Con man or visionary? Man or...Astro-Man?

David Bowie has proved one of the best and worst influences in rock. His own music provokes equally divided reactions, with a great many people absolutely despising the man, and with some quite good reasons. However, he has not only steered rock'n'roll into new areas of exploration and pretension, but made a handful of undeniably great records. And even when he's releasing material that isn't very good - which, unfortunately, is quite a bit of the time - he's almost always interesting (up to the '80s, that is). Moving rock away from tired blues cliches and making it more European and modernistic was a positive step. Moving rock away from sincerity and content towards fashion-statement trend-hopping was not a positive step. And he's not as innovative as he tries to make himself seem - nearly all of his ideas he took from someone else, whether it was T. Rex in the early days or Kraftwerk in his later period. That said, he popularized and arguably improved upon a lot of the innovations he appropriated, and his futuristic sub-Burroughsian outlook and his drama queen/robot vocals are all his own. His eclecticism's no big deal these days, when bands change styles with the drop of a CD track change, but back in the day such genre-hopping was quite shocking and quite confusing to a lot of his fans; whatever you say about him, he's anything but predictable. He's kinda flaky, our little gay spaceboy, but at least he's not the belligerent jock testerone-overdosed asshole spewing macho bullshit that 90% of our male rockers seem to be (especially in the "baby, I'm a BAAAD man, got catscratch fever 'cause I love to watch her strut, ooo I do respect her butt" sleazeball '70s) and in that context he is such a relief on "classic" rock radio. Speaking of which, if you're a homophobe, you need not apply to any of Bowie's albums. But then again, if you're a homophobe you're probably not smart enough to read any of this, right? "He keeps confusin' me with them big words!"

Like several other long-time artists (grammatically correct if "long-time companion" is grammatically correct), Bowie has reissued most of his back catalog with added bonus tracks. The reissues aren't as well done as Elvis Costello's, the Who's, or the Beach Boys' - no liner notes, and the bonus tracks, with a few exceptions, are uniformly disposable. If you're a hardcore fan you need to upgrade (like I needed to tell you hardcore fans that!), but everyone else should buy Bowie cheap, reissue or no.

For an alternate version of Bowie's best & worst, a fan has set up an entire website dedicated to reviews of David Bowie's albums. It's exhaustive, but everybody has wildly varying opinions on the quality of his various albums, so take it (and my own reviews, for that matter) with a grain of salt. As you might have figured, there are several dozen David Bowie fan sites out there - check out this list of David Bowie Links for a guide.

The title track's flaked-out masterpiece, Spaceman Spiff ejecting from the stratosphere and into the weightless void, and realizing he doesn't want to come down to earth with its vulgar physicality. Said cartune has been rewritten dozens of times by '80s New Romantics ("New Moon On Monday" by Duran Duran) and '90s post-psychedelics (the collected works of Stereolab, Space Men 3, etc.). Aside from that, there's not much memorable. Bowie makes a play for the sensitive folksinger role (the original title for this album was the sub-Donavan/Dylan-esque "Man Of Words, Man Of Music"), which presents one major problem: Bowie doesn't possess the sincerity or hard-earned, boot-strappin' grit that are the folksinger's primary reasons for existence (even if they're faking them, which half of them are - including the former Robert Zimmerman). Secondly, his melodies aren't compelling enough to survive the stripped-down boy-and-guitar approach. Only "God Knows I'm Good", a sentimental portrait of an old woman shoplifting, makes the rest of the album worthwhile. The 9-minute science fiction epic "The Cygnet Committee" collapses under the weight of its unbearable pretensions; thankfully, the rest isn't nearly that bad, which isn't to say the rest is any good. The CD-era reissue adds the hippy anthem "Memory Of A Free Festival" that's so stupid and flaky I almost want to grab my white socks, redneck, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer and bust out singing Merle Haggard's "Okie From Muskogie".

After several years unsuccessfully "finding his voice", the real Bowie emerges. Adding guitarist Mick Ronson was a crucial addition, as his guitar dominates this album and the ones after it. I'm of the camp that views Ronson as the vital catalyst that made the early Bowie sound so compelling - Bowie works best with collaborators, and his other essential material aside from the Ronson era was the late '70s Berlin trilogy with Brian Eno. I've also recently read a Mojo article on the late Ronson that suggests that he had a huge role in the songwriting and overall sound of this album - "She Shook Me Cold" was apparently written entirely by Ronson, with Bowie only adding lyrics later. Ronson's zippy, crunchy guitar sets this blues-based, acid-rock, nascent heavy-metal album apart from the post-Cream pack - particularly because his trebly attack is so bluesless it gives the album a non-dated, almost modern flavor. The production is very odd, emphasizing the bass and slicing Ronson's guitar to a razor-thin sharpness, which gives the album a cold, synthetic quality. As does Bowie's singing, some of the most affected he's sung - which for him is saying a lot. Compellingly weird - when Ronson's guitar slams in and at the same time a piccolo doubles the melody, you know this isn't your typical early '70s heavy-metal album. Some of this sounds more interesting than enjoyable, and structurally the songs are very conventional despite the unusual production. The title track, covered two decades later by Kurt Cobain, stands as the highlight, and there are several other classics as well - "Saviour Machine" about an insane computer; the anti-Vietnam "Running Gun Blues" with bloodthirsty, psychopathic imagery; "The Supermen" which has echoes of Led Zeppelin; and the perverted and pretentious "Width Of A Circle" in which Bowie meets people who have weird sex and thinks he has a religious experience. You could say it sounds like Black Sabbath with real songs, which is better than it sounds. The reissue adds the easy-to-see-why-it's-an-outtake "Lightning Frightening"; the brilliant A-side "Holy Holy" with stinging Ronson guitar; and a couple of songs that were done much better on Ziggy Stardust, "Hang On To Yourself" and "Moonage Daydream", which for some reason were originally released under the psuedonym Arnold Corns.

Bowie returns to his folkster mode, but with real melodies and, most important of all, some real musical backing - Rick Wakeman's excellent piano work dominates this album in the way that Mick Ronson's guitar dominated the last one. It starts off with Bowie's definitive statement of intent, "Changes", and in the next song he's warning that you've "got to make way for the homo superior!". "Life On Mars" continues the journey made in "Space Oddity" - Bowie dreams of other planets because he wants to escape this one with its physical constraints and people with boring clothes and haircuts. Those Martians all look weird and I bet they're really groovy! The next song's an ode to his young son, "Kooks" that's cloying but touching, as most sappy odes to children are. Side One's, and the album's, real low point is the godawfully sung cover of the godawful fey piece'o'dandy-crap "Listen To Your Heart" or something like that that should have stayed stuck in whatever Tin Pan Alley garbage can Bowie dug it out from. It also begins the Bowie tradition of including one unlistenable camp cover of some justly-obscure showtune per album, which I suppose is his perverse way of making none of his albums listenable all the way through - you always have to get up and lift the needle/fast forward the tape/skip to the next CD track. The tributes to "Andy Warhol" and "Song For Bob Dylan" are simply fair, but the tribute to Lou Reed, "Queen Bitch", swishes like Cruella DeVille, baby, with the classic guitar riff crunch contrasting with Bowie's gayer-than-thou lisping quite effectively. Despite a handful of low points, a classic and Bowie's second best album. The reissue adds, among other things, "Bombers", a rocker in the Ziggy mold and easily the best bonus track on any of the reissues.

The album that made Bowie a superstar, at least in the U.K., it influenced an entire generation of dolled-up British boys to chuck soccer for the chance to dress up like girls and pretend they were rock stars. In other words, one of the primary inspirations for the late '70s British punk explosion, though it's not often mentioned as such. Tight and super-compressed, it brings Ronson's guitar back to the fore on all but a handful of tracks, and Bowie's writing has never been sharper. If you've heard The Man Who Sold The World this might sound fairly conventional, but it works much better as sheer driving rock'n'roll with hooks'n'riffs loaded up the wazoo. There's stack of sharp tunes they play all the time on classic rock radio such as "Ziggy Stardust", hilarious all the way through, especially the line "he was the Nazz/with god-given ass/he took it all too far/but boy could he play guitar" (which Johnny Rotten mangled when quoted about Sid Vicious, "He took it all too far, and boy he couldn't play guitar). "Suffragete City" zips along at near-hardcore speed, though it isn't punk because it's more playful than intense, as Bowie decides that he needs a woman for a change. The stuff they don't play on the radio is just as good, especially "Hang On To Yourself" with the ultimate great one-note bass line; "Moonage Daydream" ripped off two decades later by Grant Lee Buffalo in their, um, "original" "Jupiter and Teardrop"; and "Starman" that I hope didn't inspire the Hale Bopp suicide victims ("There's a starman waiting in the sky/He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'll blow our minds"), though it probably inspired the 1984 movie of the same name. The one Bowie album to buy if you only buy one, it contains some weak songs, namely another unlistenable camp cover "It Ain't Easy" by Roy Davies, hopefully no relation to Ray. The bonus tracks are "John I'm Only Dancing", a good single; some acoustic demos; the great B-side (great for a B-side, I mean) "Velvet Goldmine", from which Todd Haynes' filmic ode to the glam era took its name; and the rather upfront "Sweet Head", which for obvious reasons was unreleasable in 1972.

Half a great album. Mick Ronson's guitar plays a more prominent role, for which I am thankful, churning out gutbucket riffs by the Yardbirdful. If on the last album Bowie went for a hyped-up version of T. Rex, here he apes the Rolling Stones - the giveaway's the reference to Mick Jagger in "Drive-In Saturday", an anthemic ballad that was so good that Mott the Hoople wanted it as the follow-up to "All The Young Dudes", which Bowie graciously lent the band (he didn't want to give up "Drive-In Saturday," though). And the character in the opener "Watch That Man" is probably Jagger, too - "He talks like a jerk/But he can eat you with a fork and spoon". The raunchy, slowed-down groove proves that Bowie can play more than one style of three-chord rock successfully - dig the killer riffs to "Jean Genie" and "Panic In Detroit". The title track is a spookily elegant pun on "Who'll love a lad in sane?", and the homosexual whore/john pickup in "The Cracked Actor" is Bowie at his queen bitchiest. The rest I don't care for. "Time" finds Bowie in his tortorous ballad mode, archly singing about New York Doll Billy Murcia's 1972 death from alcohol poisoning. "The Prettiest Star" and "Lady Grinning Soul" are limp-wristed exercises of Bowie at his most fey, and the cover "Let's Spend The Night Together" (I knew I was forgetting some other Stones connection) is a total mistake. A pretty conventional album for Bowie, and pretty enjoyable despite its inconsistencies. Scratch it up as a good but minor album.

In the wake of Bryan Ferry's even worse These Foolish Things, Bowie has a fling with the music of his youth as a mod in mid-'60s London. A lot of great obscure (at least in America) British Invasion classics by the Who, Yardbirds, Kinks, Them, Pretty Things, Pink Floyd (Syd Barret era), Easybeats (an Australian band), and some other band I never heard of, are here. All of these were done two, three, five, or ten times better in the original versions. This mainly proves that a)Bowie's got great taste, and b)he can't sing worth shit - you sit through "Here Comes The Night". A decent K-Tel compilation that introduced a lot of clueless kids to some classic records, but in this day and age nobody really needs it except for Bowie completists. At least he appears to have some respect for these tunes, which makes it much more listenable than glam-era archrival Ferry's version of the same project. The reissue adds a useless rendition of Bruce Springsteen's "Growing Up" and the obligatory camp cover "Port Of Amsterdam".

Bowie's first post-Ronson album, who left the previous year for a solo career (which he flubbed, and he spent the rest of his career as a sidekick to Ian Hunter, before succumbing to cancer in 1991). Minus Ronson, Bowie relies much less heavily on guitars for a slower, more stately sound based around keyboards for many of the tracks. Ironically, the best song and one true classic is the guitar rocker, "Rebel Rebel", and the second best song is the title track, which also relies heavily on guitars. The third best song, "1984", previews Bowie's Philly soul infatuation, a Superfly-style ditty with a funky base and swirling strings. Too much of the rest of the record is simply boring, as Bowie's proto-goth tunes crawl intolerably. Critics reviled this record, but it's nowhere near as bad as they say it is. However, it is a serious let down from the previous four records, as Bowie's glam phase had run its course and a new musical direction was needed. This was originally intended as a concept album based on the novel 1984, but George Orwell's estate wouldn't hear for it, and so only half the songs follow the plot. Like a lot of musicians with literary pretensions, narrative fiction really isn't Bowie's forte. The bonus tracks are the toy-tuney "Dodo" and an alternate take (much better) of the album's "Candidate".

David Bowie: Soul Brother #1. I don't think so. Bowie fans hated this when it came out, and though time has proved kinder to it (some even consider this a lost classic), its worth is mainly gauged from whether you a)think this isn't that bad, or b)think it's awful. I'm in camp b. David Bowie has two problems singing soul. First off, he doesn't have any sincerity, or at least is incapable of coming across as sincere - fine for plastic forms, but African-American genres place a premium on such values. Secondly, he has no pipes, an even worse failing when you're trying to sing the same type of music Al Green and Aretha Franklin are the masters at. What makes a bad idea an even worse reality is the fact that Bowie has written no memorable tunes for this album, save for the one good song, the title track, and the collaboration with John Lennon,"Fame", which is memorable because it jumps at you with its awfulness - unlike the other tracks, which just drip down the drain like a Grecian hair formula. Redundant cover: "Across The Universe". Telling song title: "Who Can I Be Now?" (a bonus track, all of which are inessential this time around). Do the right thing and buy an O'Jays album, or maybe something by the Spinners if you have a hankering for Philly soul - Bowie comes perilously close to becoming a hipper Pat Boone.

A dramatic turnaround and a break from Bowie's old sound, beginning a phase that would produce his most uncommercial and arguably most influential music. Bowie hits a funkless, robotic, very European groove spiced with heavy metal guitar and ambient sound effects, thereby helping create the sound of the '80s (and '90s, for that matter, as his tour with protege Trent Reznor attests). The four great cuts and the one good cut may be the greatest music Bowie has produced. The problem's that there are only six songs, which is not remedied by the reissue which only contains a couple of useless live versions as bonus tracks. The bad cut is the camp cover, "Wild Is The Wind" - why does he keep doing that?!? The good cut's the thumping "Stay" with great guitar via Carlos Alomar. Now for the great stuff: at 10:08 the title track goes on far too long, but where else has the sound of trains whooshing been used so musically? As a response to Kraftwerk's "Autobahn," it's passionate, and dare I say it - coldly, roboticly funky in a way those West Germans have never approached. And it contains one of Bowie's more laugh-worthy lines, "It's not the side-effects of the cocaine/I'm thinking that it must be love". "Golden Years" was the hit - disco for the retirement village set. Bowie struggles to find God in the lovely ballad, "Word On A Wing", which contains the apt lines, "Don't have to question everything in heaven or hell". And "TVC15" - wow! I don't know what the hell it's about or have the first clue how to describe it. It's kind of jazzy and driving at the same time and organic and computerized at the same time, too - maybe you'd better just hear it yourself. But, as I said, it only has six songs, and they all go on too long. And it's not as accessible as his early work, so newcomers should probably start somewhere else. Me, I keep on shakin' mah thang.

The first installment of the Berlin Trilogy, as it has come to be called, since all three albums were recorded in Berlin with Brian Eno. Eno's one of the four or five greatest producers of all time, and an ace synthesizer whiz as anyone who's ever heard Roxy Music's first two albums can attest. He's an ideal collaborator with Bowie. Eno has also released a lot of ambient albums consisting of instrumental mood pieces, and that's the problem: he infects Bowie enough for an entire side to be composed of instrumental mood pieces. The first side's a set of mannered synth-pop tunes, all of which are very catchy and a few of which even have a little substance. "Sound And Vision", "What In The World", and the invertedly structured (passionate shouted verses, calm chorus) "Be My Wife" are all highlights. Weirdly enough, a lot of the music from the Berlin Trilogy shows up on sports channels all the time. Don't have the first clue why - somebody's idea of a joke on gay-bashing couch-potato jocks?

Low, Part II. This is the only album in which Bowie repeats himself, sounding pretty much exactly the same as he did on the last one. Oh, the sound's a bit fuller (an improvement), and the songs are slightly weaker (not an improvement, obviously), but other than that it's virtually a carbon copy: one side of flashy synth-pop songs, one side of self-indulgent ambient doodlings. The title track was the big hit, at least in Europe, though it's much better in the single version (available on Changesbowie) than in the six-minute version presented here, whose length allows Bowie to declaim his lyrics in French and German. "Joe The Lion" and "Sons Of The Silent Age" are stunners, but the rest of the pop songs I can live without. And the instrumental side's the instrumental side, which is to say I have no rational use for it 'cause I'm not into aural wallpaper. Bowie's 1977 albums would have been much stronger if he had released all the pop material on one album and the ambient material on another - he could have had a killer synthpop album, and the rest of us could ignore his self-indulgent arty ambitions. As is, both albums are schizophrenic and unsatisfying.

Bowie's most consistent set from the Berlin Trilogy for one simple reason: all of the songs are songs. No ambient experiments! Yeah! Though this doesn't peak as high as individual songs from his previous three albums, it has more good songs than any album since Ziggy Stardust. Not that Bowie doesn't explore a range of odd sounds - "African Night Flight" delves into worldbeat rythms with bizarre proto-rapping and stacatto shots of metal guitar for a really weird trip. The more convential, anti-nuclear "Fantastic Voyage" and "Moving On" are perhaps my two favorite cuts, however. Notice how the theme of travel keeps showing up in the titles? One could see this as a concept album, a fine, mature one in contrast to Ziggy's silliness; this is where Bowie seems to grow up, with thoughtful, evocative lyrics that aren't at all embarassing. "Repetition", in fact, deftly captures the violence, resentment, and claustrophobia of a little man with a little job who's grown tired of his little wife. The anthemic "Boys Keep Swinging" is the catchiest tune, with its driving 4/4 beat and snazzy chorus, with lyrics that cleverly subvert gender roles (a Bowie specialty). Several of the others are quite good, too, though I've never cared for either "Red Money" or "Yassassin". The reissue adds a couple of useless tracks, an unreleased demo and a bad 1988 remake of "Look Back In Anger", a play title a lot of people who have never even heard of John Osborne like to quote 'cause it sounds cool, like those illiterates in Oasis.

I said the last album had the most good songs on it since Ziggy; well, this one has some more. The only problem's that Bowie doesn't break any new ground here; he's almost - gasp! - conventional. That caveat aside, this is quite entertaining. Basically rewriting the same cold electro-disco-technopop-snippets of metallic guitar groove he's done since Station To Station, Bowie consolidates his strengths into an album of consistent quality. Remember when I said that he sang at his most affected on The Man Who Sold The World? Well, he sounds weirder here, especially on "It's No Game (Part 1)", which has some woman reciting Japanese and is repeated at the end of the album as "It's No Game (Part 2)". "Up The Hill Backwards" takes a Peter Gabriel-ish stroll on a bed of acoustic pop. "Teenage Wildlife" is a dramatic, nearly seven minute ballad that actually works for once. The two singles are the highlights: "Fashion" puns on fascism and rips off "Fame" to good effect in a much better song; and "Ashes To Ashes" continues the saga of Major Tom, and while like most sequels, it's not as good as the first, it more than holds its own against "Space Oddity". I suppose if you want to hear "Kingdom Come" you need Tom Verlaine's. Not one of Bowie's more innovative or groundbreaking albums, just a good, solid piece of entertainment. The bonus tracks on the reissue are expendable: so-what 1979 remakes of "Space Oddity" and "Panic In Detroit", a Low-like ambient mood piece "Crystal Japan" (1979 Japanese A-side, cute), and an atrocious take an Kurt Veill's "Alabama Song" (stay away from other people's songs, David).

Oh, if only David had retired after this album....

Camp, meaningless, and disposable, but good fun. That should end this review since you undoubtedly know this record - it sold better than any other Bowie album, breaking him as a Top 40 hitmaker (in America, of course; he has always had much more success in the U.K. and Europe). Hiring Chic alumni Nile Rodgers to produce and young hotshot Stevie Ray Vaughan to play guitar, Bowie produces a menu of danceable ditties that are tasty, go down smooth, and aren't in the least bit filling or substantive. Ironically, Bowie was cashing in on the New Romantic trend that he himself (along with Bryan Ferry) was one of the prime inspirations for. Leading off with the three hits and strongest tunes proves that Bowie has an uncanny knack for judging what's his best material, and unnecessarily makes the rest of the album irrelevant - just how many times has side two been played, I wonder? Not that side two's bad; if any of these other songs had become hits, they might have been memorable. As is, as long as I keep this playing I can enjoy it, but as soon as it's over, it's over, with little to entice me back for seconds. The hits: "Modern Love", a bit hypocritical for a creature as sexually omniverous as Bowie, eh? Ah well, you knew insincerity was his schitck, and anyone who hasn't gotten over that has long since left the building. And if you can get over Iggy Pop's racist/imperialist lyrics, "China Girl" is another winner. "Let's Dance" is my least favorite of the trilogy, but as the title says you can dance to it.

Facts are facts: when Bowie's bad, he's godawful. Not slight and overly cutesy like bad McCartney, or overly loungey and wallpapery like bad Bryan Ferry, to use two random examples. No, unlike other major artists who possess at least some entertainment/interest value even at their very worst, when Bowie's at his worst he is nigh unlistenable, devoid of virtually any redeeming qualities. I haven't gotten around to hearing all of his albums so I can't quite be sure, but this certainly qualifies as Bowie's worst-ever. It (barely) earns its half-star because of a few listenable moments (not entire songs). "Loving The Alien" possesses a decent chorus melody; "Tumble and Spin" has another melodic little bit I kind of like; and while I keep skipping over it when I play Changesbowie, in this context "Blue Jean" actually comes across as a charming pop ditty, which says more for the context than the tune itself. And that's it, folks. Bowie must have been suffering writer's block, because half of these songs are covers, most of them recycled from the late '70s Iggy Pop albums Bowie collaborated on. I never cared for Elvis, so I can't say if "I Keep Forgetting" is a respectable cover or not. Either way I couldn't care less. I do feel passionately about Brian Wilson, however, and for what Bowie does to "God Only Knows" he deserves a severed larynx. As for the recycled Bowie/Pop tunes, you're better off purchasing Lust For Life or the Idiot. Not that Iggy Pop's solo career is my can of dog food, but you've gotta admit that the Igster's got a voice and charisma that puts Bowie in the boys' choir. I bought my copy for a buck and feel ripped off. At least I got a scathing review out of my trouble, but those of you who aren't amateur rock critics have got to ask yourselves what possible use an album you can't listen to has in your life.

A big improvement over Tonight (heck, anything would have been), but still not happening. This got ripped to shreds by the critics and nobody bought it. To tell you the truth, it's not really that bad; the first side is actually kind of okay (boy, talk about damning with faint praise). "Day In Day Out" possesses a really catchy chorus, but not in a good way - it nags and nags, a song you don't really like but keeps getting in your head somehow. The title track finds Bowie in patented ballad mode, and it's not unlistenable at all. "Zeroes" casts its eye back on Diamond Dogs for some reason. I mean, I never intend on actually listening to the first side ever again, but believe me it's not bad. Then there's the second side, which starts off with the most embarrassingly pretentious number Bowie has ever done (and that's saying something), the poetry reading "Glass Spider". It's easily the most godawful thing on the record. The rest of side two is considerably better, sounding the same as side one only not as good, which is to say it's bad. The album ends with a cover of Iggy Pop's "Bang Bang" (will he quit recycling himself?). You didn't buy this record when it came out and have no good reason to go out and buy it now.

After a stretch of commercial unsuccess, Bowie formed a band with a crew of middle-aged American session musicians. Though nominally democratic, Bowie writes all the songs and everybody knows who's show this really is. Though it's written off as terrible these days, it's really not all that bad, just a bit dull in more than few spots. Bowie tries to get hip by aping Sonic Youth and a bunch of art-metal bands, but he's so out of it, and such a professional, that what he ends up with is slightly edgy mainstream hard rock. Guitarist Reeves Gabrels is competent but tuneless and unexciting, adjectives which describe the rest of this album. Loud, but short on melodies, and none of this makes you want to get up and dance, you know? That said, some of it's kind of alright, and there's certainly worse hard rock out there - in fact this doesn't sound all that different, soundwise and in terms of quality, from contemporaneous Living Colour. Too many dirges like "I Can't Read" slow the pace down, though - and who wants to hear slow tuneless noise? Fast tuneless noise, now that's another sack'o'dinosaur jrs. What's weird (and eventually offputting) is the sense of strain one gets from Bowie's constant name/quote-dropping. "Under The God" alludes to the Ramones' "Beat On The Brat", and there's an okay but uneccessary cover of Lennon's "Working Class Hero." "Bus Stop" shares a title with Hollies, and the refrain from "Run" (the unimaginative "run, run, run") has already been used by both the Who and Velvet Underground in 1967. "Pretty Thing" self-consciously recalls Bowie's own "Oh! You Pretty Things". And "Prisoner Of Love" quotes Howl for no apparent purpose except to prove that he's read Allen Ginsberg. Actually, "Prisoner Of Love" is pretty good, but what's a pair of conventional love songs - the other's "Amazing", as predictable as its title - doing on a supposedly cutting edge rock album? Maybe because it's not really cutting edge.

Begin here and proceed to the albums that have songs you like on them, except for "Young Americans" since that's the only good song off that album. Somehow the eclectic schizophrenia of Bowie's ever-changing moods makes sense in this context, and unless this turns you into a big fan, stop your bucks here. My only real complaint is that only "Heroes" represents his Eno period.

I've recently aquired this, and I think it's so-so, with Bowie taking a modern-soul (new jack) approach. I'll review it soon, but it's so loooong I have a hard time getting through it.

I don't own any of Bowie's other '90s albums, and if they're like this I'm certainly not going to bother except for completist purposes. A lame attempt to catch up with his spawn Nine Inch Nails, Bowie crafts a concept album of mind-numbing pretension. Supposedly it's a "non-linear hyper-real art-crime murder CD-Rom capable adventure that's even better than Doom!" or some crap like that - I betcha he doesn't even surf the web (which is to his credit, unlike nerds like you and me). Sadly, he's so busy sketching out the plot that he forgets to write real songs, and this thing goes on forever (just because you can put an hour's worth of music on a CD doesn't mean you should - please, everybody, for the love of god let's go back to the old days of 40-minute albums that didn't have a stack of useless B-sides and outtakes to pad them out). Thank you, thank you for "Hearts Filthy Lesson", which actually possesses a real melody and nice things like that; when it comes on at the end, it's an oasis in the middle of a tuneless desert. "Strangers When We Meet" is the other single and not-bad song, which isn't to say it's all that good. Why do old rock stars try to stay hip? Shouldn't Bowie (and Jagger, and Townsend, and bunch of other people) have retired to a nice, civilized record-company executive job by now?

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