A natural high (Low - David Bowie)

Member Name: dave27

Product:	Low - David Bowie
Date:	07/07/02 (139 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great music and mood

Disadvantages: None

Fantastic Facts for anoraks everywhere 1: Elvis Costello producer and Dave Edmunds sidekick Nick Lowe released and EP called Bowi to repay what he tried to pass off as a favour from one of the world's biggest stars. For Breaking Glass, we were repaid with I Love The Sound of Breaking Glass

Trivia is everything and substance is nothing...

Now that may sound like just a flip aside, but when you think about the long and amazing career of David Bowie you soon start to appreciate the surface veneer and irrelevance for what it is - all that actually matters.

Fantastic Facts for anoraks everywhere 2: Joy Division in their formative years were so taken with Bowie that they named themselves Warsaw after the Warszawa track on this amazing album.

To have such twin votes of confidence from the brave new things of the late 70's was a pretty damning vote of confidence in what the Thin White Duke stood for and his ability to transcend the mundanity of the mainstream music of the time.

Bowie had long since left behind the glam rock excesses of his Ziggy Stardust period and flirted with fascist ideals during the time he was doing coke and perfecting his European persona with the Station To Station album. Some of his more reactionary and drug induced statements in that particular period might have turned off the new wave community but the man's charisma and status had been enough to preserve his popularity with the new class.

Bowie had always been something of an outsider, much like his punk progeny, and they adopted him as one of their heroes - such a status was indelibly endorsed by the release of Low...


Bowie has always been committed to change and leading where others would simply not think to go. When he collaborated with Brian Eno on this little masterpiece in 1977 at the height of the punk explosion, he ensured he would not be swept aside by the winds of change.

He totally disregarded e
verything that had gone before and brought out a piece of work that was literally groundbreaking, especially the haunting four tracks on the second side of the LP version.

The best bits were the experimental stuff like Warszawa, but he also turned out some monster pop tracks like the gorgeous Sound and Vision, Be My Wife, Always Crashing in the Same Car and A New Career in a New Town.

The cover shot captures him in a still from the film The Man Who Fell to Earth and Bowie could have been created for the role - he was certainly created to make marvellous music.

Personnel:
David Bowie -vocals, saxophone, synthetic strings, cellos, harmonica, piano, guitar
Carlos Alomar -guitar
Dennis Davis -percussion
George Murray -bass
Roy Young -piano
Ricky Gardner -guitar
Brian Eno -synthesizers, piano, mini-moog, guest vocals
Mary Visconti -guest vocals
Iggy Pop -guest vocals

Fantastic Facts for anoraks everywhere 3: Mary Visconti made her name as Mary Hopkin, she of Those Were The Days and Opportunity Knocks fame

Tracklisting:

1. Speed Of Life
2. Breaking Glass
3. What In The World
4. Sound And Vision
5. Always Crashing In The Same Car
6. Be My Wife
7. A New Career In A New Town
8. Warszawa
9. Art Decade
10. Weeping Wall
11. Subterraneans


Bare facts are never enough, and personnel and tracklisting are mere skeleta on which the majesty of Bowie's muse has played - what am I saying? I'm not really sure, but Low is great, quite simply one of the best albums of all time...

It was a bit schizophrenic with a mixture of the ethereal and the atmospheric blended in with some of the most sublime pop songs that Bowie ever wrote.

Bowie was to continue his relationship with Eno on Heroes and Lodger, but never were things better realised than on this the first of the Berlin trilogy. Bowie had found a rare like spirit in the
former Roxy Music synth player and for a while was infatuated with his addiction to experimentation and academic approaches to music making.

Eno contributed much to the record, but nothing was as powerful as his approach. The second side of the LP features all sorts of electronically remodelled, reversed and treated vocals from the main man with layering and relayering all over the place, producing its own weird atmospheres.

Lyrics and vocals were pretty low key throughout the whole piece and Bowie was much more obsessed with texture and mood than actually saying anything on Low, like he had been milked clean of all his words and needed the catharis of a word without a voice - it was undoubtedly seductive.



Every chance, every chance that I take
I take it on the road
Those kilometers and the red lights
I was always looking left and right
Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car

Jasmine, I saw you peeping
As I pushed my foot down to the floor
I was going round and round the hotel garage
Must have been touching close to 94
Oh, but I'm always crashing in the same car

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