David Bowie - David Bowie

The thin white duke’s debut album failed spectacularly to catapult David Bowie to stardom in the manner of his subsequent releases, the more accomplished Space Oddity and his seventies works, but as such it remains something of a novelty. Fourteen folky songs dominated by Bowie’s sense of humour and take on life, almost everything offering a taste of what is to come without becoming too impressive in its own right. Had this been produced and released at the height of Bowie’s glam rock stardom it would have been viewed as some kind of oddball vanity project (though I’m sure many hold this opinion of his expansive discography as a whole), but as such it’s an ...

This is Bowie's first album and, in terms of his later material, not his greatest work. Having said that, 'David Bowie' is worth a laugh and you can occasionally see something of his later methods creeping in. Certainly, the themes of his best work are all in evidence: cross-dressing (She's Got Medals), impending apocalypse (We Are Hungry Men) and being generally mental (everything). Although the final track on the album, "Please Mr. Gravedigger" wouldn't exactly fit in on later albums such as 'Low' or 'Heroes', it's definitely unconventional for it's time (you might even say, for any time). There's some ...