The alternative punk album. (Lodger - David Bowie)

Member Name: himynameistriss

Product:	Lodger - David Bowie
Date:	27/08/02 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Shows Bowie's Depth

Disadvantages: Shows that from around this time, he needed LP filler tracks

1979 was a rather predictable year for music; the sixties were far out of people’s memories, Glam Rock became laughable, and Punk had become far so commercial that the only punk value that still remained was not to wash your hair (as long as your manager told you to do so), and the New Romantics were all meeting at student wine parties in Winchester. Bowie had cone through his many different genre, some of which had been fantastically successful (such as Ziggy Stardust) and the not so successful (such as Young Americans, enough said!), but after Bowie’s retreat to Germany, he hit his pinnacle of this era with Lodger from 1979.

This LP looks absolutely fantastic when you pick the gatefolds LP cover from your record rack, wipe the dust from the postcard front, take the record out of the sleeve, de-fluff the needle and gentle position it at the start of Fantastic Voyage. This affect does not, obviously, come across on CD. Bowie’s artwork, for which he became famous for, especially on Diamond Dogs, can’t be appreciated on the miniature version of a CD cover. The record starts, and has a short lead in of drums, and Bowie’s light frilly voice comes across, and talks about how life seems to cheat us all, by getting old and our youth being snatched from us and the depression that affects almost all of mankind with the ‘disease’ of age. We are then presented with a long gap of around 5 seconds waiting for African Night Flight to begin. On first listening, we are left thinking what was this album can go, will it go along predictable lines, like Low, or is it going to take us to the next dimension, the latter happens. We have suddenly gone to what sounds like a tribe in Africa, untouched by society, and Bowie uses his ‘cutting’ technique and is sung super fast and, even after the hundredth listening, is near impossible to sing along to. Its at this point that we are aware that Eno has worked on this project and, al
though I am only speculating, involved many hours locked in a bunker perfecting every piano note, animal sound, and hit of the snare.

Move On follows, and this is more of an explanation why Bowie is more grounded. He speaks, seemingly quite openly about his split with ex-wife Angie Bowie and, although sounds rather bland in comparison to the previous two tracks, works with these lyrics, as he is not trying to get vocal patterns that sound pleasant, but to get you to concentrate on the content. Yassassin (Turkish for: Long Live) and Red Sails fail the remainder of side 1. It goes back to the rather uneasy feeling of Young American, it doesn’t sound bad, but it doesn’t settle on your soul, and you find yourself flipping over to side to playing DJ. This is one of the singles from the LP and was rightly chosen to represent it. Although it doesn’t identify with any of the other tracks of the album, it has enough variation of sounds and production quality on it to be able to pin point which album it comes from. It works as a wonderfully independent track, with some rather excellent piano played on it by Bowie himself, which is want makes this track so good, but also blends beautifully into Look Back In Anger, but isn’t forgotten. This track is another single from this record and is a speech of an angel who has appeared which reads fantastically as a poem, but takes on different dimensions and qualities when set to this track, and sounds great here, or, I think, put at the end of move on, as it feels like a continuation on, like Eight Line Poem does to Changes on Hunky Dory. The Treatments done by Eno on Bowie’s voice on this track put across the eerie element of this happening, and puts a slight confrontation between the content of the record, and the music, which an artist can only really do when they are comfortable with what they are recording.

The Next track, Boys Keep Swinging, which is yet another single from the album
, works as an individual track, and extremely well too, but does not have a place on Lodger. It has more of a pop feel to it, rather than the at-ease feel of most tracks on this LP. The vocals make the record flow very well, and Bowie again has a scary sound to his voice, but sounds too false and doesn’t seem like he believes in this track. Repetition begins and is a song about a wife beater, and this is a very ‘touching the nerve’ record which is what the LP is about. It finishes on a well put together instrumental outro only to be disappointed by the closing track Red Money, which should have nothing to do with this LP and feels to be like a track filler, for reasons of time. It does, however, sound like a closing track, but not to Lodger.

This album is really good, and goes up there with my favourite Bowie albums to do, and is the last work of his which feels like a piece of work, rather than a collection of good songs, although the most of his 80’s period let us down, which his 1987 LP (Never Let Me Down) did the exact opposite as to what it promised to do. So, six really great tracks, which should be on the album, one that is great, but should not be on it, and 3 that the less said about them the better.

This is well worth getting, and if you like this, Remain in Light by Talking Heads, or For Your Pleasure by Roxy Music should be considered, which are two other Eno masterpieces.

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