Customer Rating: 
Summary: Nothing's Gonna Touch You in These Golden Years
Comment: This is an incredibly six track album. I much prefer this type of album (six songs that are all winners) to newer albums that cram 14-18 tracks on a CD and only the first 3-4 really matter. You can truly turn this album on and not have the desire to skip a single track.
Put this album on, sit back, and enjoy. Station to Station takes a while to build, but when it rocks, it rocks. Next is my favorite song of all time (no, not from this album, but of all time), Golden Years. How can you go wrong with finger snapping and whistling? Definitely a sing-along rock song.
My two other favorite tracks on the album are TVC-15, which you have probably heard on a Bowie Greatest Hits if you own one. When I heard this on my own greatest hits, I didn't expect it to come from this album, and admittedly it is a bit different (in my opinion), but still very rocking. Finally, Stay starts out with an amazing guitar riff, and lets the rock soak into you, and then builds into a great chorus.
On another note, I saw Bowie in concert a few years back, and he didn't sing "Golden Years" or "Young Americans." I was really surprised that he didn't at least play "Golden Years." Good concert, but I was very disappointed.
Customer Rating:
Summary: His Best?
Comment: Throughout the course of his stellar, impossibly brilliant career, Bowie has released many albums that rank among the best music ever recorded. It is nearly impossible to say any one album is his best... but this one sure could be a contender. The breathtaking epic title track has been my favorite Bowie track ever since the first time I heard it around 8 years ago. It is somehow funky and creepy, uptempo and depressing and all sorts of opposite things at once. though 10 minutes long, the song never drags but builds and builds, with a great Earl Slick solo (boasting one of the wickedest pinch harmonics ever) and the whole band in a frenzy by the end. The next track is the great plastic soul classic "golden years." It is funky, danceable and, like the entire album, finds Bowie exercises his considerable vocal talents (which were arguably at their peak during this era). "word on a wing" is full of passion and sounds desperate (and believe me bowie was getting a little desperate around this time). TVC-15 is one of the most unique tracks you'll ever hear, and is again (like the title track) kind of eerie while being simultaneously danceable and uptempo. "Stay" is one of my all-time favorite Bowie tracks, boasting great lyrics, haunting vocals, and scorching interplay between guitarists Carlos Alomar and Earl Slick (some of which is shortened, quite unfortunately, in the radio mix of the song included on hits collections and on the Christian F. Soundtrack). "wild is the wind" is the closer, and proves that Bowie can more than hang in there with any of the pop crooners that have less range, imagination and longevity than him. What else is there to say? this is an unspeakably brilliant album, that is a must hear for anyone and everyone!... especially those of you that think of Bowie only as a big-haired 80's pop star that wore really tight pants in Labryinth...
Customer Rating:
Summary: "One of these nights I may just jump down that rainbow way...."
Comment: In which D. Bowie gets good.
I have always been of two minds about Bowie; on the one hand, his undeniable intelligence, taste, and ability to spot cultural trends barely perceptible to all but those buried in deep the underground has allowed him to be one of the biggest influences in pop music history; on the other hand, his relationship to rock 'n roll has always been that of a dilletante outsider, a cabaret artiste/actor playing dress-up and often delivering a lot of bad music in the process, i.e., he means to come on like his idols/collaborators Iggy, the Velvets, Eno but winds up sounding like Anthony Newley after a bad encounter with THC.
However, between '75 and '80, he made a string of records of undeniable worth, which cast a massive shadow over many subsequent developments; I'm talking about this album, "Low," "Heroes," "Lodger," "Scary Monsters," and his collaborations with Mr. Pop, "The Idiot" and "Lust for Life." "Station to Station" is the starting point, the template, and in many ways the best of the bunch.
Bowie had just shed his glitter-era Ziggy personae, his wife, and his management company, and acquired such a massive cocaine habit that by his own admission, his psyche disintegrated. Living in LA, a town he despised, and shooting The Man Who Fell to Earth, wherein his fragile mental and physical state is evident for all to see, he recorded this album as the soundtrack, though it was never used. The music is a strange brew of discordant elements -- the soul/disco/funk of "Young Americans," lots of guitar noise courtesay of 6-string mangler Earl Slick, discrete electronics, cabaret balladry, and intimations of a new robotic futurism. Both sides of the LP symetterically followed the same pattern -- a dark, epic, guitar-driven funk opus (the title track and "Stay"), a prayerful soul-tinged ballad with lots of W's in the title("Word on a Wing," "Wild is the Wind"), and a danc-y futuristic novelty song ("Golden Years," "TVC15"). Songrwriting-wise, this is Bowie's most consistent disc, every tune actually hits the bulls-eye, his baritonal croon sounds unforced, and real emotion and wit shine through the "plastic soul" (his words) musical pallette. Special mention must be made of my favorite song on the album, "TVC15," a nonsense song Bowie said was about a TV that ate his girlfriend, and the wittiest, most infectious thing he ever wrote, fusing a true danceable groove, a Devo-esque chorus, guitar noise, and a New Orleans-based barrelhouse piano melody.
Bowie said this album chronicled his crack-up, which perhaps is the reason it registers emotionally. The music looks forward to the chance-driven, grim electronic soundscapes of his subsequent Berlin Trilogy without sacrificing rock 'n roll accessibility. "Station to Station's" fusion of black dance music,deep depression, and metal machine music would wind up dictating much of UK post punk, both good (Joy Division, Magazine, The Cure) and bad (Bauhaus, Spandau Ballet, The Human League), and beyond that point the way to much industrial and electronica. In 1976, when it came it out, no-one would have guessed this, and the record seemed like an anomaly in DB's discography and unlike anything else on the radio at the time. Sometimes a dilettante sees things the rest of us cannot.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Does my prayer fit in with your scheme of things...
Comment: `Station to Station' was yet another transitional album for Bowie in that it bridged the soul/funk of `Young Americans' with the Euro artiness of the `Berlin Period' that closed the decade. While the making of the album may have been hectic and even painful for David, there is no denying that even in his most trying times, the man could produce a work of genius. While `Young Americans' went flat footed on the dance floor, `Station is a triumph, the best since `Aladdin Sane'. Favorites include the haunting confessional "Word on a Wing", a beautiful and quite spiritual song. The title track is a two part epic that never seems as long as its ten minute running time....the return of the Thin White Duke. "Station" the song was seen as a direct ancestor to the Euro-rock of many late seventies - early eighties post-punk bands while "Golden Years" (lead single released the previous year) and "TV15" brought back the funk, although the latter also had very Euro leanings as well. "Stay" was funky too with some excellent hard rock guitar courtesy of frequent collaborator Earl Slick. Through a haze of cocaine in a desolate LA studio, Bowie created another masterwork which has quickly become a favorite, especially from the second half of the `70's....the European cannon is here!
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A must have
Comment: Bowie constantly changes his music style and stage shows and he pulls it off every time. It takes a lot of talent and guts to play hard rock one day, disco the next, and still keep most of your fans intact. For me, picking a Bowie disc to play is difficult (because there are so many good ones), but I reach for this one the most. His vocals have a warm emotional tone that can send shivers up your spine, and I think some of his best vocal performances are on this disc, especially on the cover tune "Wild is the Wind". I've never heard the original version, but he nails the vocals on this! All the songs, musicianship, production, on this disc are fantastic, and the piano playing of Roy Bittan deserves special notice. Finally, the creepy saxophone accents on "TVC15", really enhances the song... nice touch. This is a classic, must have disc.
|
