of his later efforts have been pretty damn weak. I won't even go into his work with Tin Machine, except to say that summarizing it as Shit Machine is an act of greater kindness than that dreck deserves. Given his output since that time, I don't think I'm doing Bowie a disservice by suggesting that he's probably already done the best stuff he's ever gonna do.


I don’t know if they are ”better” then Ziggy, but I am at least as big a big fan of, Hunky Dory, Lodger, The Man Who Sold the World and Scary Monsters as I am of Ziggy.

Still, it hard to deny that Spiders From Mars wasn't a career highpoint.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I don’t know if they are ”better” then Ziggy, but I am at least as big a big fan of, Hunky Dory, Lodger, The Man Who Sold the World and Scary Monsters as I am of Ziggy.

None of those are bad albums by any means, and LODGER is the one Bowie albums that I think rivals ZIGGY in greatness, but do you think the ones you mentioned are as all-around solid as ZIGGY? Most of the cuts on ZIGGY stand very well on their own, and the ones that don't quite manage that nonetheless work great within the larger context of the album. Each of the albums you mention has some great stuff, but I don't think any of them (except maybe LODGER) are so uniformly excellent.

I'd be interested in hearing an argument to the contrary, though, or some discusssion of other criteria by which you feel the others you mention stand up in their own way to ZIGGY.

[Adam C]

Well not what I've heard so far, but my diffuse listening tastes mean that I still haven't gotten Station to Station, Low, Lodger, or Scary Monsters and the Supercreeps. I could get some Bowie...but OOOOOOHHHHH a Fred Frith album!

Anyways I will say this though, Ziggy Stardust ranks among my all time favourite albums percisely because it is such a perfect marriage of quality material with consistency. Like London Calling or Marquee Moon the individual songs on the album are not only supremely well written and executed, but they are logically sequenced against each other for proper effect. It's hard to describe, but the entire album basically comes together for me as a whole in a very satisfying fashion.

[Jonathan Bogart]

The "Berlin trilogy" of Low, Lodger, and "Heroes" might be the best three records in the history of the universe, especially as a back-to-back-to-back experience. No, it's not the same thing as a single great album, but the further we get into the post-album era, the more I appreciate albums that are unified wholes, even if every cut isn't stand-alone genius. Chopping movements out of symphonies doesn't do them any favors either, and the best albums are as carefully arranged as any extended classical work.

I started my Bowie appreciation with Ziggy, and I'll agree that Bowie never rocked harder or better, but these days I think I appreciate his experiments with texture, structure, and sound even more.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I was hoping you'd chime in, Jonathan, because your opinions are well-informed, and even when I don't agree with you, whatever you have to say about music is almost always interesting. The "Berlin trilogy" of Low, Lodger, and "Heroes" might be the best three records in the history of the universe, especially as a back-to-back-to-back experience.
I need to get LOW and HEROES on CD so I can try that out again. You may well be right about that.

No, it's not the same thing as a single great album, but the further we get into the post-album era, the more I appreciate albums that are unified wholes, even if every cut isn't stand-alone genius. Chopping movements out of symphonies doesn't do them any favors either, and the best albums are as carefully arranged as any extended classical work.
Yeah, I also miss the idea that albums can be more than just a collection of unrelated songs, or - more often than not - some filler tossed in round out a selection of made-to-be-singles songs. The comparison with a symphony is quite apt.

I think ZIGGY works astoundingly well in this regard. A lot of concept albums and rock operas fail pretty miserably, or - worse yet - drift into pointless artrocky aural masturbation. ZIGGY's isn't the most profound concept upon which an album was ever based, but it all fits together into a very effective and satisfying whole, with lots of high points along the way.

I started my Bowie appreciation with Ziggy, and I'll agree that Bowie never rocked harder or better, but these days I think I appreciate his experiments with texture, structure, and sound even more.

I can understand that. Me, I like and appreciate all those things, but I still give the highest marks to a rock album that... well, rocks.

Plus, not enough can be said about wonderful lyrics like:
"She wants my honey not my money, she's a funky-thigh collector
Laying on electric dreams"
and
"We can't dance, we don't talk much, we just ball and play
But then we move like tigers on Vaseline"
(from "Hang On To Yourself")

[leonaozaki]

Lodger is probably my favorite Bowie album, with Hunky Dory, Ziggy and Outside all coming in second somewhere-- although honestly trying to pick favorite Bowie albums is very, very difficult.

I agree also that the Berlin/Eno trilogy is all kinds of great.

rob

[jesse_custer]

I like Bowie's singles more than anything, but then again, my taste in his singles may be questionable ("Modern Love" rocks my world, for instance).

[JeffreyWKramer]

I like Bowie's singles more than anything, but then again, my taste in his singles may be questionable ("Modern Love" rocks my world, for instance).

Bowie has lots of great singles, but he's one artist that is definitely not served nearly as well by "greatest hits" collections as he is by listening to his songs within the context of his albums. Even the best "greatest hits" set of his work - and there have been several good ones, dating back to the CHANGES collections - really doesn't come close to capturing what Bowie was about.

Honestly, and with no condescension intended, if all a person knows is the singles, they really don't know Bowie's stuff at all.

[rick]

None of those are bad albums by any means, and LODGER is the one Bowie albums that I think rivals ZIGGY in greatness, but do you think the ones you mentioned are as all-around solid as ZIGGY? Most of the cuts on ZIGGY stand very well on their own, and the ones that don't quite manage that nonetheless work great within the larger context of the album. Each of the albums you mention has some great stuff, but I don't think any of them (except maybe LODGER) are so uniformly excellent.

I'd be interested in hearing an argument to the contrary, though, or some discusssion of other criteria by which you feel the others you mention stand up in their own way to ZIGGY.


Well don’t get me wrong, because when you get right down to it, Ziggy is the Bowie album. It’s an amazingly solid piece of work with some truly classic songs.

But, to tell the truth, despite Starman, Rock n Roll Suicide, Suffragette City and the title track, there are several songs on Ziggy that while I can’t say I dislike them, don’t really do anything for me. For example, I think the first few songs on side one, Five Years, Soul Love and Moonage Daydream while nice enough, just aren’t all that great, and Lady Stardust just leaves me cold.

It is still a really good album and the classics on it more then make up for any weak spots.

Personally though, I feel that Hunky Dory is a much better album then Ziggy and holds up much better to repeated listening.

Unlike Ziggy’s rather weak opening, Hunky starts right off with the classic track, Changes,flows right into Oh You Pretty Thing. slows down slightly with the admittedly weak Eight Line Poem, but then instantly kicks right back out into high gear with Life On Mars.

Which is really a hell of a start for any album.

Then it slows down a little with the decidedly odd, but I have to say highly likable, Kooks, and the strong, but mostly forgotten ballad, Quicksand. Then there is a brif bit of pop fluff titled, Fill Your Heart, which while completely forgettable is a nice enough song to listen to.

But then to finish off the record, Bowie pulls out all the jams and hits us with the classic trio of, Andy Warhol, Song for Bob Dylan and what just might be Bowies best song ever, Queen Bitch.

Then as an encore, the album ends with the weirdly intense Bewlay Brothers making for an truly classic record that not only flows together, but that truly shows the artist at his most iconic.

[mambo66]

Great thread.

Bowie is way up there on the list of records I'd bring to a desert island.:D

For me... my favorite would have to be Diamond Dogs. To me that is Bowie at his best. Call me crazy but I was always a huge fan of 'Let's Dance' as well.

I think the music from 'Let's Dance' was some of the first music I hear on the radio as a kid. I mean music that cool but very different from Super Tramp or KISS or ACDC.

It actually took me till years later to go back and check out older Bowie. Which I've been a huge fan of now for years. It's shocking how many of todays young whippersnappers don't know who Bowie is. :( :D

[rick]

Great thread.

Bowie is way up there on the list of records I'd bring to a desert island.:D

For me... my favorite would have to be Diamond Dogs. To me that is Bowie at his best. Call me crazy but I was always a huge fan of 'Let's Dance' as well.

I think the music from 'Let's Dance' was some of the first music I hear on the radio as a kid. I mean music that cool but very different from Super Tramp or KISS or ACDC.

It actually took me till years later to go back and check out older Bowie. Which I've been a huge fan of now for years. It's shocking how many of todays young whippersnappers don't know who Bowie is. :( :D


Let's Dance is not my favorite Bowie album, but it is a really solid collection of pop songs.

I especially enjoy both Modern Love and Putting Out Fire With Gasoline.

[Shellhead]

Bowie has lots of great singles, but he's one artist that is definitely not served nearly as well by "greatest hits" collections as he is by listening to his songs within the context of his albums. Even the best "greatest hits" set of his work - and there have been several good ones, dating back to the CHANGES collections - really doesn't come close to capturing what Bowie was about.

Honestly, and with no condescension intended, if all a person knows is the singles, they really don't know Bowie's stuff at all.

I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoy Bowie's hits more than the rest of his music. Maybe I don't want to know Bowie really well, I just wanna enjoy the good songs. And I really enjoyed the first Tin Machine album. It rocked hard, and the lyrics packed a punch. I understand that Bowie felt stifled by the democracy of that band, but I think that he rose to the challenge. His work since Tin Machine has been less remarkable and also less successful.

[jesse_custer]

I especially enjoy both Modern Love

I'm glad I'm not the only person who mentioned this song now.

[JeffreyWKramer]

LET'S DANCE is a fine collection of unconnected songs, some of which are excellent pop tunes. Great production via Nile Rodgers, great musicians including Stevie Ray Vaughan and Omar Hakim. It did a great job of resurrecting Bowie's career as a pop star and concert draw, after years of his mostly just being a darling of the critics.

It's not his best album by any stretch, and it's not deep or challenging at all, but it's darn good. It's also probably the last Bowie album I'd actually care to own; I don't currently have a copy, having gotten rid of all my vinyl some time back, but I'm sure I will have one eventually.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm glad I'm not the only person who mentioned this song now.

It's a good, solid song. Nothing to not like about "Modern Love."

[JeffreyWKramer]

But, to tell the truth, despite Starman, Rock n Roll Suicide, Suffragette City and the title track, there are several songs on Ziggy that while I can’t say I dislike them, don’t really do anything for me. For example, I think the first few songs on side one, Five Years, Soul Love and Moonage Daydream while nice enough, just aren’t all that great, and Lady Stardust just leaves me cold.
I think the key here is looking at the album as a whole as something akin to a symphony, as Jonathan suggested, or as an opera. Some of the individual songs that start the album aren't showstoppers, but they do a great job of setting the tone, and setting the stage for the rest of the show. "Lady Stardust", within that more broad context, serves less as a standalone song than as foreshadowing of the final act, i.e. the fall of Ziggy. Viewed from that perspective, the downbeat tone of the song - part, I'm guessing, of why it leaves you cold - makes perfect sense. There's still some good times ahead on the album, but they take on something of the tone of fiddling while Rome burns, or having a wild party while unaware that you're being eaten alive from the inside by cancer.

This is, again, why I think it is crucial to listen to concept albums - and many of Bowie's albums in general - as a whole rather than as a disconnected set of cool tunes out of context.

Personally though, I feel that Hunky Dory is a much better album then Ziggy and holds up much better to repeated listening.

Unlike Ziggy’s rather weak opening, Hunky starts right off with the classic track, Changes,flows right into Oh You Pretty Thing. slows down slightly with the admittedly weak Eight Line Poem, but then instantly kicks right back out into high gear with Life On Mars.

Which is really a hell of a start for any album.

Then it slows down a little with the decidedly odd, but I have to say highly likable, Kooks, and the strong, but mostly forgotten ballad, Quicksand. Then there is a brif bit of pop fluff titled, Fill Your Heart, which while completely forgettable is a nice enough song to listen to.

But then to finish off the record, Bowie pulls out all the jams and hits us with the classic trio of, Andy Warhol, Song for Bob Dylan and what just might be Bowies best song ever, Queen Bitch.

Then as an encore, the album ends with the weirdly intense Bewlay Brothers making for an truly classic record that not only flows together, but that truly shows the artist at his most iconic.


I can't disagree with any of your assessment of the flow or the individual songs off HUNKY DORY, which is a very good album. I think the fact that I rank ZIGGY substantially higher probably says more about our differences in personal taste than anything else. I'd still argue that ZIGGY is the better album, but you've made an excellent, well-reasoned argument to the contrary, which is the sort of discussion I hoped to inspire by starting this thread.

[JeffreyWKramer]

I'm not ashamed to say that I enjoy Bowie's hits more than the rest of his music.
Nothing to be ashamed of, really. His hits are very good stuff.
Maybe I don't want to know Bowie really well, I just wanna enjoy the good songs.
This is where I think you sell yourself sort of short, though. First off, Bowie has a lot of good songs other than the hits, but some of them are more obviously good within the context of the albums on which they first appeared, and even the hit songs - at least on his pre-LET'S DANCE albums - take on added dimensions of greatness when heard within that larger context.

And I really enjoyed the first Tin Machine album. It rocked hard, and the lyrics packed a punch. I understand that Bowie felt stifled by the democracy of that band, but I think that he rose to the challenge. His work since Tin Machine has been less remarkable and also less successful.

I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree about TIN MACHINE. I agree that Bowie's stuff since then has been overwhelmingly weak, though.

[mattx110]

I'm not really a Bowie enthusiast, but "Changes" "Pretty things" and "Life on mars" are only on one album, so that wins, so, you rock, Rick! And music was better in 1973. Nick Lowe and Brinsley Schwartz were releasing the best songs of the decade "Each time I feel it slip away, just makes me wanna CRY!!!!!..." Bob Dylan did "Pat Garett" with "knocking on heaven's door"...
1974 wasn't bad either,but I count the songs released in '74 as being written in '73 for revisionist romanticist reasons, so "Cruel to be kind" is in there too.

Ed Heath+Nixon=kickass pop music.

Let's Dance has Vaughan, which makes me love it. But nothing competes in my mind to those three songs on Hunky Dory.

[Shellhead]

I recently got around to watching the movie The Life Aquatic, and that movie had a lot of Bowie music. Most of it was acoustic covers by some Brazilian musician, but it was great how well it fit the movie.

[jesse_custer]

The Bowie music in "The Life Aquatic" was hilarious. I don't know why, though.

[Ilash]

I probably can't comment too much here because the only Bowie albums I currently own are Hunky Dory, Ziggy, Heathen (of all things) and the ChangesBowie comp. I actually think Hunky Dory is almost as good as Ziggy and at times even prefer it. I agree with Rick about the first three songs on Ziggy - they're fine but I usually skip straight to Starman when listening to the album.

Oddly enough though, my favourite Bowie song is probably Everyone Says Hi from Heathen.

[berk]

I think he did something much better than topping it: the music he and Eno made with Low and Heroes is so different that there's no real point in comparing them to Ziggy Stardust.

OTOH, I think Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory are as good as Ziggy in their own way. I see those three albums as a set, along with Aladdin Sane (which itself is only just below the other three in quality) as one set, and the Eno collaborations as another. None of them have any weak tracks, IMO; the two covers, Fill Your Heart on Hunky Dory and It Ain't Easy on Ziggy do feel just a little out of place to me on their respective albums, but I still like 'em, and I always play those albums all the way through, without skipping anything.

And I think Five Years is one of the very best songs on Ziggy, perfectly setting the tone for the rest of the album. It's always evoked a powerful and a complex mood of yearning, sadness and resignation just this side of despair that kind of rerpresents the emotional impact of the entire album for me.

[rick]

The Bowie music in "The Life Aquatic" was hilarious. I don't know why, though.


I actually really enjoyed the Bowie covers by Seu Jorge enough that I went out and bought both the soundtrack and the studio collection of Bowie tunes that Jorge also put out.

[BizarroBeachHead]

I actually really enjoyed the Bowie covers by Seu Jorge enough that I went out and bought both the soundtrack and the studio collection of Bowie tunes that Jorge also put out.

Me too, it's fantastic. I'm particularly fond of his rendition of Starman and Life on Mars(but now that I think about it they are also some of my favorite Bowie songs period, so....)

Actually, the Life Aquatic Soundtrack is just fantastic all the way. Bowie, Devo, Iggy Pop, Zombies, Scott Walker, and the score was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh(who was in Devo). Truly great. But enough thread drift...

I'd have to agree that Ziggy is Bowie's top piece of work. There are other albums that are just as great. The Man Who Sold the World rocks harder, and Hunky Dory has some better songs, but due to it's composition, Ziggy is boss. It's just such a well rounded experience.

[berk]

Hah - I never noticed that Rick said he didn't like Lady Stardust either - another of my faves! Love that piano, is that Ronson or Bowie? I think I can hear that style on Lou Reed's Transformer, too, which they produced IIRC.

I'm listening to the cd right now, and it's so annoying that I can barely hear some of the more subtle guitar parts, like that lovely little rising guitar line in Starman, right when Bowie sings the word "Starman". Very inferior to the vinyl sound, IMO.

[Gary_B]

I listened to Ziggy Stardust quite a bit in my early teens and loved Station to Station in my late teens. I was really turned off by Bowie's drift to more poppy sounds and hated Lets Dance and China Girl when they were first getting air time. A woman who worked for me used to play some collection of his that had the songs arranged chronologically and it was like you could hear the music suck more and more as it wore on.