A favorite time for me, musically, was when I was in high school. I was a junior in 1984 and David Bowie's Let's Dance was all over the radio. China Girl, Let's Dance, Modern Love, Cat People were all on the radio and I really dug them. A lot of what was on the radio was mediocre and so the Bowie stood out. Also, I was into his earlier hits, like Fame and Space Oddity and Changes. But I was still fairly musically naive and didn't know about non-pop radio. So I was only listening to this kind of stuff and I was getting a little tired of it. But then Bowie, in 1984, released Tonight. I never bought the album (I didn't buy much music in high school, as I didn't know any better), but I do have fond memories of the songs that got to the radio, like Loving The Alien and Blue Jean. Fantastic stuff, truly beautiful music.
Well, today I received, via half.com, a copy of the remastered album Tonight. It is unbelievably delicious.
I'm sitting here, paying bills, relaxing, and listening to Tonight, to the title track Loving The Alien. Omar Hakim, the drummer, is especially kicking my ass. Damn, I shoulda owned this album back then.
The Gift
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[Christmas, 1965 or thereabout]
The boy was very young; perhaps 7 or 8 years old. He loved everything about
Christmas - the lights, the music, Santa ...
4 months ago
8 Comments:
The thing I really like about Bowie is how he can sound so different over so many decades, and be so good in all of them!
I agree. His work with Trent Reznor is as good as his work with Adrian Belew is as good as his work with John Lennon is as good as his work with Stevie Ray Vaughan.
He has terrible naming tastes though. Zowie Bowie? Holy crap, that's BAD! I don't care for his Ziggy Stardust phase but his 80's Bowie, is smooth and likable.
Yeah, thanks to XM Satellite Radio, I'm now listening to all the alternative and more obscure stuff I missed in the 80's and 90's. I didn't have any money to buy cassette tapes and was beholden to the staid pop radio stations like everybody else to hear new music.
Old groups that are my new favorites: Charlatan's U.K., Stone Roses, Public Image L.T.D., Big Audio Dynamite, Nick Heyward, and believe it or not, AHA!(remember the crappy song Take On Me?) has a new CD out that's fantastic. Where have they been for the last 20 years?
Several points: Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is his best album, both musically and lyrically.
His 80s work certainly made high school dances bearable.
And now for the fun part: Love almost all those bands! Charlatans UK are fantastic, PIL are inspiring (my favorite PIL work used to be Album, but now it's CD. BAD are GREAT. a-ha are really great songwriters, and Take On Me was a revelation. Nick Heyward I am not invested in. However, give me time to do some listening and then we can talk.
Nice idea with this site its better than most of the rubbish I come across.
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Nice idea with this site its better than most of the rubbish I come across.
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That's a great story. Waiting for more. »
That's a great story. Waiting for more. » » »
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