CBR Record Club #3 "Diamond Dogs"

[twilight]

Welcome to the third in a series I like to call "The CBR Record Club".

The club works thusly:

-Have a record assigned.
-Track a copy down. (legally or illegally, I’m not going to judge you)
-Listen.
-Form an opinion.
-Report back over the course of a fortnight.
-Repeat.

Sound cool?

The third assignment is...Diamond Dogs (1974) by David Bowie.

http://images-jp.amazon.com/images/P/B00001OH7S.09.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

1. "Future Legend" – 1:05
2. "Diamond Dogs" – 5:56
3. "Sweet Thing" – 3:39
4. "Candidate" – 2:40
5. "Sweet Thing (Reprise)" – 2:31
6. "Rebel Rebel" – 4:30
7. "Rock 'n' Roll with Me" (Bowie, Warren Peace) – 4:00
8. "We Are the Dead" – 4:58
9. "1984" – 3:27
10. "Big Brother" – 3:21
11. "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" – 2:00

So everyone go find it, either it already has a place in your music library, at your local record store or from your digital downloading program of choice.

Use this thread for your thoughts and feelings about the first assignment.

This assignment goes from September 28th until October 12th at which point a new album will be assigned.

Go!

-Twi

[The Confessor]

The third assignment is...Diamond Dogs (1974) by David Bowie.


Oh goody! A record I've not heard in its entirety before. OK, I'm off to download a copy...I'll get back to you in a few days.

[david r]

I'm really enjoying these musical selections, Twilight. Keep up the good work here.

[howyadoin]

I'd be happy to never hear "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" again in my life.

[twilight]

I'd be happy to never hear "Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family" again in my life.

I don't know about that.

Is it perfect? No.
Is it a pretty shitting closing track? Yeah.

But I'll rarely skip it if it shows up on shuffle.
I enjoy something about it even if I don't know what it is exactly.

-Twi

[berk]

Great record. I love it pretty much from start to finish. Rebel Rebel and the title track are probably the best known to casual fans, and certainly deserve their popularity, but the whole album is of very high quality. Side 2 might be a little weaker than side 1, but then I think When You Rock and Roll With Me is one of the most overlooked songs in his entire catalogue. Sweet Thing is another standout track. Bowie's vocal style changed for this one, his voice became stronger and deeper, the delivery more theatrical. The first side as a whole plus Rock and Roll With Me is up there with his very best work. The rest of the album is very good but not quite as strong.

[twilight]

I think When You Rock and Roll With Me is one of the most overlooked songs in his entire catalogue

Funnily enough Rock 'n' Roll With Me is my go-to Bowie song to sing in the shower.

I just thought everyone should know that.

-Twi

[rick]

Diamond Dogs?

Jesus is that one of the more difficult Bowie albums to get through. I mean don’t get me wrong it has some real classics on it and it certainly is a fine example of Ziggy era Bowie in all of his Glam glory, although technically Diamond Dogs is the first record from the post-Ziggy era, with Bowie instead taking on the character of the “real cool cat”, Halloween Jack.

But I have to say that looking at the cover, it’s pretty hard to see much difference between glam rebel Jack and spaceman Ziggy.

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/3605/diamonddogswa5.jpg

As for the record itself, Diamond Dogs is pretty close to a one man show by Dave, with him doing the writing, the producing, most of the guitar and keyboards and of course the vocals. Dogs is book ended by two pieces of sonic poetry, beginning with the Moody Blues with a bad attitude opening, Future Legend the less said about the better, however that leads directly into one of Bowies all time great songs, the title track, Diamond Dogs.

Now for years I had thought that it was Mick Ronson who plays the great fuzzy leads on Diamond Dogs, but for those not in the know, that’s Bowie playing the leads, as well as all of the sax work on the track.

It’s easy to forget sometimes just how multi talented the man actually is, and Diamond Dogs is really a show case for Bowies particular brilliance, it’s just a shame that the song leads immediately into the ballads Sweet Thing / Candidate / Sweet Thing (reprise), songs that try to move along, Bowies 1984, dystopian pastiche storyline, but these parts have just never worked for me. They come across as sort of Andrew Loyd Webberish, I guess.

But just about the time I start to get truly bored with the record, luckily it bounces back into another classic piece, Rebel, Rebel, what I have always considered Bowies roadmap for Punk.

Now as for Rock N Roll With Me and We Are the Dead aren’t anywhere near as irritating as the whole Sweet Thing part, but again it is a section of the record that feels more like filler to me than any thing else. I understand that Bowie is trying to tell a story here, but these songs just don’t really hold up that well to me.


But once again the record is saved from getting too maudlin by the introduction of what is in my opinion one of Bowies very best songs, the classic 1984. I love the whole mid-1970’s funk feel to the song. If you listen to what is going on in the background they really are laying down a somewhat heavy Isaac Hayes riff in the background that really had some great power to this highly danceable song about the destruction of free will.

Of course the album then ends on two not so high notes with the dull, Big Brother and the just plain silly, Chant of the Ever Circling Skeletal Family.

So in the end what exactly do I rate Diamond Dogs at?

Should I judge it compared to the other albums of 1974, or against the other work of Bowie or what?

I’m not sure what criteria I should use to decide how “good’ the record is.

I guess in the end, I’ll give it the balance grade.

There are only 3, maybe 4 songs that I really like on Diamond Dogs, and truth to tell, when I do listen to those 3 songs, it is normally while playing a Bowie collection instead of the Dogs record itself. Plus when you compare this record to some of the albums that Bowie put out in the years right before and right after Diamond Dogs it’s hard not to rate it as one of Bowies lesser achievements.


So my grade for Diamond Dogs is at best, a B.

Competent, occasionally even excellent, but just not enough to raise it to the highest levels of Bowies work.

[howyadoin]

I think When You Rock and Roll With Me is one of the most overlooked songs in his entire catalogue.Yeah, I can agree with that.

There are only 3, maybe 4 songs that I really like on Diamond Dogs, and truth to tell, when I do listen to those 3 songs, it is normally while playing a Bowie collection instead of the Dogs record itself.Very true. Same for me as well. Today was probably only the 3rd or 4th time I listened to the album in its entirety, and overall it feels kinda weak, and scattered. It's hard to imagine "Rebel Rebel" and "1984" even coming from the same era of his life, much less the same album.

[rick]

Very true. Same for me as well. Today was probably only the 3rd or 4th time I listened to the album in its entirety, and overall it feels kinda weak, and scattered. It's hard to imagine "Rebel Rebel" and "1984" even coming from the same era of his life, much less the same album.


It's a very disjointed record, and when you compare it to albums that came before it, like Ziggy or Hunky Dory, let alone the Berlin period that would follow it, Dogs is at best, secondary.

Heck, I much prefer the cover album Pin-Ups, from earlier the same year as Dogs, I still play that one all the way through..

[ZombieHavoc]

I had a friend who used to talk this album up so much, and I always knew I liked "Rebel Rebel", so I decided to widen my Bowie collection from the only three albums I had and liked by him (HD, TMWSTW, and Ziggy). So I bought DD, and could not get into it. I like "Rebel Rebel", of course, and then also the title track. And there was one other tune I dug...I can't remember which one.

But I do remember that my friend was way into the 1984/Big Brother thing, and I was really stoked to hear those songs, but I hated them.

But like I said, I've really only cared for those three albums I listed, and then the occasional track here and there.

[leonaozaki]

I love this record.

It took me a long time; I read a Rolling Stone review before I heard it that dismissed it as the nadir of Ziggy's rock and roll trip ("Rebel Rebel" aside, of course).

So for a long time I never listened to it. Then a big fan of Bowie in college told me it was her favorite record so I gave it another shot...and I totally dug it.

Of course, "Rebel Rebel" is great, one of Bowie's best songs, but a lot of the songwriting on Diamond Dogs is almost up to that caliber-- the title track, the "Sweet Thing" suite, "1984" and "Big Brother." I love the collision between hard rock and soul. I love the general paranoia of the record. I love the risks Bowie takes on the record-- who knew that he had "When You Rock and Roll With Me" in him? What a fantastic song. What a record.

Also, if "Dodo" had been the last song on the record, I think people would have liked the record more.

rob

[The Confessor]

OK, I’ve listened to this album a few times now, so I thought I’d post up some of my thoughts on it.

Firstly, let me say that I’m certainly no hardcore David Bowie fan in any way. My entire David Bowie collection consists of one compilation LP and that's all the Bowie I need, frankly. For anyone interested, it’s this LP (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_Bowie) that I own.

Having said that, I did quite enjoy listening to this album. It’s an album that you often see being cited as one of Bowie's best and for that reason alone, I’m glad of the chance to listen to it.

When the first track, “Future Legend” began, with its totally over the top spoken lyrics, I couldn’t help thinking WTF?! I mean, seriously…

”And in the death
As the last few corpses lay rotting on the slimy thoroughfare
The shutters lifted in inches in Temperance Building
High on Poacher's Hill
And red, mutant eyes gaze down on Hunger City”

Ha ha…great stuff! I love s**t like this. :biggrin:

The next track, and first song proper, “Diamond Dogs” I already knew since it’s on the compilation that I own. It’s a pretty good song really with some interesting and quite dark lyrics. I must admit that I do like the glammed-up, apocalyptical, dystopian future vibe of this record a lot. It’s a dirty, alienated sounding record but one that is often concerned with twisted romantic relationships...something that jars compellingly against the darker nature of the album.

By the way, is this record meant to be a concept album? I ask because a lot of it seems to be decidedly Orwellian in nature, especially the tracks “1984” and “Big Brother” of course.

For me, “Rebel, Rebel” is the real standout track on this album and its little surprise to me that it’s the album’s most famous song. That guitar riff alone is enough to make the song great but when you add to that Bowie’s hook laden vocals as well, it’s a winning combination. “Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me” and the “Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)” mini-suite are also worthy of mention as superior tracks on the album.

Ultimately I would have to say that Diamond Dogs is more interesting than it is brilliant. The central themes expressed in the album are engaging but the majority of the material isn’t quite strong enough to make this a true “Classic Album” in my opinion.

Still, I’m glad to have had the chance to listen to the album in its entirety.

[twilight]

I think the story goes that basically Bowie wanted to put together a 1984 musical based on Orwell's novel and sort of lost interest half way through and some of the material worked it's way onto Diamond Dogs.

Someone else could probably shed more light on it.

-Twi

[leonaozaki]

I think the story goes that basically Bowie wanted to put together a 1984 musical based on Orwell's novel and sort of lost interest half way through and some of the material worked it's way onto Diamond Dogs.

Someone else could probably shed more light on it.

-Twi

He did want to put a musical together based on Orwell's novel but Orwell's widow nixed it so we got Diamond Dogs instead. Thankfully.

rob

[TheMagneticSteve]

I've been insanely busy the last couple of weeks so I haven't been able to absorb this album properly. I'll be back with a proper review, but I will say that I liked it.

[berk]

BTW, meant to mention earlier - if you can download the demo version of Candidate, do it. Very different from the rendition that appeared on the album. It is included in the bonus tracks, along with the (only fair to middling) Dodo, on a Diamond Dogs cd release from the early 90s.

As I said already, I like the whole Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing sequence as it appeared on the album, but the demo of Candidate is very nice, with Bowie singing a slightly different melody and using a higher-pitched, more nasal vocal sound that sounds a little closer to his earlier style.

[twilight]

It's the 12th in Australia so CBR Record Club #3 draws to a close.

Thanks to everyone who participated.

New assignment up shortly.

-Twi