Hello world, I'm the next big thing (Hunky Dory - David Bowie)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Hunky Dory - David Bowie
Date:	26/06/01 (218 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great songs, Excellent arrangements

Disadvantages: A bit TOO warm hearted

... in which David Robert Jones, music hall entertainer, late of Beckenham in Kent, pays affectionate tribute to those he has loved...

David Bowie's 1973 'Pin-Ups' album was formally his tribute album, featuring covers of some of the biggest songs from the London scene of the mid 60s, but in many ways it was 1971's 'Hunky Dory' that was the REAL tribute collection. It variously paid homage to Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Lou Reed, the Velvet Underground, his wife Angie and his son Zowie, while Bowie also penned a massive hit for Peter Noone with the wonderful 'Oh! You Pretty Things'. Bowie himself had big single successes with 'Changes' and the sublime 'Life On Mars?', although the latter wasn't released until 1973.

The album featured Mick Ronson and keyboard wizard Rick Wakeman as Bowie's chief lieutenants but on this occasion Ronson forsook the distorted electric heavy metal guitar histrionics for strummed acoustics, and Wakeman was featured not on Moog or Mellotron but rolling barrelhouse piano for the most part. It was a strange departure for Bowie as he roamed through warm, intimate and bouncy arrangements in sharp contrast to the album’s predecessor, the harsh sci fi heavy metal of 'The Man Who Sold The World', or even its successor, the futuristically rocking 'The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars'.

‘Hunky Dory’ also marked Bowie’s first release on the RCA label after being signed up with a handsome advance and jumping ship from Mercury, who had been disappointed with his sales figures. He was now under the sharp managerial control of Tony De Fries who engineered the RCA deal and set his sights firmly on nothing less than world domination. Bowie had sharpened his focus following 'The Man Who Sold The World' by touring extensively in the States. While he was out there he became a friend of Warhol and started
checking out his pop art approach. He began forming some clear thoughts about the importance of image and Warhol's promise that 'in the future everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes'. He embraced the theatrics and the darker side of Warhol's muse and began teasing games with his sexuality.

He had appeared on the sleeve of 'The Man Who Sold The World' languishing on a couch with shoulder length hair and in a dress - the cover of the new album pictured him in classic Greta Garbo pose, gazing wistfully into the middle distance in an airbrushed picture with his hair swept theatrically away from his face. He built on those images in the month following the release of 'Hunky Dory' when he gave an outrageous interview to Michael Watts of Melody Maker and saw himself splashed all over the paper's cover.

Watts wrote: 'David's present image is to come on like a swishy queen, a gorgeously effeminate boy. He's as camp as a row of tents with his limp hand and trolling vocabulary. "I'm gay," he says, "and always have been, even when I was David Jones".'

Much of that shock horror approach was deliberately calculated to outrage and garnish the headlines and Bowie went even further along his new extreme route with the creation of Ziggy Stardust, but the 'Hunky Dory' album contains little outrageous apart from the photos of Bowie. It's a remarkably fresh, clean and open set of strong songs, set in sparse, raw soundscapes where Bowie's voice was often supported only by lone accompaniment from either Ronson or Wakeman, in classic singer songwriter mode. In fact Bowie sang wonderfully well on the album and gave some of his best ever performances.

Many of the lyrics on the album cemented this almost folksy image, but Bowie's preoccupation was mainly around isolation, alienation and the development of the human race beyond the normal mortal form
into a new race - 'So I turned myself to face me, but I've never caught a glimpse, of how the others must see the faker, I'm much too fast to take the test' - 'I look out my window and what do I see, a crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me, all the nightmares came today and it looks like they're here to stay' - 'I'm not a prophet or a stone age man, just a mortal with potential of a superman'.

They were also in the grand tradition of much of Bowie's verse, hinting at something deep and grandiose but in reality being rooted in nursery rhyme and meaninglessness - Bowie's magic was to string together odd images and juxtapositions, using many of the cut up techniques and happenstances lauded by Burroughs - it all seemed gloriously mysterious and magical in the hands of the Chameleon....

Whatever, he pulled off a major artistic success with ‘Hunky Dory’, his most coherent and powerful work thus far.


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'Changes'
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A BIG hit for Bowie, this was one of the most addictive songs he ever recorded, with its sweeping majesty and wonderful hook. Opening with HUGE piano chords, it soon winds up into one gorgeous slab of pop that drags you deep into its rippling melody and just won’t let go.
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'Oh! You Pretty Things'
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Peter Noone rendered this into pretty boy pop, but in Bowie’s hands it was a real antecedent for his Ziggy song cycle. Again it kicked off with Wakeman’s pub piano supporting the Bowie vocal, before you get the stabbing and seductive chorus.
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'Eight Line Poem'
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Meandering, wandering waste of time that just doesn’t say anything or go anywhere, but who cares, because then you get the gripping excellence of …
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'Life On Mars?'
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Another voice and piano introduction heralds one of the greatest songs Bowie has ever penned. After the opening, the almost orchestral wind up ushers in the sublime chorus. Some intriguing lyrics and the excellent piano keeps the attention gripped throughout.
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'Kooks'
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This is a happy go lucky little number, with Bowie singing a love song to his wife and child – it’s almost whimsical with its ‘I’m not much cop at punching other people’s dads’ line and Trevor Bolder’s attractive trumpet lines an added glory. It’s almost Eurovision in its approach and is thoroughly charming and warm hearted – Bowie as FAMILY MAN….
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'Quicksand'
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Strummed acoustic chords from Ronson lead into an introspective and understated performance from Bowie where it’s all about the quasi poetic lyrics and we’re often left with the guitarist carrying the music in isolation, before Wakeman comes in to share the burden. Splendid stuff.
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'Fill Your Heart'
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A throwaway cover song, bordering on ‘Laughing Gnome’ era David – it’s pleasant enough, but nothing special.
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'Andy Warhol'
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From the slight to the plain out and out weird – this commences with studio banter and sinister and studied weirdness before one of the best songs on the set launches, driven by Ronson’s acoustic strumming and peaking in splendid chorus. The band are cooking here although it remains a muted and well sparse track.
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'Song For Bob Dylan'
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Now the
Chameleon becomes electric folk singer in true to life imitation of Dylan with Ronson and Wakeman leading the way again and bouncing expertly off each other.
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'Queen Bitch'
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And now, it’s Bowie paying tribute to Lou Reed and the Velvets and doing so pretty expertly. It could have been on ‘Ziggy Stardust’, such was its rocking noise and cops for much of the Velvet approach. Bowie doesn’t quite manage the lyrical majesty of Reed at his best, but it’s a bracing workout.
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'The Bewlay Brothers'
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The moody atmosphere of this grim little number sends the album out on quite a low and sombre note and Bowie throws out all sort of stream of consciousness lines in a frankly weird little number. It never rises much above a dirge in pace but it takes a distinctly off the wall approach and ends in a quite bizarre refrain a la the ‘Oh by jingo’ mantra from the previous album – ‘Bake me pie, I’m starving for me gravy…’

This song sets the scene for some of the work on later albums and bridges the gap from ‘The Man Who Sold The World’, but is quite out of place among the poppier stuff here. It seems quite ominous in mood and is definitely very unsettling.

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