Aladdin Sane - David Bowie

A haunting, beautiful album, rich in ghostly piano, grinding guitar and all manner of curiosities. “Watch That Man” seems to be song in the style of the Rolling Stones: blues piano, rawkess guitar and harmonising backing vocals, it rocks along nicely with ample opportunities for singing into your hair brush and strumming along on your air guitar. One to put on when you feeling a bit sucked of energy. “Aladdin Sane” slinks from a completely different place: ethereal vocals and piano tremble from the speakers before whisking you off to the realms where mere mortals fear to tread, one of the highpoints of his career. The piano prompts me to stillness ...

It's hard to believe that one of David Bowie's most famous albums was criticised at the time of its release for being rushed. When Aladdin Sane (full title Aladdin Sane 1913-1938-197?) came out in April 1973 Bowie was in the middle of a tour of the United States. Critics claimed that the vocals and harmonica on Watch That Man and Cracked Actor had been "buried" in the mix. However producer Ken Scott defended the mix of Watch That Man and claims that RCA rejected a remix of the song with the vocals turned up. Despite its criticisms Watch That Man gets the album off to a great start. Its got a Rolling Stone feel to it and the mix is far from ...

The Seventies... a very peculiar time in the world's musical history... a period which was probably kicked off by Marc Bolan and his itsy bitsy glitzy boy from Freecloud persona, graduating from his hippy dippy underground roots and the original Tyrannosaurus Rex duo to the electric rock, tinsel and glitter of T Rex and being the subject of every little teenage girl's adolescent fantasy... But it was not Bolan who became the God of Glam Rock, the first tight as a gnat's ass bum to sit on the throne of hedonistic excess in platform heels, but someone else who followed a similar path to the centre of the universe... born plain old David Jones and ...