The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

FROM WORST TO BEST: David Bowie albums

  1. Aladdin Sane (1973)

Although he was technically a new Bowie persona, ‘Aladdin Sane’ was to all intents and purposes just a slight evolution of ‘Ziggy Stardust’, as evidenced by Brian Duffy’s iconic artwork. With 100,000 copies reportedly ordered in advance, Aladdin Sane could hardly fail on commercial terms, but it was also an excellent musical follow-up to a much-loved record whose success had bordered on a cultural phenomenon. Lacking a thematic thread like its celebrated predecessor and taking more cues from American musical styles, rocking slightly harder but lacking the sheer originality and invention, Aladdin Sane was quickly dubbed ‘Ziggy Stardust II’ or ‘Ziggy Goes To America’.

However, there are distinct differences here that make Aladdin Sane fascinating and distinct from its famous predecessor. Where Ziggy reached out and genuinely embraced all-comers, Aladdin Sane is much more self-aware, alienated and artificial, its gestures of intimacy often bordering on parody. The intricate, drugged-out title track sees its character on the edge of madness. The manic, caricatured cover of the Stones’ ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’, and the spectacular ‘Cracked Actor’ are the best evocations of this slight shift in personality and tone.

The sweepingly melodramatic ‘Drive-In Saturday’ provided the first inkling that Bowie was already looking further down the road to the plastic soul of his mid-‘70s, while the jazzy sprawls of the title track, mid-album highlight ‘Time’ and closer ‘Lady Grinning Soul’ all manage to be avant-garde and kitsch at the same time. Taut rockers like ‘Watch That Man’ and ‘The Jean Genie’ were guaranteed crowd-pleasers and remain some of his most loved tracks.

A little more than ten weeks after its release, Bowie memorably drew a line under this part of his career by announcing the ‘death of Ziggy’ at Hammersmith Odeon. Aladdin Sane is a natural outgrowth of that time period, and remains a fascinating artefact that deserves to be regarded outside of the context of Ziggy Stardust. Just about every track is a gem, with the schizophrenic musical variety reflecting the increasingly restless state of its creator’s mind as he became bored, symbolised by the artwork’s famous lightning bolt in the middle of Bowie’s face. (LISTEN)

In his own words: “There was a point in ’73 where I knew it was all over. I didn’t want to be trapped in this Ziggy character all my life. And I guess what I was doing on Aladdin Sane, I was trying to move into the next area – but using a rather pale imitation of Ziggy as a secondary device. In my mind, it was Ziggy Goes to Washington: Ziggy under the influence of America.”

Highlights: ‘Watch That Man’; ‘Drive-In Saturday’; ‘Cracked Actor’; ‘Time’; ‘The Jean Genie’

1 Discussion on “FROM WORST TO BEST: David Bowie albums”
  • Nice work. This is the only Worst to Best I’ve seen that gets the top four right. And yes, any one of them could be #1. Cheers.

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